So I had another high dose Azurescens experience a month and a half ago, in a very different setting, and yet the mushrooms still had a very distinct character and feel that was reminiscent of my first experience. While my first experience took place inside a cosy candle lit bedroom environment with one other person, my girlfriend at the time...this time the experience took place outside in some stunning nature, in a forested river valley in a remote part of rural Wales. I had a feeling this would work well, as I didn't feel much compulsion to journey inwards with these mushrooms previously as I tend to with mushrooms...I was more externally interested and preoccupied. It was a special group composed of some of my nearest and dearest friends...some old, some new...and a certain explorer known for a few BBC series and a documentary film, who was a most warm, generous and interesting host. The day before, we'd all had a 5-MeO-DMT/Bufo session...everyone else had had Bufo, and whereas I had opted for the pure synthetic 5-MeO...I feel I was dosed a fair bit more liberally than anyone else, and it look a fair bit longer for me to re-enter. The experience was very intense for me, but the afterglow state, and sharing that state with everyone, was very pleasant.
The dose was the same as last time, half a chocolate. We consumed our doses (there was 8 of us) while trekking through this wooded valley. The coming up period was quite the ride, and our group split up. It was in some sense hard to gauge one's level of ascendency while in such stunning nature. In my case, it was coming across a road that intersected the woods...and the level of outrageous geometric patterns and colours it was crawling with...that made it hit home how deeply in it I was. We found the rest of the group, and ventured on into the woods. One of my friends was finding it hard to walk, and was bowled over at the intensity of the mushrooms he was experiencing, him being no spring chicken when it came to fungal forays into the bemushroomed realms. I said it before and I say it again...Azurescens stand apart from any other mushroom I have so far experienced. There was a physical, driving high vibrational electrical intensity to them which I have found very present the previous time I had taken them...they don't feel mushroom like to me, in the sense from what I've come to expect from mushrooms. They don't feel particularly earthy either...it's like they were engineered on an alien planet or came from somewhere else.
I was DEEP in it. It was on the outer fringes of what I feel I could cope with socially. Part of me wanted to go lie down on some moss alone and dissolve for a bit. We found a water fall and bathed under it, naked for a time...the coldness of the water didn't seem to affect us much. And I felt this weird compulsion to do it, and it was quite a grounding experience bathing under the waterfall in that state! I remember feeling at one point like I must have left my phone in my pocked and got it wet as I felt electricity surging through my leg...no phone at all, just my nervous system. I felt like I had stuck my finger into the Gaian plug socket and was getting a bit zapped...the mushrooms were mostly friendly, but there was this driving electrical intensity that was quite imposing...I'm glad I hadn't eaten any more. The closed eye visuals when splashing water on one's face were outrageous.
We found a very nice mossy tree by a lovely river and hung out in and around it...time was acting very odd, in that it had apparently only been an hour and a half since dosing, but so much seem to have been experienced in that time, the trip seemed to have levelled out and stabilised at that point...we had a top up, another quarter chocolate, and I wasn't really expecting much going on past mushroom experiences, I assumed it would just extend the experience a bit. But quite rapidly, we were right back in it!! After the rather turbulent journey to the peak, this caught some us off guard...and again, my friend and I felt a little socially awkward, so we hung out in the river bed a bit away from the tree where everyone else was, sharing his alpaca wool blanket...in a state of complete hilarity. Nature was just absolutely stunning, wherever one looked...even the boulders in the river bed were riotous works of natural art, and quite amusing at the time. It was a curious mental state...socially almost slightly uncomfortable...yet in a state of uninhibited joy and hilarity...interspersed with spells of intense introspection. We stayed outside until it went dark, having a fantastic walk back to our digs, in awe of all the stunning natural forms around us. When we got back we made a fire, opened a few beers and rolled a joint or two and cooked up a fantastic dinner and had some wonderful chats. What a day!
This was definitely one of the best weekends I've had in a while, and this summer ha not been lacking in great weekends. Paul Stamets, who identified this species, interestingly doesn't partake of them as he feels they are too powerful. I do sort of see where he's coming from...these mushrooms, in my experience, are in a league of their own. I know some people take the view that all mushrooms are alike (which to me seems like a gross oversimplification, as scientifically we know this simply isn't the case...with Azurescens being a particularly potent source of baeocystin, as well as psilocybin)...but if anyone holds that view, I would encourage them to seek out and become acquainted with this mushroom. What a gift of nature, but one demanding of respect!
