My psychedelic life story.

[RabidLabMouse]

By way of my introduction, I'd like to post about.. my introduction. To the world of "better living through chemistry," anyway.

I'm in my mid-thirties now and before I met my significant other (we'll call him S) I had had no success with ANY mind-altering substance. I'd tried marijuana a few times as a teenager, with various methods of use, and every once in a while again as an adult, but never had any effect whatsoever. My friends never believed me and always made me try to smoke in front of them to see if they would be the ones to successfully get me high. It didn't happen.

I've also got a very high tolerance for other substances, like alcohol and painkillers among other things. I didn't manage to get drunk until I was twenty-five and even then, it took seven shots of vodka lined up and knocked back one right after the other. I don't enjoy the taste of alcohol, any alcohol, so I don't drink often. If I do drink several times in a short period, my tolerance actually goes DOWN. Seven shots to get drunk becomes five, becomes three. It's probably been over a year since I last did and it would take a great deal of effort on my part to get any kind of buzz. Just not worth it. As far as painkillers, I've had to take larger than average doses to get any kind of relief for various health issues in the past. Benadryl didn't make me sleepy and pseudoephedrine didn't produce any kind of stimulant effect. Even Nyquil didn't work often. I had pretty much accepted that I would be sober the rest of my life and didn't find much wrong with that. I still had fun at raves and such totally sober.

But then I met S and we started dating. S is a psychonaut and one of the members here. He, like my friends in the past, was determined to get me high. I don't think he half believed me when I talked about my natural resistance to chemicals at first but after watching me down bottles of wine and Fireball whiskey and smoke large amounts of pot with no effect, he came around. Didn't stop him from wanting to beat it, in fact I believe it encouraged him. Like I was a puzzle. He is also at least very slightly more spiritual than I am (I have all the spiritual depth of a shallow pond. The light touches the bottom of this pool, no hidden depths) so I think he hoped that psychedelics might bring about some sort of epiphany for me.

We started with pot. It eventually did work but I had to take in a massive amount the first time. I don't know how much it was but apparently it was quite a bit. I hallucinated and I loved it. I've always enjoyed hallucinations (generally generated from lack of sleep, because I have insomnia) so this was great. Nothing that changed my reality or anything but I had fun.

With that success, we found that my tolerance with marijuana is much like my experience with alcohol. If I've been using it regularly for any period of time, my tolerance goes down. Two years ago, a 10 mg edible would have done absolutely nothing to me. These days, I get comfortably high with it. I never build up a tolerance and have to take more as long as I keep using it every few days at the least.

I think the next thing I tried was MDMA. Although S is larger in size and mass than I am, I have to take twice what he does, or nearly so, to get the same effect and it wears off much more quickly. After that came mushrooms, which he grew specially for me. One of the sweetest things a man has ever done for me, heh. I'm a rip-the-bandaid-off kind of girl so I jumped in, my very first trip, with 3 grams of what I now know were very potent mushrooms.

That trip was one of the most amazing things. I saw beautiful things, like pulsating neon geometric pythons dancing, and even had some tactile hallucinations (it felt like S was made of knees, which I found hilarious) and experienced time dilation with Tool songs that seemed to last literally FOR-EV-ER. I saw things the same whether my eyes were open or closed and knew I wasn't seeing reality.

It's been two years since then and my experiences have been pretty far-reaching considering what a late start I had, because S really wants me to have that breaking-open-the-head experience. Hyperspace. Ego death/dissolution. (Spoiler alert: I haven't.) I smoked 250mg of vaporized DMT (S loaded and heated it for me since I was a newb) and had an absolutely lovely time with the gigantic purple cuttlefish but no spiritual epiphanies or new senses of connection with anything. Nothing traditionally profound.

And that's the way it's been for every substance I've tried. I always have a great time but nothing blasting me off into outer space. Actually, the tolerance has been getting worse. I do mushrooms once every few months but these last two times have been really disappointing. I took in as much as I could (about 4 grams) in an interesting jungle ceremony. Didn't feel a thing. Even recently, I was trying for my first heroic dose with 6 grams of mushrooms and it barely touched me. My vision wavered a little around the edges and I got giggly but that was it. I'm kind of concerned that there might be something wrong with me.

But at least I've never had a bad trip on anything. Set and setting have become a non-issue for me. Nothing in the least negative has happened in any of my trips, not even on the ayahuasca in the jungle. It might happen some day but in almost twenty trips on various substances, it's been nothing but a delightful ride. I'm still a spiritual hunk of granite.

And that's my story thus far. I think what I'm hoping for with membership here is a new perspective on my experiences in relation to others'. S is my biggest source of information on the psychedelic world but I'd like to hear from others as well.

...well. I guess that's that. Hi.

 

[syberdelic]

S here...
I'm curious if anyone has any input on this. I would love to see her have a spiritual awakening, but I would settle for simply a profound experience. I'm sure most of you know what I'm talking about; that experience that changes your life and makes you step back and say, "What the hell am I doing with my life?" It doesn't have to be a spiritual thing, but that moment where the mind blossoms into something profoundly transcendent.

I have always enjoyed sharing the psychedelic experience with others in a responsible manner. This has been an integral part of my life for the past two decades and now that I've found the person that I can confidently say I want to spend the rest of it with, there is a cosmic irony to it in that it is seemingly impossible to share this thing with her that I have found to be such a profound game changer in my own life and so many others.

 

[TGO]

Welcome to the Nexus!

Have you guys tried oral harmalas prior to vaping DMT or before eating mushrooms? For someone with high natural tolerance, it could possibly make a big difference in how it affects you.

 

[syberdelic]

Welcome to the Nexus!

Have you guys tried oral harmalas prior to vaping DMT or before eating mushrooms? For someone with high natural tolerance, it could possibly make a big difference in how it affects you.

This is on the list of things to try, but she has had traditional ayahuasca six times now with only mild effects. I will let her describe the details, but from how it was described to me, she got mild/moderate effects from the caapi/harmine and maybe threshold effects from the chakruna/DMT. The dosage for this traditional brew was all over the place, but one of the ceremonies that we participated in together, she drank eight times as much as I did and still had an experience that was far weaker than mine.

 

[TGO]

Welcome to the Nexus!

Have you guys tried oral harmalas prior to vaping DMT or before eating mushrooms? For someone with high natural tolerance, it could possibly make a big difference in how it affects you.

This is on the list of things to try, but she has had traditional ayahuasca six times now with only mild effects. I will let her describe the details, but from how it was described to me, she got mild/moderate effects from the caapi/harmine and maybe threshold effects from the chakruna/DMT. The dosage for this traditional brew was all over the place, but one of the ceremonies that we participated in together, she drank eight times as much as I did and still had an experience that was far weaker than mine.

Wow, that must be a bit frustrating! I am curious to see how oral harmalas plus vaped DMT will turn out for her. The problem with traditional brews is that we never know the exact alkaloid content and experiences can vary wildly, even in people without tolerance issues. With "vaporhuasca" there would be much more control over dose and timing.

Pharmahuasca would be another option to consider. I've personally had much better luck with ingesting the extracted and purified alkaloids than I have with Aya. You could also try vaping while on pharma, Aya, LSD, mushrooms or any psychedelic really. I tried smoking some changa one time while on mushrooms and it wasn't at all what I expected, but some people swear by the combo. I need to experiment with it more though.

 

[syberdelic]

I will start this post by stating that RabidLabMouse is reluctant to post about her tolerance issues as it might be construed as bragging. I hope that this gives her license to post more freely about it as I assure everyone that it is first and foremost a frustration for both of us. The primary concern here is we both want her to have a profound experience and that has proven fairly elusive. She has described to me a sort of survivors guilt from her ayahuasca ceremonies as so many people have profoundly troubling experiences, and hers was a mild experience including falling asleep during the ceremony.

One of the tolerance issues is that it doesn't seem to be consistent. Her first mushroom experience on 3g was more powerful than a 6g trip more recently. There is some evidence linking her tolerance to her cycle. I recently measured out for her 500mg ketamine orally. Normally, this would put someone her weight into the k-hole but I figured with her tolerance and past use of K, it would get her half way there. Well, for this particular instance, she fell right in the middle of the bell curve and dove into a k-hole unexpectedly.

I am toying with the idea of dosing her with 500mg oral DMT and a similar amount of harmine, but I'm still a bit reluctant as I don't want to send her into a blackout or horrifying trip.

 

[AASB]

One of the tolerance issues is that it doesn't seem to be consistent. Her first mushroom experience on 3g was more powerful than a 6g trip more recently.

I am toying with the idea of dosing her with 500mg oral DMT and a similar amount of harmine, but I'm still a bit reluctant as I don't want to send her into a blackout or horrifying trip.

As I mentioned to Mouse in my intro thread, I do not believe it is dosage based. I cannot say for sure, obviously, but from my experience with psychedelics the peak is the only thing influenced by dosage. Though the peak is the easiest point to breakthrough, higher dosages almost make it more intense thus harder to let go and quiet the mind to breakthrough. At least that's always been my issue on the matter.

I would suggest trying vaped harmala and lower dosage of DMT before going for such a huge dose. She may not come back at 500mg. If she does come back she'll either have super powers or mush for a brain. But I'm no expert.

 

[TGO]

I will start this post by stating that RabidLabMouse is reluctant to post about her tolerance issues as it might be construed as bragging. I hope that this gives her license to post more freely about it as I assure everyone that it is first and foremost a frustration for both of us. The primary concern here is we both want her to have a profound experience and that has proven fairly elusive. She has described to me a sort of survivors guilt from her ayahuasca ceremonies as so many people have profoundly troubling experiences, and hers was a mild experience including falling asleep during the ceremony.

One of the tolerance issues is that it doesn't seem to be consistent. Her first mushroom experience on 3g was more powerful than a 6g trip more recently. There is some evidence linking her tolerance to her cycle. I recently measured out for her 500mg ketamine orally. Normally, this would put someone her weight into the k-hole but I figured with her tolerance and past use of K, it would get her half way there. Well, for this particular instance, she fell right in the middle of the bell curve and dove into a k-hole unexpectedly.

I am toying with the idea of dosing her with 500mg oral DMT and a similar amount of harmine, but I'm still a bit reluctant as I don't want to send her into a blackout or horrifying trip.

I definitely don't see it as bragging, so no worries there. If it were me, I'd be quite frustrated and irritated that I couldn't go as deep as I wanted to.

I would be extremely wary of giving her that much oral DMT though, at least not as the starting point. The highest dosage I've ever seen on the Nexus was 400mg. It was written up by the moderator Snozzleberry and you can read about it here if you want:

400mg's to Freedom: Lost in Pharmahuasca

Part of the reason I recommend vaporhuasca is because if she were to breakthrough and it became uncomfortable, she wouldn't be stuck there for hours and hours on end. Also, there is the freedom to try dose after dose of DMT until no longer inhibited by the harmalas. Just some food for thought. I hope you guys are able to find that sweet spot and experience that profoundness she is looking for!

 

[RabidLabMouse]

Thanks for the tips, guys.

It is frustrating. I'm entirely non-spiritual. I might as well be a lump of granite for all the thought I give it. When I was a kid, I wanted to belong and believe and I tried on many religions and philosophies but none suited me so I just remained agnostic. I didn't want to fake it if I didn't feel it. But when I met Syberdelic and he introduced me to psychedelics, I thought maybe I'd get some kind of epiphany or revelation. Something. Maybe I'd be able to feel faith. I tried not to expect it or even hope for it but I thought about it. Hasn't happened.

I'm starting to feel like I'm utterly incapable of this breakthrough Syberdelic keeps talking about. I've had around twenty trips on various psychedelics and not even a hint of ego dissolution or revelation. They've all been awesome and rewarding in the sense that they were fun and I saw beautiful things. My trips on ayahuasca in the jungle were great because my visions were very clear and linear but no sense of connection to the universe and everything in it. No glimpse into something larger than myself or all of us. Nada.

On the positive side, I've never had a bad trip. At all, on anything. Even my unexpected k-hole the other night was fabulous. I would actually be content with this, just accepting that I'm not a person to whom revelations are given, and continue to have fun and observe beauty, but Syberdelic is near-obsessed with me having a "complete" experience. My inability to reach these points is kind of making me feel inhuman, less. What's wrong with me?

 

[Mindlusion]

SO you say, Well do I have to wait? But the whole thing is in the waiting! I don't mean the virtue of patience, I mean waiting when there is nothing to do but wait. and when you see There IS nothing to do but wait. Then it happens. but it won't be hurried. Because the minute you're trying to hurry it, that introduces the very thing that stops it. The miracle, the magic thing, IS happening all the time. But you can't SEE it when your trying to get it. And you can still less see it when your trying to get it fast. So there is no alternative then to the point that you can't get it at all. You are going to be you. The same slob you've always been. You cant change it, and all your good resolutions are just bombast. Then you start to be real. So just as in travelling, or in ordinary relationships with your friends everyday, these gorgeous things happen, of themselves. Those are the true pleasures. So are the level of mystical experiences. The most astounding insights. When you can go into the deep most trivial of everyday affairs, as containing the entire universe.

"You cannot take hold of it, you cannot get rid of it." In not being able to get it you get it. When you are silent it speaks, when you speak it is silent.

How do you plan a surprise for yourself without spoiling it for yourself?

 

[Legarto Rey]

You're a persistent one RLM. Not for lack of "trying", ehh? Be careful!

I'd be interested to hear if you've experimented with Salvia, particularly a quality smoked extract trial. Some are Salvia hard heads as well.

Salvia like K is a dissociative as opposed to a "true" hallucinogen. However, IME, it can introduce the psyche to being "turned inside out at/through the heart chakra", my words only.
This is my attempt at languaging the intense psyco-physical sensation/experience that may be had when one literally experiences the Universe(aka reality) as "inside" as opposed to "outside" the Self. One appreciates intuitively and profoundly that reality is being gifted/given to oneself, moment to moment, by an outside/other "Source".

I use the inside out metaphor to describe the distinct realization that "I" am the Universe and it is the Universe that is "doing me" and not the inverse as is typically felt during concensus consciousness. It really is just a flip of perspective and a profound diminution in the sense of the AGENCY that the ego typically generates, illusorily.

RLM you seem to possess an operant psyche that is ruthlessly pragmatic. A superbly functional adaptation for creatures that spend most time in mundane consciousness and must continually struggle to keep "flesh on bone" if we hope to see the 'morrow. It really is the case that we are just operations of the Universe and our perceived ego agency and control authority over the near future is rather an illusion. "Spirituality/Enlightenment" are no "deeper" than a shift in perspective. It's what you do with it that brings profundity to one's existence.

Sorry for the tome. Anyway, interested in your past or potential exposure to Salvia.

Peace

 

[RabidLabMouse]

You're a persistent one RLM. Not for lack of "trying", ehh? Be careful!

I'd be interested to hear if you've experimented with Salvia, particularly a quality smoked extract trial. Some are Salvia hard heads as well.

Salvia like K is a dissociative as opposed to a "true" hallucinogen. However, IME, it can introduce the psyche to being "turned inside out at/through the heart chakra", my words only.
This is my attempt at languaging the intense psyco-physical sensation/experience that may be had when one literally experiences the Universe(aka reality) as "inside" as opposed to "outside" the Self. One appreciates intuitively and profoundly that reality is being gifted/given to oneself, moment to moment, by an outside/other "Source".

I use the inside out metaphor to describe the distinct realization that "I" am the Universe and it is the Universe that is "doing me" and not the inverse as is typically felt during concensus consciousness. It really is just a flip of perspective and a profound diminution in the sense of the AGENCY that the ego typically generates, illusorily.

RLM you seem to possess an operant psyche that is ruthlessly pragmatic. A superbly functional adaptation for creatures that spend most time in mundane consciousness and must continually struggle to keep "flesh on bone" if we hope to see the 'morrow. It really is the case that we are just operations of the Universe and our perceived ego agency and control authority over the near future is rather an illusion. "Spirituality/Enlightenment" are no "deeper" than a shift in perspective. It's what you do with it that brings profundity to one's existence.

Sorry for the tome. Anyway, interested in your past or potential exposure to Salvia.

Peace

I have not tried Salvia yet! When Syberdelic first introduced me to this world, he was extremely careful with me and the order of substances he had me try. Salvia was classed with things he didn't recommend for me because many people had a rough experience with it, I guess, and he wanted to make sure I enjoyed myself. Now that he's seen firsthand my resistance to.. practically everything.. he's also of the mind that I should try it.

I am an extremely flesh-bound creature, yes, most concerned with practicality and realism. I'm not given to much philosophical thought as an adult, although I was as a child. I cried for three days when I was six as I struggled with the thought of death! My mother thought I was silly. These days, I prefer to laugh over crying or getting angry. The whole nature of reality is absurd to me and I'm just trying to get through it with a straight face so I don't offend anyone who finds it more serious. That probably gets in the way of my struggle for classical "depth" and spirituality.

As soon as I get my little experimenting fingers on Salvia, I will try it!

 

[Mindlusion]

The whole nature of reality is absurd to me and I'm just trying to get through it with a straight face so I don't offend anyone who finds it more serious. That probably gets in the way of my struggle for classical "depth" and spirituality.

Hah, probably the most 'spiritual' thing you could have said. There is nothing serious about it.

Whatever blocks you are facing, you'll get through when you get through it. It will be when you least expect, and seemingly none of your own doing. This is just my experience.

You find your way through your weakness... Our greatest weakness is paradoxically our greatest strength.. in more ways than one.

Lets say for example through rigorous pragmatism and realism one confines themselves to a limited perspective, from a very young age, perhaps, fear of death, fear of the unknown. This trait principally gives rise to all the success in your life, yet at the same time, it is the very thing holding you back from life, even killing you.

I am not a whole lot different than you. In the same way strength leads to weakness,weakness leads to strength, but in an entirely different way. Perhaps that is what we call, evolution.

 

[syberdelic]

Plans are in the works to deposit salvianorin-A into her bloodstream via the lungs this summer as we are traveling to a place where it is still legal to purchase.
I personally find salvia to be of little value other than exploring novel (and dark) states of consciousness. I may or may not give it another shot. I have tried it 5 or 6 times with no positive or rewarding outcomes. But yes, I no longer give anything more than a passing concern to LabMouses mental fortitude in relation to states of consciousness so the Salvia mind-F@!k is imminent. We shall see what happens.