Mind on Magic Mushrooms (1)

About my intermittent meetings with Magic Mushrooms (2021-ongoing):

About a year after sitting with Ayahuasca, I decided to explore the realm of psilocybin / magic mushrooms. I was back in Bombay after being away to my hometown for months. COVID was still out there, terrorising the world.

I had asked around in my Aya circle, for the modus operandi. Again, I was told to have a trip-sitter, keep someone clued in, maybe on a phone call or a video call – “since its your first time doing it” etc. Good advice. But like I have mentioned earlier, I feel confident about my solo explorations, and even though I was a novice then (hadn’t explored anything other than Ayahuasca), I decided to go by my hunch.

I decided to try 3gm (dried psilocybin mushrooms – Golden Teachers) for my first sitting – typically recommended as first dose (I tend to disagree now). I, of course, sought more practical advice in terms of how to actually ingest the mushrooms – I was told to simply blend organic orange juice + organic cacao powder with the 3gm mushrooms and drink it up, while chewing the mush chunks in the mixture. The citrus helps prevent nausea and the cacao powder helps ground our energy, while the mushrooms can take us to realms unknown, within or without.

The one thing I have not done till now which apparently is a must – is to “be on mushrooms” while being in the cradle of nature. I have till now, only ever done mushrooms within the sanctuary of four walls, my bedrooms in Bombay & Kanpur. Some day soon, I hope to enjoy mushrooms whilst sitting amongst the quiet of greenery, the chirping of birds, the gurgle of a natural water body, leaning against trees, talking with leaves and insects.

My protocol for mushroom-taking is this – fast for 8 hours before ingesting the mushies, have an eye mask ready, sip on water throughout, pick silence or a playlist, make sure to remain undisturbed during the ‘ceremony/trip’, maintain a reverence for the mushrooms throughout, meditate beforehand and during, clear your mind as much as possible, be open for the body to want to move (whether its dance, stretching, walking around – whatever comes up during your experience), write down what you learnt after you’re done. And of course ingest the mushrooms with something citric and organic cacao powder.

Mushrooms tend to dehydrate the body, so please sip on some water one hour after you ingest the mushrooms, can even do that throughout your journey with them. I do. No need to stay thirsty.

A good way to do the ‘fasting‘ for me is to simply do mushrooms first thing in the morning – I adore day trips – I don’t end up missing my trip due to sleep or sleepiness; & the ‘night time’ before the day of ingestion serves as a natural ‘8 hour fasting’.

However the first ever time I ingested my 3g of mushrooms I did so at night. I think around 8pm. Followed all the other things I have mentioned above, except the timing. Of all the consequent times I have done mushrooms, majority of it has been in the day time. I enjoy that.

So… I will briefly describe my experience from that first ever meeting with the mushrooms energy. Then I will put down a few dominant themes that have defined most of my consequent mushroom-trips (10-12 by now).

For a person like me who loved the taste of the Aya brew, it was surprising for me to realise that I hated chewing the mushrooms (absolutely disgusting taste) ewwww. Haha. Yes eww. I somehow got through it.

Went back to my room, shut off all the lights, barring the large screen TV which was playing my playlist of assorted soulful, tribal, animalistic, new age, ethereal music on loop. I had taken 3g, and within a half hour it became clear to me that that was too high a dose for my body. The experience lasted for 8-10 hours. It was overwhelming. It was scary. I couldn’t look in the mirror without freaking out – I was a monster. My skin breaking apart to reveal dark veins, such intense darkness in my eyes.

I could sense that there was an information overload inside my tiny head. Of course, once again my forehead was tingling like crazy. I was able to talk to Ayahuasca during the trip – all these energies are friends, in my experience – Whether its mushrooms, LSD or MaryJane, they all allow me to keep my channel with Aya open while they reside in my system.

I cried a lot during the confusion and the overwhelm. I was still a greedy little seeker – I wanted healing, I wanted a semblance of what a couple of friends had told me about their gorgeous ‘feeling one with nature/ universe’ experience. Needless to say, I didn’t receive that. I just received overwhelm in that first sitting.

I do clearly remember one thing though – a visual element which has often repeated itself across the other times I have done mushrooms in the following years – a labyrinth of a tree’s branches, and me nesting cradled within them. I kid you not, it was very much like the giant nesting branches from the Hive-tree in the movie Avatar. So beautiful. I was tree people 🙂

In this first ceremony, it seemed like while I was lying down in the branch-nest in that giant tree, there were others above me, below me, on other branch-nests, it was so grand (I hadn’t watched the movie Avatar since it was released back in the day, so I was surprised to have this reference in my head pop up with mushrooms suddenly). And it seemed that for hours I was telling stories to those around me from my laidback position within the nest. I do not remember the content of those stories at all, not today, not the morning after I had that experience.

Then when I opened my eyes, I saw a scrawny green figure, very Mowgli-like, but female, naughty, mud-covered, smiling eerily – standing in the corner of my room, near the entrance. I stared at her with my open eyes. I didn’t feel scared. I shut my eyes again, was back in the cradle of those branches, continuing exchanging ‘stories’ with my ‘tribe’. Opened my eyes again to see that she was not standing there any more.

I went to pee, and while on the pot, I remember having an almost identical experience that I had towards the end of a long Aya ceremony – my limbs looking and feeling alien-like – which is not to say that they had changed shape or anything of that nature – they just ‘felt’ alien, like I had put on a strange bulky costume, my fingers appeared like sausages, I could see beneath the top layer of my skin, all the veins became so stark etc. It was a very strange feeling.

Also, on my way out of the washroom, I made the mistake of looking into the mirror again, and my god – i felt terrified of my own reflection. I couldn’t look away – and all I saw was darkness, cracking skin (how the summer heat cracks muddy ground up), darkness spilling out, my eyes deep deep abysses of darkness. Ooooof! Very unsettling. I must state here that this imagery, this feeling has reappeared time and again with all psychedelic experiences I have had, I think except for maybe LSD.

I do not claim to accurately understand why I continue to experience myself this way during these ceremonies – but I have a couple of hunches:

1. maybe it reflects an old deep-seated and long-ranging self-loathing,
2. maybe it represents the fact that I am indeed an alien donning a human suit (I was told, unprompted, by a channeler/ medium the following year that I am not from Here, that I am from the star system Arcturus, having chosen Earth School for the expansion & enrichment of my soul’s journey) and hence the dissonance with this meat-suit – the strangeness and ‘ugliness’ of it that I feel during these experiences – i relate to this explanation a lot since I have always found ‘fitting in’ with this human-ness, society, rules, this body’s limitations impossible and absurd. My life may look like an act of rebellion to onlookers – but it ain’t, it is simply that I have not, do not and cannot relate to most things that human living takes for granted. Its all weird for me. I have to keep learning in this human school to appear fairly human and that too a human woman. Sheesh! A tall ask!

Anyway, read on if You aren’t yet put off/ irked by what I just expressed haha.

Just like it was when I had Ayahuasca’s energy coursing through my body and being, music became a world of its own with mushrooms as well. I was living in music, I was sitting in music, sitting/ nesting in between musical notes. It was so loud, so clear, each and every note. So beautiful. This is another experience that has repeated itself over and over on mushrooms.

One particular time, I was listening to an unofficial version of Cornfield Chase (Interstellar) while on mushrooms – slow piano and cello being the dominant instruments – each time the new piano note played, I could feel the bars (straight vertical lines) zooming out of the TV on which the music was playing, and flying vertically past me – I was sitting in front of the TV, the tall thin vertical bars of music were flying around me and I was encased within them, safe, resting, rejuvenating. This was my home – Music. I wanted to and was LIVING INSIDE MUSIC. HIDING INSIDE THE MUSIC. Hiding so that no one could find and disturb my oneness with the musical notes. Aaaahhh… sublime.

Another thing I remember from this first Mushrooms ceremony is the leaves and shrubs forming everywhere – behind closed eyes as well as in front of my eyes wide open. The dark walls of my room sort of started resembling a scene from a forest at night. Another time it also felt as if the whole room had filled with water, ocean water, crystal clear though, with the ambient light from the street lights feeling like moonlight seeping through the surface of the ocean water, and I saw a few sea creatures swimming around me, I was gently just resting on the ocean floor, watching them ‘do their thing’. That was absolutely incredible!!

All in all, the first time I ever did mushrooms was a sensory overload, like being spun around in a room full of stimulus, not being able to anchor into any one thing or story. The tree-branch-nest is the only clear thing I remember from that night, behind my closed eyes. I do not have any key takeaways from that night.

The next morning I had a small niggling headache, which is what made me inculcate ‘drinking water regularly’ into my mushroom protocol later. Also, I reduced my future doses to 1 gram only – never again have I ingested more than 1 gram at once. The experience still lasts me for over 5-6 hours and I actually get clear insights/ stories/ vignettes – its no longer an information overload.

Turns out I am highly sensitive to psychedelics, so I do not need higher doses for my process and learning. Just 1gm is sufficient for a well-rounded ceremony.

Now I would like to briefly delve into some more themes that have been a large part of my mushroom ceremonies till date.

Nature. As I mentioned above, leaves, shrubs growing through me, around me, encasing me, surrounding me – are a regular part of my mushroom experiences – and I can often hear the rustling of leaves, the growing shrubs so clearly inside my body, inside my ears, so crystal clear – it is intriguing, mesmerising and breathtaking.

Personal Grief. I have cried tons of tears with most of my mushroom ceremonies, so much pain has been felt, heart-felt. I have sat with the grief that is stored in my body and energy when with mushrooms. Its like much-needed rain falling down within me, cleansing me. Afterwards I always feel spent yet lighter. I truly appreciate these good cries. I must state that the crying seems to have stopped recently (meaning the last 2 times I did mushrooms, I did not cry at all) and I believe it signals a change internally. I can feel it, in general, outside the influence of the substance too. More on this in other posts.

Ancestors. Related to the above, I have felt a call to cry on behalf of my family, my ancestors, those who have passed on – for instance, this one time I felt like i was surrounded by a lot of people (people that I couldn’t see with my open eyes but could feel in my body and heart) – my foremothers and forefathers, my grandmother (who passed away in 2006, sudden heart failure), my aunt who passed on in 2021 (severe COVID) – they were all gathered around me, behind me rather – urging me to cry for them. Generational trauma. And to my surprise it wasn’t just the women of my lineage, but the men too. I cried for all of them. Great big sobs, screaming in pain, my head buried in the mattress, head bowed down in grief. I was on all fours, collapsing with my pain, their pain, their sorrows, un-cried, stored in our DNA, in my DNA, in my family. (I want to state here that only Mushrooms make me connect with this ancestral grief and the healing it needs/ wants – no other substance that I have explored does this, not even Mumma Aya – more on this in another post)

I was also asked to cry for my father and my mother and my sister. I was asked to cry for my grandfather who is very much here, at the ripe age of 94. I cried and cried, till I couldn’t anymore. I had to stop to drink water, I remember it so clearly even after two years have passed. I resumed that bizarre position I was sitting in while sobbing (on all fours, head buried/ collapsed forward in the mattress), eyes closed. I cried some more – this time for Me. Then suddenly, I heard “Time To Die” from behind closed eyes and it startled me. I opened my eyes, it was broad daylight outside, there wasn’t a green figure standing in the corner of the room (hehe). I closed my eyes again, and felt like I was giving birth, my thighs were opening more and more behind me – I was apparently birthing MYSELF, anew. I have never forgotten this image and feeling. That night I dreamt of a woman who looked straight at me and said “Time to Die”. She wasn’t trying to scare me, She just said that as a matter of fact.

Goddess-ness. This has happened before as well, but especially recently (I’d say the last 4-5 times I have worked with mushrooms) I have been shown that I am some sort of a Goddess-like entity, just restfully looking around at the majesty of creation. I have been shown to be nestled in that same labyrinthian Avatar-tree-like structure, with flowers blooming around me, leaves falling, mushrooms growing, rotting away… while I just lay back and nonchalantly watch, smile knowingly and relax – and this seemed to have gone on for eons (whereas a mere moments must have passed in my human time).

The message has been to the effect of – Everything blooms for You Anjuri, everything wants to serve You, Just exist – be You, its all for You.

I have felt so powerful, so quietly powerful in the midst of these scenes. I have felt like I am a Queen, being waited upon by elements of Nature. This one particular time recently, this context turned into sexual power – where I was in the middle of a great spiral of pleasure, a whirlpool of desire, still relaxed, waiting for the male element of this universe to cater to Me, this Goddess. All I wanted to do then, was turn myself On and orgasm. And I did. It was nothing short of glorious.

Orgasms on mushrooms have been intense and leave me panting. I’ve had quite a few. Even though this (orgasming on mushrooms) is recent, it seems that there has been a journey unfolding, my journey with mushrooms – it does seem like a spiral of healing, by which I mean that there has definitely been a repetition of some heavy themes – tons of feeling and releasing of tears/ grief initially, and its very very slowly been transforming into ‘coming into my power‘. But this journey also seems to have evolved from plain grief-processing and release to some sort of empowerment.

Given this progression, I am excited to see where magic mushrooms take me next.

On the topic of orgasms with mushrooms, I want to share this one particularly powerful visual experience I had during a ceremony – I once orgasmed while on mushrooms and naturally I had my eyes closed in the throes of the feeling of breathless bliss – I suddenly saw my writhing (in pleasure) body in outer space, black all around me, twinkling stars everywhere. I was shown a circle of smoky-solid white light energy emitting around my body with my orgasm, and it spread out in a ripple-like fashion all around me, reaching the ends of this endless universe I was suspended in. And the feeling/ message I got was this – the more pleasure I indulge in, for my own self, the more ripples of healing I send out to all the women in my lineage, healing them in the process – women who have come before me (no pun intended), and those who will come after me, sending healing to parallel-life Anjuris (versions of me in parallel lives) in parallel universes, sending healing to future lives I might have as women or men. Healing my world, one orgasm at a time.

(This is where I must state that I had LSD after having already experienced mushrooms a few times. But before I ingested and experienced LSD, I hadn’t had the urge to orgasm while on mushrooms – but LSD seemed to have opened some sort of portal within my mind and energy that consequently magic mushrooms also began exploring that facet of healing with me. This is all very interesting to me – how these substances/ energies work together, seemingly. Hmmmmm…)

More in the next post.