Who here recognises this? Fly Agaric, AKA Amanita Muscaria, the Mario mushroom, the shroom that makes Santa’s reindeer fly, that sent berserkers flying into battle in an invincible rage…

I heard all the hype and knew I had to try it out.

I did my research beforehand, read all the warnings and figured out what precautions to take. I know that 15 heads can kill you (but I’m sorry, who goes around the woods chomping on 15 massive mushroom heads???), and I know it can make you hallucinate.

So, I went into the woods with a pocket knife, some gloves and scarves to store the mushrooms in. I picked two of them, brought them home, and boiled them in water. The boiling got rid of the red and white exterior, leaving a fleshy brown surface.

I then soaked that in lemon juice overnight, having read that lemon juice can transform the bad-feeling chemicals into the good-feeling ones.

Next day, I patted them dry, sliced them up and dried them in the oven.

I then ground it down with a pestle and mortar.

It smelled lovely, like Christmas biscuits. But honestly, it didn’t taste like anything.

On the first night that I tried it, nothing happened. No hallucinations, no funky dreams, no tangible improvement to my mood. I was disappointed.

However, the next night I tried it, I was stressed. My bad mindset, combined with a larger dose (two teaspoons rather than one), resulted in a different experience.

No hallucinations, but when I went to bed I had some messed up dreams, the worst being a descent into a hellscape.

In the dream, I was walking through a castle, and descended a set of stone steps into a basement. At the bottom of these steps, was an alley. Much like Diagon Alley in Harry Potter. But the people…they looked like someone had taken a photo and then moved the camera part-way through the shot. All of them did. I was the only non-smudged looking being there. And they didn’t like that. They convinced themselves that the only way to become like me, was to eat me. I had to fight my way through the crowd and back up the stone steps. As soon as my foot touched the top step, I woke up.

This was last October. I need to learn more about this mushroom.