THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => CHATTER => Topic started by: onewheelwizzard on 06 Jun 2008, 13:07
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So as many of you, particularly those who have been around these parts for quite a while and/or frequent the music forum, are aware, I am someone who uses, thinks about, studies, and sometimes goes so far as to endorse psychedelic drugs. For the most part I tend to keep relatively quiet about this ... there's a great deal of stigma surrounding psychedelic drug use, as well as various legal issues (specifically the fact that most, though not all, of them are very illegal), and generally when someone speaks up about their drug experiences, especially if they talk about them in a positive light, others tend to find it very easy to ignore or even actively discredit them. However, I've recently had a few experiences with psychedelics that I have found myself unable to keep quiet about, due to the overwhelmingly positive impact that they have had on my life. I no longer feel that putting my credibility at risk (or even for that matter my physical freedom, although I must admit to not being particularly worried about that) is an unreasonable sacrifice to make in the name of spreading knowledge and understanding about these substances and what they are capable of doing to help a human being.
(In case this little intro paragraph doesn't make it clear, this is probably going to be very much a tl;dr thread for many people here ... I'm only expecting a small percentage of the forum population to take part in this thread, although I am open to being pleasantly surprised. I take this issue more seriously than probably any other topic of internet discussion, by a pretty wide margin, so expect long-winded and possibly overly technical posts from me on this thread. If you're not interested, no worries.)
I've experimented with a variety of psychedelics (specifically LSD (http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd.shtml), psilocybin/mushrooms (http://www.erowid.org/plants/mushrooms/mushrooms.shtml), MDMA (http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/mdma/mdma.shtml), crystal DMT (http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/dmt/dmt.shtml), 2C-B (http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/2cb/2cb.shtml), 2C-E (http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/2ce/2ce.shtml), salvia divinorum (http://www.erowid.org/plants/salvia/salvia.shtml), and a sub-psychedelic experience with ketamine (http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/ketamine/ketamine.shtml)), in a variety of situations, with a variety of people, for a variety of reasons, and with varying results. However, it's only recently that I feel as if I've started to learn how to take drugs properly, so to speak. In specific, several recent drug experiences I've had over the past month or two have convinced me beyond the merest shadow of a doubt of something I've suspected for years, which is that psychedelics absolutely do have the capacity to facilitate incredibly powerful healing as well as the development of extremely close and mutually supportive interpersonal relationships, and furthermore, can ultimately bring people into awareness of inexpressible spiritual realities otherwise only accessible to devout practitioners of spiritual disciplines such as meditation. They can act as medicine, religious sacrament, psychotherapy, and performance enhancement for anyone whose line of work requires creativity, among many other things, and in many of these cases they perform in these roles better than any other agent known to man.
The rational people reading this probably now understand why I tend to keep quiet! These are very strong statements, and while I've defended statements like these for years based on research and secondhand accounts, it's only now that I feel "qualified" to do so, having personally experienced or witnessed amazing success personally in each of these areas.
Since I'm well on my way towards writing an essay that even the most patient forumite would probably find trying, I'm going to cut myself off soon, but not before recounting a few aspects of an experience I had very recently that affirmed my beliefs in an extraordinarily powerful fashion. On Tuesday evening, I drank tea made from some Panaeoulus tropicalis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panaeolus_tropicalis) mushrooms that were grown by a friend of mine. This particular species is known for being extremely potent, and brewing mushroom tea, as opposed to simply eating dried mushroom matter, is known to heighten the dose-response curve of the drug as well, so I knew I was setting myself up for something pretty intense. What ended up happening was by far the most powerfully affecting experience I may have ever had in my life. As pretentious and hippy-dippy as this sounds, I really do think I understand something fundamental about the universe in a way I didn't before, and I do believe that the depth to which this experience has affected my life for the better is something I have only begun to understand. Believe me, I'm extremely reluctant to say something like that without allowing it to be even the tiniest bit of playful bullshit, but the intensity of the trip was such that I find no satisfactory alternative.
To fully explain the story of this experience would take at least as long as this post already is, and that would be far too long for a topic-starting post ... as it is I've probably pushed a lot of people's patience. I'm going to hold myself back (for the time being) from writing the tracts and tracts that I would like to vomit into this thread, and see what reactions or questions are raised before going further. But, uh, yeah, if I'm not the only person on the forum who wants to talk about this, let's talk!
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have i ever mentioned that you're my favorite forumer?
anyway, i fully support this thread. psilocybin is one of my greatest joys in the world and although i've never tried any of the other things you mentioned, i've meaning to try LSD and Salvia for a while now but have been waiting for the sunshine to reappear.
i'd love to hear about your experience because it sounds pretty powerful and like it would be a great thing to read. i'm sure i'm not alone, right guys?
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The only drugs I've done are pot and LSD, the former I found underwhelming/pointless, and the latter I found to be pretty amazing. However, I don't make it a habit of doing any illicit substances, and I generally drink sparingly as well, except for wine, which I have a glass of often. The effects of LSD are generally uniformly positive for me, as cliche as the phrase "mind-expanding" is, that's really the best way to describe it. However, I meditate often and intensely, if meditation can ever be described as such, and I prefer to reach those heightened states of awareness, insight and clarity (mindfulness) through the power of my mind, rather than relying on outside substances.
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i'm headed to a local art/music camping festival called Aesthetic Evolution here in a couple weeks and I'll probably get a light fry going on while I'm there. It's mostly electronic music so I dunno how I'm gonna really enjoy myself.
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i'm sure i'm not alone, right guys?
Nope!
I wouldn't call MDMA a spiritual drug from my experience of it, but it was certainly fun and nice, and I've read about it helping people. I would like some shrooms, or peyote, but they're almost impossible to get here and it's probably not the right time in my life to take them. Or maybe it is!
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The effects of LSD are generally uniformly positive for me, as cliche as the phrase "mind-expanding" is, that's really the best way to describe it. However, I meditate often and intensely, if meditation can ever be described as such, and I prefer to reach those heightened states of awareness, insight and clarity (mindfulness) through the power of my mind, rather than relying on outside substances.
From the point of view of a psychedelic advocate, I would say that applying a meditative approach to the use of a psychedelic would likely be a benefit to both aspects of the resulting experience, and that treating psychedelics as a tool for expanding the limits of one's meditative practice, rather than as a crutch to be avoided, could potentially be rewarding. (I know that Tibetan monks have participated in experiments with MDMA and LSD before, with neutral-to-positive results.)
However, from the more general point of view of a person who pursues spiritual consciousness, I would say that being an active meditator is probably a much more important factor than using drugs, and that if eschewing drug use is working for you, it's probably a good choice. Possibly not the only good choice, but a good choice.
Edit: aside to öde, since I already mentioned it in this post ... there are several reasons why MDMA can be seen as a spiritual substance, but it kind of relies on the user intending it for spiritual use first and foremost. For instance, it helps with meditation because it blurs the distinction between mind and body, which is a fairly universal aspect of spiritual experience in some form or another and so lends itself really well to spiritual practice. I've never devoted an entire MDMA session to meditation, but I have meditated while under its influence, and the two definitely enhance each other.
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i'm headed to a local art/music camping festival called Aesthetic Evolution here in a couple weeks and I'll probably get a light fry going on while I'm there. It's mostly electronic music so I dunno how I'm gonna really enjoy myself.
Double drop ecstacy every three or four hours. Put enough E in me and I'll dance to a dripping tap.
Much fun as I've had with psychedelic drugs (which I would generally split into two groups: 'ritual' ie Salvia Divinorum, Psilocybin, Mescaline and Peyote and 'recreational' ie MDMA/E, Ketamine*, Marijuana) I do feel it would be remiss if at some point in this thread we did not mention the fact that, though yes they can bring much joy and revelation, they can, though admittedly much more rarely, and almost always as a result of blatant abuse, also drive you absolutely batshit insane.
*Though I would personally hesitate to call Ketamine 'recreational' as the first and only time I ever took it I thought I died, easily my second worst drug experience: I don't think anything is ever going to top dramamine.
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I do feel it would be remiss if at some point in this thread we did not mention the fact that, though yes they can bring much joy and revelation, they can, though admittedly much more rarely, and almost always as a result of blatant abuse, also drive you absolutely batshit insane.
Yeah, this basically sums it up. Personality disorders can be either healed or worsened under the influence of psychedelics, depending on how the trip is approached, handled, and supported. Disorders like PSTD, OCD, and anxiety disorders can be treated successfully by psychedelic therapists, but anyone who has any tendencies towards a personality disorder and ends up abusing the drug in a scenario that makes for an extremely negative experience is probably not going to come away from it unscathed.
My personal experiences with bad trips is that they are opportunities for healing if approached correctly. I actually had a friend go batshit insane on a psychedelic drug once while I was trip-sitting him (I'd stayed sober due to an impending exam). I feel absolutely sure that if the two of us had not handled the experience the way we did, he would've spent at least a few days in a mental hospital, if not a matter of weeks or months ... in a nutshell, he manifested an entirely separate personality, a la Fight Club and we had to deal with it somehow. It was only by virtue of the two of us having been very close friends and seasoned tripping companions that we were able to work his life out so that it made sense and he could direct his actions without feeling like he was in competition with himself (it was pretty serious, he was using two different voices, sets of mannerisms, and for that matter wrestling with himself physically, and even going so far as to put his hands around my neck as if to strangle me, just short of actually cutting off my airflow). The way it worked out, it actually became a healing experience for him and he's now significantly MORE sane than he had been beforehand. (I keep using the word "healing," I think it's the most accurate for what I'm trying to say ... "psychological recovery" would be the scientific term, I guess, but I don't like it.)
Talking about psychedelics without mentioning the risks of abuse, though, is like teaching a driving class without bothering to mention that you shouldn't drive if you've been drinking, and to extend the metaphor, a certain number of people are spiritual alcoholics.
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The topic of this thread fascinates me greatly. Drugs and their effect on society have always been somewhat of a mystery for me, since media only talks about drug abuse and criminality related to drugs, without mentioning the people who use psychedelics and still remain (or become even more) functional members of their society. Of course, the greatest reason for this is the lack of studies made on the subject, studies which could very well show that, instead of drugs ruining one´s life on that instant, they can also result in fascinating sensations like those experienced by onewheelwizzard.
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Okay maybe somebody can clear this up for me. I've heard recently that Salvia is legal in the state of Maryland, so I'm assuming it's also legal elsewhere. I was in Ocean City a few days ago and I saw a few neon signs that appeared to say "Salvia sold here!" so it looks like it is.
Is it legal here/elsewhere? Also I hear it does some wild shit to a person. The first explanation I got was "it's this weird-ass drug that makes you think you're the floor or some shit."
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i think it's legal in most states. i know it's legal here in Washington.
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Sometimes I trip bad on weed, which is weird because I smoke a fair bit of it. The only weird thing is that sometimes it feels surreal and stuff happens that makes me question things alot more, I like it it's like the best TV show ever in my brain. Have you documented any of your experiences? Care to share? I would but when I am really bombed I cannot type or write. I'm lazy enough when not high.
I know weed is not really a psychedelic drug, but it does mind altering stuff to me that I was reminded of when you stated that you began to "understand something fundamental about the universe in a way (you) didn't before" because I think it is awesome you experienced it but I know I most likely never will because I am not happy trying it rite now. I guess you could say I am too scared.
As for the drugs you mentioned, I stay away from lsd and stuff because I don't know how well I would handle it since I know how I can be on weed (Quiet, sit there doing NOTHING but mind racing) and other drugs I have taken have had little or no effect on me (MDMA/E/Speed). I know the risks, and of what I have taken I know speed is the most potentially fatal due not just to the chemicals put into it but also what it does to your body, total LAN drug though. Keeps you up and in many cases improves performance and you can tell why.
Oh and Salvia, that was not great, a friend got shit scared, started to get a little freaked out at his skin and shit. Never really saw the point to be honest.
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Is it legal here/elsewhere? Also I hear it does some wild shit to a person. The first explanation I got was "it's this weird-ass drug that makes you think you're the floor or some shit."
It's legal in the UK. My experience with Salvia is that it changes your perception of objects and lets you percieve relationships between them, though these relationships might not actually be meaningful. Some people may have been on gabbly when I was making my one day album, during the process of which I took ecstacy, weed and salvia, where at one point I started t y p i n g e v e r y t h i n g l i k e t h i s because the letters needed space to breathe. Another example would be a time I was experimenting and I tried completing sudoku puzzles under the influence of it. When I was under the drugs effects, it seemed like I was actually seeing the logical connections, and I was completing hard level puzzles in about a minute. However, when I reviewed my efforts sober, I found that not only had I solved the puzzles incorrectly, but I had used letters, punctuation marks, primitive shapes and in one case had just drawn lines all over the puzzle. I also find salvia can have pretty wierd effects over your perception of your own body. I've had some similiar effects with MDMA/E, a perception that my limbs have changed length or mass, or that parts of my body are no longer physically connected to each other. I also have this thing, which I think may be a personal hang-up, where things turn into insects. In one extreme case, my skin turned into spiders. However, strangely, it was in no way scary: for me, at least, Salvia seems impossible of giving a bad trip, no matter how fucked up the imagery becomes. I have no idea if this is true for anyone. I don't know any other people who really use salvia: most people seem to try it once and give up because it has little or no effect on them, generally because they use a low-strength extract (or even un-refined leaves, which you practically have to eat by the pound) and smoke it in a joint. Salvia requires a much higher temperature than nicotine or THC to be released, so you either need to use a pipe, or a carefully packed joint with a hot burning tobacco (ie drum gold) and a relatively high extract strength (I prefer 30x, though it is damn expensive).
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Salvia is capable of doing some fucked up shit to a person. It is currently the only psychedelic to have given me an experience that was genuinely terrible ... I took it a few times with less than impressive results, but the last time I did it (which was more than two years ago) it took me out of my body entirely for 5 minutes and thrust me into a completely different universe, one that was literally composed out of these bizarre little amoeba entities that *vocally and unanimously* hated and rejected and mocked me. After coming out of this trance, my skin felt hot, clammy, and two sizes too small, and I was having trouble trusting my friends who had been with me when I took it. It was, to this day, the most intensely uncomfortable experience I've ever had ... uncomfortable in a way that was not explicitly painful but was more intense than most feelings of pain I've ever felt. The only lesson I learned from salvia was not to fuck around with it again anytime soon, but at the time it was by far the clearest and most obvious lesson I'd learned from any drug.
Salvia is mysteriously completely inactive in a certain portion of the population. It's insanely powerful for others, but I can't feel comfortable recommending it to anyone after what it did to me. The way I would describe it now, with a couple years of experience and retrospection, is that it's great if you don't mind not having any fun. Salvia is not fun even when it is a good experience (which I can imagine it being, somewhat ... since it has a jack-out-of-the-matrix effect in high doses that is similar to that of the grandaddy of all psychedelics, crystal DMT, it's definitely powerful, and with that power comes the potential for something really meaningful, but it's also completely unpredictable and will probably be close to incomprehensible to people who are not already very well-versed in how weird an altered state of consciousness can be). At the time I took it last I was not prepared to deal with it at all ... I feel like I could revisit it now and get something good out of the experience but I have very little desire to. The bottom line is that salvia is just immeasurably weird and in my opinion should probably not be approached as a "recreational substance" in any way. Like I said, out of all the things it might be, fun is not going to be one of them.
Right now the only interest I have in salvia is that at some point I want to get my hands on a quid of fresh leaves so I can chew it for an hour or two. Apparently this was the traditional shamanic method of using salvia, and the trance state it puts a person in is much more manageable than the rollercoaster ride that results in the 5 minutes after smoking a high dose. Either way, though, salvia is generally just a little too bizarre to be actively enjoyed by anyone but the hardest-core psychonaut.
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My only experiences with psychedelics thus far have been null, but I remain optimistic.
-Hawaiian Baby Woodrose: Prepared two different ways (both should have worked, medium-heavy dose), got nothing both times.
-Salvia: Nothing, guess I didn't get it hot enough.
This summer I will try and hunt down some Psilocybin mushrooms.
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That's pretty crazy wizard. Personally, with Salvia, I have never got to that stage where you are no longer aware what is real and what is not, which is somewhere I've only been once, with the aforementioned Dramamine.
Also, salvia also actually tends to make me quite giggly. It also makes me spit a lot.
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have i ever mentioned that you're my favorite forumer?
second'd.
in all honesty i am basically terrified of drugs. mostly i smoked a lot of pot as a teenager but have also done mushrooms, pcp and salvia at various points. salvia made me think there were six of me, simultaneously, in six different rooms. all of them weren't very good experiences so i've sort of just quit altogether but i do wish more people could take the attitude where just because you don't enjoy something doesn't mean no one else should be allowed to. i mean, i smoke which is basically the biggest waste of money and thousands of times worse for you than any psychedelic drug could ever be. most of my fear of drugs comes from the fact that i'm the type of person who really doesn't cope well when i can't control what's happening around me but obviously lots of people can. i guess this whole post is kind of preaching to the choir since it seems most people here would agree but it's just one of those things i find to be really, really obvious and it kind of baffles me when other people don't see it.
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My experiences have been mostly positive. I feel that I've only had one experience that if it had gone wrong, would've been a 'bad trip', though.
I smoke pot maybe twice a week (now that school's out, while it's on, maybe twice a month if I was lucky). I've only ever done E, P. Cubensis and LSD outside of that.
I started with the P. Cubensis, with 4 other people and a friend who was dating one of the 4 (she has epilepsy, so she only does E from time to time). We began by watching The Magical Mystery Tour, which basically put me into a state of ego loss. At one point I think the picture on the screen extended out so that it was all I could see (the General who talks in gibberish part). At another point I kept asking the sober girl if I was breathing because I couldn't tell. It was interesting watching everything be. The tan shag carpet was flowing in waves, I laid under the Christmas tree and thought I was in space. I kept looking at the clock, but at some point it appeared as if it was broken (the lines the numbers were made out of were in all the wrong places), so I stopped watching. The aforementioned girl started drawing highlighter tattoos on one of my friends in a blacklit room, and when the dragon on his chest started to breathe fire I decided to go watch TV. A lot of other stuff happened involving mirrors and an empty glass, but it would take a while to type it all out. It was the most powerful of the experiences I've had. I never felt like I learned anything from it, though. I haven't had any shrooms since, but I'm open to doing it again with a smaller dose (everybody had 1/10 of an oz.)
I did some very strange E once. I had a white superman that gave me a small stomachache and a green lady that had me loving everything for about 2 hours. Endo story.
I have done LSD several times (I think 10), though. I tend to take it in the evening, usually after 4, and just kinda relax with friends who are also doing it. I've seen some crazy stuff, but I never felt like that was the point. I always feel like I've learned something afterwards, but that I can never put words to what it was. However, I think that as a side effect, whenever I get really stoned I have mild flashbacks. There's a lot to those experiences that are important, but I have trouble communicating those things because I find that I'm always concentrating on each individual moment of the trip as it comes, and never have time to formulate ideas from those moments.
I do think that, for whatever reason, it has made me far better at reading people. Last night I turned down a definite chance at losing my virginity because I knew that at some point in the future I was going to dump her and it wouldn't be pretty and possibly wreck the circle of friends that I have. Before I had done LSD (and I do think it was the LSD), I wouldn't have turned her down because I would've been too excited at having that chance. I guess the acid also helped me realize that personal gain isn't everything, as well. I'm beating myself up for it a little today, but I still think it was for the best.
I probably have more to talk about in this subject, but I don't want to write a book. I'll just finish by saying I'm probably gonna do something this summer.
And also, Starscape is tonight. I won't be going, but it's basically Baltimore's biggest rave, you can get practically anything you want there. I think you can buy tickets at the gate for 65$.
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From all the tripping experiences I've heard people talk about, the way that it changed them in a way they can't explain and how it altered their perception of the world. To me this sounds like reading a really good book, but maybe I'm just a literature junkie, who knows, I thought I'd just throw it out.
Personally I've never used psychedelics, though I am interested in them. I've had one chance in the past to do shrooms but I chose not to because it would have meant leaving one person sober and the other 4 tripping, which I would have felt bad about. Psychs do freak me out a bit though and I don't think I'd ever do them regularly, I'm just looking for a chance to experience the feelings.
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From all the tripping experiences I've heard people talk about, the way that it changed them in a way they can't explain and how it altered their perception of the world. To me this sounds like reading a really good book,
It's like the best movie and tv show you ever watched all rolled into one night of skullfuckery and a greater understanding.
This is the reason I do it, it's so much fun and amazing alot of the time.
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That's why I started with them, was to see what all the hype was. Now that I've done it a few times, I do it more to get closer to my friends. I've had some outright magical experiences that wouldn't have been nearly as special if I had been experiencing them by myself. And I've had magical experiences by myself.
I'm going to try to describe how I feel psychedelics have altered my perception: I now notice a lot of the interactions people and things have and the effects these interactions have on their lives/existences. I try to take these kinds of things into account when I'm making choices that I deem important, like the situation I had last night in my other post.
There have been other changes to how I think, but I think that that is the major difference between me before and after doing LSD. It has also affected how I watch movies and listen to music, which is one of the reasons I now visit these forums.
Edit: Posting in this thread has been strangely cathartic for me. I guess I should thank somebody? Onewheel, you are RAD.
For those of you interested in reading about experiences, both good and bad, go to Erowid (http://www.erowid.org). It's a database on all sorts of things related to narcotics, but they have an extensive collection of experience stories. Some of them are awe-inspiring, some of them are depressing, but if you've had interest in the subject, I highly recommend visiting this site; it clears up a lot of the myths the media has spread around and also has extensive information on the laws, typical dosage/effects, etc., etc.
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Mr. Bacon, read some Aldous Huxley.
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Ah yes, Huxley has been on my to do list for a little while. I was thinking Brave New World, being his most prolific book, but is there anything else you'd care to recommend? I've just finished reading Fight Club, which was absolutely incredible, and I'm now trying to decide what to read next.
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I really enjoyed After Many a Summer Dies the Swan, but if you're only going to read one Huxley novel, do read Brave New World--it's so widely referenced in popular culture and modern literature that I can guarantee you're missing a lot if you haven't read it.
Regarding salvia, I know two people who've had very bad trips on it (along the "I thought I was dead" line). I know more people, however, who love it and do it somewhat regularly. As the drug rises in popularity and begins to permeate the social consciousness (Newsweek recenty ran a scary these-are-the-terrible-things-the-kids-are-doing-nowadays article on it), I can only imagine that more and more states--and countries--will begin to pass laws against it.
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The old moloko plus.
That is moloko plus vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom.
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So I read the beginning of that book the other day, and I was wondering, is the whole book just about being high, wearing silly clothes, and beating people up?
It sounds great.
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It's really, really not about that at all.
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Huh.
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Thanks to everyone who has responded on this thread! I'm really excited about this reaction to be honest, and I really want to say something about everything anyone has said thus far, but I don't want to bogart the thread with wordy responses (this is going to be one anyway, though).
First off, the Huxley recommendation is perfect. My personal choices would be The Doors of Perception, which is an account of his first psychedelic experience, when Humphrey Osmond dosed him with mescaline. it's extremely well-written and provides a good insight into a lot of the implications of taking a psychedelic and what exactly psychedelics actually do to your head. His follow-up, Heaven and Hell, is also very good.
However, if you want to know what Aldous Huxley is really trying to say about psychedelics, read Island, the last book he wrote before he died (tripping, at that ... he asked his wife to give him acid as he died). In fact, read Island anyway. It's his utopian novel (in contrast to Brave New World), and part of the utopia that he envisions is that the use of mushrooms is a religious tradition and used as a rite of passage, as well as medicine in adult life. It gives a pretty fantastic perspective on spiritual psychedelic use, as well as spirituality in general. I count it as one of my inspirations, I guess (you know, now that I've actually had one of the experiences that he's trying to write about).
Speaking of which, I haven't actually explained what happened that made me start this thread. Without further ado I should do that. This is going to be long, but someone's already favorably compared this to literature, so I feel a good bit better about writing this much at once now.
So on Tuesday evening, my friend (who I'll refer to as A) brewed tea with some mushrooms he had grown and dried, which as I've explained were exceptionally small and potent (we used 88 individual mushrooms, which amounted to a measly 4.5 grams ... to compare, a single Psilocybe cubensis is capable of reaching this weight). He brewed herbal tea, poured it hot (but not boiling) into a teapot with the ground mushroom matter, insulated the teapot to keep it hot, and let it steep for an hour. We then split the teapot, adding honey and lemon juice to taste (and, in the case of lemon juice, to potentiate the trip ... lemon juice speeds up the breakdown of psilocybin into psilocin, which is a faster-acting and more visual chemical). We each smoked a small joint as we drank our mugs of tea, and I remember mentioning that this was how I used to imagine that I would do drugs "when I grew up" (that is to say, with home-grown psychedelics, at a trusted friend's place, in a private rural setting that allows me the freedom to explore any topic at all in my life without worrying about causing disruption to it, etc.) We started drinking at 6:45 or so.
The tea was incredibly fast-acting and I began to feel it come on 10 minutes after I started drinking it, before I even finished. By the time I finished the mug, after 15-20 minutes of sipping, smoking, and chatting with A about our upcoming trip, I was already coming up quite strongly, and I was getting pretty significant visual effects within a half hour (this usually takes 50-80 minutes in my experience, and sometimes not even then). We decided that we wanted to see the sunset, so we climbed a tree. We ended up admiring the tree itself more than the view. After a half hour or so (our perception of time was rapidly deteriorating) we climbed down and hung out with the miniature horses who live on his land (they are about 4 feet tall and pretty amazing).
The trip was getting intense enough at this point that I was beginning to find myself getting a bit disoriented, so I decided to lie down in the grass, close my eyes, and admire the closed-eye visuals. After a very short time, the visuals reached unprecedented intensity and started to become full-fledged visions. The shifting patterns started to resolve themselves into humanoid figures and architectural landscapes that resembled M.C. Escher landscapes made out of colorful fractals. I started to lose the feeling that I was a body lying down in a grassy field, but as I started to drift away from body-awareness, the humanoid entites turned towards me as one and began to focus their attention towards me.
(Note: this is the second time I've had an experience like this, the first was my second DMT trip. The experience of encountering strange entities in particularly strong trips, specifically with DMT but to a lesser extent with mushrooms and salvia as well, is also not unique to me, and terms such as "self-transforming machine elves" have been coined to talk about them. They seem to be a recurring presence in many people's trips and a variety of strange theories have been produced to explain this phenomenon ... they all sound completely crazy, of course, but then again, they're trying to describe strange entities that consistently appear to people who are under the influence of powerful psychedelics. People who have seen them will know what each other are talking about.)
Now, since I'd encountered weird drug aliens before, and there was no comedown in sight the way there is in a 5-minute DMT trip, I got excited and started to pay a lot of attention to these beings. However, they began to exert a great deal of pressure on my head, and it felt as if they were trying to pull it apart. It was rather unpleasant, and I opened my eyes to get my bearings. I closed my eyes again upon realizing that the outside world was of absolutely no interest to me at this point, and for the next 15 minutes I would see the entities any time that I had my eyes closed, and they would only get more insistent in their attempts to deconstruct me.
I was getting a little uncomfortable, so I sat up and started to meditate in the hopes that I could ignore them. I began to see them as demons trying to disturb my meditations, rather than curious gnomes to try to interact with, and as soon as I started to adapt a "leave me alone" approach to their existence, they began to melt back into the flowing kaleidoscope background and become less defined and eventually dissolve altogether. At this point I think it's important to explain the shift in consciousness that I'd made. While it might not seem obvious that lying down and watching visual hallucinations, and sitting up and meditating inside a visual hallucination, are especially different from each other, they're actually in a way opposite from each other. When I was lying down, trying to drift away from my body and play with the machine elves, I was holding myself as separate from the visions I was experiencing. I was still considering myself to be a subjective observer, witnessing a phenomenon that was separate from myself, "happening to me." During my sitting meditation, I was instead trying to expand/constrict my awareness in such a way as to eliminate the subject/object, observer/observed distinction. I think that when I made the shift from the former to the latter, either the elves realized that I'd gotten the message and figured they had better things to do (or their work was done), or I realized that they had never been real in the first place. At the moment I'm not sure if there's a difference.
This experience lasted overall about half an hour, I suspect (I don't know for sure). It was the peak of the trip, of course, and the description I just gave doesn't really do any kind of reasonable justice to the vibrancy of these visions. In any case, I started to get cold as I meditated, and I was getting a little antsy with the power level of my internal experiences, so I decided to go back indoors so I could figure things out in more detail. Me and A went back into his house a little after 8. At 8:30, as we were sitting in his living room, each tripping a bit too hard to have coherent conversation (and therefore abstaining), the funniest and most absurd thing that has ever happened in my life happened.
His TV, as programmed by his TiVo (I believe), spontaneously turned on, and immediately a commercial for the show "The Moment of Truth" aired. For those who aren't familiar with it, "The Moment of Truth" is a game show in which contestants answer extremely personal questions while hooked up to a lie-detector test in front of a studio audience, and also in front of the very people in their lives who are most likely to be upset at the answers (a link about it, it's pretty bad (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/arts/television/25trut.html)). And lo and behold, the first thing the TV says is "Have you ever felt a sexual attraction towards your friend Joe?" and it slams "THE MOMENT OF TRUTH" onto the screen with a bunch of big sound effects. And Joe's my name. So basically me and my friend took a shitload of strong mushrooms and then the TV turned on without warning, proclaimed it to be "the moment of truth," and asked him if he had ever wanted to have sex with me. The level of absurdity was almost too much to take, and to be honest we didn't say more than 3 or 4 sentences to each other for the rest of the night. Awkward? Well, not really.
The 3 or 4 hours that we spent saying nothing to each other after we turned off the TV were actually incredibly glowing experiences for both of us. For my part, I was enjoying the full effect of the meditative state I'd reached earlier that evening. I was supremely physically relaxed. I felt very strongly as if there had been a constant level of tension throughout my entire body, and I had only just then allowed it to ease and relax. It actually felt like a high MDMA dose, in that my body, and all my senses, felt exquisitely sensitive. I was absolutely wide open to the world in every way, perceiving everything with a level of vibrancy and clarity that was unprecedented in my life. Furthermore, this physically relaxation and sensitivity corresponded perfectly to an emotional relaxation and sensitivity such that I no longer even understood what it meant to be upset, angry, or fearful. These emotional responses seemed to me to be self-evidently complete wastes of emotional energy in pursuit of flawed and illusory ideals that distort and cheapen reality. I have never felt anything even remotely as peaceful as this mind/body state of absolute relaxation and serenity. I knew that, for as long as I was in this state (which felt very much like it would persist beyond the drug's influence, which I'm happy to say it has to some extent), I couldn't possibly feel fear of death, anger, spite, malice, or jealousy. I was as emotionally secure/flexible (they come hand in hand) as I have ever been.
Just to top the whole thing off, my physical relaxation and emotional relaxation could join together if I paid attention to them the right way, resulting in waves of ecstasy the likes of which I haven't experienced in the best sex I've ever had (which is saying a LOT), nor in the most powerful trip experiences I've ever undergone. It felt like I was dissolving into an infinite field of pure good, there's no other way to put it. It was so impossibly pleasurable and fulfilling that I feel absolutely secure and safe saying that, if the entire world knew that such an experience was possible, and understood what was necessary to reach it, world peace would be instantaneous and effortless.
I had a lot of really interesting thoughts over the course of the evening after the incident with the TV, and I probably actually could write a small book about what I thought about during those few hours. But the important thing is that the trip plateau was characterized by feelings of tranquility, good will, and well-being that were so deep and clear that I believe they could only have arisen from a genuine change in the fundamental beliefs I have about the world, or perhaps they *constituted* such a change ... all I know is that the amount of respect I have just gained for reality as a whole has just increased immeasurably, and the attitude I am inclined to take towards the world right now feels more healthy and supportive than it has ever been. I feel as if I've had a direct experience of what reality is at its core, and it is infinite, unified, and perfect.
It was pretty intense! I think people might understand now why I thought this was worth a thread.
(Also, Tania and Scandinavian War Machine (whose name I forget, so sorry), thank you! I appreciate that a lot. I like you guys a lot too!)
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Sounds like a good trip.
Semi-tangent, has anyone else ever used a dream machine? One of my wierder mates has one. If you want to get a taster of what psychedelic drugs are like, without ingesting anything, try one of them.
Use one under the influence, and holy SHIT...
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great thread so far, very informative. i've had the opprotunity to take lsd a few times but each time i didn't feel comfortable in the surroundings to be doing it. I've also taken shrooms but i pussied out again and only took enough both times to get silly and giggly, but not full on tripping. mdma (sometimes just mda) i've taken a lot more of. i've only been to one rave and i actually HATED it. too crowded, the music was not my scene...but the girls were hot. usually i'll take it alone or with a few friends and then go swimming or something.
i've also tried salvia about 4 times and it's a crazy like/dislike with it. it makes me really reallly giggly, but at the same time, i feel like i'm splitting apart...once i described it as my life turned into an animation and i could feel and see each frame as it came along. i could feel my face being split or "framed" and i was fighting to break free, so to speak. I was convinced the TV was talking about me, and i tried standing up - bad mistake. I tumbled over in a few seconds, just laughing as hard as i could, even though i was kind of freaked out. the first time was the strongest because no one told me it takes about 30 seconds for it to hit - i hit a load, didn't feel anything, packed another and right when i finished it, the first one hit. currently i believe it's legal in most states, lawmakers are trying to change that here.
last edit: i do have to say though, i haven't taken hard drugs for a couple of months...the last time i went nuts, it was because everything was readily available...well, you guys all know what i mean when i say i got REALLY tired of seeing the same informercials weekend after weekend
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I got a chance to use a dream machine on acid a few weeks ago. Holy dump, is that thing cool. I only had the chance to wear it for a few minutes, but I got a taste of what a good 20-minute session would be like. It's a pretty intense contraption.
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Ah, no, I meant one of these.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEUOYo0GhOg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEUOYo0GhOg)
The flicker rate is impossible to record, of course, so it's rather hard to imagine the effect from the video. Also, you're supposed to look at it with your eyes shut.
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No, I know what you were talking about. The last rave I went to, I met a guy who was carrying around a box in his pocket that was hooked up to a set of sunglasses and a set of headphones. The sunglasses had LEDs on the insides of the lenses, and the box was a control setup that allowed you to modulate the frequency with which they strobed leftirghtleftrightleftright onto your closed eyelids. The headphones were playing binaural beats (basically the same thing as a dream machine but for your ears). Basically it was a dream machine simulator with a whole bunch of control switches, presets, etc. It was really fucking sweet. I think he called it a set of "Brainwave goggles," he'd bought it online from a company in California.
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Huh.
It's more like "Nature over nurture" and how society can shape people - to put it simply.
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Whoa. What exactly is a dream machine? I've looked at a couple of youtube videos linked to the one posted here, but I'm not really grasping what the point of it is. It definitely looks trippy/fascinating, though.
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The original dream machine was a perforated tube, sitting on a turntable, with a light suspended in the middle of it. The premise behind a dream machine is that if you stimulate the visual field by strobing light to alternating eyes at a certain frequency, you can alter the frequency of your brainwave activity and sync it to the machine, and since different mind/brain states (such as REM sleep, slow-wave sleep, meditation, and wakefulness) each correspond to different frequencies in EEG activity, using a dream machine to alter your brain activity is basically like putting yourself in a trance state of your choice depending on what frequency the dream machine is set up to strobe at. That's the idealized premise, anyway. I'm not sure how much study has been done on them. I do know that the man who showed me his electronic dream machine said that it was set up for 20-minute and hour-long meditation sessions, as well as presets intended to put you to sleep for a certain amount of time and that sort of thing. The visual effect of wearing the thing was really quite amazing, and you can get away with just using a dream machine to watch pretty designs on the backs of your eyelids.
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A bit of topic; but there's something that intrigues me. Every time I visit America-based forum boards with (mostly) american posters, there's always a LOT of people that does/has done drugs. I don't know if it's me who just hang out with the wrong people, or if it's a cultural thing, but that's not even close to the state of things here in Norway. People drink a lot, but drugs are pretty rare.
Is there a lot of drugs amoung young people (the 16-25ish) in the USA? How comon is drugs in your local area?
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I live in the the Eastern Suburbs of New South Wales, Australia and almost everyone knows where you can get some of anything. What can I say, people get bored down here. I'd have tried marijuana already but if it's not conventional food/air/water and it makes it's way into my system I'm left feeling nauseous, headache-y, tired and sore all over.Thanks Mum!
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My city, London, has a fairly large society of Cannabis users to it. We have head shops all around the downtown core along with two larger drug shops called "Hi-Times" and "The Organic Traveler", almost anyone who lives here could tell you were to find these shops. Spend a few hours hanging out in our big downtown park and someone will ask if you're interested in buying weed. For 420 several hundred people gathered in this park (which is right next to City Hall) to celebrate. Harder drug use is more difficult to gauge as it isn't as social and is more illegal.
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Some comedians have stated that boredom is a disease and drugs are the cure. There is some truth to that statement. That being said, yeah, it's pretty common in the States. For Scandinavia being scarce, that may be partially due to location. I imagine it's too cold to grow most of the entheogenic plants, and I imagine smuggling things in might pose some difficulty to some areas (especially those farther up North). Whereas in the States, we have two countries who export a lot of pot on our borders, and a lot people with at least some knowledge of organic chemistry.
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When I was 17 I spent a month doing Dramamine on enough of a regular basis. For a year after that while abstaining from everything except tabacco I'd still regularly have visual hullicanations where if I was turning my head I'd get a visual effect that the closest description I can think of is when you're scrolling down looking at an image file that's still loading and there would be this jumps of lag in my head. Later on when I tried mushrooms of some variety I had what must have been just a small dose of the mushrooms themselves and smoked a fuckton of weed and zoned out playing Super Smash Brothers and the Wind Walker Zelda game for four hours at least.
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I think the most curious thing about my personal reaction to psychedelic drugs is that they have in fact, profoundly influenced my current lack of a real spirituality. This seems to be the exact opposite to every other story I have heard, but when I first began experimenting with them, I was essentially a pagan, I suppose.. My first LSD experience led to me finding a church with that had been left unlocked (unintentionally) and meditating on the altar. It wasn't exactly a moment of clarity or anything so sudden but from that point on I treated subjects of spirituality with great suspicion. This has led to some tensions with other friends who become extremely spiritual on psychedelics because I will admit, I am probably frustrating to be around while trying to discover truths about yourself and the world around you because I am extremely cynical and deconstructionist.
The thing is I still get extremely philosophical and I talk about things that would be completely indistinguishable from a lot of religious experiences on drugs, but I become extremely anal about wording. Once I was trying to describe what I would essentially call Chi, and my friend suggested 'energy' and I told him that was not the right word and got very angry about it towards him. This was immediately followed by us both leaving the room and going elsewhere.
About half an hour later we both found each other on the roof of the nearby shops with an incredible view of the city, by sheer coincidence. We'd both gone up there and we had a massive D&M which really cemented our friendship, and has made him my best tripping buddy to this day. This was on a lot of mushrooms, I believe.
I become very focused by and fascinated by language on psychedelics, but particularly LSD. Its the reason I decided to major in Linguistics at uni actually. Semantic and grammatic rules on what sounds right and what doesn't become fascinating to me and I am always attempting to experiment with them, usually with me sounding like a spoken word version of Finnigans Wake.
I think the most productive use of psychedelics isn't actually spiritual at all (I am not attempting to denigrate the use of psychedelics for spiritual purposes, mind you, its just I have the opposite reaction), its interpersonal and psychological. While the average description of at least the more intense parts of an acid trip includes the term 'Ego-Dissolution' I typically have the exact opposite, although I have had a MDMA/Mushrooms experience that had this effect. Anyway, usually I go into intense psychological introspection and start to look at my neuroses and examine them, giving myself a kind of self-psychotherapy. The thing about this is it doesn't allow you fix any of the problems, it just gives me the ability to peel back the layers of denial that cover them up and observe them. I've had varying success with actually treating these problems later once i've identified them. At times I have managed to, over the course of time, use this information to soberly help my psychological development, but at other times I haven't been able to do anything about them and the fact that i was so powerless to help myself actually arguably made myself worse for a time.
In my interpersonal relationships I find the sheer honesty involved tends to have some interesting effects. MDMA is obviously the staple for this, but the other psychedelics tend to do quite well for this. The reactions to people that I've had these experiences with vary in ways I doubt I would have predicted. Some of the most open people I know have found the experience to be awkward to integrate into our friendship after the effects wear off, and some of the most closed off, emotionally isolated people have become very close to me as a result.
I actually really enjoy the disturbing, schizophrenic trips that seem to pop up time and time again. I certainly am not acting like I am at the time, but whenever they happen, I wind up coming to the realisation a few days later that it is because of conflicts I have in my everyday life, that i need to resolve to shake that terrified feeling you have for a day or two after a bad trip. Sometimes I will deliberately take LSD when I am in a bad emotional state because I'm just not sure what the hell is up with me and I want to find out.
However I think my favourite thing about psychedelics in general is the less insightful part of it. I like the fact that I explore and try interesting new things on psychedelics that I would never even think of doing in my everyday life. On one notorious occasion I saw a really interesting looking house and knocked on the door and asked the person who answered the door if they knew how interesting their house looked. He was actually incredibly pleased to see a barely coherent person compliment them on their house and I was actually invited in for a cup of coffee, and we chatted about his massive collection of books for a while before I left. I've found interesting places in my city that you'd never know exist just walking around on the streets, fascinating little sections of town, little bars and restaurants behind doors you'd never give a second glance to.
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i have a pretty interesting text file from some friends and i frying on mushrooms awhile back. basically, i tried to type up everything that was being said around me but, due to my state, couldn't keep up.
i'll try to find the file so you guys can read it. it's definitely good for laughs.
EDIT: my name is Danny, by the way.
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Wow ... Hat, you basically just wrote the post that I would've written on this thread two years ago. The relationship you describe yourself having with psychedelics is very familiar to me. When I started to take psychedelics, the approach I most often took was to play devil's advocate to every worldview or philosophical perspective I could. I also became extremely exacting when it came to the use of language, and I often found myself unwilling to say things that I did not have perfectly accurate vocabulary for.
What you have to say about having a response to LSD that is "the opposite of ego-dissolution," though, is really interesting to me. See, your accounts describe many of my early LSD experiences perfectly, but I look back now and see those experiences as very clearly being experiences of ego-dissolution. The fact that my ego was the object of my attention did not mean it was not dissolving ... in fact, your description of getting the clearer picture of your own psyche, and doing self-psychotherapy of sorts, is exactly what I would call a classic ego-dissolution experience, because I believe that gaining a more clear consciousness of yourself, and eliminating the very existence of yourself, are one and the same thing. Basically, the act of isolating and identifying a neurosis or addiction, even if you don't go on to eliminate it, is still an act of separating that aspect of your ego from what you consider to be your true self, making that concept of your "true self" smaller. Eventually, any person should theoretically be able to rid themselves of all the baggage that they carry around and call "themselves" ... and I would say that having the experience of figuratively looking down and seeing that you're carrying it is a step in the direction of dropping it.
To be honest, having your ego fully dissolve despite not having noticed all the baggage you're carrying around is an incredibly disorienting experience, and not one that is likely to be particularly useful or interpretable. My first experience of complete ego loss happened before I'd even started to really ask important questions about myself while tripping, and it made absolutely no sense to me and I didn't even realize what had happened until years later (the second time I took mushrooms, I ended up being forced to go to bed at the peak of it, and ended up losing all concepts of time, space, identity, etc. ... except I didn't understand that this was what was happening, so it was just infinitely confusing, and the only reason I wasn't terrified out of my mind was that I wasn't coherent enough to understand that there was anything weird going on. If you'd asked me about it then, I would've said "I had an ego-loss experience," but I would've been guessing.)
This is actually why I made the points that I did towards RedLion earlier in the thread about meditation being a more important factor than drug use ... the process of successfully asking questions about yourself doesn't require drug use (even if drug use often prompts it or speeds it up), but drug use, in order to be more than "recreational" experience (which is a term I hate to use because the process of "recreation" is in fact an incredibly important one in my opinion) very much needs it.
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In case anyone forget the first time and second time I said my name, it's Sean.
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Yeah, onewheel, that's exactly why I tend to put a bigger emphasis on zen and mindfulness meditation, because when I take LSD without having dealt with underlying anxieties and tensions that I have, they tend to pop up. It doesn't necessarily cause a "bad trip," but it actually winds up pulling me back into petty things, rather than expanding my focus. I don't really know how to word this in any other way: I'm a very sensitive person. I've proven to myself and to others my ability to get through just about anything and everything, and it's impossible for me to hold a grudge or sit for hours ruminating on bad possibilities, but the things I feel, I feel very, very deeply. And so when I'm upset or worried about something deep down inside, even if I'm not consciously acknowledging it, it manifests itself in my hallucinations.
Meditation has often had the effect of...how to describe it...it's like a soft, ethereal light that gently enters into me and purges me entirely of those things. It's all dependent on the mind, and the ability to..eh. Damn. Meditating is hard to describe. Because it's not about "taming" the mind. The opposite in fact. I guess, I prefer meditation because it attunes me to the interconnectedness of all existence, the beauty of this, of existence, while also gently soothing away the pains, both emotional and physical, within me.
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it's like a soft, ethereal light that gently enters into me and purges me entirely of those things.
This is literally, almost verbatim, the way I have consistently described my more recent MDMA experiences. It feels as if the entity I usually call "myself" has been melted away in the heat of a bright, warm light that flows from within me out towards any object or person I interact with. I no longer act under any sort of pretense ... all of my actions are entirely honest and heartfelt, because they're not mine, instead they're expressions of this light that pervades me. My body acts as a channel for this light to flow through, instead of being a static container for my neuroses, addictions, and general hang-ups.
In fact, reading your post and inserting the word "drugs" for "meditation" in the second paragraph is a pretty perfectly accurate description of how I've felt about them over the past 6 months to a year or so.
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A bit of topic; but there's something that intrigues me. Every time I visit America-based forum boards with (mostly) american posters, there's always a LOT of people that does/has done drugs. I don't know if it's me who just hang out with the wrong people, or if it's a cultural thing, but that's not even close to the state of things here in Norway. People drink a lot, but drugs are pretty rare.
Is there a lot of drugs amoung young people (the 16-25ish) in the USA? How comon is drugs in your local area?
perhaps it is the culture also, afterall, americans have been using heavy drugs for 50 years now at least. as for me, i first started in highschool but didn't get into the more "serious" drugs until college. i'd say college was the gate-opener for me.
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I don't think there is any more of a drugs culture in the US than anywhere else. It's probably just a function of the US bias on the forums - more USians means more who admit to taking drugs. I know that, in my experience, almost everyone I know takes drugs. Maybe this is also a function of bias? Am I likely to be friends with this sort of people because they are similar to me, even if our first experiences were long after we met? Who knows.
My psychedelic experiences have been... weird. I would almost say they have been all good, but that is not entirely true. I would certainly not advise one's first experience with LSD to be hungover, for example, and bring some comedown material. Some hash would have been nice for the comedown, as I got into a self-reinforcing loop of wanting it to be over which made me feel shit and uncomfortable. Also, it's pretty much the only time I've ever felt uncomfortable around my ex. Nonetheless, I can completely see what people say about the potential for spiritual development or whatever after use - I've certainly noticed a change for the better, more organisation, more determination, and a firm commitment to keeping my house tidy. It's less strong now, but it definitely existed.
Salvia stories can be amazing. Things always seem to take on a fairytale nature with me - colours are vibrant, there are castles, roads, etc. The first time, every angle in the world turned into these creatures called Skellingnaughts, which were a cross between Hungry Hungry Hippos and crocodiles. What I liked most, however, was that, when I started to feel uncomfortable, I was able to find company and bring myself out of the hallucination (although, on reflection, this may have been because it was a weak dose, I don't know).
I'm still more of a person to use things for enjoyment rather than spiritual development, though.
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On a related note, I had my wisdom teeth out this morning. That anesthetic was rad, I should take some to parties.
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I jsut recently got the most recent MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) newsletter, and it's all about the links between psychedelics and technology. There's some crazy shit in here.
For instance, there's an article by a woman who took psychedelics while wring a novel about a language with 27 glyph characters to it, and in order to develop this idea, tripped into the very fictional universe she was creating through writing, and promptly had to decipher the very language she was inventing. Here's the article, it's really interesting (http://mazerunner.wordpress.com/2008/02/15/how-i-became-a-xenolinguist/). I'm not sure I understand it but it sounds really cool.
There's a short article by a computer programmer who took LSD to help him solve a problem for IBM back in 1975. Apparently he took it to "fit the entire program into his mind at once" and the notes he took while he was tripping didn't make sense to him after he came down, but he followed his own instructions despite not fully understanding them or knowing they would work, and they did and he made a lot of money.
There's an article in here by a computer graphic artist who has been working in the medium since the early 80's. He writes that when digital video editing first came out, he was in a phase of heavy ketamine experimentation, and as he learned to use a computer to manipulate an image, he also learned to do so with his own visual field. Apparently, once he learned how to on ketamine, he was basically able to hallucinate any visual effect (patterns, colors, tracers, multiple images, etc.) whenever he wanted in normal waking consciousness.
That's three out of something like 20 articles, and none of them are remotely limited to the points I just excerpted from them. The MAPS bulletin is a hell of a resource for anyone who wants to know about this kind of stuff. Of course, you have to join the organization and give them a bit of money in order to subscribe to it, but MAPS membership is not expensive, the money goes to a good place, and of course the booklet that shows up at your house three or four times a year is invariably really, really, really interesting.
Or you could read it on the internet! But you should give MAPS money either way.
Here is what I am talking about:
http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v18n1/index.html
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Hey, thanks for that link, I never knew that group existed.
Coincidentally, a friend of mine just sent me an email with this quote:
"Would I have invented PCR if I hadn't taken LSD? I seriously doubt it. I could sit on a DNA molecule and watch the polymers go by. I learnt that partly on psychedelic drugs."
-Kary Mullis, Nobel price-winning developer of the polymerase chain-reaction (PCR), which has pretty much formed the basis of most molecular biology and genetics for the last 20 years.
There's also a great New Scientist article on the possibilities of science using different states of consciousness, I'll see if I can dig it up. It's a good read.
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This derails the thread a bit, but it is quite interesting http://hellarity.org/try/drugs.php Its better than a lot of those shitty tests out there and the results were surprising. My drug of choice is usually cannabis or alcohol but they both scored the lowest. It tells me that I should try LSD, Mushrooms and MDMA with other drugs being about average. I've never thought of myself as an ecstasy person before.
Back on track. I've never tried any "hardcore" psychedelics before. I've smoked salvia, but just normal strength from a joint which had no effect. I've eaten a couple of mushrooms but not enough to do anything. I would like to try lsd but the stories I've heard of people having bad trips that fuck them up have kind of put me off. I really want to try mushrooms properly, which I think I will this year. I know loads of spots to pick them in and i'm going to Amsterdam in July so i might try some then. I've heard a lot of people say they have had life changing experiences with mushrooms and there is no long lasting health effects?
Psychedelic recommendations please?
The New Scientist is an excellent magazine. I have a subscription to it, there was an excellent article on legal highs as well.
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Your Scores
Alcohol: 625
Marijuana: 550
LSD: 1525
MDMA: 1350
Mushrooms: 825
Salvia: 400
Heroin: 325
Cocaine: 375
Definitely gonna skip the last two anyway. I find it a bit odd that I should enjoy being drunk more than being high, because I don't.
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This is a very interesting thread, thank you for starting it Onewheelwizzard. I have always been incredibly curious about psychadelic usage and would love to experience it for myself someday, but will most likely never get around to it. I enjoy reading about other peoples' experiences, though.
That test was pretty funny. I got a -50 for cocaine. Run, run far away from the cocaines! (Which I have, actually, since I have a heart murmur.)
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My results were pretty shocking, I'm a bit of a stoner but pot got the lowest score. LSD got the highest and I've never tried it.
Lots of these experiences with salvia sound pretty bad, I've tried it a few times, twice I blacked out the experience, though friends report I was just looking around and picking up objects. The last time I tried it was crazy, at first it was a bit physically painful, it felt like I was getting sucked into the floor. The hallucinations were so vivid that I no longer had any clue what was going on, it felt like it lasted a long time, but it couldnt have been more than a few minutes. Everything just kept repeating itself, and I felt like fluid energy connected to everything. I started freaking out but my friends really calmed me down, they just kept saying "roll with it". Focusing on their faces helped to pull me back to reality. I find that sitting down on salvia is what was causing that often reported feeling of being sucked into the floor. Once I stood up it was pretty fun, things were facinating to look at, it was like seeing their energy. I would do it again for sure, but not necessarily recommend it, considering I know so many people who've had bad trips, there is also the physical pain, but its pretty temporary. A wave, I think it was worth it.
I've tried mdma, pressed e, and mushrooms, all with good experiences. My first time trying mushrooms I thought I was dying, my friend even called 911. Thats a bit of a humiliating story, but it didnt discourage me from trying them again. Everytime I do them though, in the begining stages, I get this feeling like I'm dying, its not painful or anything, just a feeling. Probably because I'm poisening myself.
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This derails the thread a bit, but it is quite interesting http://hellarity.org/try/drugs.php Its better than a lot of those shitty tests out there and the results were surprising. My drug of choice is usually cannabis or alcohol but they both scored the lowest. It tells me that I should try LSD, Mushrooms and MDMA with other drugs being about average. I've never thought of myself as an ecstasy person before.
Back on track. I've never tried any "hardcore" psychedelics before. I've smoked salvia, but just normal strength from a joint which had no effect. I've eaten a couple of mushrooms but not enough to do anything. I would like to try lsd but the stories I've heard of people having bad trips that fuck them up have kind of put me off. I really want to try mushrooms properly, which I think I will this year. I know loads of spots to pick them in and i'm going to Amsterdam in July so i might try some then. I've heard a lot of people say they have had life changing experiences with mushrooms and there is no long lasting health effects?
Psychedelic recommendations please?
If you're at all interested in trying shrooms, I would say go for it. Be careful if you're picking them yourself, though. You'd probably enjoy LSD, bad trips aren't really typical, and they also happen to people who do shrooms.
I'd start with maybe 2.5 grams of dried shrooms (I have no idea what that amounts to fresh) or one geltab of LSD.
But a brief word on how the two differ. Mushrooms, for me and all my friends at least, are strongly visual. Don't get me wrong, so is LSD, but the manner in which they are visual is differerent. Mushrooms cause you to hallucinate by adding to what you see, whereas LSD kind of takes what is there and manipulates it. For instance, at the peak of a mushroom trip, I cannot read a digital clock, the bars don't form numbers anymore. The carpet looks like a field of grain on a windy day, and cities grow on the legs of my jeans. At the peak of an LSD trip, I will see a chameleon on the wall of a bathroom, as it changes hues; the lines on the ceiling morph into an ocean, and the red dots in my vision become red daisies. Basically, at low doses, you'd be able to function as a sober person moreso on LSD than on shrooms.
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What do you think of growing them? Worth the effort for the turnout?
And what is a good weight estimation for a single P. Cubensis, roughly 2-3 inches long, and the width of my finger?
And And, what are the average prices?
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i would highly recommend growing your own mushrooms. a friend of mine had a little planter in his room and made something like 300% profit from it and that's AFTER taking several 1/8's for himself and friends. but that's probably not typical depending on the type of mushrooms, time of year, region etc.
oh, and also:
LSD: 1925
Mushrooms: 1225
MDMA: 1200
Salvia: 875
Heroin: 700
Alcohol: 675
Cocaine: 525
Marijuana: 250
it's interesting that Pot scored the lowest considering that's the thing i do the most often.
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MDMA: 1550
LSD: 1500
Alcohol: 1025
Mushrooms: 1050
Salvia: 650
Heroin: 525
Cocaine: 475
Marijuana: 200
Weird, seems like pot is scoring low on almost everyone's lists
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Yeah, and psychedelics are at the top for everyones too. Same with me:
LSD: 2000
MDMA: 1600
Mushrooms: 1275
Alcohol: 800
Salvia: 800
Marijuana: 500
Heroin: 250
Cocaine: 325
I'm not really surprised by the results at all, actually. I smoke pot occasionally, but I honestly never enjoy it that much. I love LSD, though I haven't done it in awhile and probably won't for awhile. I'll never do the last two, as I abhor the thought of injecting myself with a needle or snorting things, and I dislike feeling frenzied and manic, so it's no surprise they're at the bottom.
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I reckon LSD is going to be near the very top for just about every list.
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I took this a few hours ago and LSD, shrooms, and MDMA scored highest. Booze and pot were only around 200, and my cocaine was 0 (I take this as a good thing) and I think my heroin was 300 something.
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ledhendrix, a few things.
First off, on the "bad trip" thing ... it is possible for someone to have a "bad trip" that actually damages them, so to speak. However, this is also easy to avoid if one approaches the issue with any degree of responsibility and wisdom. A psychedelic experience can be traumatic (and therefore damaging) as a result of a few things, but barring any unexpected catastrophes happening while the trip is going on (basically anything that's really really scary or hurtful and would be regardless of any drug influence), the only way a person can damage themselves with psychedelics is by abusing them pretty flagrantly, and that's easy to avoid if you have even the slightest motivation to do so (that is to say, an inkling of respect for yourself).
I was going to go on with a few miscellaneous tips but I figure this is as good of a time as any to go all out and draw up a guide to first-time tripping.
Dosages for first times:
1 hit of LSD
1.7-2.4 grams (1/16th - 1/12th ounce) dried mushrooms
GROUND RULES:
1. Cars are REAL.
2. Fire BURNS.
3. You CANNOT fly.
4. Trust your friends. (This is of course only applicable in situations where your friends are trustworthy. If they are not, do not take drugs with them.)
Things to gravitate towards:
1. Your favorite music, art, media, etc. ... basically, anything that is an expression of beauty and/or creativity, and that you consider to be particularly pleasant/enjoyable/meaningful, is probably going to be a good thing to have around.
2. Outdoor green spaces, places with a lot of life. Nearby state parks are great (make sure you're familiar with the law enforcement situation and local bylaws, of course, don't want to be picked up by cops late at night for something as simple as trespassing). This also lowers the chance of being forced into uncomfortable interactions with strangers.
3. Familiar settings that have pleasant memories associated with them, or generally supportive overtones. It's good to feel safe and at home sometimes.
4. Relative calm and quiet is probably a plus, unless you get off on overstimulation. Having the capacity to focus yourself on something intently can be important.
5. Opportunities for free play and exploration in general are basically optimal for tripping, especially first-time tripping.
Things to avoid:
1. Strangers, and crowds, especially crowds of strangers. You don't want to have to deal with that.
2. Authority figures such as parents, professors, cops (obviously), and anyone else who really should not know that you have taken psychedelics. This is a no-brainer.
3. Alcohol in general. You don't want to be drunk during your first trip (in my opinion, at least, it's a really bad idea), you definitely don't want to be drunk when you make the decision to trip for the first time, and you probably don't really want to hang out with drunk people very much, they're not likely to be very interesting or fun to hang out with. Alcohol and psychedelics don't really mix too well, either in a single person's brain or in a more broad social situation. (By the same token, painkillers, sedatives, anti-anxiety drugs, and pharmaceuticals of various stripes are probably to be avoided as well.)
4. Any situation in which you feel useless, helpless, or otherwise disempowered. This means don't hang around people embroiled in personal dramas (and, of course, don't be embroiled in drama yourself), don't go to anyone's house if you don't trust and like them, don't stick around groups that are doing things you're not into, that sort of thing. You really want to have the ability to do something entirely new and different if at any point your experience seems to be getting unpleasant or even just lackluster. Don't ever put yourself in a position where your hands are tied or you're forced into a claustrophobic situation for any amount of time.
It's all pretty intuitive, really. Do things you like to do, don't do things you don't like to do, and keep yourself open. It's vitally important to be honest with yourself and with others, or else you'll run yourself into a lot of really unpleasant situations. You don't want to go along with something you don't really want to do because your friends are doing it, and you don't want anyone around you to feel pressured to do so either. Look out for your friends.
Oh, and on that note, don't take drugs for the first time unless a good friend of yours is hanging out relatively sober. Once you get a feel for psychedelia, the sober sitter becomes less necessary, but for the first time it's pretty important.
Other miscellaneous tips:
-Turn your phone off. Don't want any calls from the wrong people.
-Don't put more than one or two things into each pocket, or else you're going to have a lot of trouble finding anything.
-Be sure you've got not a lot to do the next day, especially if you're going to consume your drugs after mid-afternoon.
-Tell stories! Tell the story of what's happening to you as it happens, even! Once me and my friend took a lot of drugs and explored some train tracks and we ended up finding a weather machine and an abandoned time travel station. Or at least, that was the story that we were telling and developing as we went along, and tripping in a story that writes itself can be way more fun than tripping in the real world.
-Watch sunrises and sunsets, if the timing is right and you've got a view. Watching a sunrise or a sunset on psychedelics is mind-blowing.
I'm sure I'll think of more, I might going back and editing this post over time. Also, I didn't really address MDMA, which isn't quite the same as traditional psychedelics ... I'm sure I'll end up talking about it eventually, though.
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-Don't put more than one or two things into each pocket, or else you're going to have a lot of trouble finding anything.
this made me lol.
- If you're a smoker make sure you have enough cigarrettes so that you dont have to overcome the incredible obstical of trying to purchase something when you're wacky.
-If you intend on enjoying any electronic entertainment be sure that all of the necessary appliances are fully hooked up lest you be faced with that challange later.
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LSD, MDMA, and Mushrooms were my highest on the test.
That said I have never taken any drugs for any sort of recreational or spiritual purposes. The only time I've really had any "mind-altering" drugs was when I got my wisdom teeth pulled. Waking up afterwards was enjoyable, despite (or perhaps partially because of) being at least half asleep. I felt great though.
In addition to that I have been around friends who were smoking pot, but I didn't partake. It was an interesting (and highly entertaining) experience, and it wouldn't too far off to say I had a bit of a contact-high, as almost everything that happened was funny.
Like I said above, I've never taken any drugs, but I am interested. The idea of a different mental state intrigues me. I've done research of LSD and Salvia before, and both sound like both great and horrible ideas at the same time. Having a "spiritual" or otherwise reflective experience intrigues me. All the positive stories sound great, and yet I hear of the negative side-effects. Some say LSD has zero unintended side effects (which I don't believe, everything has side effects) and others say use can result in psychosis, which I'm not interested in. Is it likely that I'll go bat-shit insane after taking LSD? I doubt it. Does the prospect still kinda turn me off to using? Yes.
Salvia sounds like a great experience sometimes, and terrible others. I'm conflicted about this. I've heard from various people that the way to go with Salvia is quid, tea, or cooking with it. Others say the best way to do it is vaporizing it or taking extract. I'd lean towards quid myself (traditionally shamanistic way, seems most natural to me), but I don't really know. When I read positive Salvia stories, they sound amazing. Negative stories sound horrible. Also, other side-effects? Haven't really heard of any, but I doubt there are none. The severity is probably small, but its still a concern of mine.
I'm still not sold on the idea of using, but the whole thing is of great interest to me.
What can you guys tell me about MDMA? Like I said, I scored high for it on that test, and I did read up a bit on Erowid, but I'd like a more personal take on it.
I know a little about shrooms, and onewheelwizzard's latest post has been informative (despite having read most of it before, its still good information to review). If there's anything else to it, I'd love to hear, even if I never decide to take any.
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The key thing with MDMA, really, is to make sure what you're taking is MDMA, and the next big thing is to make sure you drink enough water (2-3 bottles is pretty good). I've only ever done it once, and I took one pill that ended up being caffeine, and half of another that was most certainly MDMA. Not having done it more than once, I don't have much advice in regards to setting or anything, but I do know that some people get a little depressed the day after as a result of the serotonin rush the night before. That can be countered with simple vitamins, which I can't recall the name of. It's on erowid, though.
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I have an interesting perspective on MDMA. See, MDMA is the chemical that has been most heavily researched for use in psychotherapy, and for the longest time I was totally confused by all the attention it was getting. It seemed pointless compared to LSD and psilocybin research ... why would anyone waste their time with a silly dance-party drug (one that can actually cause overdose, and furthermore has lasting neurotoxic effects if heavily abused, at that), when there were infinitely more powerful (and substantially safer) substances sitting right under our noses? I refrained from using it myself for years after I started exploring psychedelics because I didn't see the point ... I considered myself a pretty happy person and didn't want to fuck around with the brain systems that were responsible for that, and I'd heard that MDMA could actually damage your brain.
Then I actually did the research (I wrote a final paper on MDMA neurotoxicity 2 years ago) and discovered that all the research that maligned MDMA as terribly unsafe had been really, really poorly done. The flagship study that condemned MDMA for "putting holes in your brain" (as I'm sure many of you have heard) didn't even use MDMA (they accidentally gave their monkey subjects methamphetamine, which is far more damaging at the same levels of abuse, and to make matters worse is a legally prescribed drug). Furthermore, it was in pretty extensive use among psychotherapists and marital counselors for decades before it was made illegal, so it's clinically viable from a safety perspective. So I figured, if it was actually safe to use in standard single-dose quantities, why not give it a shot?
I had a couple MDMA experiences at dance parties that were quite enjoyable but not exactly groundbreaking. It wasn't until I started taking MDMA in the context of a sexual/romantic relationship that I started to realize what it was actually capable of, and why it was used in psychotherapy for so long.
Picture a person with EXTREMELY difficult personal issues. They can't connect to people, they're unable to function emotionally, they can't trust anyone, they find it impossible to talk about their lives with any degree of openness or confidence, they never seem to feel positive emotion of any kind, etc., etc., etc. We're talking about someone REALLY fucked up. Now picture being their therapist. You've got your job cut out for you, obviously, and you spend months trying to crack this person out of their shell so they can take steps towards happiness and open, honest emotional communication with other people, but their personal difficulties are simply too weighty and they are losing confidence in themselves rapidly and perhaps approaching becoming suicidal.
Now, as their therapist, think about the best possible thing that could happen to that person. It would give them greater insight into their personal emotional difficulties, open them up to feeling more trust towards others so you could explore their emotional state with them, increase their capacity to empathize with others and understand emotional relationships from more perspectives than their own, heighten the sensations they feel physically and make them feel more alive and sensitive and connected to the world around them, and of course heighten their mood, so that not only could they talk about their lives and their troubles with clarity and honesty, but they would feel optimistic enough throughout the therapy session that they would feel as if there was some hope for them, and inspire them to fight more strongly against their inner demons in the future, as well as in a tighter partnership with you, the therapist.
That's exactly what MDMA does. And when normally functioning people take it, it basically elevates them to an entirely supernormal level of emotional clarity, as well as elevating mood and physical sensations. MDMA opens someone up to everything, both within them and around them, and heightens their ability and willingness to trust others and form or enrich emotional connections. And in a very real way, the most fundamental effect of an MDMA experience is love. At this point, in order to explain myself fully, I'd have to go into a long discussion of what I personally believe love to be, and I'm not going to do that right now, but to preempt the reaction I usually get from saying that, I think I need to make the point that the love that a person feels towards others on MDMA is only as synthetic and chemically-derived as they make it. While it can be easy to mistake the surface effects of MDMA (good physical sensations, happy mood, positive emotional bonding, etc.) for love if one is not exactly used to feeling love for others in day-to-day life, anyone who has strong preexisting feelings of love will most likely find that they have never felt it to be so clear and uninhibited and honest as when they're on MDMA. It can be an extraordinarily affecting experience.
Oh, and the first time I took MDMA and had sex, my orgasm lasted for 10 minutes. The effects of MDMA on the emotions might be the reason why people research it, but the effects it has on physical sensation can be crazy intense too. At higher doses it basically feels like your entire body is being given a blowjob.
If you want to take it, I would recommend taking it with a significant other, and setting the intention of exploring your relationship together (sex is also a really good idea). However, I would also recommend that the first time you take MDMA be at a dance party. The affinity it has for dancing and a festive atmosphere is too good to be passed up. In my experience, if you take MDMA at a rave with someone you're falling in love with, it changes your life in ways you wouldn't even dare to hope for.
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i would highly recommend growing your own mushrooms. a friend of mine had a little planter in his room and made something like 300% profit from it and that's AFTER taking several 1/8's for himself and friends. but that's probably not typical depending on the type of mushrooms, time of year, region etc.
Did he use the jar, pressure cooker, brown rice flour, and vermiculite method? Or by "planter", did you mean he just mixed spores with dirt and let them grow?
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good reading, onewheeledwizard. the emotional bonding aspect is great, however the physical sensations and feelings are also fun. I dont really like raves, but there are some "visuals" when you take mdma (your eyes will get squiggly, light trails, etc). also the body sensation is realyl interesting, i think the best way i can describe it is how you feel when you have a fever (except for the feeling like shit part). the sex is also great, although for guys it can be difficult to orgasm sometimes (haven't had a girlfriend say the same thing yet, for most girls it seems to have the opposite effect).
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I've personally found that orgasm is more difficult to achieve the day after (on the comedown) than when you're up. Also, watch out for tightening in your jaw or grinding of teeth, some chewing gum will come in handy - although this may be more of an issue with pills than with crystalline MDMA. Indeed, for a first trip, MDMA is probably a better idea. You're less likely to get something speedy or fake - although getting pills with other stuff in them, or no MDMA, is rare enough in Europe. Finally, don't do it too much. A pill or two (or the equivalent in MDMA) once a month is probably the most that is sensible - I think it takes something like three months for serotonin levels to build up to their previous levels. 5-HTP apparently can help with the comedown. And have fun - getting high on MDMA for the first time was one of the most amazing experiences of my life.
That test is silly, though. Apparently I am nearly three times as likely to enjoy heroin as marijuana, and I think it's probably biased towards LSD for some reason.
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I think MDMA has effected me more than I realised (in a really good way), I recently spent a lot of time thinking about me and I was able to come to some conclusions about my personality, how I want to live my life, etc. I could do without the teeth grinding though.
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man, if i could somehow get ahold of purer/stronger mdma than the stuff that's been circulating around here lately. even the decent ones are pretty tweaky/speedy. wouldn't even know how to get that
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i would highly recommend growing your own mushrooms. a friend of mine had a little planter in his room and made something like 300% profit from it and that's AFTER taking several 1/8's for himself and friends. but that's probably not typical depending on the type of mushrooms, time of year, region etc.
Did he use the jar, pressure cooker, brown rice flour, and vermiculite method? Or by "planter", did you mean he just mixed spores with dirt and let them grow?
Yeah, it was pretty much a wooden box with dirt in it. Nothing fancy here.
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man, if i could somehow get ahold of purer/stronger mdma than the stuff that's been circulating around here lately. even the decent ones are pretty tweaky/speedy. wouldn't even know how to get that
Speedy rolls are the best, take 3 and go dancing.
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The only time I ever took a speedy roll was also the only time I ever felt as if I had done something seriously unhealthy ... I was really overheated and tooth-grindy and I had to take a break for a while. But then, I hardly ever take stimulants so I'm probably really sensitive to the difference. Also, if you're going to take 3 of anything you should probably space it out over the course of at least 3-4 hours.
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Yeah, it was pretty much a wooden box with dirt in it. Nothing fancy here.
And he didn't sterilize anything, or inoculate sterile substrate then mix it in? He literally just dumped in liquid spores, and left it alone?
That's interesting. All my buddy's go through a really length process of sterilizing substrate, jars, themselves, and the room it's to be done in. Then they inoculate the Sterile jars and substrate, let micillium grow, then fruit it.
Your way sounds easier.
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anyone ever aken bzp? how did it affect you? i took it, and nothing happened
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man, if i could somehow get ahold of purer/stronger mdma than the stuff that's been circulating around here lately. even the decent ones are pretty tweaky/speedy. wouldn't even know how to get that
Speedy rolls are the best, take 3 and go dancing.
Yeah usually we double it at the beginning and then work it out from there...the come down is so much worse than what "pure" or stronger mdma's comedown sounds like. that's why i'm not too hyped on them.
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Yeah, it was pretty much a wooden box with dirt in it. Nothing fancy here.
And he didn't sterilize anything, or inoculate sterile substrate then mix it in? He literally just dumped in liquid spores, and left it alone?
That's interesting. All my buddy's go through a really length process of sterilizing substrate, jars, themselves, and the room it's to be done in. Then they inoculate the Sterile jars and substrate, let micillium grow, then fruit it.
Your way sounds easier.
as far as i know, he pretty much just treated it like a regular indoor herb garden, like the kind you would grow basil in in your kitchen or whatever. i don't know about any of that stuff you mentioned but that sounds really unecessary...i mean...mushrooms are a fungus...sterility is not something they typically thrive on.
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Why would you treat growing mushrooms that you're going to take for psychedelic purposes differently to mushrooms you're growing to put in omlettes? That seems a bit ludicrous.
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Actually I expect that putting psychedelic mushrooms into an omlette would be a really delicious idea! I do know that they're significantly easier to eat fresh to begin with.
I'm personally not an expert on mushroom cultivation but from what I understand, mushroom mycelium is easily contaminated by bacteria that feed on it. Sterilization is an important first step to cultivating mushrooms and it's the hardest step by far. Contamination of the mycelium means no mushroom fruiting. I expect that if you just put spores into a box of dirt, you'd run a very high risk of failure.
In other news, I've been outraged over our country's drug policy for a while but I've never seen the idiocy concentrated as strongly as it is here:
http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/dll/mdma_scheduling_history.htm
The story of how MDMA became illegal. It's shockingly ridiculous. If you're not outraged, you don't understand what's at stake and what kind of dirty tricks had to be pulled in order to undermine the medical establishment.
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Generally, obtaining fruiting bodies (mushrooms) from mycelium also requires fairly specific temperatures and humidity, which is why some methods use an enclosed container- this increases humidity. And sterilisation/aseptic inoculation is always a good idea, as there's always competition from other fungi and bacteria for the substrate you're growing on.
The more enjoyable way to do it is to go picking yourself with friends, but you need to make bloody sure that you know what you're doing. Eating the wrong type of 'shroom can kill you. Personally, I don't eat anything, psychadelic or otherwise, until I've taken a decent spore print, and keyed it out with an ID book.
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Actually I expect that putting psychedelic mushrooms into an omlette would be a really delicious idea! I do know that they're significantly easier to eat fresh to begin with.
The heat would probably denature the active compounds.
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Well yeah, but you can still make the omelet/pizza/soup first and add the mushrooms when you eat it. The taste of pure mushroom isn't very pleasant. At least, this is what my friends and I usually do.
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Pizza is good. I like eating it with yogurt because it seems to coat the stomach, I never seem to get the same gut rot when I consume them this way. A friend once told me that dairy products can negate the effects of mushrooms, but I've still gotten high the times I've tried it.
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The one time I did, we ate them on 3 cheeseburgers and one chicken sandwich. I think too much dairy can negate, but that cheeseburger was all the dairy I had that day, and I was going pretty hard.
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This is quite an interesting thread. I had but a single experience with psychedelics, 'shrooms to be specific. I believe it fits the definition of a "bad trip", but i am getting ahead of myself. Here goes the story:
To contextualize, well first of all, i was 15 years old. Second, i was quite angry/disappointed due to girlfriend drama :roll:. Third, it was during the month of November, which happen to be fairly cold in Canada. Fourth, we did the trip at night. And finally, i was going to do this trip with someone (My cousin. which now resides in a mental institution :-o) i definitively did not trust, in his car.
As of today, i would say, just by looking at this setup that it could not bode well. It was bound by Murphy's law to fail. But back then, it did not seem like a biggie.
I cannot say that i remember all that happened perfectly, since it was 5 years ago. I believe my cousin had bought 6 to 8 grams of 'shrooms, which we "evenly" split.
About 30 minutes after eating them, i clearly remember telling my cousin: "You know, i really think those have no effect on me." How foolish was i...
At this point, everything is a blur. I can remember sitting calmly in the passenger seat of my cousin's car, listening to some Stevie Ray Vaughn. Then i noticed that the car was actually moving. My cousin had decided, out of the blue, to drive us to, and i quote: "Somewhere else". I don't know if it was the drug, or myself not trusting him, or a mix of both, but i said to myself: "Dude, we're totally gonna have a car accident." And that is when the trip started going downhill. To this day, i can not recall any experience half this frightening. He drove us to the next town, which is about 16 km away from where we started our trip. At this point, i was shaking on my seat and sweating more than ever. Every shadow, every movement seemed like some impending doom waiting to fall on me. I'm not certain of what happened after that. When i regained some form of consciousness, we were back to where we had started the trip. As if we had never moved.
I was trying to ask my cousin whether we did move or not, but somehow, i wasn't able to form a coherent sentence. After that i have another memory blur, then i recall getting out of the car, in the cold night, and sitting under a tree to talk to it. It made perfect sense back then, talking to the tree. Another memory crash, and i was alone in my room, sitting on the edge of my bed. I remember trying to turn on the TV, but for some reason, the TV would not allow me to ( I found out the day after that we had a power failure during the night). After what seemed like an eternity, i finally managed to get to sleep, and woke up sane the next morning.
I must say that i do not regret taking the drug; i regret taking it under those circumstances. The beginning of the trip was awesome, but it ended like a nightmare. Actually, it is one one the few thing that really scares me nowadays. I don't think i could even try it a second time without going totally insane.
I definitively don't want to scare people away from trying it, but if i can give a word of advice, do those kind of drugs in a controlled environment, with trustable people.
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Well yeah, but you can still make the omelet/pizza/soup first and add the mushrooms when you eat it. The taste of pure mushroom isn't very pleasant. At least, this is what my friends and I usually do.
I've only eaten dried mushrooms and they basically taste like dirt. Not awful, but dry and ashy. I think the best way is to just follow it with a glass of water and cheeseburger.
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With schrooms, i've eaten them with chicken nuggets with bbq sauce. i've tried it on cheeseburgers. i've also blended it into a ice slushie thing. i've put it on mango sorbet (grinded/blended). they all seem to work fine.
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I do not understand the big hubub about eating mushrooms. They taste fine, and its fun to eat them.