Magic mushrooms - A brief guide to alternatives.
I also used to do mushrooms before f ucking NEW LABOUR made them illegal. We used to camp out in the various orchards around Canterbury, and use the fallen wood to make impressively-sized bonfires. Camping and tripping is nuts. Eventually, the hills, the trees, yourself, all becomes linked, and pulsate with the healing light of the universe. But the government would prefer that we were miserable, and have shut this window onto the answers forever.

So the search has been on ever since to find a replacement. I was told about something called San Pedro cactus, which contains mescaline. It's totally legal - have a look on Ebay for either fresh cacti or dried stuff. Basically, you chop it up in a blender, boil it in water for a few hours, strain the mush through an old shirt and you're left with thick green 'cactus juice.' It tastes foul, but I found adding lots of ice cubes froze out the flavour.

Compared to a mushroom trip, it's much less frantic - just very smooth, relaxed, calm, and gently trippy.

However, you don't get the philosophical effects of mushrooms. That's what makes them so revolutionary. Too many people regard hallucinogens in the same way they'd regard a good night out drinking - lots of shits and giggles with a couple of funny stories to tell afterwards. That's fun, but it's not the half of one percent of what you can be and do on mushrooms. You can take them by yourself in a quiet room, put on some music, trip gently all night, and realise things about yourself that you would never have realised otherwise. Compared to shrooms, San Pedro is just a lightshow.

I've tried salvia davinorum a time or two - it's kind of like a herb that you smoke via one huge bong hit. Salvia tends to produce true 'out of body, out of mind' experiences, which is what I definitely got. The first time I got it right - one big bong hit, held down for at least 30 seconds - was mind f ucking. In the space of thirty seconds, I'd gone from my normal persona and mindset to believing I was back in secondary school, was late for a lesson that was about to begin, and for some reason all the girls in the class knew all my incredible secrets. That, and the room I was in seemed to be full of spider-web style serrations. The trip lasted about three minutes, and my best friend who was watching me said I was laughing like a loon all the way through. All in all, highly recommended, but take heed - you tend to feel tired and confused for the rest of the evening. Something which could probably be put right with - More drugs! - but take it easy.

I've also tried Hawaiian Baby Woodrose seeds, which contain a natural homologue of LSD. The idea is that you crush them and soak them in water for a few hours. We followed the method to the letter and got - nothing. Not recommended.

Lastly, you can buy herbal highs like Druid's Fantasy, a herbal mix that includes the aforementioned Baby Woodrose, but again, we took a good pop, and felt only very slightly trippy.

I guess the conclusion is that a mushroom high is very unique, and there's nothing that will give you that same experience. Goodbye forever.
(CerberaSpeedTwelve, Thu 15 Dec 2005, 16:57, Reply)

All the fun of the fair.
Best: lying in a garden with a mate who was tripping on a purple heart during an intense electrical storm. He kept on at me that his hallucinations were like wild lightning, unaware that the skies were filled with wild lightning. He wouldn't shut up, I, being lightly stoned on weed just giggled the night away. I went to bed leaving him to his come down, I awoke the next day to find an arm chair full of bread which he had liberated from the local Spar. It was my best ever acid free trip.

Worst:Whilst sailing on the good ship Microdot receiving a phone call from a girl who made me weak at the knees. After being passed the phone I proceded to freak out, I could hear someone speaking my name but I couldn't see them. How did they know who I was? To solve the problem I yelled abuse down the phone and smashed it against the wall. Needless to say, I never got my hands on her norks.

p.s.
whilst on acid I swear you can hear coffee granules chat, go on, try it, you know you want to.
(I'M JACK MEADOWS, Thu 15 Dec 2005, 16:56, Reply)

K Tunnel is bad!
Know what you mean minty hit, thats bad shit, lost about a day of my life after taking some at Beltane Fire Festival! My mate took himself off to his gran and granpa's in the country cause he couldn't deal with the city. Not nice!
(Lamby, Thu 15 Dec 2005, 16:56, Reply)

field
Mashed on something. The four of us stumbled accross a lake in the middle of a field and went skinny dipping. It was fantastic, all the water moved in slow motion. We spent hours swimming, rolling in the mud. We eventually fell asleep in a tree house some kids had built.

When we woke up we were in my mates house. There was no treehouse and the nearest lake was 30 miles away. After "remembering" we had walked home, it dawned on us we'd never left his front room.
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Thu 15 Dec 2005, 16:55, Reply)

Regretamine.

Nuff said.
(Minty Hit, Thu 15 Dec 2005, 16:52, Reply)

I have love for mary jane
but I've been high all this week for final exams and watching 150 episodes of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
( Koogas, Thu 15 Dec 2005, 16:41, Reply)

I took a lot..
It was my 21st. I spent 2 days completely off my tits on everything under the sun.. all i remember is walking down the street so completely fucked that my mate gave me 2 leaves. told me i was a tree. i spent an hour standing in my front room when i got back not moving holding these fucking leaves because I was completely convinced i was a tree. They all sat laughing at me. Bastards.
(8cidburn, Thu 15 Dec 2005, 16:37, Reply)

Was in Malaga...
last weekend, after far too much alcohol during the day, (do not remember any of this...)
After being asked to leave a bar, threatened to get down on my knees and headbutt the landlord.

Apparently he was a midget and had to stand on beer crates in order to pull pints.

I was last seen doing the breast stroke along our hotel corridor.

:|
(nappy rash, Thu 15 Dec 2005, 16:36, Reply)

b3ta inspired hallucination
I'm nt too clued up on photoshop and all that malarky but I found b3ta a few years ago and loved it, a few months later after smoking some harsh as hell weed I hallucinated my wife's head being photoshopped (badly) back onto her sholders only 3 times as big (it was so bad that the edges around her head were rough with a black border!)

I personally love hallucinations and can take them to a pretty extreme level but I still think this was my most imaginitive!

thanks b3ta
(Starzy had a headache on, Thu 15 Dec 2005, 16:33, Reply)

Drugs... both big and clever
Back in Student days on a Haloween saturday night, a friend decided it'd be fun to make magic mushroom tea. He must have brewed over 100 mushrooms forever and we set about drinking it.
The first sign of something amiss was watching, "The late, late breakfast show". To this day I remember Noel Edmonds interviewing someone with a live, flapping fish as a microphone.
My friend went to make a prawn sani; it took him an hour. Why? Because the prawns kept jumping off the bread and he had to run around catching them.
This is all pretty funny.... except we had the hilarious idea of going to the local pub, which was hosting a haloween fancy dress party. We spent half a terrified hour cowering in the middle of the pub as goules, ghosts and zombies looked on. Neither big nor clever!
(DustyD, Thu 15 Dec 2005, 16:26, Reply)

The devils own work...
I ate a microdot on the way to the local one Halloween. There was a few people in fancy dress including a couple of girls dressed up…as the devil.

Now, after a pint or so, the effects started to come on, and after about an hour, I was battered. Me and a mate started chatting to one of the girls who was dressed up, and I was adamant that she was not the real devil, but that I was. “Watch this” I bellowed to her. And with that, grabbed the lit cigarette from my mates mouth and stubbed it out on the back of my hand.

Nice job. REAL impressive.
(Bertie Dastard Wax on, wax off, Thu 15 Dec 2005, 16:26, Reply)

first post
Once, following a night munching ecstasy in sankeys nightclub i dragged a bunch of friends back to my flat in manchester. fast forward to 9am and i come up with he novel idea of marching across the road to Dr Hermans and buying a load of mushrooms so we could all get trolleyed and go for a pint in the gay village. I return 20 minutes later with 80 quids worth of fresh thai mushrooms, chop them all into large BioPot yoghurt and share them among the 6 of us. an hour later we trot off to the gay village and approximately 4 minutes into our first pint we all start to come up. I projectile vomit all over a gay couple stood next to us at the bar and have to run away, with no idea where i am or what im doing. my friend charlotte (her first time on mushrooms) disappears and is later found in a nearby hospital, where she was taken after someone called an ambulance because she kept running up to people and quoting lines from labyrinth while trying to grab their cheeks and stop their faces from moving. apparently she'd had a full blown psychotic episode, oh the fun we have.

everyone else was fine apparently, i made it back to my flat eventually, having trip trapped through central manchester covered in my own vomit.

late at night i still think about the young couple i covered in a mixture of strawberry yoghurt, mushrooms, beer and gastric juices.
(idioteque., Thu 15 Dec 2005, 16:24, Reply)

misstafeesh
Your story just goes to prove that in fact, God does not exist and is a mass hallucination created by a bunch of freaks.
(you're all a bunch of twats anyway, Thu 15 Dec 2005, 16:12, Reply)

really, really wierd coincidence...
also, while I remember, at the same festie I've posted twice about, I ended up staying in this blokes bus, 'cause I had nowhere else to sleep and he was kind. On the last day of the festival, this woman was wondering around giving away her last acid tabs, 'cause the police were patrolling the perimeter - too scared to come in but picking people off and searching them as they left. She ended up sitting with me and him - all off our faces on her acid and talking bollocks.

A few months later, I become a Christian, and two months after that I'm at some church do in Southampton, and who should I bump into, but the bus bloke, who'd aslo become a Christian.

Then, six months or so after that, in Torquay at a meeting when this woman comes up to talk about the dangers of drug addiction. As she was talking, I kept wondering where on earth I knew her from, till I realised she was the drug dealer.

In the space of three months, the three of us had gone from dropping acid around a bonfire and evading the police to proper full on born again Christians. Did God just look down and say "want them ones"? Or did we, in our acid fuelled wierdness, all hit on some deep and meaningful truth that took us all in the same direction? Who knows?
(teasus likes tea, Thu 15 Dec 2005, 16:08, Reply)

not me (obviously) but.....
sat at some red traffic lights one day bouncing to the timeless rotterdam termination source ditty "poing" - you know the one "poing poing poing poing poing poing poing poing poing poing poing poing poing poing poing poing poing poing" anyway after a timely pause where the hallucinogens had permeated the remaining brain cell, the poings kicked in and my mate floored it. straight through a red light and into the side of a plodmobile. would have been funny if he hadn't lost his licence.

for crimes against music presumably....
(chives, Thu 15 Dec 2005, 16:06, Reply)

drugs
I'm not a big partaker of drugs as I find alcohol is enough for me. However on one occasion, my friend Mank, had procured a largish lump of resin from a bloke in France (we were there a couple of weeks before). Now Mank was a bit of a reformed druggy but he still thought it would be a good idea to make some space cakes. Cue one saturday afternoon, watching the FA cup final in a bar, Mank gets out his space cakes and offers them around. Nobody except me and him had one. We then had a couple of beers and watched the match, the cakes didn't seem to be doing anything so we had another each. Waited a while for them to work (all the while drinking like fish) but no dice. So in our (by then) drunken state we had the remainder of the cakes between us. Now Mank had made enough cakes for about 8 people but we had consumed them all between us, needless to say, the drug started working and we were both completely off our tits on booze and dope, at the stage where we realised just how fucked we were, we decided to go home, and made our apologies to the rest of the drinking gang. Our mistake was to walk home along the Grand Union canal, by this time paranoia had kicked in and I was convinced that I would fall in and drown. Mank on the other hand was a giggly little girl. We ended up sitting on a park bench, next to the canal, gibbering for what seemed hours. Eventually we made it to his mum's house where I got the massive munchies and Mank descended into extreme gibbering. Eventually I got my wife to come and pick me up and I insisted on sleeping in the spare bed, partly because I was so ashamed at being so stoned and partly because I didn't want to honk all over her. Still take the occasional toke but I don't get monged on weed any more. Be careful with drugs.
(urgle-splurgle molesting small goats since, Thu 15 Dec 2005, 16:06, Reply)

At Camelford festival mentioned below
one of the high points was when I wandered over to this rave tent to be greeted by the sight of this woman in her late fifties or so repetetively swinging her arms up and down. She didn't even notice when a police helicopter landed about 30 yards away.
(teasus likes tea, Thu 15 Dec 2005, 16:01, Reply)

oh yes, the first time I dropped acid was one to remember...
I had just asked my social worker if I could go to the reading festie, and was a bit pissed off that she'd said no.

I went to the pub (this was in Paignton, btw) where I normally bought my weed to commiserate, and ended up going halfs on an acid tab with this bloke. We then all decided to hitch down to Camelford, Cornwall for the "white goddess free festival", and I left there and then with nothing but the clothes I was wearing...

Me and other bloke on acid started walking along the main road, and came upon Paignton Zoo, and just walked straight in. Why no-one stopped us, I have no idea, but we then spent a couple of hours talking to the elephants etc, before going on our way. I spent a week at the festival, and on my return, found out that the police had been looking for me in seven counties. But not Cornwall!!
(teasus likes tea, Thu 15 Dec 2005, 16:00, Reply)

I don't take drugs anymore
But I used to. A lot.
At one point, I was in the car, waiting for the lights to change, reached over to get the lighter to re-light my spliff, changed the tape etc. you know, the stuff you do when the lights are red, all the time wondering why cars were shooting past me.
I was on the motorway. Stationary. Waiting for the imaginary red light to turn green.

Do drugs if you want, but remember that they are not to be trusted. Those that only take drugs occasionally are the ones that get the best out of drugs.
( GTA, Thu 15 Dec 2005, 15:54, Reply)

Yesterday in fact......
Going on a date with someone. Very new, very exciting, in the pub all is well. She then pulls out a bag of skunk. Now, I gave up all drugs a couple of months ago and gave up marijuana some years ago because of the bad mental state I was getting in. Anyway, I had previously mentioned I had given up drugs but she wanted me to smoke some with her. So, back to her place. Roll a J, proceed to get really sick and puking up all over the place. Trying to talk and having the worst dry mouth ever. Everything was coming out as 'mmfluffal, mullarbler'. It was making complete sense to me. She was getting concerned so of course, paranoia time. Started to think to myself that she hates me and has only bought me back here to kill me! I wanted to leave but she wanted me to stay further fuelling my paranoia. Anyway, I stayed until I had to leave (bedtime for her, but sadly I would not be joining her) Made my way home, trying to walk in as straight a line as possible (otherwise the people will stare) Woke up at 2am this morning thinking to myself 'shit I have to go home for I have work in the morning' I get up only to remember I am at home. Back to bed - wake up this morning and all is right with the world again.



Now I remember why I gave up matijuana.
(Clivicus, Thu 15 Dec 2005, 15:53, Reply)

not me, but...
...a friend of mine has a habit of sleepwalking when he's been on the pills. And seeing as he's a sick enough bastard when he's awake, he can do some mental things when he's asleep.

It all started on New Years Eve a couple of years ago (03-04 probably). During the night my mate got up and started sleepwalking. First he walked over to Lanky (who's gaff it was), whipped out his cock and started wanking and slapping it in his face. Lanky woke up and, as you can imagine, screamed.

Startled, Joh then ran away, in the direction of Lanky's little sister's (aged 14) room. Thankfully he didn't wank in her face, but what he did do was start opening all her cupboard draws until he found her knickers draw, pissed in said knickers draw, then grabbed a handful of her pissy knickers and shoved them down his own pants, then went back to bed. All while she was watching and trying not to scream the house down.

He has no memory of doing any of this, natch.

He's done other things over the years in similar veins, but this was the original and the best.
(MrTrent cannot think of a clever sig., Thu 15 Dec 2005, 15:45, Reply)

Drugs are bad- no they aren't!!!
I met my current gf when I went out with mates during the Edinburgh comedy festival- note don’t smoke all day then watch stand up you get the jokes about 10 mins after everyone else then they take the piss out of you- meh! Filthy students, anyway met this fantastic Aussie girl who invited us to her flat to smoke a sheesha apologising profusely that she had no good stuff to put in it- as if by magic we produced a ½ bag of skunk that we’d picked up before going out- result!! We’re still going out and still smoking loads of green !!!! drugs are bad ? get fucked!
(Lamby, Thu 15 Dec 2005, 15:38, Reply)

Also...
...some dodgy mushrooms once convinced me that unless I could outface the Being of Darkness in the Liquid Portal in a silent, psychic battle of titanic willpower, I would have to climb out of the window thus bringing about the end of the universe.

Housemate found me two hours later, still staring intently at the mirror.

Apologies for brevity, but its my first time.
(oranguturn, Thu 15 Dec 2005, 15:28, Reply)

I don't do drugs.
I've seen my friends do it a fair bit, and frankly, I'm a bit put off. There should be a certain romance in putting your cock in another man's ear that just can't be achived while stoned off your face in a room full of people. I want my first time to mean something. *sigh*
(matthyaouw, Thu 15 Dec 2005, 15:28, Reply)

the first time I took acid
I was in my first year at Manchester University and I dropped a tab with a friend who was going on to a party. It started enjoyably enough, sitting in the student bar giggling uncontrollably. Unfortunately, I had forgotten that I had agreed to go to an all-night film festival with another of my flatmates (who I hardly knew) and his girlfriend.

They showed up in the bar and due to my mental state I did not dare tell them that I had taken acid and could not be persuaded my friend to come to the party. So instead I spent the entire night tripping off my noodle in a darkened room with a bunch of strangers sitting through four films (including Child's Play) feeling unbelievably paranoid. The next day, having not slept at all, I was still tripping when my Dad came to take me back home for the weekend. Somehow I got away with it.

The next time, a few weeks later, myself and seven of my eight flatmates had decided to enter a battle of the bands competition, despite the fact that only a handful of us were vaguely musical. Three of us put together a set of Beatles covers and called ourselves the Beatless (geddit).

Shortly before going onstage, my friend (the bass player) informed me that he had dropped a tab. Thinking 'what the hell' the singer and myself (playing guitar) did the same. We were the only three that knew the set. The drummer had never sat in front of a drumkit before stepping on stage. The other singer forgot the words to Yellow Submarine. God only knows what we all sounded like.

My abiding memory is of two people walking to the front of the stage during our set and doing a synchronised faint in front of us.

We came second.
(stone the crows, Thu 15 Dec 2005, 15:26, Reply)

'all eyes on the pro'
New Years eve a couple of years ago and me and a mate tagged along to end up at this massive house party in Notting Hill. After a number of champagne cocktails which were mostly made up of champagne and absinth we staggered to the loo upstairs and locked ourselves in so we could each do a naughty (but celebratory) line of coke.

Once finished we straightened up and wiped down the surface with some loo roll and flushed the toilet the we went to the bathroom next door to wash our hands.

When we got to the bathroom. We found about 16 people huddled round the bathtub in various positions while one guy looking decidedly worse for wear and looking a shade of green not unlike puke. He was swooning and revealed a large mirror placed over the bathtub and was piled sky high with coke. Someone yelled for him to get out and he stumbled into the hallway followed by a wretched sound of throwing up, but I just managed to swipe the card he had in his hands before he fell and I took over the job of cutting up and dividing the spoils.

Within 5 minutes I had 36 equal 'pro' lines cut out neatly and everyones eyes were glistening. My friend then announced to everyone, 'This is my friend, all eyes on the pro' when I heard a giggle from somewhere below. It was a girl staring straight into my undone flies (its a habit) and said loudly to my embarassment: 'more like a baby amateur'...

Oh the shame.

I am now 110% gay.
(Marmoset Bored bored bored of cnuting revision..., Thu 15 Dec 2005, 15:21, Reply)

Not said, but done...
I was so mashed at Glastonbury this year I went to see fucking Coldplay.
(oranguturn, Thu 15 Dec 2005, 15:21, Reply)

Queen Elizabeth I
When I was at Uni in Manchester, there was one night all of our house had taken either shrooms or acid... I was on the latter. A few of us were sitting in the living room watching Elizabeth I - the one with Glenda Jackson in. Someone asked to turn the TV over, and for some reason I said "No. Don't turn it over, i'm grooved by her forehead."

I never fucking lived that one down.
( hanrahan, Thu 15 Dec 2005, 15:16, Reply)

At a party
I found myself to be the only unstoned person there within a couple of hours. Being that the bloke hosting the party had no TV, music and board games were on the to-do list. The music playing was various 60s pop – mainly The Fifth Dimension, which amuses people who are off their tits – and Scrabble was the game of choice. I was beating everyone with my unfeasibly high scores and this was confusing them all a great deal since they were in an obvious state of being intellectually superior to anyone else on the planet.

The events spiralled as I won more and more rounds of Scrabble, which eventually ended with an opponent throwing the board across the room and declaring he was going to take a piss out the window. The host didn't like this at all and warned him, "I'll stab you in the fucking arse with a Swiss Army knife if you do, you scummy git." He took a piss out the window, he was stabbed in the arse twice with a Swiss Army knife.
( Fictional Emma, Thu 15 Dec 2005, 15:04, Reply)

Once
after a particularly heavy night on the pills we ended up back in a mates flat,i had done a couple too many and started being sick... all in the name of the game, right? however something in me decided to take one more, this was the one that tiped me over the edge, every time i ingested something, be it smoke a fag, have a drink of water, chew some gum, it would result in a vomitous reaction... After about half an hour of hallucinating sunglasses on everybody around me (whilst vomming every five mins or so) i'm sat on the bed, too fucked to get up and stand near the sink, and since theres no point, theres nothing to come up, so i'm simply making this kind of "wwweeaorrgh" noise as my stomach contracts... i then left to go home, as i had a train to catch about 5 hours later i decided to stay awake by smoking hash and watching telly. Everyone was wearing sunglasses then too, prince william the newsreader everyone

not my best hour, by a long shot
( Boondocks, YEAH! has a massive penis. Everyone is scared., Thu 15 Dec 2005, 14:51, Reply)