Preparing and dosing for a first-time experience

[ॐ]

Hey there, Nexus!

After a long, prosperous (and still ongoing) relationship with my little fungoid friends, I am getting increasingly more curious about the wisdom the mescaline experience will bring to light. I have read a lot about cacti, and the various ways to prepare and/or extract them.

After weighing off the pros and cons, I decided to opt for the crude alcohol extraction. The tar seems like a good way to reduce the nausea to a certain degree, plus it is easily storable, and it eliminates the need to drink nasty slimy goop. I'm sure it is very manageable if reduced to about a shot, but tar seems like a great way to go for me.

Considering that this will be my introduction to this wonderful molecule, I wanted to ask a few questions to make sure I get this right, and perhaps get some confirmation on whether or not my dosage sounds good for a first time experience.

Regarding drying and powderizing the cactus.
I'm thinking of cutting the cactus into stars, stringing those up, perhaps with a fan to dry them. This should get them dry in under two days, correct?
I have read that the best way is to cut it into stars and dry it in the oven at 120°C (~250°F) until fully dry. Supposedly the stars then looks a little bit crisp, but mescaline shouldn't break down until at least 180°C (~355°F). I have never dried anything in the oven before, so I am a bit apprehensive about this, but it's the quickest, easiest method I could dig up. I'm leaning more toward just air drying them, but I have no idea if it's really that quickly done with cactus.

Would it be advisable to remove the waxy outer layer to prevent nausea, or is this negligable with tar?
This question has been asked here before, but pertaining to a full-on mescaline extraction rather than a crude full-spectrum extraction like this:

Drying cactus for extraction - Cultivation - Welcome to the DMT-Nexus

To powderize cactus, it seems like most people use a coffee mill. I might invest in a good one, but I'm wondering if it would be feasible to get the job done with a plain ol' mortar & pestle.


Regarding dosage.
Most people seem to recommend around 40-45 dried grams of cactus for an average dosage. I believe this equates to the much-recommended 12 inches if we're talking length. Attempting to slap a mescaline content on that for peruvianus:

Trichocereus peruvianus
mescaline content: 0,82 %
820 milligram mescaline per 100 dried grams cactus material
Source: Pardani et al. (1977)

Mescaline content of course varies widely, but taking this into account the 45 dried grams would equate to around 400mg. This places it in the sweet spot between moderate and heavy doses, making it a good strong trip.
I know I will never be able to accurately measure the dose, but what do experienced mescaline trippers recommend as a first-time dose for someone who is not unfamiliar to the psychedelic experience? Should I aim for 300mg rather than 400 to err on the safe side of things? Although only a part of the experience, I was wondering around which dosage the OEV's really set in. I guess I'm aiming for a solid experience that is leaning more toward the lower echelons of a 'strong' trip rather than risking being underwhelming.

Also, how pronounced is the 'speedy' feel of the experience? I must admit that this is really what I'm most afraid of, since I'm unfamiliar with stimulants and can sometimes get a bit paranoid over my heartbeat (eg. when intensely high on weed, no problems on mush). Is there a certain dose where the stimulant effects start to become overtly strong and unpleasant, or is this not really an issue?

Sorry for the long write-up, but it would be really nice to get some feedback before I go through with this
Oh, and yes, I am definitely considering growing a couple of specimens for propagation. They are beautiful plants, so I would be growing them even if they weren't psychoactive

 

[ipumaestro]

for fullest effects an 18 hr (+/- 6 hrs) fast including only water up to 2 hours prior to ingestion of medicine. i also dose at night and lay down like im going to sleep for doses that are intended to be deeper
for day doses, eat a light dinner the night before and dose when you wake, but dose less than visionary. i save visionary for night.

on whats easiest, its really up to you and how well you make your medicine

you can add a little bit of water to cacti powder to make malleable globs which can be swallowed like pills rather painlesslessly, however if the cacti powder is not 2%/very active i wouldnt suggest this method.

if youre going to dry / +powderize:

be sure to despine and deskin before cutting anything
filet they off the ribs so you end up with 2 filets per rib.
these filets should contain all the green and an evanescent amount of white to ensure maximum potency.
dry these long filets on the back of a fan (box fan facing down between two chairs makes an excellent place for drying + its only 20 bux!)
or hang the filets by threading them with floss or something through the middle of each piece

if youre going to make tea
its not as important to despine and deskin, but its advisable nonetheless

-chop your fresh cactus into little chunks for 4x1 hr boils, or use a pressure cooker for 30 min x4

if youre going to make resin
either make tea and decant it continually
or make cacti powder and soak it in high proof alcohol (75%+)
i suggest everclear/151 rum to keep it food safe
use a hotbath for your alcohol extraction for a few hours each day while agitating the extraction vessel as frequently as you can think to. do 3-4 days of this, collect alcohol, decant/ +if possible filter the dark green liquer for a more pure end product. put in wide mouth dish in crock pot + fan /open oven low heat for fastest results.
ive had great success with air drying aswell.

Dosing - long story short, know your plants potency to dose most accurately



300-400 mg is fun, but i suggest shooting for 500-700 for more psychedelic experience. however its always a safe choice to dose low the first time and increase after.

dont be afraid of it, its not like dmt. its very gentle, and if you have psychedelic experience anticipate handling 700 mg with relative ease.

your powder may be less potent so id anticipate it be .7% instead of 1%. however it could be up to 5% (if youre incredibly lucky)


0.7% x 75 g = 525 mg id say this is a good place to shoot for if your comfortable taking a possibly large dose


ive had cacti that the powder i made from them was over 4% and taking 40 g was a truly immersive experience rivaling ayahuasca and paling most dmt in depth and all other experiences in the duration, for it lasted 24 hours

ive also had cacti powder ( i didnt make) offer threshold effects at 30-40 g




i anticipate error during my making of medicines so i try to put another 20% of ingredients in to compensate for my less than perfect technique




the speediness is nothing like amphetamines, but can be slightly more than gently stimulating at most. speediness seems most apparent at doses around 300 mg (for me) they get more time dilating the more you go beyond 400/500 mg (for me)

 

[CuriousSeeker]

Hello, the information in the previous post looks good to me. I'll add that in my experience the old fashioned boiling method consistently gives a better experience than a chemical extraction, and is pretty foolproof, especially when using fresh cacti. Maybe I'm just a lousy lab tech? Since it is your first time you won't have developed the Pavlovian gag reflex to the vile tea (which led me to explore chemical extractions), and it really goes down pretty fast (about a cup of liquid) - just a couple of minutes if you steel yourself for it. Your suffering taste buds will appreciate a chaser of unsweetened grapefruit juice and then you just wait a couple hours for the experience to begin. Smoking some cannabis helps with nausea and seems to help the experience get started. For me the nausea is only a minor problem with the boiled tea, but is always a major hurl fest when using extracted material (69Ron's limetek method).

The speedy feeling is not unwelcome since it does not feel like speed (based on past experience with methamphetamine), just a really high energy that lasts for a really long time. My last experience using about 5 pounds of a weak San Pedro lasted a full 24 hours and was pretty wonderful.

Speaking of pounds, the amount is always a tricky thing to figure out, but with this entheogen erring on the high side will be better than going too low. Using a fresh plant of unknown potency (assuming you are using one of the trichocereus varieties) I'd go for about a foot and a half, maybe 2 feet. If using dried material, assuming it is mostly the green outer flesh, 75 grams could be heavy if the cactus is potent; however, given your shroom experience it shouldn't be a problem. The one major advantage of drying is that you can more easily replicate a dose from the same batch of cactus.

Good travels to you! Please report back on how it goes!

 

[nicechrisman]

For my last tea experience, I took 5 drops of lemon essential oil about 20 minutes before dosing and found that it worked incredibly well for reducing nausea. I've always had lots of nausea issues in the past and had almost none this time.

 

[mew]

i like to add ginger to my brew/resins

 

[nicechrisman]

I did that for a while too, but I don't like how it can add a burn to the purge. The lemon essential oil apparently acts on the same nausea receptor in the brain that ginger does. It also made for delightfully lemony fresh burps. For me it seemed to work way better, but I've only tried it once so far.