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Welcome to your own personal initiation into The Other. This is written to provide
information to those taking a psychedelic for the first time in hopes that it may
help others along the path as gently and smoothly as possible. You are embarking
upon an inner journey that many people have come to call one of the single most
important experiences of their lives. Understand that you are about to be placed in
a state of mind that you previously could not conceive even existed. During the
experience it may appear that all your previous understanding of physics, space,
time, and the way things are put together and function are being challenged, or
expanded to allow the impossible to manifest in the most unexpected of ways. You
are about to be given the chance to look deeper into yourself, to learn more about
who you are and how you relate to the people and places around you as well as your
place in the world (and/or universe and galaxy). I feel like the psychedelic
experience allows us to venture into the true richness of the very heart of what it
is to be human, to touch it and be changed by it.
Psychedelics are extremely powerful substances and should be treated with respect.
Because they have such raw and unbridled power, psychedelic substances have the
ability to open us to the heavens, or walk us right down the path into darker and
scarier realms. They can be unpredictable and each experience is totally and
completely unique. The experience is affected by so many variables, that many times
are impossible to reproduce. Some of the variables include; your personal body
chemistry at the moment you take the substance, any medications you may be taking,
your level of hydration, your mood, the things going on in your life at that
moment, the food you last ate, and how long ago you ate it, environmental factors,
like weather and temperature, and so on.
I believe with the proper preparation and foresight that you certainly are stacking
the deck in your favor to have the experience go the way you want it to (and even
some places you never knew could be conceived). Below I will present you with a few
tips and ideas for your own adventure down the path. Please realize that for each
item I describe below, there are going to be many people who totally disagree with
me. I would like this post to be totally open and anyone who has tips or comments
that they believe are valuable or relevant, I welcome them � especially opposing
viewpoints, because that helps me to keep my mind open to new possibilities (and I
am still learning myself after only 20 or so years using psychedelics). So if you
have any ideas or tips of your own, or if you'd like to expand on anything I
mention, please post them below :smile: These are just my personal thoughts and I
hope they are valuable to you. As you go into this experience, I think you should
treat it as one of the more important things you may ever do. It is a big step into
the unknown, but it one of life�s essential experiences. Terence McKenna once said
that going to the grave without ever having a psychedelic experience is like going
to the grave without ever having sex. That thought has always resonated with me,
since the experiences I have had have totally guided my life and changed it
forever.
1a. If you cannot find someone reliable or any reliable materials, and you live in
an area where it is legal to do so - you may want to consider growing your own
mushrooms. This site is a wealth of information on that subject, so you are already
in the right place. There are several benefits to growing your own mushrooms -
firstly you know your source :smile: it's you. Secondly, you can be assured that
the molecules in the mushrooms are "pure" or correctly made, as nature tends to be
very consistent in it's bio-synthesis of molecular substances. Also the act of
growing your own takes a little while, so you will have time to contemplate the
experience on a much deeper level and really take your time getting into "it." You
will learn patience and you will have a relationship with your psychedelic material
that is unattainable in any other way - you have taken the potential for life
(spores) and assisted in bringing it about and nurturing its growth. This
relationship can be very rewarding.
2. Do some self-education
Once you have your material (we�ll assume, LSD, psilocybin, mescaline or even DMT),
or even before you have your material, do some research. Of course you should do
plenty of research in general on psychedelics and specifically the one you plan to
use. Read trip reports online, go through the Erowid pages on your substance, check
the Recent LSD Prints thread to see if anyone else is getting the same blotter as
you, (for ecstasy you can check pillreports.com). You may be able to find people in
your geographic area getting and talking about the same substances you have access
to. This can be an invaluable resource, but like anything else, take a look at the
source of the information and use your best judgment. I truly feel that it is
important to familiarize yourself with as much information as you can on
psychedelics. But that being said, as much as you read, you will never know the
experience in its fullness until you�ve had a few (at least one) experiences with
it yourself. The psychedelic experience is one of the truly and utterly
indescribable things in this world � because words along with all our technology
are still too clumsy an instrument with which to capture the ineffable. So do some
research, but understand that it cannot prepare you for the experience.
Setting refers to the place in which the experience will occur, but it also refers
to the people that will be there, the music playing, and any other environmental
variables. Finding the right place for your first experience is very important.
Think of this in terms of losing your virginity � you only have one �first time� so
you may want to make the effort to find the right place. This place can be out in
nature camping in a remote area, or private property. The benefits of using private
property are discussed in more detail below, but the key is that private property
allows you a safe space within which you can reasonably have an expectation of
privacy. This is important because you are going to be in a heightened state of
awareness, so you will be hyper-aware of everything around you, and your thoughts
will be moving very quickly into and out of new areas of consciousness. You may
find that speech can be somewhat clumsy and confusing, and you certainly won�t be
able to speak as quickly as you are thinking, so there is a time-lag phenomenon as
well. This is not to say that you won�t be able to talk during the whole trip, but
at some points on a good dose, it is not unusual to find it hard to speak in a way
that conveys your true meaning, making communication work in different ways. So
find a nice private place where no one who is not part of your intended group of
travelers will bother you. Make the environment as comfortable as you can, and have
it well stocked with whatever you think you may need for the duration of the
experience. Have some nice music (and instruments if you�re that type of
person/group)and some nice food/drinks (like fresh fruits/juices/water), you may
find that you do not get hungry at all, but it is good to have (not to mention that
eating can be one of the most amazing/stimulating sensory experiences when on
psychedelics). Ideally it should be a nice temperature (or temperature controlled).
Burning candles is probably not a good idea for the novice tripper; though lighting
incense can be very rewarding to the olfactory and visual senses (smoke can be Very
interesting to watch). It seems like an entire book could be devoted to creating
the proper setting, but I think at this point you�ve got a general basis to start
from.
5. Minimize Distractions
I think that minimizing distractions is the best way to enjoy the flow of your
trip. Turn off your phone � talking on the phone can be a very weird thing on
psychedelics. I call it �intersecting realities� because someone else is calling
you from a place that could almost be called a separate reality (that person is
immersed in totally different environmental situation), and that call is
interrupting what is going on for you in your Here and Now experience. Also
assuming that someone on the "outside" has an emergency, you will not be well
prepared to help, and it can end up really ruining your experience. Let your
friends/relatives know that you'll be unavailable, or change the message on your
phone for a few hours to let people know you are unavailable for the day and have
no access to phone/e-mail. In addition to turning off your phone, turning off the
internet and TV also can be a good idea. While these can have immense value to the
psychedelic experience, they can also introduce very intense elements and scenes
into your trip. If you have some specific movies to watch that you�ve pre-selected
give them a shot at some point in the trip if you feel the desire, but make that
just a part of the experience. Basically you want to set it up so that you are not
interrupted during the trip � it will feel a lot more comfortable that way.
8. Friends/alone/sitter
One of the things you need to decide is whether you want to go on this voyage alone
or with others. If you are going to do it with others, is everyone going to take
psychedelics? As mentioned earlier the people you choose to have with you for the
ride should be carefully chosen, you should feel good about them. You don�t have to
know them intimately, but you should enjoy their company and believe they are going
to be good traveling partners. This is true whether or not they are going to be
taking psychedelics with you � anyone who is to be included in your circle should
be people everyone feels good about. If you have someone who fits into that
category, and who is also experienced with psychedelics and is willing to either
take them with you, or to participate as a sitter/guide, that can be a very
valuable person to you. There are many schools of thought on having a �trip
sitter,� or someone who stays sober while one or more people take a psychedelic.
The thought is that this sober person will watch over the tripper and make sure
there are no �problems.� Unless the person acting as a sitter is very experienced
with psychedelics, that person may not know how to react to certain situations that
may arise during the trip (in relation to mental functioning, behavior, physical
reactions), so the value of a sitter may be directly related to their understanding
of the experience and how to handle situations should they arise. I personally have
never had a trip sitter so I feel unqualified to say too much about that. To me a
well-chosen group of friends would be the ideal.
9. Music Selections
I dedicated an entire little section of this guide to music selections, because
music and psychedelics create an amazing synthesis. You should have access to many
varieties of music that you enjoy, some fast, some slow, some of several types,
because you may not know what mood you will be in. Also you may find that suddenly,
what you are listening to needs to be changed, and that change may be drastic, so
having a wide variety of music to play is essential. People should agree on the
selections beforehand, because music that is annoying you while you are tripping
can be very uncomfortable to listen to. Something like Pandora.com or other
internet radio programs can be great, because you do not have to bring any
selection of music with you, but it still can be playing an extremely wide variety
of music (not to mention that the programs are intelligent, so you can �teach� them
to play music you like � if you don�t know about this, check it out). Anyway,
whatever you do, I would suggest having some music you enjoy with you along for the
trip. You may be surprised at how it sounds on psychedelics. If you play
instruments, bring them along, you may be inspired.
13. Duration
The duration of your trip will depend on a lot of factors, but for most of the
psychedelics you can find pretty reliable information as to their normal duration.
You can use sites like Erowid to get an idea of a range of people�s trip duration.
I would say that LSD�s duration is around 8-12 hours, psilocybin about 6-8 hours,
mescaline about 12-15 hours, and DMT (smoked) about 10-15 minutes. The thing about
these durations, is that time is experienced differently on psychedelics. There is
an experience known as time dilation in which time seems to stretch out, and
minutes can sometimes seem to take eternities to pass. I believe it is always a
good thing to note the time you take the psychedelic, so you can know where in the
trip you are at any given point, and also when you should be coming down. Say you
take LSD at a specific time. You know in about 30-45 minutes you should be feeling
the effects of the drug, and in about 3 hours you will be at the peak of the
experience. That will last for a while (1-3 hours) and then you will start to come
down. By about 10-12 hours after ingestion, you should be almost completely down.
It is not unusual to have an "after-glow" or minimal effects still lasting until
you have gone to sleep for the night (or whenever the trip is over). Also smoking
cannabis at this time can bring back the psychedelic effects for a short time.
Another thing to keep in mind is that benzodiazepine type drugs can have a very
calming/sedative effect on the psychedelic experience. I know many people who will
not take psychedelics unless they have a �parachute� (Xanax, Valium, rophynol) as
a �just in case.� I�ve heard the benzos being called a parachute, because they are
like a way to get off the ride, or jump out of the experience. If you find yourself
in a weird state of mind and you just need to get out of the trip, there are few
things better than benzodiazepines. Usually within about 20 minutes or so of taking
the benzo, you will feel the trip starting to calm down, and get much more under
control. The only thing about this, is that if things are coming up that you need
to deal with � and you avoid them by taking the benzos, well then you will still
have those issues hiding in your subconscious. So some people will say that this is
cheating, but I can tell you, sometimes, a person just needs to calm down and get a
grip, and these medications are wonderful for that. You can always go back �in�
another day.
Another thing that is very important to point out is this; on very rare occasions,
a person may have a period of time during the trip in which they totally lose
themselves. There is a break with reality and the person begins saying very weird
things, and acting totally unlike themselves. They may become agitated and even
sometimes aggressive or violent. They may not know or trust you, and seem to have
had a total break with reality. Again I want to stress that this is a very rare
situation, but it comes up. There are many threads on this board of people going
through this type of experience. The number one thing to know is that calling the
cops or emergency medical services should be the very last resort. The person WILL
end up being restrained against their will, taken to a hospital and be strapped to
a bed for the duration of the trip - as you can imagine, this has some very
negative effects on the psyche, not to mention the person's family. If that person
has any drugs on them, they most likely will be arrested upon their discharge from
the hospital. So if you have to call for help, do your best to make sure that the
person will not be charged with anything criminal as a result of your call. The
best thing to do is try to keep the person quiet, safe, and inside - away from
strangers and the randomness of the outside world. In most cases, this phase of the
experience passes within a few hours whether the person is in the hospital or not.
If you can keep them out of the hospital, they should be fine in a few hours. If
you have the benzodiazepine drugs available - don't wait - USE THEN NOW! There is a
lot more to be said on this subject, so anyone with any insight is encouraged to do
so.
legit27 said:
The only thing I would change about this is the empty stomach situation. a big
portion of bad trips happen because of low blood sugar, so if you eat let's say
mushrooms on an empty stomach make sure to eat something afterwards so that you
don't end up getting too uncomfortable or passing out.
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Tbh I'm not too sure. I noticed it the most though on a trip a week and a half ago,
probably my 6th LSD trip ever. It was a low dose (half of a strong blotter ) and as
I was peaking I felt super weak and a lil shakey. I have heard LSD can cause your
blood sugar to drop though so I ate something which helped a lot. I think it had
probably been a good 6 hours or so since I had eaten, but I'm not sure what I had
that day. I also took my pulse and it was at 96 bpm, whereas when sober its around
63. Not sure but that may have been part of the issue?
Either way I learned from that and ate about 1 1/2 hours before I dosed again this
last Sunday night, and noticed no weakness or shaking, it was a great trip.
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