Mescaline

This is probably going to be my last post for a while. Probably.

Age: 22

Weight: 130 lbs

Dosage: 500 mg oral

Setting: The woods, train tracks, my apartment

T0:00- It is the 4^th of July, American Independence Day. I am spending the day out with my friends. They have chosen 4-AcO-DMT as their poison for the day, me, Mescaline. We dose while we walk to our destination- a wooded area in my hometown. Locked away in the heart of those woods is a great old conduit tunnel, built to rout a creek under what was once train tracks. It is flanked on all sides by piles of boulders, laced with gnarled and tangled tree roots. Their branches form a dense canopy overhead so that the only light is mottled beams that spear through the dust and pollen in the air. The mouth of the tunnel is graced by a constant flow of cool air- one can take refuge by the gurgling stream that gushes forth form it, adorned on all sides by graffiti and thickets of moss, and feel like they are inside an air-conditioned room. The water empties into a rocky creek below that deflects and scatters that mottled light and diffuses it across its surface, a great vitreous sigh that is laid over our dear sanctuary. It is truly one of my favorite places in the world. Our plan was to hang out there for a bit while peaking and then take a long trek back into the city along the freight tracks.

T0:25- So far, I only feel nausea. We are pacing around the mouth of the tunnel, our base camp, bathed in cool, humid air. I decide to bring my friends up the length of the tunnel to show them where the creek enters- a great sodden chamber at the end penetrated by slivers of sunlight. The walk is slippery and pitch black, with the sunlight departing from us about 100 feet in. In the darkness, I feel as though I am picking up on faint sparks of visuals, though this may be placebo effect.

T0:35- I feel chills and I am definitely detecting light visuals now- just slight warping and alteration of my perceived surroundings. The nausea is growing as is some of the bodily discomfort. My cognition feels relatively unaffected. Physically, the only thing that feels good at this point is lying down and shaking.

T0:45- My thoughts are beginning to trail off and spawn into autonomous chains. This reminds me of a phenomenon I would notice when I was a child, where I would get lost in spontaneously generating trails of thought and would try to trace them to their origin after realizing how far my mind had wandered. Perhaps this is not a phenomenon but a common feature of cognition in general. That is something I would have to ask someone else. The visuals have picked up slightly, into a dreamy haze overlaid on the world, causing it to pulse like heat waves. Gentle and subtle patterns decorate the sky. The experience has slowly been creeping up on me, crawling into my mind like a stalking resplendent phantom perched on my shoulder, its heartbeat rippling with galvanic energy. I smoke a joint to ease the discomfort just a bit, the smoke wriggling through the air along angular trackways.

T1:10- I am lying on my back in the tunnel, the cold air passing over me like a stampede of ants- I am just in its way but it pays no mind to that, it effortlessly overcomes me. I look up at the crowns of the trees and am awestruck by the vastness between me and them- they are truly towering over me, these old beings that have steadily anchored and grown for multitudes of my own lifespan. I am overall in awe of the beauty of my surroundings, I can do little more than lie there, content and calm. The experience is still mostly felt in my body, it’s a restlessness, agitated like the nervous energy of nature’s constant march towards survival. It is lucid and calm, gently dragging me into the unsettling heart of the monumental chaos of the earth and laying me down like one would lay down a sick child. It is a feeling of love and nurturing coming from a place that seems only to claim beauty and biodiversity as its virtues. The experience thusfar is powerful, though it is anything but intense. Despite the discomfort, I am content. Chills run down my spine and through my peripheral nervous system.

T1:30- The ill feelings have mostly faded by now. I feel jovial and childish, this glassy, sun-dappled space is now my playground and I am free to run jump and play. My friends are content to explore their visuals and experiences in the glorious comfort of the tunnel, but lacking such sensory stimuli, I have decided to occupy myself with exploring the space around me. I clamber over rocks, I climb across fallen logs like balance beams, I climb the stone walls and dip my hands into the invigoratingly chilly waters of the creek. I lie in the moss, I struggle up muddy hills, I try to climb trees and gaze into all the little spaces in the tangles of roots and imagine they are like yawning caves for little insects. My body is limber and prances about with ease, I feel graceful and physically capable, with the naïve and impenetrable confidence of a child at play.

T2:00- I feel like I am tripping harder now- I am stricken with a spaciness that settles me down for a bit. I lie next to the stream and watch the millipedes creep around the cold wet concrete, the boughs of moss like dense thickets to them. We smoke another joint. This kicks up the visual effects into something recognizable now- they are geometric- blocky zigzags, odd interlocking shapes, decorated with concentric patterns. They are not the gentle gradients of color like most psychedelic visuals, rather they are random stripes of random colors, sorted in accordance to some esoteric algorithm. These adorn the sky, they take up the shapes of the leaves and the textures in the rocks into their relentless flow, they are a deluge pouring down every surface, smearing the essence of existence with them. A quick blink and a snap back to reality and they fade, they are not intrusive by any means, simply curious visitors to our world. With my eyes closed, the visuals are indistinct, but are certainly in motion- a flash of movement in the dark, droning and repetitive. Sounds have an ever so subtle reverberant tinny quality.

T2:30- We decide to begin the trek home now. Our goal is to meet up with a bunch of friends who are having an outdoor party in a park down near where the tracks enter the city. We trudge through dense undergrowth and come out to the grand cathedral- a towering highway overpass, its pillars alight with vibrant blazes of graffiti. The only sound is the deafening roar of cars rumbling overhead. The light of the sun coming down in beams onto the dusty ground below. It’s an eerie calm that exists at the edges of humanity, still touched by its pollution and disorder, yet peaceful and desolate. We start hiking back along the train tracks under the relentless beatdown of the midsummer sun, the railroad ballast digging into our feet. This too is eerily quiet, the only sound being the crunching of the jagged little stones under our footsteps. To one side of us is the backs of buildings, empty lots and neglected warehouses, to the other is a densely overgrown embankment. It’s the wrath of nature striking back at the fringes of human incursion, furiously reclaiming every bit of space it can. Along the way we find prizes- the skeletons of animals struck by trains. I find an entire articulated deer spine and carry it with me for the remainder of the day, along with several skulls from various animals. The sky spreads out over us, vast and powerful, the plants grasp at us from the sides, and muddy puddles and secret pools languish to the sides of the tracks, begging for our attention like a siren song. Nevertheless, we decide not to deviate from our path.

T3:20- One of my friends has decided he’s had enough and decides he wants to go home. I find a place to break off that may bring us back to civilization so I can call him a ride. There was an illusion of seclusion although we have been so close to accessible civilization this whole time. Yet even then, the sense of seclusion comes from being hidden away amongst all the hustle and bustle of human activity, the way an insect may feel hiding amongst garbage in a busy population center. It’s a feeling of being on the fringes, of being present but just out of reach. The exit point I find comes out to a farm with horses… not something I was expecting in the city. It’s eerily silent, and the golden afternoon light parading down just punctuates this sense of surreality. We exit the ranch to find a completely empty road with no one around- have we entered the twilight zone? It turns out the road was just closed because of the holiday. I escort my friend to somewhere he can navigate from then trace my steps back and meet up again with my other friends to continue our journey.

T3:40- We reach a bridge over the river, a massive and sturdy stone bridge with walkways on the side next to the tracks. We pause here and look out over the city-it is the golden hour where everything is drenched in amber light. Ominous clouds loom in the distance. The entire undulating skyscape burns with vibrant rainbow colors, pulsing and breathing, a reminder that I am indeed still tripping. I sit down and it strikes me how altered I still am as the concrete wall across from me swirls and dances with the same angular patterns as before. A train passes and the conductor gives us a sharp glare. We decide to move on. At last we come to familiar territory, the same train tracks running by the same wooded park mentioned in several other reports. The clouds have crawled over the sun and the dense canopies lunging out above us cast us in a downpour of shade. Immediately the essence of our exploration has changed, from the exposed sunbaked place we were earlier to the dour shade of the deep green trees now. It’s not somber, but it’s a feeling of being welcomed home, welcomed into haze and shade.

T4:30- At last we reach the park where there is a little picnic with my friends going on. I am dirty and sweaty and have been walking around in public carrying a deer spine crusted with little bits of meat, along with a skull and some jawbones. We go up to the party and at once I find myself flustered, having a difficult time socializing. I am dissociated- it feels like a scene out of a movie. Everything is grainy and distant, I am emotionally detached from everything and everyone. I spend most of the time sitting off to the side with the people I came with, not interacting much with the others there. I don’t feel bad about it, nor do I feel uncomfortable, I just don’t feel social in the least. It begins to rain and everyone starts to pack up. They invite us to join them at a house, but we decline and decide to set out for home instead. We call a ride and the journey home is wild- despite the pouring rain there are people setting off fireworks in the street all over, the car having to drive through thick curtains of smoke and showers of sparks. The crackles and pops around us sound like a warzone and the rain smothers the smoke against the earth, letting it linger as a dense haze over the city. The ride back is jovial and pleasant, the driver is cracking jokes and one liners the whole time. She’s sweet and funny and says she’s going to just go home and relax after this ride, just as we are. It instills a sense of coziness across all of us.

T5:45- We arrive home. It’s dark now. We settle in and smoke a blunt. My friends go out to get food while I remain inside with my roommate listening to music. Music appreciation is certainly heightened, I feel an intense sense of euphoria and calm, like I am in exactly the right place at the right time. I banter with my roommate, my words fluid and articulate. I feel like I have ascended to a purer form, diaphanous and glistening, sheathed in gossamer and bristling with tranquil energy. The same rivers of gentle visuals flow around me, parting around my form and embracing it like wind whistling around the edge of a blade. The ceiling breathes and pulses, the world is alive around me and I am alive within it. I close my eyes and sink into the music, savoring every note, every strum of vocal cords and guitar strings, everything is placed so perfectly and carefully.

T10:00- The past few hours have been up in smoke- a euphoric and hedonistic haze spent amongst some of my closest friends as we savored the degenerate days of our youth. I don’t even recall what we did exactly, probably just played super smash bros and watched The Simpsons for a few hours, inundating ourselves with storm surges of cannabis smoke. The rains continued on and off all night, a gentle pitter patter on the windows. This was punctuated by the sound of explosions, crackles, pops and whistles throughout the night, every few seconds, as people indulged in the annual excuse to set off explosives in public. It made for a delightful and jovial atmosphere of revelry and vitality that permeated the walls of our house and crept into our own euphoria. At this point people have gone to bed and I am alone in my room. Smoking one last big hit from the gravity bong, I find the experience has been defibrillated, jolted back to life like throwing gasoline onto smoldering embers. Writhing and chaotic visuals explode in my face and tangle around one another, as if the last vestiges of the trip were trapped in a bubble that burst under the pressure. A great calm washes over my mind, followed by a creeping electric energy, buzzing through my neurons like currents through jumper cables. I suddenly find myself reading- ravenously. I want to learn so much, I want to expand my mind so much, I want to take in as much information as possible. Everything, absolutely everything, is fascinating now, there is so much to learn and I want to greedily devour it all. I stay up several hours later than I intend- no good because I have to get up for work the next day… This would certainly be useful to experiment with in the future however, as a learning aid.

T14:00- I go to sleep finally. I am groggy and out of it the whole next day and my body feels tired. I nap the rest of the day after work.

Conclusion: This is a magical substance- it is intricate and complex, with odd little surprises hiding in all of its secret places. Despite a dose of 500 mg I feel like I only got a little taste of it’s true potential. It was expensive and hard to come upon unfortunately, hindering further experimentation. I would love to be taken on a voyage by this one. From what I got here, it is a stimulating drug that filled me with childish energy, a desire to learn and explore that is normally suppressed by the everyday responsibilities of life. The cognitive effects were gentle, welcoming, and harmonious, allowing me to explore the drug and the world altered by it at my own pace, on my own terms. Sensory effects were mild, nothing about them was particularly noteworthy or spectacular, though they felt perfectly enmeshed with the rest of the experience. The nature of this drug seems to be harmony- a sense that everything is exactly as it should be, that everything is exactly where it should be. It’s the beautiful naivety of youth, manifest as resplendent color and energy. The euphoria and cognitive enhancement felt quite unique too in the sense that it wasn’t forceful or some artificial overlay, but rather that it was awakening some latent potential already present inside of me. Indeed it left me wanting to explore, learn, pursue- at the tail end everything was fascinating and I wanted to learn and explore everything. Perhaps one day our paths will cross again. 

DOM

This is long overdue I had this experience like 2 months ago.... I wrote physical notes for it because it was mostly spent out of the house and I kept losing them... very inconvenient. I wonder if I've lost my touch after all this time of inactivity. Oh well... Still have one maybe two more reports pending. 
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Age: 21

Weight: 125 lbs

Dosage: 10 mg sublingual

Setting: The woods, my apartment

T0:00- I woke up feeling a bit odd from a dissociative binge the day before, a roiling combination of PCP, 3-MeO-PCP and 3-MeO-PCE, consolation for a bad day before. This has mostly worn off by the time we dose though. We decide we’re all going to go out on an adventure. I’m finally going to bring other people to my favorite tripping spot – The beautiful park and woods that are connected to the freight tracks. They are all tripping too, all on 4-AcO-DMT. I decide I am going to dose now, before we leave, as the DOx drugs are notorious for their long comeup. The tabs are so bitter that I almost throw up, it’s a stinging unpleasantness that reflexively makes me want to purge the poison from my body. I let the tabs sit against my gums and choke the toxin into my bloodstream.

T0:40- We are on the bus now, en route to our destination. I begin to feel the onset- a light warmth radiating slowly from my core.

T1:20- At last we have reached our destination. We are hanging around some large fire pits that people built in the woods. My friends have dosed now and are beginning to feel the onset of their respective substances while I’m on the long and steady comeup of mine. I’m stricken with a slight nausea and a visceral discomfort that has me frantically alternating between lying still and pacing around in an attempt to alleviate it. In my skin I feel a weird, sterile, hot dissociation.

T1:40- Feeling stimmy- I have decided my course for the indefinite future will be pacing, as I am awash with hot energy. There is a much more marked discomfort in my guts- not even nausea but an odd sort of twisting pain. Mentally, I feel a bit of stimulated apprehension for what may prove to be an intense trip. I am plummeting into what is potentially a vigorous and dynamic storm.

T2:00- That anxiety ends up being unfounded, as the comeup proves itself to be continuously gentle and gradual, a slow climb up a shallow incline. It is like slowly lowering myself into a warm pool. No visuals to speak of yet, just this continuing sense of warmth in my body.

T2:40- We have walked to our new destination- a little swamp some ways down the train tracks. I feel jovial, joking with my friends as they come up on their substances. I feel like I am reaching the top of this incline, peaking over the edge at the long plateau this drug is known for. The bodyload has mostly left me at this point, leaving only the glory of the trip to behold ahead of me. The clouds have broken and the sun is beaming through. The earlier fears about its intensity seem unfounded- the curtains of discomfort have been breached and it has extended a hand to gently lead me into the rest of the experience, a soft and comfortable place.

T3:00- I am tripping harder now. We’re sitting on a bank by the pond and laughing and joking and smoking weed. The trip mostly feels cognitive- I am experiencing everything in an accelerated and mindful manner, existing purely in the present. It is at once alien and blissful. The visuals have made themselves apparent now, as subtle alterations and patterns, though they are still somewhat light and indistinct.

T3:30- A great swell of tranquility has washed over me. My limbs are adrift like handfuls of iridescent dust thrown into a soft breeze. The summer air that settled like a blanket over the little pond has been stirred into tender swirls and currents that enshrine my limbs and hold me aloft. I float along hazily and ascend a tree limb that reaches out over the water bathed in the emerald green light reflecting off the abundant duckweed below. Lying on this limb, I am enveloped in the most immaculate comfort, as if this tree was made to perfectly fit the contours of my body, or vice versa. My existence is adorned by the golden sunlight rocketing down from the glorious sky, imparting the eggshell clouds with a painterly quality. The fluttering and harmonious songs of birds dance between the blossoming and breathing trees and swathes of insects dance on the surface of the water, catching the rays of the sun and glowing like strings of Christmas lights. I close my eyes and sink into the world breathing and living around me, I become enveloped in its vitality and the respiration of every life form around me.

            Radiating patterns swirl from the center of my vision, composed of triangles and glowing, pulsing lanes between them. These patterns are not particularly colorful or vibrant, rather they are neutral and earthy, a reflection of the deep earthiness I feel crawling up the tree branch like ivy and creeping into my core. Nature truly is not blissful or harmonious in any human sense- it is a cacophony of species destroying one another to survive, it is efficiency and brutality and perpetual fear for one’s own life. But there is beauty in that- beauty in how well adapted each organism is for its specific mode of survival, beauty in the way that some species depend on overcoming that, tranquility in knowing that every species is doing exactly as it is supposed to. It’s a feeling of acceptance that cannot be overcome, it’s the stoic and unrelenting harmony of nature. I feel grateful to be able to sink into it, to know how much life comes from so much suffering. The warmth of the sun, the fuel of this great chaotic and concordant engine, tickles my skin, lends its energy to my cells. I can only breathe in and out deeply, despite the earlier speediness I am entirely still, I sigh as a great warm smile stretches across my face- there is no place I would rather be than right here, right now.

T4:40- We have steadily been running out of water. We brought a foolishly small amount with us. It is an incredibly hot summer day and the relentless beatdown of the sun in addition to our constant sweating has made us realize that we must retreat back to civilization soon. The others with me seem to be enjoying their experiences but they too have grown weary. One of them has become quite pale. We begin the trudge back to familiar territory. The entirety of the experience thus far has been very outrospective, I am not considering myself much, I am not anchored in my own thoughts and emotions. Rather it is flighty consideration of my surroundings, of the context I exist in and all of the moving and interlocking parts that compose my daily experiences. This is a good drug for appreciating the world.

T5:20- At last, we have returned to a populated area. The visual effects of the trip are still relatively minor, beyond the world appearing like it’s being bathed in some holy golden light. We walk along the jogging trail, passing swathes of strangers. I do not feel uncomfortable around them in the least, even volunteering to take a picture of a family that was struggling to attempt a selfie. We pause next to the river and gaze out over the rippling surface of the water for some time. We are all so peaceful in this moment, subject to the beauty of the sun and the sky and the water, the beauty of so many people out enjoying themselves on such a glorious day, the beauty of the trees in full bloom and the clouds drifting lazily above and the city catching the sun’s light just down the trail. It’s such a wondrous moment and I am grateful that I got to be there with these people who I loved so much. We eventually continue walking, joking and laughing and talking the whole way, people watching and in general just taking in the sights and sounds around us. We miraculously come upon a person selling cold water bottles, truly our savior.

T6:15- We have reached the center of the city now. I dip my bandana in a fountain to cool off and we collectively decide to walk the rest of the way home. The great sun still graces us with its blossoming presence as we continue our walk and take pleasure in each other’s company, picking mulberries from the trees. The feeling of being in exactly the right place still pervades.

T7:00- We arrive home at last. One of my friends leaves to go back to his house because he has things to do later in the day. The rest of us lounge around and smoke a blunt. I am lying on my couch- I don’t think I have ever felt this comfortable. I sink into the cushions and they sink into me as the trip returns to a higher gear. My friends go out to get food, leaving me alone to take in the renewed experience. I stare at the ceiling and am greeted by a great, pointy, radiating floral pattern, adorned by overlapping scales at its outer edges, the entire array of forms pulsing with pastel colors. The entire room appears hazy as these patterns dance and swirl above me, a lazy geometric ballet above my head, swimming in the summer heat. The hot breath of the mysterious forms cascades onto me like a warm rain, or the drool of some esoteric being. I am encapsulated by bliss, I sigh as even the shaking in my limbs feels calm and harmonious. I feel faint and foggy and it’s just fantastic. I am so glad I have such a nice comfortable place to shelter in, with air conditioning and the sort of lived-in mess that fills me with such deep feelings of comfort and belonging.

T13:00- I intended to go to sleep around now, but to no avail. I have been staying up, suddenly finding myself wishing to passionately pursue all variety of tasks, including making myself food. It’s about 4 am now and I want to do everything, it’s the second wind to end all second winds. The visuals have seemingly been dying down but kick back up whenever I smoke weed. I keep distracting myself well into the morning.

T16:00- Lying down and trying to sleep seems to kick things up even further, as I am now devoid of distractions. The trip sputters and leaks into my perception, an expression of relentlessly lingering psychedelic energy. Nonetheless, I don’t feel anxious or stressed in the least, rather this feeling is immaculately pleasant, I am overjoyed to be experiencing this still. I’m glad I have no obligations until late in the afternoon the next day. I’m not sure when or how, but I eventually fall asleep.
I woke up the next day feeling groggy and worn out, likely from all the walking with very little food.

Conclusion: Serenity, Tranquility, Peace, is certainly a fitting nickname for this substance. This is absolutely one of the most gentle psychedelics I have tasted, save for some bumpiness on the comeup. It’s a calm, peaceful, and harmonious experience that made me feel jubilant to just exist in the world. I didn’t find it particularly introspective, rather it made me ruminate blissfully on my surroundings throughout. The physical feelings of comfort were unmatched by anything else. It was quite euphoric and lacked the nervous stimulation of other phenethylamines- particularly odd for being a substituted amphetamine. The only intense aspect of it was the inesity of the serene bliss it induced, and the long sputtering duration. I’m curious as to how this pushed so many hippies into freaking out way back when, aside from the length. I would certainly be interested in pushing it at higher doses to see just what the boundaries of this tranquility are- to see if the energy changes way beyond the borders of what I experienced. If only it was easier to acquire….