I'm digging this one up from my memory, but this was such an odd mushroom experience that I wanted to share it.

This happened 17 years ago. I had taken a portion of mushrooms a couple of nights before with a friend, in the woods. But it was a really cold night, so we got our bikes and went to the pub where our friends were and had a great night, with lots of laughter and cheer.

But I was left with the feeling that I had been disrespectful towards the mushrooms, abusing them for a jolly night, and I felt I had to make it up with them. So three days after that I took another dose, this time alone in my parents' house where I lived at the time. They were gone for the day and I put on a cassette I had bought from our local weed-dealer.

It was a tape by a local artist who made his own instruments and was heavily into psychedelics. The name of the cassette was 'Peyote Music pt. 2/ Nudonkdadokka' and it was a strange (to my trashmetal-trained ears) mix of acoustic space-music and a hearplay about someone entering a strange confined room/ space and having his ego dissolved.

The tape would guide me on one of the most profound experiences of my life.

Still living at my parents' at the time, and being a seventeen year old stoner, I had my lamp covered in a piece of green and blue Batik cloth, so this was tyhe atmosphere in my room, lighting-wise. I put on the tape after I had downed the mushroom tea. I can't for the life of me remember what variety they were. They were at the time ('96) still openly being sold in so-called smartshops.

Very soon after I layed down on my bed and closed my eyes in anticipation of the mushroom's effects, I found myself in a subterranean world of blueish and greenish hues. I was walking through a sort of tunnel system. It was very much like a dream, except much more clear, and I wasn't asleep. Every time one side of the 60 minute tape had finished, I would get up and turn the cassette. We didn't have those fancy 'auto-turn' devices back then

As soon as I closed my eyes again, I was back in the tunnel-world. It was a world of beatiful color- obviously influenced by the lighting in my room. I was not alone. There was *someone* with me, although I don't remember seeing him (it felt like a male presence). This guide would let me take all decisions, if we were going left or right, on or back, but I could ask him anything about things we encountered and the place we were.

I don't remember any of these questions unfortunately, but in the end we arrived at a huge hole in the ground. I remember it being some 30 metres in diameter, and too deep to see the bottom. In fact, I was under the impression that there was no bottom whatsoever.

As we stood there, my guide invited me to jump into the hole. I hesitated, and in that fraction of a second I felt some sort of being rushing past me and jumping in the hole. I asked the guide what it was.

'You know who that was,' he said.

I nodded. All of a sudden I felt a terrible melancholy. In silence my guide brought me back through the tunnel to the point where we took off. We said goodbye and I opened my eyes. Like during the 2 1/2-hour trip, the moment I opened my eyes I felt nearly sober, so I got up and had a light meal, and was completely back on earth.

***

This mushroom experience was so unlike any other trip before or after, for the lack of the 'psychedelic' mushroom feeling, the presence of a guide, the dreamlike visuals that were as real as daily reality, that I wanted to share it. I'm very glad to have experienced what I regard as a shamanic quest but I've never overcome the feeling of a missed chance.

Who knows what I would have found on the bottom of that pit- if there even was a bottom? Pure bliss, or raging insanity? Should I have jumped? I definitely didn't feel ready at the time. Maybe one gets only one chance in life, or maybe you can go back to your lessons and take the exam later.

Thanks for reading, I hope I didn't bore you too much, I felt like writing and sharing a story today Blessed be!