Flickering Signs of Life

DOSE: T+ 0:00 35 g oral Cacti - T. pachanoi (dried) T+ 0:47 200 mg oral Mescaline
T+ 1:58 3 hits smoked Cannabis
T+ 1:58 3 hits smoked Damiana
T+ 1:58 3 hits smoked Leonotis nepetifolia
T+ 2:16 400 ug insufflated 25C-NBOMe
T+ 3:35 1 glass oral Alcohol - Beer/Wine
T+ 4:45 3 hits smoked Cannabis
T+ 4:45 3 hits smoked Damiana
T+ 4:45 3 hits smoked Leonotis nepetifolia
T+ 12:09 150 mg oral Harmaline (pill / tablet) T+ 12:09 50 mg oral DMT (pill / tablet)

       BODY WEIGHT:
   200 lb
     

DOSES:

T+00:00 7g - oral - Trichocereus pachanoi extract (made from 35g dried skin chips)

T+00:47 200mg - oral - Mescaline sulphate

T+01:58 2-3 tokes - smoked - cannabis joint (50% cannabis, 30% damiana, 20% Leonotis nepetifolia)

T+02:16 400ug - nasal spray - 25C-NBOMe

T+04:45 2-3 tokes - smoked - cannabis joint (50% cannabis, 30% damiana, 20% Leonotis nepetifolia)

T+12:09 1 pill - oral - pharmahuasca pill - exact content unknown, probably 150mg harmaline+50mg DMT

WHO I AM

I am a 41 year old male with a few experiences under my belt, including psylocibe mushrooms, San Pedro/Peruvian torch cactus, DMT, LSD, 2CB, some NBOMe compounds, MDMA and more. I use no prescription drugs on a regular basis, and I avoid even OTC meds like aspirin unless I have real need.

PREFACE

I've had most of my psychedelic trips either in male-only company or more rarely alone, so I had been looking for this for a long time: a female psychonaut to accompany me on a spiritual adventure. My present date (not really a GF but definitely a significant other and glove-fitting sex partner) only uses caffeine and nicotine - she won't touch even alcohol or cannabis, so I warned her that I'd embark on a mind journey with someone else when the right opportunity presented itself. And soon it did. This girl Ariadne has been an acquaintance of mine for some time, but only recently did we get to talk intimately enough for me to figure out she'd be willing to partake. As soon as I realized that, I started planning (I never trip casually) and a few months later the perfect occasion was ripe.

CHOICE OF SUBSTANCES

My preferred psychedelics are probably LSD, mescaline and DMT. I'd had a very good LSD experience a couple of weeks earlier, and so had she. Then for the sake of variety I ruled out LSD. She'd never tasted either mescaline or DMT, so it will be one of the two. However, we are setting aside a whole day for the experience, and furthermore we'll stay the night for added comfort and chill out time. In such a context, the short duration of DMT is less of a bonus, and this makes me lean towards mescaline. Besides, DMT sometimes has a scary, anxious feeling on liftoff, and I want Ariadne to have a peaceful, easy trip, so my decision is made: mescaline it is.

However, I've tripped on mescaline a few times already, and I want something new too. I'd read about the beautiful complementarity of receptor affinity between mescaline and the NBOMe family of molecules. I've tried 25-C and 25-I, but never their combination with mescaline. After researching the trip reports, I make up my mind and choose 25-C over 25-I, as the former is a little less stimulant than the latter, so I guess it will probably make for a more balanced combo with mescaline, which is a fairly effective stimulant.

PREPARATION

I'm about 200 lbs, while Ariadne weighs more or less 120. She's only experienced a couple LSD and mushroom trips before. The night before the journey, I weigh slightly different mescaline doses for the two of us - not proportional to body weight, but somewhat scaled down for her. As for 25C-NBOMe, I use preset doses because it's impossible for me to be accurate in the sub-milligram range.

I pack everything as incospicuously as I can and also include some possibly useful goodies - a few pre-rolled joints to be used in case of nausea (mescaline can produce nausea in the first couple of hours), and a few extras for good measure. Some of the extras were used as planned, some weren't and are available for future consumption.

SET AND SETTING

My choice of place was Bob's farm. Bob is a friend of mine who got fed up with his suit-and-tie job and moved to the countryside. He grows organic vegetables with the synergistic garden technique, has a dog, a horse and a few cats and looks like a hippy. He would like to run his place like a commune. Maybe he actually is a hippy after all. At the moment, it's him and a couple other people. Helpers come, stay some time and go. Then they return. Anyone can go there and stay a few days, eat, sleep, whatever. In exchange, you can either lend a hand in running the farm or contribute a reasonable amount if you feel like it. So the place has a mixed farm/country guest house character with a special magic that makes it perfect for a trip without any negative feeling.

I've been there on several occasions before - parties, dinners, informal concerts - the atmosphere and the people I find there are always just right. Last New Year's Eve I stayed there 3 days and tripped my balls off, another story...I digress. Maybe I'll write that story some other time.

My mindset is extremely positive, filled with sweet expectation. I know and trust the place. I see Ariadne is in a similar positive, expecting mood. She trusts my judgement regarding place, substances and dosage. I'm sure everything will be all right.

THE TRIP

• T+00:00 = 17:35. On the way to Bob's farm, we stop 10 minutes before arriving. We ingest my homemade cactus extract. I had prepared it by boiling some dried Trichocereus pachanoi (San Pedro) outer skin chips in acidified water and evaporating the resulting liquid to obtain a sweet-smelling, bitter tar. I've noted down the weight of plant material and the weight of the resulting tar, so I know how much plant material we are ingesting. It's the equivalent of 35g dry cactus material for me, 25 g for Ariadne (7g and 5g extract respectively). In my opinion, the most effective way to swallow this sticky, bitter stuff is to roll it up into small balls and wrap them up in baking paper, then parachute the wraps as if they were large tablets. Ariadne is excited because this is 'natural' stuff I cooked myself. I'm not a believer in the 'natural' gospel: hemlock, amanita phalloides and rattlesnakes are as natural as anything but they'll kill you. However, I refrain from lecturing Ariadne about this. I don't want to break the intimate bond we are forming.

I know it's not advisable to drive while tripping and never do, but I know the onset time of my own extract from experience, and it will be at least an hour before I start to feel anything at all - and a couple of hours before driving can get anywhere close to uncomfortable. In 10 minutes we arrive at Bob's. I acquaint Bob and Ariadne, and get acquainted with Colin, the only helper present at the farm. He's a professional cook and a good handyman. Quite a nice guy, I like him straight away.

Ariadne wants to write down everything we're ingesting. I admire her serious, analytical approach. She's never heard of trip reports, let alone read one, but she's in the right mind frame. She asks me to take notes for her too, because she doesn't know much about compound names and similar technical matters. She hands me her notebook, full of personal writings. I am taking notes for myself (I always do) in my own notebook, so I write everything in duplicate throughout the whole experience. I tell her I've split the mescaline in 2 doses to minimize potential discomfort, so we're in for a second dose soon. Meanwhile we chat with Bob and Colin.

• T+00:47 = 18:22. Three quarters of an hour after we first dosed, Bob is off to tend the horses. Time to redose. I still don't feel anything, and neither does Ariadne. I take 200 mg of synthetic mescaline sulphate, and give 175mg to Ariadne. I have already experimented that 350 mg of mescaline sulphate (equivalent to 320 mescaline HCl) give me no more than an average strength trip. I estimate my 35 g of dry cactus to be roughly equivalent to 50-60 mg mescaline (plus other alkaloids), so the total mescaline alone (roughly 250-260 mg) would not be enough for me to have the +++ trip I am aiming at. However, later there's going to be 25C-NBOMe too, and I like to stay on the safe side of dosage, especially if someone else is involved.

• T+01:25 = 19:00. Some small effects are beginning. This always happens to me with most phenethylamines (and with LSD too): a kind of tension in some muscles and joints, not entirely - but mostly - pleasant. As usual, it is located in the right shoulder and the right triceps. Much less in the right knee. Nothing at all in the left side of my body. For the record, I'm right-handed. No mental effects yet, with the possible exception of what I feel like a pleasant, eager expectation and possibly a very slight color enhancement. Is my mind making it up, or is it the real thing coming up? Still less than '+'on the Shulgin scale anyway: there is still a margin for doubt. Ariadne and I spend time walking in and out of the farmhouse; not aimlessy but leisurely. We chat, talk about interesting chemicals, about love and about art. She shows me a visual diary she's been keeping for just under a year - a frame each day, drawn in black ink. The neatly hand-drawn frames are lined up in a tidy, lovely way. There are recurring patterns, easily interpreted stories and cryptic symbols. We take a walk to the stable, still under construction. We admire the horses (there is another horse beside Bob's). We watch the varied palette of green hues before our eyes down in the valley and on the rolling hills. On a second thought, maybe mescaline is starting to kick in.

• T+01:56 = 19:31. My notebook says '+'. Which means I have no more doubt that something is indeed happening. Bob asks me if I have pot. I take one of my pre-rolled joints and let him light it. He asks if I can bring him some weed next time. I say I'll see what I can do but can't promise. The joint is mostly shared between Bob and Ariadne. I have no desire to smoke cannabis right now. I wouldn't mind a beer, but I refrain from asking. Ariadne looks very happy. I ask her 'how do you feel?', and she confirms 'wonderful'. She's smiling all the time. I'm alright, but I think I have a serious look on my face. My dominant feeling is serenity mixed with restless expectation, which sounds a bit paradoxical but that's how I feel. There is some unrest lingering inside me. In the ample kitchen/living room there's an upright piano. It is in reasonable condition: an instrument, not a piece of furniture. I try to play a few notes along with the stereo - some kind of mystical chill-out lounge music based on one or two chords. This also allows me to check on my state of intoxication. I am able to play correctly, but not wholeheartedly. I wish there were other musicians: a bass, a guitar, percussion, voices, whatever. I realize I don't feel like playing alone right now: the background music can't replace living human beings doing their thing and interacting in real time. So I play more and more sparsely, and soon fade out graciously.

• T+02:16 = 19:51. My notebook says '++'. The colors of sunset fill me up. However, my mind is still somewhat detached - for lack of a better term. I want to feel one with everything - or at least with the surrounding nature - but I still can't. Time for the final supplement. While we were on our way in the car, I had explained to Ariadne what we would be dosing in detail, but I think it's better to check again, so I ask her if she's ready to go on as planned. She is radiant and replies: 'yes, please! You know I trust you.' So we go up in our room, and we have a shot of 25c-NBOMe nasal spray (400ug). I tell her to spray into her nose without sniffing, just letting the liquid stick to the nasal mucosa. She can't help sniffing and says it 'burns a little'. I know it's only mildly itchy, so I'm surprised that she feels any 'burn' at all: she is an accomplished yogi and routinely washes her nasal cavities by snorting salt water a couple of times a day.

Colin is cooking dinner. It's going to be a vegetarian meal, and the kitchen is filled with fresh aromas from all kinds of herbs. All products are from the farm. I've helped Bob to pick up what we're going to eat, and I could see the love he has for his land and how much he believes in his organic farming methods. The synergistic garden technique is actually effective, by the way. I'm not hungry yet - which is unusual, but might be an effect of phenethylamine stimulation. My desire for beer has turned into a craving by now, but for some reason I like to repress it. It isn't that I'm afraid of 'mixing drugs with alcohol', because I reckon for a man my size a moderate quantity of beer is not alcohol - it's flavored water.

From this point onwards, I am progressing towards the peak. Ariadne has gone out and is sitting on a small staircase hanging on the edge of nothing. I approach her cautiously. 'How are things?' I ask. Her gaze is lost in the distance while she replies 'Intense. I'm feeling wonderful. The last thing (she means the NBOMe) hit me quick and strong. I love this.' So she's progressing too - or maybe already peaking.

I go back to the piano. I stoop to play without even sitting. A few chords, spaced apart. A couple consonant chords, a couple slightly dissonant ones, the most dissonant last. All chords are played quietly, as if treading carefully - piano or pianissimo. Colin's still cooking. Dinner's going to be quite elaborate by the looks of it. I have a sudden realization: I reach into my bag and take out a small jar with some herbal mix, the same I have in my joints: half homegrown, moderate strength cannabis, half damiana/klip dagga. I give Bob the pot-based mix, saying 'That's all I have with me at the moment. Guess you can use it.' He accepts thankfully.

• T+03:35 = 21:10. My notebook says '+++ - strong emotions at last - but still some detachment'. Colin asks if someone would like a beer. I jump up like a spring.

• T+03:46 = 21:21. Bob, Ariadne and I are sitting by the staircase on the edge of nothing. It's dark. There are fireflies everywhere. Lots of them. Lots. The ones nearby look massive and stark. They leave sizeable trailers as they move. The ones further away just project tiny, flickering signs of life. A multitude of shiny blinking signs surrounding us. Desperate little insects, trying hard to find a mate before it's too late. I realize excessive light is pollution too. I voice my opinion. 'We have so many lights that these poor beasts can't fuck unless they keep far from so-called civilization. If they don't fuck they'll get extinct in just one generation. That's one year or less.' I feel overwhelmed by emotion. I feel sorry for the fireflies. I am ashamed for the mess we humans make of this planet and of ourselves. There is some melancholy and some anger. It's a bittersweet state of mind. No anxiety, no restlessness. I no longer feel detached. At last. This is my peak.

• T+03:55 = 21:30. My notebook says 'Bliss. Bliss.'

• T+04:05 = 21:40. Time for dinner at last. Handmade pasta with broad bean puree and sauteed artichokes. Stir-fried half aubergines filled with diced cherry tomatoes, basil and grated sheep cheese. Grilled zucchini with olive oil and fresh mint. Home baked whole grain bread. I eat unusually slowly, enjoying every bite. I notice the two other guys have eaten up their dishes quite quickly, while I'm proceeding at a slow, leisurely rhythm similar to Ariadne's. This is very unlike me. I keep drinking water and some beer too, but moderately.

• T+04:45 = 22:20 After dinner, I open my bag and take the second and last ready-made joint I have. 'Anyone want some?' Bob accepts happily, Ariadne smiles. I let them smoke it, just having a couple of tokes myself.

The long night begins. Colin puts on more of his music - it's reggae now. I feel like playing but find the music unispiring. I'm content. The peak seems to be already gone: I find myself in that detached state again, but now there's only little restlessness if any. I have no deep thoughts, just a state of peaceful contemplation. Ariadne and I talk a little, then Colin changes music to some sophisticated electro-funk. I sit at the piano and improvise. Music flows easily, but I can't say there's extra appreciation, as sometimes happens to me with LSD. This time it feels more objective, and the 25C-NBOMe apparently hasn't altered the quality of the experience much, but just bumped the intensity and not even that much. It must be just me, though. I suspect I'm a bit of a hardhead when it comes to most phenethylamines (but not so hard with most tryptamines).

• T+05:55 = 23:30. Colin's gone to sleep already, and Bob says goodnight too. He says we can do whatever we please, including being loud. I sit on the couch, Ariadne's laying down with her legs on my lap. I find her attractive, and I enjoy this situation but don't want to push the thing any further. Not that I feel tied to any promise to my non-girlfriend, because there aren't any promises. It's just fine as it is. I still feel a nice body high. I wonder what sex would feel like, but I guess I'll have to find out some other time. It's more like a 'would like to know' than a 'want to get it on' kind of feeling. It is consistent with the 'detached' taste of this trip.

• T+09:25 = 03:00. Time passed quickly without actually doing much. A little talk, a little thought. I am tired but not sleepy - my usual reaction to acid/most phenethylamines. I could use a little sleep, but it's so comfortable on the couch...I look for some beer or wine or anything just for the taste, but can't find anything. I have one more half aubergine and some bread. I ask Ariadne if she wants to sleep, she says she'd like to but she feels she can't.

More hours pass, we're still on the couch and talk or just stay silent. We get closer and closer, we nearly curl up together.

• T+11:55 = 05:30. We finally think it's time for bed. The sun's rising already. We go upstairs to our room. I feel no embarrassment while undressing - this, too, is a bit unlike me. A few words exchanged in the dark: 'Can you sleep, Ariadne?''Not much'. Hm, so it's time for my final weapon.

• T+12:09 = 05:44. I tell Ariadne about DMT, ayahuasca, pharmahuasca. I have a couple of caps that I've already tried more than once. They're not very strong, and I am almost certain they contain mostly harmaline (and possibly other beta-carbolines), but little DMT. Even once I had two of them, I didn't see much 'light' at all. I tell her I'm going to have one as a quite pleasant, psychedelic sleeping aid, and would she like one too? She's a little undecided, afraid it will make her even more awake than she already is. I reassure her this stuff is anything but stimulating. She takes it. We close our eyes. Sleep welcomes me.

THE DAY AFTER

I wake up after about 6 hours, around midday, feeling refreshed, happy and a little hungry. Ariadne's not around. At first I think she already woke up, but later I find out she went to sleep in another room because I was snoring a bit. I let her sleep, but she wakes up while I shower. We have coffee. Unsatisfied with the quantity, I brew some more for us two and for a lady that came to visit with her young son.

The piano seems to be waiting for me. At last, I play properly without any background music to get mixed to. My fingers aren't that springy - I just woke up after all - but my mind is unusually quick in looking ahead and making musical choices. Soon it's time for lunch. We eat with Bob, Colin, the lady and her kid. The world is a beautiful place. We get into the car, on the way back home. She thanks me every hour. The world is a beautiful place indeed.

Exp Year: 2013ExpID: 100235 Gender: Male Age at time of experience: 41 Published: Oct 31, 2013Views: Not Supported [ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]

25C-NBOMe (540), Mescaline (36), Cacti - T. pachanoi (64) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Combinations (3), General (1) -->