My Introduction to Psilocybe Cubensis

By Russ Mease

During my second ever mushroom trip on March 2, 2023, I took approximately four grams of dried cubensis mushrooms, which I chewed and swallowed raw. Quyen consumed the remaining three grams of a total of seven grams we had purchased in San Jose Del Pacifico. For both of us, this was our first experience taking magic mushrooms in an intentional way.

We both began by sitting outside on the patio of our rental house in San Agustin Etla, a small pueblo thirty minutes drive north of Oaxaca City in the state of Oaxaca, México. Green leafy trees and shrubs canopied the patio and overlooked a larger property, also with various fruit trees, a neglected vegetable garden, a compost hole and covered in leaf and needle litter; the perfect place for a mystical experience.

While waiting for the effects to arise, we sketched in our notebooks. I drew a stylized human figure, hoping to dredge up some long repressed creative impulses, while Quyen drew concentric radiating circular patterns, a feature of some of her larger art works. The first to notice changes in perception, Quyen handed me her notebook and asked me if I noticed any movement. As I rested my gaze on the center of a figure, the circles began oscillating within each other, like water rippling on the surface of a pond. The changes arose faster and stronger for Quyen, likely due to her smaller size and her high sensitivity and general intolerance to most drugs and alcohol. We soon gave up on drawing and simply began to observe the natural world around us which was becoming more and more acute as the sky began to darken and the day began its transition to night. Colors intensified and stratified. Details popped. The geometry of objects became more pronounced. The sounds of birds became louder.

More visuals followed; for example the patio itself, composed of hexagonal patio bricks set tightly together, but with a slight unevenness from the poor substrate, began to radiate an iridescent neon-green layer of intricate patterns which continually morphed and wiggled into new patterns as I alternated my focus. The tiles also began to move against each other, as if the ground beneath them was oscillating. Quyen recalls that the visual patterns reminded her of certain Mayan or other indigenous Mesoamerican patterns found in indigenous art and tapestries. It is not unimaginable that these ancient traditions were inspired by their own experiences with psychedelics in the form of psilocybin or Ayahuasca ritualistic ceremonies. This layering phenomenon added a density and thickness to everything I trained my focus on. Even the space between objects seemed more viscous as air particles themselves, catching the light of the rising moon, filled the spaces between with light and energy. The feeling of nausea arose only briefly during this time, about thirty or forty minutes after ingesting the mushrooms, but the ill-feeling quickly faded. 

We then both decided to lay down on yoga mats we had set out on the patio. My body high had reached a peak; my head felt numb and tingly and my body heavy; and laying down became increasingly desirable. Looking up into the tree branches I saw that they revealed layers and a density I had not previously noticed. The branches writhed and swayed like serpents but in a welcoming, non-threatening way. A neighbors black cat slinked toward us. I watched her first circle us and then approach closer, moving across my field of vision in negative relief, so black was her fur that her shape appeared as a vacuum of light, as a black hole would appear set against the stars or galaxies behind it. The blackness radiated around her in geometric patterns which trailed behind her as she moved. I reached out and stroked her head and neck and she pressed back against my fingers and purred softly. She then stole off into the darkness as quietly as she had appeared.

A short time later, a neighborhood dog appeared from behind the bushes. Like most Mexican street dogs who spend their lives roaming the streets, often mis-treated and left to their own devises for protection, this dog was cautious around people, perhaps from prior abuses, but I could see that he was generally healthy and well cared for. I acutely remember his large, muscled, smooth-haired head bowing gently as he approached me, one cautious step at a time, his eyes shyly avoiding mine. I reached out to stroke his head from the area between his eyes back to the ears and felt connected in a profound way to his pain, fear and his raw “animalness.”

At this point, Quyen, who had been face down on the mat in child’s pose, sat up to cross-legged and began to sob and sway as she looked up at the understory of the trees. She was immersed in a great loss from her past and I wrapped myself around her sitting figure, laying on my side in a half circle, in a way I thought was supportive but not distracting. Once her tears subsided, I sat up next to her and we both bathed in the spirits of the trees and the moon and the stars. Both of us began to sway in unison, vibrating to the energy of the universe.

I remember a song from my playlist commenced in this moment, “Here Comes The Sun” by Nina Simone, and at the same time a procession of Mexican mourners making their way back from a gathering to honor their dead, carrying lanterns and singing softly. They marched two by two on the other side of a chain link fence separating our property from a dirt road leading to what we believe is a cemetery, or a place of significance for the deceased. I felt peace in the air, a lightness that signified acceptance and openness.

Quyen had come to some conclusions about our place in the universe and our purpose in life, and as the mood lightened, she became talkative, asking me penetrating questions; Did you get the message? Do you see what it all means? Are you awake now? To which I replied vaguely, I think so. She was in a deep place and I understood my role was to support her, so I said very little but continued to bath in the energy vibrating around me.

The hallucinations did not stop after we moved inside. I remember lying on the bed when the music of Santana arrived on our playlist. As a thirty minute live version of “Freeway” set the soundscape, a statue next to the bed depicting a skeletonized figure in a large sombrero and carrying a large-feathered bird in one arm while a blanket hung from the other, began trans-morphing into different entities; at one point a warrior, then a woman carrying a shawl, then a demon figure with the rim of its sombrero twisting around its head like a writhing serpent. When I turned away from the statue, I became transfixed by the azure rays of the moon flooding into the room from the large window opposite the foot of the bed. The blue light seemed extra-vivid and filled me with awe.

Then, bathing in the moonlight-filled room, with Ludvico Einaudi and Sigur Rós continuing to guide our journey, the tears began to flow. I do not know why the tears came except that I felt my wall of self-control begin to crumble, and emotion came pouring. I had not received answers to the questions I had posed when writing out my intentions for this experience, and the more I moved my focus toward the source of that emotion in an attempt to understand it, to possibly answer those questions, the more that source retreated behind a re-emerging wall, which I understood later to be my ego re-asserting itself.

Quyen asked me again if I understood the source of everything, to which I replied, again, I think so. In fact I could surmise, of course, what she was referring to, but expressing this with words felt ineffable. I felt that the window for clarity was closing, and the more I grasped for answers to her questions, and to my own, the more quickly they retreated. Through my tears, she tried to comfort me and help me release and let go, but my ego had already regained it’s grip on my psyche.

The complete letting go would have to wait. A few hours into the trip and I was back in my head, my ego fully in charge. The tension in the back of my neck re-appeared, and the narrator in my head once again re-asserted itself with all the usual questions, commands, worries and fears. Unable to fall asleep, I got up and went to the kitchen searching for food as I had not eaten since lunchtime. While snacking, I focused on the ceramic tiles on the floor of the living room and saw the patterns swirl and dance. Back in bed, my breathing and heart rate calming from exhaustion, I was drawn again toward the blue moonlight streaming in through the window, the light dancing off of the walls and the sheets over my body. I soon fell asleep to crickets and barking dogs.

I did not experience an ego death or a complete dissociation from my ego, as some claim to experience with a four gram psilocybin trip. I had nevertheless experienced something profound and beautiful, a connection with the nature of the universe, a different form of consciousness than our everyday waking consciousness. I felt a deep love towards nature and from nature at the same time, just as I had experienced ten years earlier during my first fortuitous experience with hallucinogenic mushrooms in Thailand. Since that day in Thailand, a crack of new awareness had appeared in my subconscious mind, and that small shift in perception was the catalyst for many priority shifts in my life. It followed and preceded many amazing experiences, and led me to the path I am currently on. It remains one of the most positive and influential experiences of my life.