DOSE:

42 g

oral

Cacti - T. peruvianus

(powder / crystals)

I have been on a semi-successful quest for mescaline for years. About 15 years ago I read about San Pedro and was quite intrigued. I eventually tried it and had a fairly strong trip my second time. I didn't realize at the time how unusual that is for San Pedro (Trichocereus pachanoi), which has very low levels of mescaline. Must have lucked into a nice strong one.

Based on that glorious success, for years after that I continued to try San Pedro, but had consistently disappointingly mild trips. It works, don't get me wrong, but never again gave me a strong, or even medium-strength trip. I took a number of years off and grew a bunch of my own. Tried it twice in the last year, and used very physically large amounts of cactus. Nope. Those were two of my most mild trips, despite being some of the largest amounts of cactus I'd ever consumed. I'd probably tried T. pachanoi 10 or more times and only had it really work well just once, although it worked somewhat every time.

After discussing my frustration with an online friend, I was pointed in the direction of the legendary Trichocereus peruvianus. I found myself with a quarter kilo of small, green, dried T. peruvianus pieces. This was just the inch or so of green tissue near the surface, not the entire cactus.

A few months ago, a friend and I tried 28 g (each) of this source, finely powdered. Mixed it into water and chugged. Not a fun experience to get down, but quite doable in 2 glasses. We achieved what I consider good but mild effects. Moderate closed-eye visuals (CEVs), almost no open-eye visuals (OEVs). Solidly a +3, but that said it was just barely into the realms I want to visit. It was fun and trippy, but at a low level. I 'hit my target', so to speak, after years of questing for a predictable-strength source of mescaline, but I did not even come close to the bullseye.

Overall strength-wise, perhaps equal to 2-3 grams of P. cubensis. Dipped my toes in the water. Just enough to get you there for real, but not a 'shamanic' dose. I don't want to just rock my boat, I want to fall backwards into the ocean and go scuba diving in the crevices of my mind. However, I was ecstatic that I now had a consistent and predictable source of mescaline after all my years of hit and (mostly) miss experimentation. This dose would be a good first-time experience, and we had almost no stomach upset. As has been the case with every time I've tried mescaline, we were awake ALL night.

Two weeks ago I had a weekend to myself (a rarity) and tried it again. This time I tried 42 grams of the powdered cactus. Ingesting this is not for the faint of heart. The 42-gram dose represented 2 huge glasses of the nastiest, slimiest, most mucilaginous, grossest thing I've ever drank in my life. Ever. Nearly puked halfway through each glass of thick green sludge, but was motivated to keep it down. Separated the glasses by about 20-30 minutes. Once it was down, it stayed down and mellow...until the stomach upset started.

Nausea is an intrinsic characteristic of cacti. There's no escaping it at higher doses. I knew when we tried 28 grams and had no nausea that it would be mild. When I took 42 grams and started to experience massive nausea, I was both unhappy physically and ecstatic mentally because I knew that meant I was In For It.

I cannot overemphasize the massive, severe, major stomach upset and nausea. Nearly hurled a bunch of times, and had a bucket just in case. It passed, but was some of the worst stomach upset/nausea I've had in all my years of tripping and lasted for at least a couple hours. It was a truly horrible experience at times. I did a lot of visualization and a lot of minor vocalizations ('eddies of sound' I thought) to focus on keeping it down and getting through the nausea without puking. Very intense and unpleasant nausea. But like I said, it eventually passed and I was so happy when I realized I really wasn't going to puke up any of the lovely mescaline inside me. And, of course, while that was happening I was beginning to trip. My mantra was 'Steadfast in my joy. Steadfast.' Kept repeating that, it helped me focus and get through it and was just the right energy with which to transition into the stage of serious tripping.

The important thing is that it worked. It really, really, really worked well. I got where I wanted to go. I had a good, strong mescaline trip. The trip I've been searching for for years. Major CEVs. Lovely, colorful, and detailed OEVs. Solidly trippy stuff throughout for hours and hours, very satisfying. The peruvians worked *marvelously* and was a refreshing brain tonic, as I consider it. Stomach upset and trippiness started about an hour into it, and the really good effects lasted maybe 4-5 hours with a very long drawn out 'tail'. I was awake for 18+ hours. I took it at 6 pm and stayed awake all night. (Watched 'Shortbus' around 2 am and it was very interesting.) Note that this trip was solo, with my lovely 1-year-old chocolate labrador retriever as a trip buddy.

Spent most of the actual trippin' time lying down with my eyes closed listening to Steve Roach and other ambient space music, and occasionally petting my dog and telling him how great he is. Didn't want beats at all in the music at that point, but I did later. During the main peak, I just wanted to hear that echoey, ambient, spacious, and bass-ous type of music. I remember sitting on the couch, tripping hard and feeling the music just engender this spacious feeling inside me, like my body was filled with peaceful energy such as I imagine others get from meditation. My body felt hollow but glowing. Hard to describe. Like my inside was a space bigger than my body itself. Feeling utterly at peace, completely high, and absolutely clear-headed while watching/experiencing colored patterns shifting and changing either in me or in front of me or both.

Later in the trip, I put on the 3/14/2007 show from STS9, which absolutely blew my mind. I love that band and that particular gig is astonishingly good. Music is really important to me and I had carefully selected a stack of CDs beforehand. Sector 9 is great tripping music once the need for ambient music has passed.

My main insight from this trip, simple though it may be, was that I get to experience joy in my life. How lucky I am to get to experience Joy. That not everyone gets to experience Joy. I have a stable life with a warm place to live, loving wife and family, decent job, good health, enough food, etc etc etc. I get to experience joy and I am so thankful. Steadfast. Letting my joy course through me. Mescaline helped me realize that on a deep level. I spent a lot of time focusing on all the joy I have in my life. (No wonder I had such a good trip!)

Another insight that hit me with intense clarity is that my choice to become vegan is really good for me. I'm so happy and peaceful and grounded in this choice. I remember placing my hand on my heart and knowing so deeply that I didn't want to eat animals and that being vegan is good for my body, good for my soul.

One of the reasons I have some hesitancy about tripping is The Modern World. News. Bad News In The World. Although I chose to view no news for a couple days beforehand as a preparation for the trip, it's hard to let it all go. When I started tripping I consciously set up mental barriers. I told myself that if heavy thoughts about bad shit that happens to others in the world were to enter my head, that I would acknowledge them and gently set them aside. During the trip I had that experience. Some very heavy news had come out in the media days earlier and had been on my mind a lot for the previous week. But I was determined that it wouldn't wreck my trip, and chose to not let it do so.

I had been experiencing so much joy that when I finally, consciously, chose to open those barriers and let myself think about it (about half way through the trip) I didn't spiral into stress or freakout, to my relief. I just let myself experience deep sadness for those people and their families. I let myself experience compassion for all involved. I let my awareness of those horrible things that happened to other people provide even deeper perspective on how lucky I am to experience Joy. How thankful I am. And then I let it go and continued through the trip without focusing on that stuff anymore. I was very pleased with my ability to not ignore those thoughts, to be able to acknowledge them and think about them but then go on with my gloriously positive trip.

One of my general challenges in the world is how to remain a grounded, positive, loving person when so much chaos is happening. How to stay a loving husband and father and be a peaceful person when the daily paper on my kitchen table shrieks death and destruction for so many others. Having this experience during my mescaline trip is helpful, good training, for being able to do this. This dark side of my trip helped me experience the light side even more, if that doesn't seem to crazy.

A few times I thought I was starting to come down quite a bit. Then I'd stand up and be like, 'Whoah...I'm still incredibly high. Wow. I think I need to lie down again.' And the trippiness and colors swirled back in.

Much later in the trip, when I really had mostly come down, I made my way upstairs. It was about 3:30 in the morning, and I was listening to Yungchen Lhamo on my wife's laptop. Wasn't really tripping anymore but, of course, was wide awake. We both really love that music. My wife was in Australia at a conference – about as far away in the world as you can get from where I live. I was struck with this intense feeling of just missing her so much. Nearly started to cry. Lying in our bed without her, listening to this wistful and gorgeous music that we both love while she was on the other side of the planet….I'm getting tears in my eyes just writing about it. She's my true soul mate, a partner in the deepest sense, and I'm so thankful to have her in my life. I think the music just catalyzed that experience in the moment. Although I knew she was ok and would be back in a few days, I experienced missing her very deeply. And then... the sweet, peaceful, and spacious sounds of Yungchen Lhamo were quietly percolating through the room and all of sudden I was like 'What the FUCK is that? Vogon poetry? Vogon fucking poetry????'

She had the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio show on her laptop and it had automatically started playing after Yungchen Lhamo, right at the point where Ford has been captured by the Vogons. I laughed and laughed. It was such a funny contrast to go from this wistful, peaceful, calm space to suddenly and unexpectedly hearing these quaint British voices doing hilarious Vogon poetry. Lovely and funny.

I was awake all night, listening to music. I was a total wreck the next day, mostly due to lack of sleep.

Even though it was an intense experience to drink in the first place, and the nausea was intense, I'll probably do 50 grams next time. I'd like to go just a little farther than I did with this trip. I don't think I will go beyond that, I don't think I could keep it down. This strong of a dose of mescaline is not an easy experience in any way, but very, very worthwhile.

I'm so happy that I finally have found a cacti source that can predictably take me to the deep level of primeval tripping that I long for. I won't do this very often at all, perhaps yearly or less often. It's really difficult physically, and it requires staying up all night and an entire day for recovery. For me and many others, the experience of those 4-6 hours of peak mescaline tripping is absolutely worth all the effort, all the physical nausea, everything. Mescaline is good for me. It makes me a better human being. And it's fun too.

I got a lot out of this trip and have no regrets. It was a great experience, overall.

Exp Year: 2007	ExpID: 62761
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jun 28, 2007	Views: 10,010
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Cacti - T. peruvianus (69) : Alone (16), Glowing Experiences (4)