DOSE: T+ 0:00	11 seeds	sublingual	H.B. Woodrose	(ground / crushed)
T+ 2:00	6 seeds	oral	H.B. Woodrose	(ground / crushed)
T+ 0:00	2 hits	smoked	Cannabis	(plant material)

BODY WEIGHT:

164 lb

My two rooomates and I decided to take a day off from our relatively busy schedules to go on a psychodelic trip. They did acid at Coachella last year, but I didn't go and we couldn't find any acid or mushrooms that we could trust, but we stumbled upon Hawaiian Baby Woodrose seeds as a natural psychodelic that could be obtained legally and had reports of similar experiences.

We ordered 50 organic HBW seeds from a reputable online herbal supplier which were reported to be from Hawaii. On the day of the trip we packed a bunch of picnic-type stuff up and went to Griffith Park on an awesome sunny March day. We parked and prepared the concoction using the sub-lingual method.

We each took the dose of seeds we wanted (accounting for a reported 20% loss of potency due to the sublingual method when not swallowing seed matter), we crushed them up, mixed with a small amount of water, let the mixture sit for 5 minutes and then shot the mixture and held under our tongue for 30 minutes before spitting out the concoction. I took 11 seeds (going for a 7-8 seed dose) and tried to pick out some of the husk, but gave up assuming that the husk would only become an issue if I swallowed it. Before the 3 of us took the mixture we each recorded our intention for the trip... mine went something like this:

'I intend to breach the space between this world and the next, to understand the space between the polar opposites that make up the Universe... and hopefully not freak the fuck out in the process'

We'll come back to that, but let's just say that intention is a powerful thing... too bad my intention wasn't stronger on that last part.

So we walked up to the Observatory and hung out on the lawn while we were holding our seeds under the tongue (I was swallowing my saliva build-up, my roommates were not), after 30 minutes we spit them out and hung out on the lawn waiting, then hiked down a trail and bullshitted some. My roommates became impatient waiting for the seeds to kick in and since we'd read so many varying reports about dosages and methods, they began to scrape some more seeds to get the skin/husk off and just ingest them whole. I abstained and decided to wait some more, I was mostly too lazy to scrape the seeds as it's a pain in the ass and my stomach was feeling a little cramped. They each took 2 more seeds and we walked back up to the Observatory lawn where we lay down and just waited.

I napped for a little bit and when I woke up I felt none too different, just slightly loopy with a lack of inhibition. It'd been 2 hours since we had taken the seeds initially and none of us were tripping. One of my roommates reported extreme lethargy and he began to appear somewhat drunk. At this point I decided to take another 6 seeds, I crushed them up again and took them sub-lingually. After 20 minutes of holding them under the tongue, I decided to just swallow the seed matter, figuring that if I puked, that was fine by me.

We waited around some more and then decided to go in to the Observatory. My one roommate seemed kind of wasted and the other somewhat normal, though we both thought most things were pretty funny... something like a light alcohol buzz. It was decided that the seeds were bullshit, we did it wrong, or perhaps... we needed to catalyze the experience with weed. Having no weed, I decided I would drive us to my dispensary, pick up some good shit, then drive us home where we'd just smoke and go see a movie. So that's what we went to do.

[Erowid Note: Driving while intoxicated, tripping, or extremely sleep deprived is dangerous and irresponsible because it endangers other people. Don't do it!]

At this point, I'd like to note that I have been a heavy marijuana smoker for many years and have done mushrooms on two occasions. The first time was an awesome experience 7 years ago, but the second time (6 years ago) I ended up having a seizure which scared the shit out of me. I also had another seizure 4 years ago, this time while just smoking weed... but both times were during a period of my life where I was under extreme mental and emotional anxiety and was much less secure with myself, I had previously chalked them up to panic-induced seizures caused by extreme anxiety. I used to experience mild panic attacks while just smoking, but I haven't come close to a seizure or any sort of panic attack in the 3 years since moving to CA from NJ.

It's also of note, that at the time of this experience I had not smoked weed or done any other drugs for 4 weeks, I was totally clean going in to this.

So I drove us to my dispensary and picked up some bud (Blue Dream) and drove us home. While driving I was experiencing some strange sensations and a generally carefree thought process, though I noted that my driving wasn't erratic and I was careful and able to get us there and back without any real trouble... definitely not sober though.

When we got home I got out my vaporizer, we sat around the table, packed it up and we passed it around. I took 2 vapor hits and was instantly stoned. I started telling a funny story about an iPhone app project that I might work on and in the process of explaining the application design, I suddenly saw the project design from multiple different angles, the project made sense as a complete whole and I could hold it all in my mind... I suddenly noticed I was not JUST stoned, I said so and suddenly I saw my ego speaking and thinking and was observing from a space outside of it and outside of everything, I saw my roommates egos and the interaction between us and realized that we were not just that.

I understood the patterns and understood myself, the Universe and the connections between them. I started talking vaguely about it and felt that I needed to write because I understood something and I needed to put it down lest I lose it... I grabbed my laptop and wrote one sentence, then realized that writing was futile as the experience I was having could never been placed in to our feeble language, let alone flow quickly enough from my fingers. One of my roommates saw that I was losing touch with reality and said something like 'Dude, don't go down the rabbit hole'... so that's just what I did. Last thing I remember is saying something like 'It all makes so much sense'.

I woke up on the ground next to the table, I had a vision of having just gone to sleep and in the space between being conscious at the table and conscious on the floor I had a vision of a women (Goddess?) kiss me. I remember saying something about wanting to nap, but really I just wanted to go back to that place. It was peaceful and beautiful and I may have said something like that. My roommates insisted that I go to the next room to nap, but they really just wanted me off the floor and in the other room (later my roommates said that I leaned forward, my eyes rolled up in to my head, I hummed a couple of times and slumped sideways out of my chair, one of them caught me so I didn't crash to the floor). I lay on the couch, but they didn't want me to go to sleep. I understood their fear and could see their concern for me... it was beautiful, I felt peace and understanding and I could see everything differently relative to that existential moment.

I told them that I'd fulfilled my intention, I had seen how perfect the Universe was from the space between the opposites. In/Out, Up/Down, Good/Bad, Self/Other, everything was a beautiful illusion, a game we create playing always between the two sides split from the beautiful Whole in countless dimensions. I attempted to explain it and in trying to intellectualize it for my roommates, I saw them completely and myself... and then I got stuck spiraling around the rabbit hole. I felt that they could have the Truth I had if they acknowledged that I had just died in the other room moments before and that it was ok to die at any time as it was all apart of the beautiful game of the Universe. Just another oscillation between the opposites of Life and Death, nothing to fear and the fear of death was exactly what drives life.

In trying to intellectualize the Truth I had just experienced I found myself caught looping between acceptance of my own death and fear of my own death... love of life and a resistance to life. I felt that I needed others to understand the Truth in order for me to keep it, but that the only way to give the Truth to others was to die in that moment. Caught between the fear of dying before my friend's eyes and the acceptance of my own death through knowledge of the Truth about the beauty of death, I became increasinly manic. I realized that I was stuck in a cycle of trying to intellectualize and communicate something that was not possible to be communicated or intellectualized, but compelled by a need to do so. I felt a fear that the world would end because I had seen through the game that the Universe was playing and yet I realized that the Universe proceeded from me and in these moments I understood increasingly more and more about the game we all play in life. I saw the origin of all religions and understood countless metaphors for what they were and the context which powered the spiritual (I had been reading Alan Watts and Joseph Campbell prior to this experience).

With each new understanding came a joy and wish to communicate it, I made my friends begin a recording which I felt would contain the Truth, but then became afraid that the Truth was that the recording couldn't contain it, we had to stop it and then felt that it needed to be published or else I would die...I began believing that maybe we would all die, and maybe the world would end because of the recording and the truth on it. All this time my friends were trying to engage me in conversation, but my mind was working too fast, I'd acknowledge or respond to a question, but would run off in another direction as something else occurred to me. Everything made sense relative to my death experience and as I worked things out it became clear that my ego was trying desperately to protect itself from the Truth I'd uncovered about it. I felt the only way to get out of the spiral was to go to sleep, knowing full well that I might not wake up (yet knowing that I would because I had chosen to continue living before). My roommates would not let me sleep and in the tension I would wrap back around to a manic state of insistence on certain truths.

They made me food and turned on a TV, hoping to distract me from the mental circles I was running in, I couldn't eat, I could only think. Everything seemed futile for some moments, yet I accepted it as it was. I felt like I had entered a Hell much like Sartre's No Exit and at times was convinced my rooommates would kill me because they couldn't understand my truth or that we would continue running in these inane circles forever. At the same time I knew that if I could just calm down and allow life to be, my roommates would calm down and we'd all go to sleep eventually.

After a time I realized that I had to calm my ego, I had to merely stop trying to explain and intellectualize the Truth as it was this impossible task that my ego had caught itself up in as a way of regaining control after it was lost. I knew there was no way anybody would understand it since an experience is beyond true comprehension except to the person who has it... in the true acceptance of one's death lies the experience of Truth of life and death.

After quieting myself, the Truth became internalized, I ate the food they had made me and we watched some TV. After awhile we all went to sleep. I woke up in the middle of the night and contemplated more thoughts on spirituality and religion... I felt forever changed. I went back to sleep and had many dreams, a couple were lucid and I was able to fly and walk through walls in them (something I'd never done in a lucid dream before). I awoke the next morning and still felt I knew something others didn't really know, yet was something I'd known intellectually all along.

Today is the second day since that experience and I feel similar, though I know that my ego is regaining more control. It's ok, because the game of life is the only game there is and I know that what awaits me after I'm done playing it is a beautiful reconciliation between the opposites that power our life.

Acceptance of Life, Resistance of Death
Resistance of Life, Acceptance of Death

These are the poles that power the consciousness that plays the game... much like the Positive and Negative interactions between electrons and protons power the thermodynamics of the Universe we play in. And there I go again trying to intellectualize... I'll finish with a thought I had the morning after this experience:

Life is a process of Dying. Death is a result of Life.
So, I can Die my Life away or Live my Life to Death.

Exp Year: 2011	ExpID: 90000
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 29
Published: Dec 10, 2012	Views: 6,380
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H.B. Woodrose (26) : Combinations (3), Mystical Experiences (9), Small Group (2-9) (17)