DOSE: T+ 0:00	5 g	oral	Damiana	(tea)
T+ 0:00	400 mg	oral	Caffeine	(pill / tablet)
T+ 0:00	100 ml	oral	Alcohol - Hard	(liquid)
T+ 1:30	couple hits	smoked	Cannabis	(flowers)
T+ 1:30	200 mg	oral	Caffeine	(pill / tablet)
T+ 2:15	1 cig.	smoked	Tobacco - Cigarettes

BODY WEIGHT:

210 lb

BACKGROUND:

Having over the past three years previously taken cannabis, alcohol and psychedelics countless times, over the counter medications hundreds of times, and prescription opiates, benzodiazepines, and stimulants around 100 times each, with too many combinations to possibly ever to recall or list, I am, needless to say, a seasoned psychonaut. I am currently prescribed Abilify (aripiprazole), an atypical antipsychotic which I take 20 mg of every night at around 8:30 for my Bipolar Disorder.

Tonight I was lacking access to anything heavier than a bottle of caffeine tablets I'd bought the previous day, around 100 milliliters (two average shots) of bourbon, and about ten grams of damiana tea. I decided to just take all of them orally tonight in the hopes of having a new and interesting experience.

PREPARATION:

At 12:30, midnight, I measured out five grams of damiana, soaked them in boiling water for ten minutes in a mug, dissolved two caffeine tablets (400 mg total) in the tea, then poured all of the bourbon into the mug. The following is a log of my experience and state of mind over the course of the night.

EXPERIENCE LOG:

+0:00: It's a little past one in the morning. I'm sitting in my office/music studio. I take a sip of the concoction and my mouth is immediately filled with the taste of pungent bourbon, followed by a bitter aftertaste, presumably from the caffeine and damiana. Not an unpleasant taste at all, but slightly overwhelming. I slowly drink the tea, taking care to pace myself. About halfway through the mug, I begin to feel dizzy and decide to put on some psychedelic rock.

The music gives me the motivation to finish the tea (over a quarter of a mug) in a couple good swigs. I've finished the tea in about five minutes total, and I'm beginning to feel slightly nauseous, but still pleasantly lightheaded and in a generally positive state of mind.

I'm starting to get nervous and looking at the clock. Only five minutes have passed since I finished the tea. I say a few mantras with my Buddhist prayer bead bracelet and once again achieve tranquility. Soon, I'm in a very Buddhist, meditative state of mind.

+0:15: I'm still in the office, feeling somewhat locked to my chair, sitting and enjoying some psychedelic Hindu prayer music by George Harrison. I decided to pick up my bass and record an improvisational song on my bass guitar.

+0:30: I finish my recording, which ends up being a nonstop instrumental ballad, and begin to feel very overheated. I'm drenched in sweat. I take off my shirt to cool down. I almost immediately cool down and decide to put on some reggae-rock. I soon get the sense that most of the sedative effect has mostly worn off, while the stimulant and euphoric effects of a caffeine-alcohol mix are just beginning to kick in.

My emotional state is very excited and bored, happy and sad, a lot of conflicting feelings going on at changing and unbalanced levels. I have only lost a small amount of motor control, but I begin to have increasingly erratic and disjointed thoughts, frequently changing my mind about what I want to do with myself. I decide to go up to my room and read for a while.

+1:30: Much of the last hour is unclear. It is more of a group of disjointed images, sounds and ideas than a memory. In no particular order, here are some of the notable occurrences:

-I went up to my room to read when suddenly I realized that I had half a bowl of potent cannabis in my glass pipe.

-I smoked it all in two or three hits, and that's where the experience took a change for the better.

-I started having mild open eye visuals almost instantly. This is common with cannabis for me, but these were more vivid and erratic than usual.

-Without thinking, on pure impulse, I popped a another tablet of caffeine (200 mg).

-I started having what can best be described a periodical, brief, out of body experiences.

-I put on a vinyl record on my turntable and didn't notice that it was playing over ten -RPM (rotations per minute) slower until I was halfway through the second side.

-I drew a surrealist image of an angelic figure perched on top of a monolith.

-I finally got around to reading a Kurt Vonnegut novel, and the concentration that the activity required made my state of mind more manageable.

Directly after the last event, I came back downstairs to find some art materials, and while searching through my office for them, I saw the document containing this experience log and decided to type down my experiences of the past hour.

+1:45: It is now 2:45 AM sharp, around an hour and fifteen minutes since the cannabis consumption. My mind is very lucid, but still in a moderately altered state of consciousness. I have a vague desire to sleep, but know that with the amount of caffeine in my body, this would be a futile attempt.

I want very badly to go for a walk and feel the night air on my skin whilst smoking a cigarette, but the alarm is set, I can't remember the pass code , and I don't want to risk waking my family. I decide a cigarette would do a lot towards enhancing my state of mind and calming my nerves. My parents don't like me to smoke in the house, so I elect to open a window in my dad's office and smoke in there.

+2:00: I smoked a cigarette in my father's office as planned, then found myself extremely paranoid and anxious about the burning smell awakening someone. A strange reaction, because ordinarily nicotine has a very calming effect on me. Feeling very social right now, trying to find other people who are awake at this time. I decide to look for philosophy chat rooms online.

+2:20: Had a brief discussion on the nature of true love on an online chat room. The conversation is pretty dead, so I decided to log off and continue with the log. The cannabis is no longer affecting me, nor is the alcohol or damiana. I'm mostly just very hyperactive. I glanced into the mirror and noticed that half of my left eyebrow is missing. I literally have no idea how that happened. I believe that noticeably altered stage of my 'experience' has ended at this point, so this concludes my log.

REFLECTION / IMPRESSION:

Despite the initial intensity, I'm actually quite surprised at the unexpectedly short duration of my cocktail. I attribute most of it to the neutralization of the alcohol and damiana sedation by the caffeine, as well as the fact that my cannabis and alcohol tolerances are pretty high, as well as my tolerance to caffeine, to a lesser extent. I found it to be an overwhelmingly positive experience despite the short duration and occasional low points.

REVIEW / RATINGS:

Mental intensity: On a mental intensity scale from one to ten, one being placebo/practical sobriety and ten being a life-changing DMT-LSD-mushroom tea cocktail experience, I award this night with a soft seven. (7/10)

Spiritual intensity: On a spiritual intensity scale from one to ten, one being no spiritual effect whatsoever and ten being a conversation with God and ego loss, I award this night with a perfect five. (5/10)

Bodily intensity: On a bodily intensity scale from one to ten, one being no change in physical sensation and ten being beyond orgasm, I award this night with another perfect five. (5/10)

Enjoyability: On an overall enjoyability scale from one to ten, one being hellish and painful and ten being heavenly and fulfilling, I award this night with a hard eight. (8/10)

Total average comes up to 7.5/10, an accurate description of the night. This being said, I will most likely never end up repeating this mixture, as I have no idea of the long-term effects and the risk simply is not worth the experience. I am glad of my experience tonight, and I will grow from it. I intend on allowing it to be a memory, however, as opposed to a regular habit of any sort.

Exp Year: 2014	ExpID: 103095
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 17
Published: Aug 29, 2022	Views: 1,325
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