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10. Housing, Hitchhiking, Sex

The young like to go for it. Going berserk, dancing for hours, they use anything to feel at ease in a big, anonymous but synchronized crowd. The older generation might look upon disco and house as a senseless activity, but isn't that too prejudiced about the way the young express themselves. Not only as entertainment, but as before in a church choir or dance classes, as a kind of ritual, a way to make contact, to tune in to each other and feel part of the `tribe'. This is very similar to what they did for ages in many other cultures, in Africa they danced for days and nights, long before they did this in Amsterdam. There they also used alcohol, herbs or mushrooms to get into the right mood and stay with it. For that matter there clearly is a revival of the `tribal', a longing to return to the community. Soft drugs are quite normal in some countries, but psychedelics, and mushroom are psychedelic, are not mainstream for the disco-scene. The mushrooms just don't mix well with the hyperactive house ambiance, which made its reputation on speed and XTC, but some people get a body-kick out of it and for them dancing on mushrooms is far out. The paddo-users are usually more in favor of a peaceful trip and in general, it is better to be an experienced user, if you want to take mushrooms amidst a group of people in a public place. It is easy to lose your balance, as there are so many impressions, emotions and energy from others that come your way. Here set and settings have their impact too, if you are in the company of people that you know and trust and in a good mood, than this can be more fun than going out on a limb.

Hitchhiking

Every experienced tripper is familiar with the phenomenon of hitchhiking, to take off on someone else's trip without using mushrooms yourself. Drugs change your outflow, some talk about aura, the invisible energetic layers around the body and the people in your direct environment easily pick up on your energy. You function as a subtle energy source, people around you get into the same mood and that way you'll get back what you radiate.

Contact with nature

While LSD at times feels very synthetic, hard and analytic, the mushroom-trip is often softer and more natural. This is more obvious when you are outdoors, it feels easier to communicate with trees, plants, and animals. Often there will be a synchronicity with what happens in the environment: LSD as well as mushrooms often attract thunder. To take a trip with a group of people often leads to local changes in the weather, to storm and rain. It is not by accident that mushrooms were (or are) used by medicinemen, shamen, witches and wizards.

Sex: nice but also dark waters

Some indigenous tribes refer to mushrooms as the divine penis, and there certainly is a connection. Shrooms are not explicitly an aphrodisiac, but they for sure don't cause impotence and just as in daily life sensuality, sex and love often pop up in a psychedelic voyage. Therefore sex is a topic that can't be ignored. It is a bit repressed in our society, but lots of people like to experiment with sex and drugs, in all kinds of combinations and with all kinds of substances. This can be fun although the lust, the libido, on a trip will often come and go in waves, you'll get easily distracted. Especially because we often have deep frustrations and wounds in this area, this can result in deep encounters and unexpected landscapes during a trip. It can be quite scary to see what lives deep inside you, what almost all of us keep secret, while we often condemn it in others. Unsuspected homosexual tendencies can easily startle you. Be reassured, everyone has similar feelings deep down, that doesn't necessarily mean that this will change your `normal' behavior.

Kundalini: the inner snake