Experience:Psilocybin or O-Acetylpsilocin (8000mg oral) - Don't you see? Don't you realize?

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• Substance(s): Purportedly psilocybin, likely/possibly O-Acetylpsilocin; and cannabis concentrate
• Dose: Likely ~80mg of psilocybin and ~200mg of cannabis concentrate
• Route: oral
• Subject: 33yo M, 180cm/5'10", 60kg/135lb
• Date: 1/2022
• Location: USA

Background: Subject is a heavy cannabis user with a history of major depression, body dysmorphia, anorexia, assorted minor health problems and a stressful lifestyle, who has started using psychedelic drugs again recently for the first time in more than a decade. For about three months he has been taking either a lysergamide or psilocybin ester obtained on the black market about once every two weeks. Feeling emotionally drained and especially lonely and hopeless, after a work-week of very little sleep (probably less than 6 hours of sleep over four days), Subject decided on a whim to include two laced chocolate bars in his usual cannabis purchase. Though the bars were sold as containing psilocybin, products like this produced illegally on the black market are rumored to frequently contain so-called synthetic shrooms. Nevertheless Subject thought he might avoid some of the nausea and dysphoria of psilocybin if he took the drug in a tastier form, regardless of whether it contained psilocybin or a similar ester/salt.

T0:00 – Subject rose after a fitful night of no sleep, prepared a cup of coffee, and considering briefly eating only one bar before deciding to throw caution to the wind and gobbling down both. The bars were branded simply: "4000." Actual substance/dose cannot be ascertained.

T0:15 - Subject recognizes the distinct "swoon" of serotonin, from SSRIs prescribed as a young man. This is distinct from and much stronger than a typical mushroom foreglow.

T0:30 - Whoa, nelly, this mule's got a kick. Balance severely impaired. Perception of bodily heaviness. The room feels much larger. Walls and lights are throbbing and shifting. The venetian blinds now extend all the way across the wall. Subject can't stop squinting and stretching his face muscles - it just feels so pleasant and sensuous.

T0:40 - Subject inhales cannabis oil and lies down. Bright, intricate fractal patterns glow and shift on the white ceiling and walls. A creeping, terrible sense of dread and impending doom begins. Mild nausea, but Subject steels his stomach and avoids vomiting. The mushroom takes complete control.

The next portion of the experience can only be described as an overwhelming hallucinatory psychosis. Subject experienced complete ego/memory loss and total shutdown of analysis and language skills. It is impossible to create a timeline for these few hours because time had no meaning in this state.

He recalls a distinct sensation of struggle - perceived very acutely as a fight for the last shreds of his sanity. He continued to repeat aloud to himself small phrases to anchor himself to reality: I'll be fine. It's Saturday. I'm on X Street, in Y City. But... suddenly he realizes these "facts" have quickly become meaningless - just as meaningless as this "reality" he was struggling to stay connected to for some unknown reason. Why am I telling myself it's Saturday? What is Saturday? Subject reaches for his cell phone absent-mindedly out of habit - then quickly realizes he doesn't remember why. He has a vague memory that this thing belongs to him, and that it's called a "cell phone" - but he doesn't understand anything he's seeing on it. He can see distinctly the word "Saturday" on it, and some numbers... but doesn't relate what he sees to anything useful. He doesn't realize that seeing "Saturday" confirms what he's repeating aloud to comfort himself - that it is, in fact, Saturday. To be perfectly honest, now that he's trying to think about what he's doing, he realizes he doesn't understand what Saturday is, or what today is, or even what days are...

(In a sober state, Subject recalled the numbers seen on his phone at this point - they indicate about 2 hours had passed since ingestion.)

Subject turns, sees the folded textures of a couch in the dark, and suddenly it becomes a face with eyes - distinctly cat-like eyes, blinking, shifting, focusing on Subject... He turns, sure that he sees them everywhere - hundreds of sets of eyes, cat-like and feral, focused upon him - and yet they vanish as soon as he's sure he focused on them... Every surface, every shape Subject lays his eyes on shifts as if crawling with maggots...

Suddenly Subject feels an overwhelming sense of presence. "I know," he begins to repeat to himself. The subject begins to distinctly feel gazed upon by the eyes of the world - all of whom surely MUST be aware that something is wrong, that this man is quite mad... "I know," he keeps saying, as if to reassure this imagined presence: Yes, I know, something's wrong with my mind - but I think I'll be fine soon... I keep saying it to myself, after all... He wanders to the bathroom to retch, not really comprehending what he's doing but associating this act with relief from nausea in some part of his reptile-brain... unable to vomit, he looks up and sees a face, and becomes fascinated and horrified by the pale, drawn skin stretched across bones, eyes twitching and quivering madly - with absolutely no concept that he is looking at himself in a mirror, or what a mirror even is...

(In a sober state, Subject recalls he looked utterly spun and had the most severe nystagmus and mydriasis he has ever seen.)

As Subject stumbles back to his bed, he can still see his window and repeats as if for the first time: that's my window, I'm on X Street, in Y City, but... now his vision in fracturing and splitting - now he can only see half a window, and half a twisted, blurring, spinning void: a space that beckoned irresistibly somehow, as if claiming Subject for the realm of the insane... Subject turns, realizing that reality has completely fallen away, leaving him certain that he is now an incurable mental patient, and that his sanity and life-force have shriveled up and died, gone forever...

The presence becomes clearer, somehow. It's clearly angry with Subject - this interloper, this wanderer who has rudely trespassed into this sacred space, trod upon forbidden ground. Well, now you've done it! Look at the mess you've made! "I know," Subject repeats. "I'm sorry." He begins weeping uncontrollably, begging for forgiveness, professing love for family, friends, old lovers... and as he does, another presence becomes distinct - a different presence, perhaps older, perhaps female? Forgive him, this other presence insists. He knows not what he has done. Show him, won't you?

Subject then can distinctly sense that the other presence agrees, perhaps grudgingly - and suddenly feels an incredible intense wave of something indescribable. The only way Subject can describe it is: an absolute certainty that the story of his life would end just as happily as he had ever hoped, that all his worries and concerns and anxieties were insignificant and unfounded, and that complete, utter fulfillment and enlightenment had already been achieved, for Subject and every other soul on the planet... Then a sudden rising swell, a sense of more souls, more presences, all rising joyfully, making themselves counted, affirming with one voice: Don't you see? Don't you realize? Now you see how clear it's been all along, don't you? "Of course," Subject began to repeat to himself. "It's just as wonderful as I ever hoped... I can't wait to see how it all unfolds..."

Subject weeps, rocking back and forth, exhausted by the heavy yoke of insanity, repeating to himself: "Beautiful, remarkable, wonderful..." Then, as if waking from a dream, suddenly, Subject realizes - his sanity is back. He knows where he is, suddenly; he recognizes his window and his apartment and his city. He reaches for his phone and checks the time.

T3:45 - Subject's body still feels incredibly heavy. He stumbles to his bathroom, awkwardly, struggling with ataxia, and begins to turn the faucet on to start a shower - but the shifting floor and walls make him change his mind. Subject can see in the mirror his pupils are still enormous. Firefly-like arcs of looping, swirling light in neon-bright colors flash in his vision. He is able to steel his stomach and fight off some slight nausea, stumbling back to bed. The room still feels strangely large.

T4:30 - The drug's effects have significantly but not entirely subsided. Subject relaxes and tries to ignore a general slightly unpleasant serotonin wooziness.

Subject slept for a few hours; when he rose the serotonin sickness had completely subsided and he felt well-rested - but couldn't shake a distinct sense of dreamlike depersonalization/derealization and couldn't stop pondering the magnitude of what he had just experienced. The rest of his day, Subject tried with mixed success to follow a normal routine of paying bills, planning appointments, laundry/housework, a walk in a local park.

Since the experience, Subject has noticed some subtle aftereffects have persisted without subsiding, including faint visual snow, light sensitivity and occasional visual distortions, particularly when hypoglycemic, sleep-deprived, falling asleep/waking up, or high on cannabis. Subject is aware this is likely HPPD, and though he finds the symptoms not bothersome (and honestly a bit pleasant), they make him wary of consuming high doses of serotonergic tryptamines again.

Conclusion: Psilocybin esters are not to be trifled with. This is the most intense psychedelic experience Subject has ever had, and his first that caused noticeable HPPD-like aftereffects. Use caution when consuming high doses of psylocybin esters, particularly after cannabis use or sleep deprivation.