Picasso Pac-Man Land

A Trip Report of Ingesting 5 grams of an Unknown Mushroom Strain

After months of ingesting P.E. strains, our stash had run dry and we’d decided to grow our own, but in the meantime the medicine still called to me and I purchased a strain I’ve been unable to identify.

First, I realized I should add a few things about the P.E. & A.P.E. experiences. For me these had couch lock effects. Despite being high in potency my trips on them felt mild in an energetic sense. Very low key; and calming despite the creepy content and emotional dishevelment. They were introspective and invited me to experience them alone.

The new ones we purchased were small in size with a long white stem and small light brown cap. I ingested 5 grams as I felt insatiable for more knowledge and desired to visit other planes and universes, and I’d tolerated 4 grams of the P. E. strains so well. About 15 minutes after ingestion, they nearly knocked me to the ground, literally. This is an unusually short time between ingestion and noticing any effects, so it caught me off guard. I was up looking for a book to send a picture of to a friend and suddenly I felt dizzy and had to steady myself on the bookshelf. “I need to sit down.”

My equilibrium was highly affected throughout this trip, unable to steady myself and sometimes struggling to determine how to stand up; which direction is up? When people experience dizziness and vertigo it’s recommended to find a horizon or strong horizontal line to orient and steady themselves through visually. I sought out the mantle in our den, but it provided no such relief. With every move I made I placed my hands beside myself to anchor me. But it felt my body was spinning and my hands did little to rectify this.

Then came the temperature disregulation. It was the worst I’ve ever experienced on this trip. Violent oscillations between hot and cold. Sweating, shivering, I want a blanket, get this fucking blanket off of me. I couldn’t decide. I couldn’t get comfortable.

Early in most trips I tend to experience a touch of paranoia and fear, and this was no exception. People’s faces look warped and I must look away and not indulge the fear thoughts until this passes. As I feel my stomach churning, I think about the fact that I’ve ingested poison and I wonder for a moment if I’ll die. As with all trips these thoughts and fears subside and I begin to relax a bit and allow myself to float untethered into the ether.

Suddenly I became utterly intolerant of stimuli. Music felt like being scratched all over and the dynamism of the nature documentary on TV overwhelming. Even the extra effort it took to look around in the darkened room was too much and I needed the lights turned on. I tried to calm myself by focusing on a single point in the room with my eyes. It only helped slightly and I wanted to go into our bedroom to lie down. After a few moments I was no longer in our bedroom, was I anywhere? Was I everywhere? Everything in my line of vision looked foreign and the problems with equilibrium were dialed up to the maximum. I looked at my body utterly confused at how it worked, were my parts connected, where? I looked to myself like a Picasso painting. I think my arm is growing out of my head. I’m scared and I have no idea what I need. I just kept clinging to my husband.

An experienced psychonaut, I’m usually very good at calming myself when trips take a turn and I’m fearful or uncomfortable. Knowing what I need, making alterations… but from this place that wasn’t possible. All information pathways in my brain felt broken. Unable to bring inputs to a place where they could be interpreted. Unable to direct myself to do anything. In this place I felt everything was pixelated and disjointed; highly jointed, actually, lots of squares and sharp angles including my arm which I was still sure hung at an angle from my head.

“Pull me out of this.”

I have experienced what I would call ego death many times in trips, but in those cases it felt more peaceful. Floating and smooth… dissolving into the galaxy with the stars. No discernible separateness. This was not that. I was still separate but nonsensical in a world of nonsensical things. All floating along like Picasso Pac-Man people eating dots for no reason.

From this place there were no insights to retrieve, no words made sense, no objects made sense, I didn’t make sense. Everything was pixels. And I couldn’t speak except to say my husbands name and each time he asked if I was okay I’d say in an infantile voice, “I don’t think so” or “I think so.”

I don’t call any trip bad, but this one was uncomfortable. During the peak I’d say the use value was lacking because I couldn’t bring anything back from it. As I came down I had a more typical experience for me, able to add back some music, but only extremely soft ambient tracks, and float peacefully in and out of other worlds.

From my journal immediately post first trip in 2015

I didn’t try mushrooms until I was 29. I was a teenager in the early rave years when raves were still secretly hosted in abandoned warehouses and starting at age 14 I took ecstasy every weekend and danced around spreading PLUR sentiments while sporting fairy wings, big pants, and tiny cartoon shirts. I also tried LSD a handful of times, but mushrooms remained untouched until later. To use the rave slang from that time, you could describe this trip as me being FUBAR (fucked up beyond all recognition).

For all I couldn’t interpret and make sense of, somehow an image from my very first mushroom trip came through… toward the end of that trip I closed my eyes and saw flashes of the world that surrounded me in all its beauty. Of all natural wonders as well as incredible man made structures. Tears rolled down my face in awe. And then, suddenly, it was all gone, I saw myself as something of a Pac-Man person. A nameless, faceless, square shape with a mouth chain linked to others just like me floating in a dark void of nothing. Just existing. Without purpose. Without individuality.

My tears turned to great pain and mourning. “No don’t let this be it.” The flashes returned of the beauty of this earth surrounding. Tears turned back to gratitude. I heard a voice say, “Look at what I gave you, and this is how you spend it.” And I felt this knowing that it was “God” who spoke to me without any real knowing of what that even means. My ingratitude, my needless dramas, all brought undeniably into my awareness. Often trip messages for people are about unity; dissolution of boundaries, lack of separateness. But mine was that we were given the gift of separation versus being chain linked anonymous Pac-Man people. And these themes set the tone for my subsequent set of trips, post Picasso Pac-Man Land. An era I affectionately refer to as Applesauce Universe.