Into the Abyss: Shrooms, DPH
Yeah, before I start, I didn't really know the DPH was a deliriant like that. I've always used it to go to sleep and had no intention to combine it with shrooms beforehand. It'll make more sense soon.
So last night, I (a 23-year-old male) decided to take 5 grams of mushrooms I had just gotten from a buddy of mine. He told me they were a particularly potent strain—Penis Envy—so I knew they were not to be underestimated. Still, I was arrogant. I considered myself experienced with psychedelics. I had taken LSD multiple times without ever having a bad trip, tried 2C-B and loved it, and had several enjoyable mushroom experiences before. I truly believed this would be another fascinating, euphoric night.
It was not.
Well, it was fascinating, fascinating how stupid i am, but anyways
I got home late on a Sunday night. I had no work the next day, and my girlfriend was working an overnight shift, leaving me completely alone in the house. She is not particularly supportive of drug use, so the solitude felt like an opportunity. I swallowed the mushrooms and settled in with my PlayStation, expecting the familiar onset of colors, laughter, and introspection.
For the first thirty minutes, nothing happened.
Then, without warning, a wave of dread slammed into me.
It was not ordinary anxiety. It felt primal, ancient, and inescapable—as though some invisible force had reached into my chest and wrapped its icy fingers around my heart. A crushing pressure spread across my thoracic cavity, heavy and suffocating, as if a concrete slab had been lowered directly onto my lungs. I felt a certainty that something terrible was about to happen.
I tried to reassure myself.
“It’s just the mushrooms. You’re okay.”
But the words felt hollow.
I put on music, hoping it would calm me, but every song sounded distorted and wrong. Familiar melodies became unsettling, as if they were playing from another dimension. Nothing felt comforting. Nothing felt safe.
About an hour and a half in, it was obvious this trip had turned hostile.
I went to the kitchen for water and decided to take my dog outside, hoping the fresh air would ground me. The night, however, felt menacing. Every sound from the woods—the snap of a twig, the rustle of leaves, the distant movement of something unseen—seemed loaded with sinister intent. My thoughts fragmented into uncontrollable spirals. My hands trembled violently. My legs felt disconnected from my body.
Even my dog seemed uneasy, glancing at me with the same confusion and concern I felt.
I checked my Fitbit.
160 beats per minute.
My stomach dropped.
At that moment, panic consumed me completely.
I asked myself over and over:
“Am I okay?”
“Am I dying?”
“Why is this happening?”
I had taken high doses of LSD before, up to three tabs, and never experienced anything remotely like this. This felt darker. More invasive. More real.
I looked in the mirror and barely recognized myself. My skin looked pale and sickly. My eyes were wide with pure animal terror. My face was the face of someone trapped in a nightmare they could not wake from.
Desperate for relief, I drank vodka, hoping it would dull the panic.
It didn’t.
I retreated to the basement, dimmed the lights, and put on a cheerful movie in a futile attempt to salvage the night.
Three hours into the trip, everything deteriorated further.
I became trapped in a merciless loop.
One second I was burning alive, tearing off my clothes to cool down.
The next, the television radiated unbearable anxiety, so I shut it off.
Then the silence became oppressive.
The darkness felt threatening, so I turned the lights brighter.
Now I was freezing, so I wrapped myself in blankets.
The room became too bright, so I dimmed the lights again.
The silence returned.
The television came back on.
Too hot.
Too cold.
Too bright.
Too dark.
Noise.
Silence.
On and off. Over and over. Again and again.
For an hour, I repeated this ritual like a prisoner performing some meaningless task in hell.
Then the existential terror began.
A crushing sense of despair engulfed me. I felt the absolute insignificance of my existence. Every thought led to the same conclusion: life was empty, meaningless, and unbearably fragile. I was overcome by a hopelessness so profound it felt cosmic.
I sobbed uncontrollably.
My heart pounded so violently it hurt.
I would have done anything—anything—to make it stop.
In that state of desperation, I went to the medicine cabinet, grabbed some pills, and took 150 mg of Diphenhydramine.
Looking back, I still ask myself:
What in the actual fuck was I thinking?
I was so terrified that the idea of taking more drugs to escape the nightmare seemed reasonable.
After another hour, the diphenhydramine began to take effect.
At first, it felt like a spinning, drunken sensation, similar to the room tilting after too much alcohol. But then the hallucinations began.
I heard voices.
Footsteps.
Twigs snapping.
Insects crawling.
Whispers from nowhere.
I could hear my own thoughts as if they were being spoken aloud by someone else.
My mind had split in two.
Shapes darted through the corners of my vision, but when I turned to look, nothing was there. Objects stretched and warped into grotesque versions of themselves. The furniture looked alien and unfamiliar. The room no longer felt like my own home.
As the diphenhydramine deepened, my consciousness began to detach from my body.
The closest comparison I can make is the “Sunken Place” scene from Get Out:
Get Out – Sunken Place Scene
I was fully awake.
Fully aware.
Yet utterly powerless.
My body no longer responded to me.
Tears streamed from my eyes, but I wasn’t actively crying. I may not have blinked for minutes. I felt myself sinking into an endless black void, falling farther and farther away from reality.
And then, strangely, the terror began to transform into a horrifying calm.
I heard a clear, mechanical female voice.
Not a thought.
Not an impression.
A real voice.
I distinctly remember hearing the rhythmic beeping of a cardiac monitor, followed by an artificial-sounding announcement:
>User has now entered cardiac arrest
Yeah at that point, I just accepted this was some fucked up karma for laughing at some homeless dude years ago, something.
I heard static, radio chatter, and familiar voices calling my name—some pleading, some mocking, some taunting me as though they were spectators watching my final moments.
I accepted that I was dying.
At some point, I managed to grab my phone.
Fifteen missed calls from my girlfriend.
I stared at the screen, knowing I was in trouble regardless of what happened next, and set the phone back down.
Im fucked...
The diphenhydramine created a sensation I still struggle to describe. It made me feel both hyperaware and sedated, trapped in a body that was exhausted but unable to surrender.
It was suffocating
Unbearable
I felt utterly alone.
As if I had been cast into the deepest trench of an empty universe.
No rescue.
No comfort.
No sound but the echo of my own despair.
It was the purest loneliness I have ever experienced.
The feeling persisted for what seemed like an eternity—three more hours of unrelenting darkness. I became convinced this was my new reality, that I had broken my mind permanently and would remain trapped in this personal hell forever.
Eventually, somewhere between wakefulness and oblivion, I passed out.
I woke the next afternoon at 3:00 PM.
The first sensation was profound emotional numbness. Total anhedonia. I felt hollow, as though every ounce of feeling had been wrung out of me. My body was sore from hours of crying. My eyes burned.
Then I heard my girlfriend coming downstairs.
I forced myself upright and tried to act casual, mumbling that I had simply stayed up all night gaming.
She wasn’t convinced.
And honestly, neither was I.
Even now, I can say without exaggeration that this was the most terrifying experience of my life.
For one endless night, I was certain I had descended into hell—and that I would never find my way back.
What's the lesson, y'all?
The solution to a bad trip isn't more Drugs.