DOSE: T+ 0:00	4.2 g	oral	Syrian Rue	(seeds)
T+ 0:20	19.48 g	oral	Mimosa tenuiflora	(rootbark)

BODY WEIGHT:

65.9 kg

::Nine minutes or 20 hours—truly both—after I reached down with muscles I never knew existed and pulled my stomach out of my mouth, it occurred to me that it may have been a mistake to choose ayahuasca as my introductory psychedelic experience. But now that I’ve returned, I see no error was made:

Physical preparation: Maintained an absolute fast from 9:30 PM T:-23 hours; I take no medications, nor do I consume other psychoactives. I was unsure whether to cultivate any special state of mind, so I went about normal activities while always remembering I was going to travel, soon enough. The daytime was pleasant, mostly sunny, 75 deg F, breezy. I worked outside, gardening and building a path, occasionally relaxing, looking at the sky.

Journey setting: dusk, T:0 8:40 PM, 44 deg N, outside. The sky was clear, temperature comfortable for a light jacket. A path led from the house into the west, viewing the sunset and it’s remaining light. Tall plants grew all the way up to the path, various cultivated and wild gardens, all 1 meter +. These gave way to low edge forest, eventually to full forest on all sides, save for an orchard on the sunward reach.

Mixture preparation: Prepared the MAOi and DMT the day before. Note: All water used in this preparation was double-distilled, de-ionised, triple-filtered, and exposed to UV light. I’m quite certain that single-distilled or even normal filtered water would be perfectly adequate…

MAOi: A bulk order of 30g Peganum harmala (Syrian Rue) seeds were broken to powder in a coffee grinder and weighed into 4.2 g increments. The only special thing numerically about 4.2 is that it is 42 divided by 10; mostly I chose to dose that amount because it falls exactly within the 3-5g range encountered in other reports. T:-1 hour I dissolved one 4.2 gram dose in 25 mL water in a 50-mL inert-plastic conical tube; this was intended to partially extract beta carbolines.

DMT: The DMT was acidified-water-extracted from Mimosa tenuiflora (sometimes called Mimosa hostilis). First 11.08g root bark were shredded with large scissors. The outer bark is grey and brittle, the next layer is red, and the inner layer is fibrous—the scissors most effectively cut up the outer two layers. The bark powder was combined with 1g ascorbic acid (4 250mg vit. C tabs) in 160mL water in a 250-mL Erlenmeyer flask and put to heat (hotplate). Boiling started 10 minutes after heating, and was continued for a total of 40 minutes. The dark red liquid sat for 30 minutes to cool, and was then filtered through a gold-wire coffee filter (any permanent filter would work, I suspect) over a 1 L pyrex beaker. The plant material was combined with another 100mL water (no extra ascorbic acid), boiled for 10 more minutes, and filtered into the same beaker. The filtered liquid, 150 mL total, was set to boil off. After 45 minutes, volume was reduced to 30 mL. This reduction in volume resulted in a concentration of the color—darker red than before, but no concomitant increase in viscosity.

A second mass of shredded Mimosa root bark, this time only 8.40g, was extracted in the same fashion: combined with this time 750mg ascorbic acid (3 vit. C tabs), 160 mL water. Boiled 30 minutes, filtered. Plant material re-boiled in 100mL water, no acid, filtered, the combined filtrate boiled off for 45 minutes until the volume was reduced to 30 mL. In contrast to the first extract, this was darker brown, rather than red, and contained a thin, pourable tar.

Both of these 30-mL final extract volumes were combined, a colloidal suspension in a 100-mL bottle, and left overnight. The suspension resolved itself after 8 hours, leaving a distinct, compact layer in the bottom of the jar, topped with a transparent dark red liquid. The liquid was removed to another jar, final volume 50 mL, completing the preparation.

Voyage: At T:0 I poured 25 mL diet pepsi into the 50-mL tube containing the 4.2g P. harmala—there was some foam, but I lost no volume. The mixture is bitter, granular, so it was best to swallow it quickly. I held inhaled, closed my nostrils, and drank; the taste was chased with small additional sips of pepsi. It took 4 shots to get it all inside, adding pepsi as required: 50 mL per shot. While unpleasant, the syrian rue is palatable, creating no nausea. At T:+10, I noticed a definite leaden-ness of limb; my legs felt tired, as if I had walked for hours, but my mind was calm and felt none of that tiredness. There were no visual effects.

T:+20 I drank the Mimosa mix. There is nothing more vile than this tea, its texture and taste, vapors and color all conspire to warn: ‘I’m a poison…’ I would not be able to drink it without the aid of holding my nostrils closed. I think this should be done with a particular ordering of the breath: I inhaled, closed my nose, drank. The automatic reaction was to slam my tongue to the roof of my mouth, a desperate attempt to quench the bitter-nerves. Without removing my tongue, I flooded my mouth with pepsi, the bubbles and flavor washing away the bitter residue. The 50mL of tea were consumed in three equal parts, washing with pepsi each time. Approx. 20 mL pepsi were poured into the tea-bottle after it was all gone—to get the last drops of DMT liquid.

(A quick note about pepsi: a week before this experience, I attempted ayahuasca preparation for the first time. Then, I used only 10.24g Mimosa, and 3g P. harmala. The resulting ‘trip’ was only threshold, a few visuals for an hour if I concentrated. In a sub-note: this experience was a dosage-curve experiment. 10.24g was not enough, so I decided after some deliberation to use my remaining 19.48g, creating this preparation. During that first attempt, I used root beer as a chaser, which was a bad idea. The knowledge that I was drinking beer derived from a root, combined with the visceral physical reaction to drinking the rue and the mimosa, was a most un-fortuitous combination. One conceptual root synergised with the other, and before the purge I could concentrate on nothing but the idea that root beer was a terrible mistake.)

T:+20-T:+30 Opposite to my first ayahuasca dosage-experiment, I felt no nausea after drinking the mimosa. Sitting outside with my companion Tenin, we talked and relaxed. At dusk, when this all occurred, the sky was lit with still a ghost of the sun, but Venus and some of the brighter stars had appeared. I was smoking no marijuana, but my company was: the smoke keeping the mosquitos at bay. Over the course of what follows, I had various interactions with Tenin, but I think it is best to talk about them only here, since they were an intrusion on the atmosphere of the trip. The DMT caused a feeling of paranoia whilst talking to her, I always worried that my raving was annoying her, ruining her high. Talking afterward, I was assured that I had done nothing of the sort; quite the contrary, since the ~60 hits Tenin jinged were working well.

T:+30-T+35 Some tricks of light began, a tease, the leaves of grape vines remaining imprinted on my eyes after I had looked into the stars, which were more dense now. Leaning back in my chair, I entertained the thought: it is nice, to avoid being ill; I suspect that the trip will work, since I won’t lose the substance by vomiting. Then T:+35 happened, and I knew that the vomiting was unavoidable. I moved my chair out to a garden, fighting the nausea. Sitting down, I doubted I would be able to immediately avoid losing out, but I breathed into my abdomen, hunched over, containing my awareness in the little space between my chin and my chest. The nausea waned, and the most astounding small variegated squares covered the world. It was like looking through a pane of glass covered in flowing quadrilaterals and diamonds, each containing themselves at a smaller scale, merging to create an ever-changing fingerprint. Impressed, I lifted my head to better see, but upset whatever equilibrium I had established… pitching forward onto my knees, T:+35, I dredged up the medicines, feeling the flow from my chest, then downward from my small intestine, stomach. Nine contractions, the last one a strangled gasp at T:+40, and I found two things: first, I was fixed upon the number 9, and would return to it as an explanation of how many noses I had, or how many noses I had just picked off of my face and thrown to the ground, or how often my left foot decided to go for a walk while I wanted to lie down; second, instead of seeing my geometric emesis, and the grass it was lying on, through the previous pane of patterned glass, the glass had melted.

In the most delicate way possible, the surface that had seemed an artifact of my eyes had adhered to every object, every grass blade, fern leaf, lily flower, and goldenrod in my view. I talked to them, it seemed appropriate, and then looked at my watch. The glowing hour and minute hands emitted fleur-de-lis geometries, the body of the timepiece split into three sections, and my hand disappeared into a square-edged black stenciled and transparent entity. Trying to tell time when the back of my skull was opening up failed completely, so I staggered to my feet and looked about. I first saw a queen anne’s lace, 6 feet tall and at eye level, all of its flower heads pretending to be flattened, sharp skulls of some bovine origin. This was fertile ground for negative thoughts, so I looked instead to a sumac, or a walnut, I couldn’t tell which since the species were indistinguishable in the dark, the hallucinations notwithstanding. Knowing I was seeing compound leaves was no help, since there were little rainbow flames and stars falling upward off of the plants and into my neurons. These fires extended everywhere, in different form, each species or general shape of plant having its own characteristic markings. Everything became everyone, all the vegetation deserving personification, all on fire. A patch of jewel weeds in front of edge-forest seemed to go on forever and nowhere, sparks crawling and flying, unreal fireflies blinking. The occasional real firefly hiding in the blue, pink, spiked and intelligent grass, did nothing to remove the confusion.

The volume of life around me, impressive in the day and in consensus H. sapiens reality, went beyond the imaginable, infinite complexity, all simplicity lost. Each direction was a new onslaught of novelty, I thought, and then idly looked at the sky. My face muscles contracted into strange and secretive smiles, about the sky. It was a mistake to look into the stars, those relatively normal pins of light sitting in a field of deep black, because they were migrating. The darkness of space was replaced with a clear background of light purple, spots of red and blue coalescing out of nothing at regular intervals. Mostly, though, the stars shouldn’t wink out of existence only to reappear in a different place. I lay on my back, staring up into that, and I felt certain of two things: that my legs had never felt like they each had separate brains before, and that there was an incredible journey to be had in the stars. My revelations seemed to come in twos, like my numerical explanations came in nines, recall my thoughts after purging. I felt, though, that I couldn’t have that journey this time, that I needed to map the psychedelic experience fully at a superficial level since I am a neophyte. That given, I still firmly assert that had I been more comfortable, I could have looked into the stars and my whole being would have fallen along with the photons streaming into my eyes. Who knows what is out there to be found? After this, I cannot report, since I lost track of time due to the unpredictable dilation and my inability to read my watch.

T:+3:40 The trip was over, though the hallucinations were still strong. I went to sleep.

T: Next morning I was still high, a slowness of body, and a tendency to be fascinated with the workings of simple things, like lifting a piece of food, petting hair, or watching a cloud…

Reflections: As a novice, I was incredulous and accordingly couldn’t concentrate nearly as well as I wanted. The best ontological thought I had was that the consensus reality is far from dull, and while not psychedelic, there is no reason it must be prosaic. The originality and creativity encountered in the upwellings of physical sensation and visual perception experienced on DMT are of the same potential nature as the normal visuals of mountains, leaves, insects, clouds, and other beautiful forms. The brain is responsible for processing the two mental states, so I assert that a similar attitude can be applied to both. A DMT trip can be familiar and normal, just as consensus reality can be alien. At the height of the trip, I wanted very strongly to be back down, to compare the two states, to assure myself that I wouldn’t remain up forever, and to achieve this reversal of attitude.

I wish that this experience were given freely to each who wants it, since it has renewed my sense of interest in existence. It was a perfect first experience, an effective preparation, and a general success. Find the chance, and jam the DMT into your receptors.

Exp Year: 2003	ExpID: 26227
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Aug 20, 2003	Views: 66,666
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
Syrian Rue (45), Mimosa tenuiflora (74), Huasca Combo (269) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Nature / Outdoors (23), Glowing Experiences (4), Preparation / Recipes (30), General (1)