My Amsterdam (Psilocybin) Trip.
As soon as I discovered the existence of such a thing like “magic mushrooms” — to try them was added to my wishlist. When I figured out that they are easily accessible in Amsterdam — I immediately planned my trip to The Netherlands.
My psilocybin (magic shrooms) experiences
I stayed 4 days in Amsterdam and only 1 of them was sober. As soon as I arrived to Amsterdam — I met with my friend — and we bought a pack of “magic truffles”, containing psilocybin. Before consuming it, we went and sat in one of the Amsterdam-style “coffeshops”, called Basjoe. I couldn’t stop myself to try local marihuana and that was a mistake: now I confused the effect of two. But, retrospectively, I could have separated the effects and understood what it was like…
First try
First time I consumed the relatively light one, called: ATLANTIS. That day I was like in a dream, I remember some episodes, but not the details. As I mentioned before — I mixed it with marihuana, and it got me strong.
Dissolving in the air…
I was expecting to see visuals, but no hallucination was visible. After about an hour I started “to lose the borders of my body”. I put my hands into my pocket and felt like “I don’t have any hand”.
My whole body was petrified. And I felt how this “petrification” was coming to my upper body, finally, reaching my head and I was “vanished” — “mixed with air”. Something similar I had for my first marijuana experience, but this was a little different.
You close your eyes and you feel no body — as if there was only mind: you are not physical anymore. You are just a “thought” without matter. Your body is completely numb. You are an air.
After some time we went to eat something in a restaurant. I went to bathroom. Luckily, there was nobody inside and it was super silent. So there was no distraction at all. I closed my eyes and in a 5–7 seconds, I felt like I was completely disappeared. That was a little scary. I hardly remember, what I saw, but it was like “purplish clouds came to soak me in”. (the palette of bathroom was purplish, probably, that’s why the clouds were purplish)
It was deeper, than before. I opened my eyes and for a second, I didn’t understand where I was and what just happened. I just left the toilet…
Second try
Disappointed by not seeing visuals, we decided to try something stronger on the next day and I took: Dragon’s Dynamite.
On the scale of strength, it conceded only to High Hawaiians — the strongest one. This time I took it on empty stomach and without mixing with marijuana. And 1 hour has been passed…
Nothing. I just felt nothing. Just tightness in my body, like fatigue.
We were sitting outside and sunshine was falling on me. After some time we went inside. Then the similar “body numbness” has been started…
I put my head on my hand leaned on the table and felt no hand, as if my head and my hand merged into another. With closed eyes I saw an image of this action (putting head on hand) in my mind, like “a brick breaks into the space (or cloud?)”. I didn’t consciously imagined it, it just generated by itself in my mind.
The moving wall
Meanwhile, my friend claimed that he saw the wall to be moving. I looked at it — didn’t see any movement. The wall itself was designed in a spooky way, so even, being sober you could catch some optical illusions, but my friend’s seeing was a little different: it wasn’t related to the lines of wall, which could produce illusion, but more like the in-out movement, like it was breathing, coming closer and going back. Unfortunately, I didn’t catch it.
Last try: The Real Trip (with visuals)
I still wasn’t satisfied and wasn’t sure that I tried psilocybin. All the effects I had was very similar to my THC trip. But I wanted to capture the moment where I could say “Here it is! Now I know what it’s like to have a shroom trip”. So the last day of my Amsterdam trip I spent in the hotel room, giving the last try with the strongest truffle on the sale: High Hawaiians.
Not only was it the strongest one, but also I bought the biggest pack with maximum gram available. Long in short, it was the largest and strongest thing on the market.
I took it on empty stomach as usual and put my favourite relaxing music on the background (ideal for such trips), listening to it for about 4 hours in a row:
After about 30 minutes I felt tipsy, but nothing else. I tried to see some visuals, constantly focused on trees that were visible from the window.
The guy who sold it recommended to be in the quiet place or in the nature, so trees and flowers were ideal for catching some color-visuals. But no matter how much I tried — there was no result.
Then I turned on TV. Ironically, it shows some festival where there were the giant and ridiculous puppets of Trump and other celebrities and I thought to myself: “Is it the effect of shrooms or the real picture from TV?”
After about an hour I started to see the light hallucinations. While I had conversation with my wife I noticed like I see her in 3D glasses. But everything else around her — was in 2D. Like her face was an outer layer of the background image. (if you worked with layers in Photoshop probably you would get what I mean.)
But that wasn’t so exciting and effect was very light, so I thought it failed again. It was the last day in Amsterdam, so I wanted to go to the city instead of wasting time in hotel room.
At the same time, I was keeping conversation with my friend on WhatsApp, sharing with him about my experience. As I took my phone to write him — I felt like my fingers gets inside of the phone, like they literally going into phone and touch the keyboard. But it still was very mild effect.
I almost gave up. I just kept talking with my wife and right on 90th minute I SAW MY FIRST REAL HALLUCINATION!
Wooow….oh my God, what am I seeing? Nobody is going to believe me…wow.
That’s what I literally kept saying with mouth opened. My wife told me later that she had never seen me like that. I never remember myself shocked like that either. My life definitely was divided to “before” and “after”…
3 major effects of psilocybin (magic mushrooms):
From my personal experience, I can tell that the effect of “magic mushrooms” are divided into 3 categories:
- Dissolving into the air (if you will meditate and focus on yourself — you will merge with the environment and your physical part will be disappeared left behind “the pure mind”). The root cause of this — is numbness of the body that you have.
- The “Enlightment” (Nirvana).
- The visual effects.
I already described the first one, in this chapter we’re going to discuss about two other effects.
Before going to the visual effects — the most interesting and obvious part — let me talk about the “Nirvana” a little.
Nirvana
I could have different effects, but at the background there was an accompanying special feeling, that I’ve never experienced it in my life before: the easiest way to describe it — Nirvana.
Reaching to that point I stopped to be a human anymore: all my physical needs, like eating, sleeping, sex, toilet etc. — were just disappeared. I felt the serene and never-ending ABSOLUTE PEACE.
We were fooled.
The truth was so simple.
How foolish were we…
That’s my another quote that I didn’t cease to repeat on that day over and over again. On that day, I understood the life and its meaning in its naked form.
Since my university years I read a lot of philosophy, interested in many religions trying to find the meaning of the life. But here it is: 30g of psilocybin and you see the ultimate truth of everything.
No explanation is needed. You can’t even explain it. It’s like to have the result of the very complicated formula, without actually solving the formula.
I was definitely sure that I knew what was the truth and what was the meaning of life. But if somebody asked me to explain it — I wouldn’t be able to. Because, I didn’t actually hold a knowledge on it, I just felt it. I felt the truth just the way you feel the taste of pineapple. But you can’t really accurately explain how it tastes, right?
“Probably, that’s what it’s like to be The Enlightened one. Buddha reached this state without consuming anything.
That’s why he’s a genius.”
I was in Heaven. We tend to imagine heaven like the place where all our physical needs are satisfied at the fullest, but instead, I found Heaven in a completely different state. The state, where I didn’t even have any need. I forgot about time and space. The mere hotel room was a different place now. Like, it was separated from the Universe.
Your brain doesn’t operate on logic and knowledge anymore, you are driven by your feelings, by your intuition and insight. If I said you that your dead relative took a taxi and is on the way coming here right now— you can feel it really.
Like, you feel in the dream: you might not see somebody in dream, but be told that someone is coming here soon and you feel in dream that “someone is coming”. Even if you know that “someone” is dead or doesn’t even exist. The same thing here.
Your memory is also faded a little. You still remember your life, but everything appeared to be in a distant time, like it was your previous life, like you didn’t live all those things. You can even feel yourself as a child, like you are defenceless and reborn again…
Reaching Nirvana — I was invincible. I regretted about things that I’d been worried of before. I regretted about my dreams and goals that I’d chased before. I felt like I was fooled. All these years I was blind and couldn’t see so simple truth that was there.
I was sorry about my friends and family, that they were fooled too, they couldn’t see what I see, they didn’t know what I know. Even now, I wish everybody was in that state once in a life: that was the Heaven…
“OMG, what am I seeing? Nobody is going to believe me”
Yes, that’s what I kept telling on that day. Because, I didn’t believe to my eyes myself. On the brochure of “High Hawaiians” it said something like “you don’t need to close your eyes to see something”. It said right. You see the things with eyes opened. After about 90 minutes, I saw the first visuals…
By that time, I kept talking with my wife about life etc. And one moment my brain was switched to another mode, as if something was activated inside that was turned off all that time before and I started to see the things that I couldn’t see before.
The alive eye
The very first thing I saw was — a live eye. I was looking at my wife’s eye while I was talking with her and at one moment I saw that eye wasn’t a mere eye, it wasn’t the part of the face, rather it was the separate entity, as if it had its own identity.
It’s pretty difficult to describe it fully, but “it was communicating with me.”
I didn’t hear anything, obviously, it didn’t speak or something, but I felt the communication with it, I felt like it was trying to say something.
The light was reflected on the face of my wife and created the glister around the eye. My brain perceived it as holographic scripture, the ones you can see on the money banknotes. And the eye was like in the centre of these scriptures. I thought it was in the middle of library.
As I focused on the eye, I saw its surroundings transform into colored stones, like gems. At one point, I felt that “it became a train.”
Well, this can easily confuse you. I didn’t actually see the eye transforming into a physical train. I didn’t see a train at all. What I saw was the eye itself, but I felt as if it were a train. The white of the eye became the “body” of the train, and the pupil was the front part. When the pupil was at the edge of the eye, I saw the train in its full length. When the pupil was centered and looking at me, it was like the train was looking at me through a peephole.
At one point, I saw my wife’s hair crystallize, as if it were made of glass — so fragile that it would shatter if touched…
Facial Transformations
Probably the most shocking part was this: the facial transformations.
As I focused on her face, I saw different faces switching every 5–10 seconds. They were all my wife, but I saw completely different people just by looking at her. They had different skin tones, genders, body shapes, hair, and so on. Some of them were celebrities, like Bob Marley or Johnny Depp, while others were abstract characters like an Angel-Warrior or a mutant with a distorted face. Some were just unknown girls or men.
You could clearly see these faces, but at the same time, you knew they were an illusion. You needed to stay focused — if you turned away, they would disappear instantly. It was like being in a waking dream. The line between reality and dream became very blurred.
You might not notice all the details on those faces, as you would in reality, but you understand everything subconsciously. It’s like in a dream — you don’t always see every detail clearly, but you “understand” the context of the dream from somewhere deep within. You just feel it.
The peak of the visuals was seeing Lord Shiva. That’s exactly what I said as I saw it: “Lord Shiva.” I wasn’t scared, just baffled. Here was Shiva before me, and I was seeing it with my own eyes — it wasn’t a dream. Oh, Lord…
When I touched Shiva, it felt like my hands were sinking into sand. I didn’t feel skin — I felt sand, the sensation you get when you push your fingers into sand. (This was because of the numbness effect.) It was both strange and mesmerizing at the same time.
Half-Faced Human
It felt like I was in a fairy tale, just like Alice in Wonderland. You can see “anything” and “anybody” because “the magic” truly does exist!
When my wife looked to the side, her face was turned 90 degrees away from me, but my brain didn’t perceive it that way. Instead, it felt like there was a “half-faced” person talking to me.
Again, it wasn’t scary, but it was extremely shocking. I felt like these were good and positive characters — there was no sense of danger or harm in the air, so I felt like I was seeing fairy-tale characters come to life. I was inside the fairy tale…
During the down phase of the effect, after about 4–5 hours, I finally went outside. I felt as though my sensations were renewed, like I had been born again. My feelings were fresh, and I enjoyed them. I could even catch some little visuals on the plants outside…
Afterwords
As I write about my experiences, I understand that my memories might be somewhat distorted — some things may be unintentionally exaggerated, or things I imagined might have blended with the actual “things” I saw. But all in all, I’ve tried to explain my trip as accurately and detailed as I can.
For those who would like to try magic truffles, please consider these steps carefully:
Start with a weak dose and increase gradually.
Start with Atlantis if it’s your first time. It’s the average strength and what most beginners start with. Don’t try the strong ones on your first go — you could end up having a bad trip, which is the opposite of what I’ve described. (You might travel to Hell instead of Heaven.)
Just in case, grab a “trip-stopper.” They’re a type of pill that you take if you’re having a bad trip. Make sure they’re easily accessible, so you don’t need to open the package or struggle with it — just take them and you’re good to go.
Set and setting are extremely important.
You need to be in the right mood and in the right place. My first experiences didn’t go well because I was distracted, since I was out on the street the whole time. The fewer distractions, the better. It’s like trying to experience the full drama of Titanic while watching it on your phone without headphones, in the middle of a busy street, right?
Don’t consume truffles in a noisy place where there are a lot of distractions. It’s better to be in a quiet room (you can have relaxing music in the background) or in a peaceful spot in nature. However, don’t go on a trip completely alone. Loneliness could trigger feelings of depression or isolation, which could ultimately lead to a bad trip.
Let yourself feel the trip.
Don’t be skeptical about the experience, and don’t try to play the scientist who “measures the effects.” Be spiritual. Be easy. Don’t force yourself to experience something — try to relax, and everything will unfold naturally.
Think of it like the movie Titanic: you can make jokes about the characters and laugh throughout the movie, but don’t later say that it wasn’t dramatic enough just because you didn’t feel anything. You should be open to drama if that’s what you’re expecting. Let yourself feel the trip…
Nature, faces, and colors.
Nature is a great place for a mushroom trip because you can find many interesting patterns to see visuals. You can also focus on someone’s face. Try to have lots of colorful things around you — fruits, flowers, etc. You can focus on them too, and because of their different shapes and colors, you’re guaranteed to see some amazing things. I wish I could focus on my cat — Tommy. I wonder what kind of “Catzilla” I would see :D
Remember, everyone has a unique life, psychology, memories, brain, etc. Don’t expect to have exactly the same effects I’ve described. Every individual will have a trip in their own way. Just sit back and enjoy :)
