The Magic Mushrooms Experience: An Interview With a User

An insight into how the hallucinogen alters one’s brain during a trip

Magic Mushrooms and their active ingredient psilocybin have recently fallen under the radar of scholars and researchers — and no wonder. Psychedelics, in general, now seem to gradually enter the mainstream, as more and more celebrities are starting to reveal their encounters with mind-altering substances, such as LSD, DMT, psilocybin, and ayahuasca.

Scientists have also contributed to all of the fuss as well — an increasing number of papers are now being produced on the matter, which has triggered additional interest in the wide public. It seems that the previous general view, about how psychedelics have ill effects both on your body and mind, seems to be shifting.

When it came to psychedelics, people were primarily focused on their negative aspects. In the best-case-scenario, substances like LSD and MDMA were referred to as the “party drugs,” mainly connected to underground parties. Surely, research on the matter and documented personal experiences, have shown that hallucinogens could potentially lead to negative experiences, often called bad trips.

However, this perception is starting to change. For some time now, one particular hallucinogen has been the center of attention — Magic Mushrooms. More precisely, their active ingredient —the compound psilocybin.

Recently more and more studies have been coming out regarding the treatment applications of the hallucinogen. The main point of argument has been surrounding the beneficial impact of psilocybin on patients with depressive disorders. The head of psychedelic research at the Imperial College in London, Dr Robin Carhart-Harris, argued that “for the first time there have been clear changes in brain activity in depressed people treated with psilocybin after failing to respond to conventional treatments.”

Moreover, Canada recently allowed some of its dying patients to do Magic Mushrooms legally. The usage of the psychedelic is illegal in most of the countries worldwide. In Canada, it is being controlled under Schedule III of the so-called Controlled Drugs and Substance Act. Nevertheless, the country’s Minister of Health granted four people, who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, permission to consume the substance.

But enough with the facts, let’s look into one personal story — of a guy who had consumed the psychedelic twice. The aim of the interview was to shine some light on how the hallucinogen affects one’s body & mind.

A Personal Encounter with the Hallucinogen

However, no matter how much information I found out there regarding the topic, I still could feel something was slipping through my hands. A personal story from someone who had encountered the drug. Then I stumbled upon a guy from Amsterdam, Holland. For the sake of anonymity, throughout the article, I will be referring to him as Tommy. The other names will also have been changed.

I was still studying in university when I first tried it. My friend, and roommate back then, Levi and I both ate a handful of mushrooms, which is usually considered a normal dosage. At first I was taken aback when I saw how much it was, but he assured me that everything would be OK. He had initially told me that the potency of this particular type was not of the strongest.

Some people consider one common recreational dose to be around 1 gram of dried caps and stems. Others say it is around 2–2.5 grams. However, potency may vary regardless of the amount consumed. Dried mushrooms are usually considered to be more potent than fresh ones.

So, when I first came to Amsterdam, I had to stay in a hostel for a month. There, I met a guy named Bjorn, who was actually the only guy there that studied in the same university I did. He was the first guy ever to offer me to do Magic Mushrooms, as he previously had some experience with psychedelics — LSD, DMT, Mushrooms, and the like. I felt as if he was some kind of a shaman.

I agreed we’d trip on ‘shrooms. Unfortunately, we then lost connection for a couple of weeks and never had the chance to actually consume the psychedelic. Then I had to move to a new apartment and there was when I met Levi — my new roommate.

*As of 2008, all psychedelic mushrooms have been banned in Holland. However, today, several, less-potent, sorts of the hallucinogen are still being sold in the so-called ‘smart shops.’

I was quite nervous when I ate the mushrooms. But Levi soothed me and then we smoked a joint, hoping that it would speed up the effects. At the end of the last puff I felt something inside of me. Something was going on in there.

It’s important to note here that the psychedelic’s effects may vary immensely. It’s different for each individual that has consumed it, that’s why it still is hard to point out and categorize all of the possible effects that may occur. Probably the most common thing is the alteration of perception and consciousness.

These effects usually peak after 2 to 3 hours after consumption and may last up to 6 hours, depending on the potency and other individual factors. The person’s mindset, or how one mentally approaches the psychedelic, is usually considered to be a major factor in what the ‘trip’ would be like. Let’s now get back to Tommy:

I started seeing steps on the ground and small pathways were as if being built on the floor. Imagine a cat, walking with its moody paws on your wooden floor, leaving dirty marks. I was seeing the same thing, but there was no cat. The lights were crawling up on the side walls, making their way to the ceiling, and down again underneath the room’s door. I looked at the clock and time made no sense. 4pm didn’t mean anything to me. Suddenly, it all became extremely intense and asked Levi what was going on. He just said, “we are tripping.” I didn’t understand what he meant by that. I couldn’t come up with an explanation why we’d done this. Now what? What’s the plan? Why did we do this? Nothing made sense. Levi murmured, “I don’t know. I don’t know.” I asked him if he could start talking to me. Anything would’ve done the job, but he couldn’t say a thing. So, I started texting some of my friends and kept asking them whether all this made sense. The feeling that I had back there was that I couldn’t see any way out of the ‘trip.’ My mind wasn’t able to figure our when this all was going to end.

The thing about this psychedelic is that its effects are mostly unpredictable. That’s why it differs greatly from other drugs, and substances, such as alcohol, opiates, and benzodiazepines, which usually induce predictable effects. You can see below the harm caused by various types of drugs on the human body (harm to users and harm to others).

Although the study is from 2010, today, it still portrays a clear picture of the harm such drugs pose to the health of users. Although people’s perception has drastically changed since then — due to all of the information available today — it may still be considered relevant. The drugs above were ranked on 16 measures of harm to the user and to wider society, such as economic costs, drug dependency, damage to health, and others.

“Magic Mushrooms” are at the very bottom of the graph, indicating that their harm to users is relatively small, and their harm to others seems to be non-existent. Although these findings may indicate that among 20 different harmful substances, Mushrooms are the least harmful ones, it does not mean that they are harmless altogether.

Multiple different factors should be taken into consideration here, such as: potency, user’s mindset, quantity & quality, location, and others. The thing that was omitted in the report was how much amount had to be consumed for a drug to be considered harmful. Likewise, to what point could you use a drug for it to become dangerous?

Tommy lit another cigarette as he was trying to further recollect what happened the night he first took Mushrooms:

It all became really uncomfortable. That’s when someone started knocking at the front door of the apartment. Levi and I, of course, became all stressed out and everything. When I finally opened the door I saw Bjorn standing in front of me. Yes, that’s the guy I was talking about — who initially wanted to do Mushrooms with me. So, there he was, standing with arms crossed in my doorway asking us how we are doing. When I explained, or tried to explain, to him that we were tripping really hard on Magic Mushrooms he just started laughing and said, “Don’t worry guys, just come with me in my room.” It was exactly this moment that was a game-changer for us. Our bad trip suddenly turned into a pleasant one — we were feeling better as soon as we left our room, knowing that we had some kind of a plan, a purpose. It was really interesting for us, as we knew we would be doing some cool stuff in Bjorn’s apartment.

.Our stay at his place really soothed us and turned our bad trip into a pleasant one. When Levi and I came back to our room we were feeling really good. Then we had another joint and decided to watch a movie. It was quite a normal one. However, I was hallucinating that the characters had extremely long necks and 2D faces. After the movie, when Levi left, I felt deep serenity. Six hours had passed since we ate the mushrooms. Before I went to bed I decided to finish watching “Waking Life” — a movie exploring dreams, the meaning of life, and consciousness — and then I fell asleep.

Tommy’s encounter with the psychedelic went comparatively well, apart from his initial bad trip right after he had consumed the Mushrooms. The aim of the interview was not to showcase any health benefits of the hallucinogen, rather just to tell a story of how a Mushroom “trip” unfolded, which, I assume and hope, will be in aid of the reader.

Thank you for taking some time to read my article! If you wish to read more written by me, check my Medium page:

If you are further interested in psychedelics and mental-health, I recently wrote about whether smoking can damage your brain cells, and how psychedelics could become the “new weed.”