Experience:2.15g Psilocybe Cyanescens - "The Ordeal" (Schizoaffective disorder)

Subject

• Age: 32
• Sex: M
• Height: 175cm, 5'9"
• Weight: 68kg / 150lb (include both if possible)
• Date: 08/2022
• Location: USA / California

Background

This report was written on August 9th, 2022, the day after the trip. I am posting it in May of 2025. I took psilocybin for insight on how to get out of a difficult part of my life. The trip was mostly blindfolded.

I have schizoaffective disorder. I'm primarily manic. I was not taking medication or aware that I had schizoaffective disorder at the time of this trip. I was diagnosed in childhood then re-diagnosed at 34. It's managed and I live a comfortable life.

Experience Report Summary

I'm a paraglider pilot and a Japanese speaking weaboo. Much of this dialogue is translated gibberish.

This is my first mushroom trip. I refer to this trip as “The Ordeal”.

Experience

2:25pm

At 2:25pm I took 2 grams of psilocybe mushrooms. I ate the mushrooms and was surprised at how much better they tasted than I thought they would. I used the time before the effect to clean up and make a comfortable space. I settled on a hammock in my bedroom, lying against a large pink octopus plushie, with an array of snacks, drinks, and extra doses if needed. I was expecting a more mild experience, and left the window blinds up so that I could see the tree leaves rustle above me.

45 Minutes in

After a while, I started feeling motion sick and held back an urge to vomit, knowing that it would lessen the ordeal. This was likely due to the large dose, combined with lying in a swinging hammock.

After the worst of the motion sickness had passed, I heard Horo (from Spice and Wolf) from one of my wall scrolls tell me to go to sleep. I reached for my blindfold, and read the text on it that said “[Shoebill] is watching you”. Despite the fact that the picture and reference was a 1984 parody, I felt incredibly safe. I put the blindfold on and laid back.

At this point, it’s safe to say that what I knew was happening and what I felt was happening were completely different things. At multiple points in the ordeal, I saw events from different perspectives simultaneously. I felt sensations that don’t exist in any way shape or form. I knew that I was lying in a hammock with a blindfold, but my sensations were completely in their own place and time.

Upon putting on the blindfold, I was lying with my head in shoebill’s lap facing up. Her breasts were covering my eyes, which was incredibly comforting. There was a weight and warmth on my face. Shoebill and I were on a “litter”, a form of carried transport, going along side a river. The litter was carried by Horo and a caricature of my wife I will call Patricia, based on a painting near the hammock. All 3 women were wearing fine one piece dresses. I felt incredibly important and loved, almost like a pharoah.

At some point, Horo and Patricia put the litter down. After a while, the floor gave way and I began falling. It’s pretty funny in hindsight, but my brain kept trying to rationalize the shoebill blindfold strapped to my face as though shoebill’s boobs were smothering me. So, as I fell, the position changed from lap pillow, to her grabbing my head and shoving it into her. I guess I’m a perv, so sue me. I will ignore this point going forward, but keep in mind that my brain rationalized boobs stuck to my face for the majority of the ordeal.

I was falling into a circus tent. I don’t like circuses, I find them annoying, but I was really afraid. At that moment, Maa-kun grabbed me and pulled me away by the head. Maa-kun saved me from the circus tent, and I was extremely grateful.

In a fit of gratitude, I took the blindfold off and tried to find volume 6 of Made in Abyss. I had volumes 3-5 in arms reach. Maa-kun isn’t introduced until a few chapters into volume six, so I was overcome with grief until I noticed that the plushie my head was resting on was, in fact, Maa-kun himself.

I was so thankful to have my dear friend with me that I buried my head in the plushie and put the blindfold back on. I was laughing, crying, and wiggling with delight. Tears of joy quickly turned into tears of sadness, however. Maa-kun showed me his experience. To summarize, he spots something he’d give anything for, and then lunges for it. By touching it, he damages it, and loses everything - he watches as his limbs are pulled from his body.

I saw and experienced this multiple times, from different perspectives. At one point, I saw myself watching me watch the experience. I felt my limbs being ripped off my body for desperately trying to grab something I would give anything for. Then I did it again. I felt like I died and was satisfied knowing that the thing I cared for would live on.

After the 3rd or so time of experiencing this, I realized that Maa-kun was showing me my relationship with my wife. I was sobbing uncontrollably into Maa-kun. It was at this point that Shia came into the room to check to see if I was ok. She held my left hand, and Maa-kun left me. It was at that point that I realized my hammock was a paragliding harness.

I was leaning to my right and spiraling out of control toward Mount McClaren in Nevada, I was rapidly losing altitude and I had to correct myself or it would be a fatal crash. I felt Shia’s hand in my left hand and leaned toward her and corrected my flight path. She hugged me, gave me water, and cared about me. I was able to rescue the situation due to her intervention.

Before the ordeal, I asked her to stay out of the room. I think it was due to fear of being judged, or embarrassed, but I am very thankful for her ignoring my request. She left the room. At that point, I was able to rapidly compartmentalize my life into a metaphor.

Life as Pilot

I’m a paraglider pilot flying in a harness that is made up of memories, people, and experiences I will never be able to connect with again. The people are either forgotten or dead. These things hold me up and keep me safe - they provide my principles and morals.

The ground is composed of people I have left behind. I cut a lot of people out of my life. I’m ok with this, and I feel no guilt.

The right hand side of my wing are things that are familiar and comfortable. My parents, unemployment, going to school, my dog, etc are all things that fit on this side.

The left hand side of my wing are things that are novel, inspiring, creative, risky, or random. My wife, my rabbit, and my business are all things like this.

Both of the wing halves, if left to their own devices, will slowly coast me to the ground. I will land. Nothing exciting. But, I’m a pilot. I can see distances and imagine things beyond what’s in the glide range of these two halves. My job is to wrestle these two halves into working together to take them further than where they would otherwise be able to go on their own.

I think that my life at this point could be easily broken into two halves. Pre-2018, and post 2018. Pre-2018 was life on easy mode. I had a series of goals set out for me by society - finish school, get job. This wing was flying me, not the other way around. After 2018, everything went haywire. I didn’t know how to wrangle the two halves together and the whole thing spun out of control. I was flying a stalled business with a collapsing family situation.

I realized a few things about myself:

• I can imagine things others can’t as though they are real
• I feel as though I have an obligation to bring these things to people
• I want to bring them to people
• I am in complete control of my situation and I always have been
• I am in an amazing position to have failed so early in my life
• I have lived a far fuller life than most people
• I am in amazing health and look fucking fantastic
• I have succeeded where my father failed in multiple aspects. He would be proud.

As well as a few things about my relationship:

• I have been leaning too far to the right and slowly turning in circles
• I have been listening to the left side, but not taking the courage to turn what I hear into action
• I have been driven by fear and anxiety instead of hope

Examples of this metaphor in action:

• Between 8/2021 and 4/2022 I put my relationship on autopilot and handed Shia off to a doctor and SSRIs because I was too focused on the fear of losing my job. In other words, I locked my left brake handle to the pulley and fell into an autorotation by leaning hard right to my collapsed open right side. I was only able to fix it by forcefully moving my job to the left side of my wing and taking ownership over it.

In conclusion, I want to lead the people in my life to a better world that only I can imagine. But, to do that, I need to take the courage to enact what the left half of my wing is telling me. I’ve been listening, but not doing anything, or rationalizing it away.

I spent possibly 2 hours spouting a stream of consciousness to my poor wife who listened to all sorts of strange things I’ve never told anyone. I was able to click so many things into this metaphor, it was very satisfying and I feel like I understand something much more fundamental about myself now.

Aftereffects

Coming out of the ordeal was met with incredible satisfaction. I felt like a god, that everything made sense, and that all of my life choices had been correct in all the ways that count. I was thankful for (and forgave) everyone I felt had wronged me. I spent a few minutes enjoying the sunset and took my wife out to dinner someplace new.