Two composite Thai mushroom trip reports, home and island

Both reports on this page are composites. Each is assembled from patterns that recur in published experience reports on cubensis mushrooms, from the effect descriptions of the Trimbos Institute, and, for the second report, from the field observations and news reports cited on the Thailand page. Neither describes a single real person, and no names, ages or places have been invented to make them look like one. They are placed side by side because the contrast between them is the most useful thing on this site.

What recurs in published reports

• The first half hour is mostly physical: yawning, chills, a heavy or queasy stomach.
• Calm reports mention a familiar room, music, a sober friend and a free next day.
• Difficult reports mention crowds, heat, alcohol, strangers, a second portion taken too early, and not knowing what was taken.
• Almost every report ends with tiredness, hunger and a need to talk it through.

Composite report 1: a measured evening at home

Composite account. About one gram of dried Thai mushrooms, weighed; indoors; one sober friend present.

The portion was weighed on a kitchen scale that reads to a tenth of a gram: a little over one gram of dried Thai, which by the only published lab measurement works out at roughly nine milligrams of psilocybin and psilocin. It went down with some crackers on a mostly empty stomach, early in the evening. The friend who stayed sober had the plan written on a note: no second portion, phones off, nobody else coming over.

For forty minutes the main sensation was a cold, heavy feeling in the stomach and a lot of yawning. Then the room began to change. The grain of the wooden floor moved slowly, like water under a thin skin, and the lamp threw a warmer light than it had a moment before. Music became the centre of the evening: an album played many times before seemed to separate into instruments that had never been noticed.

Around the ninety minute mark there was a stretch of unease, a feeling of not being able to find the right words, and a short wish for it to stop. The friend suggested lying down with eyes closed and the same music. Behind closed eyes there were slow patterns in green and orange, and the unease turned into laughter about nothing in particular.

By the fourth hour the effects came only in faint waves. Food tasted unusually good. The next morning brought tiredness and a long conversation about the evening. Reports like this one share three features: a known amount, a calm room and someone sober nearby.

Composite report 2: a glass on the beach

Composite account. An unknown amount in a shake bought at a beach bar on a Thai island; a crowded party; alcohol earlier in the evening.

The shake came in a plastic cup, mango and ice with a muddy aftertaste, bought at a bar near the beach where music was already loud. Nobody could say how many mushrooms went into the jug, or whether anything else did. There had been a couple of beers before.

Nothing seemed to happen for half an hour, and a second glass was offered and accepted. Twenty minutes later the effects of the first glass arrived all at once. The bass from the speakers felt physical, the crowd seemed to move in one pattern, and faces looked strange. Heat and noise made the nausea worse. The friends who had come along were affected too, and within an hour the group had lost each other.

The next two hours are described in reports like this as the worst part: confusion about where the hotel was, fear of the police, a phone with a low battery, and a strong wish to be somewhere quiet. Sitting down in the sand away from the speakers and drinking water helped a little. Eventually a sober stranger pointed the way to a road with taxis.

The aftermath in these reports is a mix of exhaustion and worry. Buying, holding and taking magic mushrooms is an offence in Thailand, with up to a year in prison for use alone, and bars selling shakes have been raided during parties (see the law). An unknown dose, an unknown mix and a hostile setting are exactly the conditions that harm reduction advice warns against.

What the two reports teach

The cultivar is the same in both stories. What differs is everything else: a weighed amount against an unknown one, a quiet room against a crowd, and one sober person against none. Neither setting is legal: in the Netherlands the kit is legal to buy but the mushrooms fall under the Opium Act once they appear, and in Thailand use alone can lead to prison. The effects page has the practical list.

The Thai kit and a scale, for buyers in the Netherlands aged 18 or over. The kit is legal to buy there; the mushrooms are illegal once they appear.