DOSE:

40 g

oral

Cacao

(ground / crushed)

BODY WEIGHT:

110 kg

Cacao Can Be A Real Drug

Since the last trip report I wrote, I have tripped on raw cacao at least 20 times. Here is what I have learned.

I can trip on cacao so long as it‘s RAW. I experimented with cheap baking cacao, in water with no sugar (for a long time my usual way of consuming the drug). This time I used 20g which is a low dose but I‘d normally feel effects from that. Perhaps if I really focused it had something but it was essentially not the drug I‘d come to know and love.

I also experimented with taking my usual raw cacao prepared in BOILING soymilk/water. First I did 20 grams then to be extra sure I did 40 grams. Again, maybe if I‘m optimistic there‘s something, but not like a „real“ drug.

I experimented with sugar. I‘ve used panela (unrefined cane sugar), date syrup and agave syrup. I still haven‘t tried white sugar but I think it can‘t change the effect too much. Result: I can add sugar, it‘s not a big deal.

I‘ve experimented taking cacao on a full stomach (intuitively, I usually take cacao on an empty stomach or after a meal of light foods such as fruit). That did effect the results: it took twice as long to come up and didn‘t seem to be quite as strong, or perhaps it was just hard to get into a trance state like that.

So: cacao can be a „real“ drug, with visions and everything, if I take it raw. 40g on an empty stomach or after a very light meal, prepared with water or soymilk, a teaspoon of ginger powder to prevent nausea, and sweetener to taste. The liquid can be warm but not too hot, I don‘t know what the threshold temperature is but I try to keep it at „finger temperature“. If I want it to taste good I prepare this dose with 600ml soymilk. If I want to consume it fast I can have it in just one cup of liquid, but it won‘t be really enjoyable. I do either depending on mood. I‘ve experimented with various brands of cacao.

As I wrote in my last trip report: „About me: I'm transgender female (MtF), 26, vegan and gluten free (though not especially healthy eating), 110KG in weight, Northern European both by birth and ancestry. I take topical estrogen and androcur, don't drink, don't smoke.„

I usually take cacao together with my partner. We darken the room, light candles and incense, say our intentions, drink the cacao, meditate then lay down. Cacao comes up about half an hour after I take it. I notice it as a warm feeling in my body and a slightly altered mental state. I sort of meditate into the warm feeling, and sometimes also use meditative awareness to delve into any feelings in my body I might be interested in processing. I try to relax almost to the point of sleep but not quite. (It helps that cacao makes it hard to actually sleep – on that note I avoid taking it less than 6 hours before bedtime). Sometimes visions come up. Sometimes I have an awareness of the „cacao spirit“ and I‘ve found it useful to ask her to guide me, and allow my awareness to go where she wants it to go. At other times I have no visions at all, but I always feel more connected to my body and my emotions , and it‘s much easier to talk about my emotions, and hence, to process. Me and my partner often spontaneously have therapeutic conversations together or „relationship“ conversations. This effect can go on for a couple of hours after the obvious body feeling has worn off.

One time I was exploring the feelings in my body meditatively, with the intention of processing a trauma. Quite abruptly I started having a vision of giving birth, and bonding with my baby. This went on for an hour until the visionary effects of the drug wore off. I find this aspect of the drug has quite a sharp cutoff point, which meant my baby suddenly evaporated and I started screaming and crying. I know this is not the best advertisement for cacao but it was one of my most vivid experiences and I think once I got over the freakout it was ultimately positive. I felt a strange feeling for a day that I had really had a baby, and wondered if it was a real spirit that had come to me to help me have this experience (or I was helping him have one?). But after about a day it began to feel more like a dream and not real, which was welcome.

Another time which was very vivid involved me encountering a representation of my inner child. appearing the way she „should“ be rather than the ugly male self that was my self image back then. I felt the pain she went through as she started to experience romantic love and felt a feeling at the same time that she was unworthy of love or unloveable. As this intense mixture of positive and negative feeling entered me, it became so intense that I actually vomited (the only time I‘ve vomited on cacao). I felt the act of vomiting to be emotionally helpful. I had a long trip trying to heal that pain, and felt like I had the answer when I came „out“ of that deep place, but then returned with my adult self to give my child self her wisdom and perspective.

Those are a couple of the more interesting experiences. In general, I‘ve worked hard on clearing a specific trauma with quite a few cacao trips, and though it has often involved working through a lot of painful feelings I do believe that I‘m a lot freer than I used to be. I stopped having flashback dreams to my trauma for about six months, in fact I only noticed it recently when I had one again and realised then how long it had been without one. That was apparently caused by an experience that brought me back to my old pain. I took cacao to recover from that experience, too.

The warmth, comfort, and ease of emotional expression of cacao reminds me a bit of MDMA, if gentler. I think it could have an application in psychotherapy, indeed I‘m now studying to be a therapist with that in mind. Unlike MDMA it‘s legal, and probably will always stay that way (you could outlaw raw cacao, but I guess that won‘t happen).

Exp Year: 2016-2017	ExpID: 110096
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: 27
Published: Mar 14, 2017	Views: 10,118
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Cacao (638) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Therapeutic Intent or Outcome (49), Entities / Beings (37), Retrospective / Summary (11)