DOSE:

22 mg

oral

4-HO-MiPT

(powder / crystals)

BODY WEIGHT:

153 lb

INTRODUCTION: SET & SETTING

This was my first psychedelic experience in a long while, I believe it has been almost a year since I've actually tripped, full-blown, alone. I have several experiences with 4-HO-MiPT already under my belt. The compound has proven itself to be a short-acting one, and this, coupled with its fame as a fairly easy substance to handle, made it my first choice for this foray into the psychedelic realm after such a break. Though I had been thinking about tripping for a while, I believe it was the sorrowful death of Sasha Shulgin that sealed the deal. It was about time.

But I didn't feel like tripping at all. I almost never do, and never have done. I abuse drugs; my drug use is problematic. This much is certain. I partake in dissociatives with gusto, I enjoy smoking cannabis (although my appetite for this is much lesser than towards dissociatives), and, for the last year or so, I've become increasingly mesmerized by the disgusting depths of the artificial, self-raping warmth of opioids, and the risk-free ego-boosting euphoria of GHB, GBL and other GABA-activists.

My appetite for psychoactive substances is grand, but what started it all, the only class of drugs that actually has tremendous worth for psychological reparation and growth - serotonergic psychedelics - have been almost forgotten on the 'to-be-used-one-day' shelf. I always forget their worth, even after closing in on five years of experience, and half a hundred trips.

So it was, after a day of meditation and connecting with myself outdoors, a day of sunshine-travels on foot both amongst others and alone in the memory-filled woods of my youth, that I decided that this was to be the day. I had waited long enough, and though I was terrified, and had scarce an idea of how exactly the substance might help me, at 23:47 I weighed an amount of 22 milligrams and dosed it orally.

THE FREE-ROAMING PSYCHE:

I had done this before, many times before. Though I didn't clearly recall what was coming (and the months and months of no psychedelic experience had managed to twist my memory into untrue theory), I knew for sure that I had done it before, whatever it was, and had survived. What was the fear composed of, what did I fear in the experience? I feared that there was something in me which was only waiting to be tickled, to be poked, and that would spring up in aggression as a result, and overtake me.

I was uncertain, but had managed to reduce my anxiety for the most part. The day had been good, and I felt myself strongly, I felt ready for this the holiest: truly encountering myself again.

At T+00:10 I was already starting to feel the effects, a muscular relaxation and an unwillingness to keep my posture upright, and the slightest movement in my scalp was already becoming manifest. Contrast was becoming alive. I went to the bathroom for the last time before giving myself up to the incoming intensities, fetched a glass of water, and retired, as is always the ritual, to my bed with my headphones.

I put on some positive music, though I was somewhat in contradictory moods as to whether or not this is smart. I feared once again that this attempt to keep my spirits up would provoke something evil in me, something nasty. But this was not to be the case, regardless of the momentary uncertainty. For if something has been left in me after my years of intermittent experience with psychedelic drugs, it is my theory of mind, my theory of what tripping is about, and my ability to recognize the situation for what it is and what it has always been: the free-roaming psyche, Huxley's Mind at Large. When faced with the situation, I intuitively know how to trip, and do not get tangled in myself in the same way I did when I was inexperienced.

The sharpest come-up was from approximately T+00:20 to T+00:45, and during this time the unbelievably tight latex nazi-uniform, which I would probably identify with what is often in the literature of this field called the Ego, and solely within the constraints of which I allow myself normally to live in, was blissfully dissolving. Almost immediately I realized that there were no external entities here, at least not in this space, and there were no parts of me truly unknown to myself: there was just me, this mental creature with its innumerable tentacle-like appendages; my emotions, and my thoughts. These psychological parts of mine were given their deserved freedom, and they played with each other, tickled each other, and though they were all part of me as I am, the true I, the creature, they worked in partial autonomy from each other, much like the tentacles of an octopus.

Very soon I was mostly content. I knew myself, and I knew I was good. In my heart I have always known I am good, the little boy that tries to be nice to everyone, tries his best to be a good person, tries to be a blessing upon the world and a boon to each and every one. I knew I loved myself, though in the folds of this love there were streaks of hate as well, and self-disgust - streaks that are severe, but which I have, in my previous psychedelic experiences, seen time and time again to be of no threat to myself as a whole. I am wounded, but not evil.

Though the peak of the experience was unfortunately short, I used it for whatever healing I could. In my latex strait-jacket of a nazi-uniform I never allow myself to look at my wounds, and that is how the human being works. One is wounded when one is young, or older, and one is uncapable of immediately healing the wound - so one locks it away, because it hurts so much, or it disgusts one so much. Only through the aid of someone else via very close friends or prolonged therapy or psychoanalysis, or as the free-roaming psyche, can a person muster the courage to uncover the lid of whatever is haunting him.

Like a Corpse, Fermented in the Sun:

In attempting this healing work I extended my appendages towards my liver. Ever since I was young I have been easily hypochondriac about my liver; I hate eating liver, it makes me sick; I easily get pains in the area; and talk of the liver makes me uncomfortable. The decision to explore the area was straightforwardly intuitive, and these links to the area in my psychological behaviour were only made later: I don't need memory to know where I hurt, I only need to face the pain and allow myself to recognize it. So I zoomed in on the area, and it became clear to me (as it has on previous trips; I've merely forgotten) that the body-image of a person is wholly a part of his psyche; the body is thoroughly psychological. Psychedelics are indeed, as I believe Stanislav Grof has often said, a microscope to the psyche. The painful area near my liver, which normally encompasses only an area perhaps a bit larger than my thumb on my everyday level of magnification (an overview perspective, one could say), became the size of half of my torso.

As I zoomed in on the area, and extended my mental appendages towards it, I came upon the wound, and I instantly retreated in horror. I had touched the wound, and it was disgusting, it was repulsive, and it hurt. While the healthy areas of my psyche are composed mainly of the prismatic colours of red, green, blue and yellow, the wound was greyish-brown. It didn't react to being touched, and indeed it actually felt as if it was dead. I had the strong association that it was a slimy, sun-fermented corpse, and that my thought-appendages were like disturbed vultures uncertainly picking on the unresponsive meat.

I feared this area, this wound, immensely, but after a moment's recuperation I decided to head again towards the accursed area, and find the source of this age-old pain. My appendages explored their way between some large and very unresponsive and psychologically inert (or slumbering) fibers, which I believe were the bones of my ribcage, searching for the frightening lesion, and on the way managed to fix some smaller faults, micro-cramps in the muscles, tweaking things here and there. But as I neared once again on the wound, I couldn't go further, it felt too uncomfortable, and a tremendous disgust was once again overtaking me. I retreated, and when I attempted a foray into the territory again a half an hour or so later, the psychedelic effects were already too much lessened. I failed to discover my wound.

But what is certain is that I have hidden something secret near my liver when I was little, under my ribcage on the right side. Something secret and disgusting, something I believe I am very much ashamed of, something dead to the rest of me, a part of myself excommunicated from the community of my psyche for some unspeakable crime that, long ago, has been deemed unsuitable for the light of day.

Though this major wound that has troubled me in the form of hypochondria and repulsive associations with the liver since I have been very young was a fruitful find, there was something else I managed to do as well.

THE PAIN OF LETTING GO:

I have always been very poor at letting go of things emotionally, be they memories, old friends, habits or objects. Since I was young I have felt this to be one of the most striking components of my psychological makeup, and when I was more untroubled as a teenager I even called the excessive heart-ache I felt towards the older, now-lost iterations of myself I meet in my memories 'my sickness'. I have always feared that letting go of something means never getting it back, the irreversible burying of a loved one, a friend.

During this experience I found, to the right of my abdominal muscles fairly low in my torso, that I was clutching some things, like rocks or boulders, the nature of which was unclear to me. They were obstructing my breathing, very concretely, and most of them felt like unvoiced cries of pain and frustration: it is incredibly hard to be a proper, considerate and self-improving human being, and I have never learned to allow myself to complain. Many were small enough and not very dear to me, and I was happy to let go of them immediately, and they tumbled down into the void - I felt my breathing deepen, and become more easy.

But some of them I clutched very tightly, and hadn't let them go. I was perplexed for a moment at my inability to loosen my grasp on whatever they were I was holding onto. After a moment I realized that these final objects were truly quite dear to me, though they were weighing me down, and obstructing my breath, and so I changed tactics: I began to soothe these clutching appendages of mine.

I told them that everything was alright, that sometimes one just has to let go of something very dear, that one can't hold onto everything forever. And through this tactic I began to feel immense sorrow, a monumental sadness, and while one part of myself was attempting to soothe another to let go, the clutching part of me was in mourning: 'No, these are mine! Don't take them from me!' 'Noooo! Pleheease no! My own, forever my own!'

And finally, with a literal cry of lamenting agony from my whole being, I let go of these objects, and released my clutch, watching in grief as they, too, tumbled down into the immeasurable void. Immediately I began to breathe more freely. The noise from my cry was enough to alarm my roommate, who was listening to music in the neighbouring room, unknowing of the fact that I was going through a psychedelic experience. He appeared at my door, and I informed him of this, and that I was fine and nothing was wrong. He told me that if I wanted to talk about what I was going through, he was available, and promptly left the room.

The trip was nearing to a close - the time was about T+01:50, and the plateau of the experience was already over. Fairly soon after the episode with my roommate, I joined him in our common room, and decided to spend whatever time I had left to enjoy his company without being chained within myself in the overtight strait-jacket of my ordinary consciousness. We headed to bed at around T+04:00, and I fell asleep quickly and easily.

Now, post-experience, I soon felt that I couldn't have let go of whatever I was clutching near my abdomen all that completely without knowing what it was I was letting go of. I had the feeling that I fetched the dear objects back while I wasn't looking. I wasn't not sure of this, but I did feel sceptical about whether anything like this can be truly solved or healed without knowledge of what it is about, and my breathing seems still to be burdened. But I gained first an inkling as to the burden's nature, and then a stronger suspicion.

There is something which has been taken from me when I have been very young. Some circumstance or other has forced me to relinquish something I held very dear to me, something I wouldn't have wanted to let go of for any price, but which was still taken from me. This precious something has haunted me, and still haunts me, ever since. Even though whatever it was that was taken has been gone (or not, perhaps it was returned and I didn't realize it was the same) for a long, long time, psychologically I still clutch onto it, tight as ever.

What could this be, mm? What were those things of my very own, eternally my own, tumbling down into the void below? I had no significant ideas about the matter until the next evening, when I was, while reading a prior version of this same text, suddenly struck by the numerous similarities of my experience to a bowel movement. Though there are still some doubts about this, the solution felt correct at once. Even though it is difficult to understand from my adult perspective, the post-partum period of a very young child following discharge of fecal matter is psychologically very complex - first of all, it is difficult for the child to distinguish feces from other parts of herself, since it originates within herself, and is made by herself. I have always suffered from occasional constipation, and I'm fairly needy when it comes to toilet behaviour by often requiring a familiar place and a familiar time for the operation.

I am therefore suggested the following: at one point or another when I was little, I had decided to retain my feces despite increasing abdominal discomfort, keep my little creations for myself - but that as the pain grew, so grew the realization, and perhaps the prompting of a parent, that I had to let go, and finally so I did, but with regret. And ever since I've carried phantom feces with me, lamented similarly to a phantom limb, still constricting my breath and burdening my innards, and in my repressed bitterness I am still extremely picky about when and where to release. Time will show whether this symptomatology will now lessen its grip in turn.

AFTERWORD:

In conclusion: the trip revealed to me paths towards healing that were not known to me before. It revealed wounds I have carried with myself for ever, and I am most fortunate to have the traditional and long process of psychoanalysis underway for myself at this moment, a platform where these revelations can be taken further and handled thoroughly. This will, sooner or later, result in a betterment in my symptomatology. But it will need time.

And on this I give my final few remarks. Though I appreciate the psychoanalytical process tremendously, and have very well felt its healing powers, it is simultaneously once again clear to me that this valuable process would gain so very much from the use of psychedelic agents - indeed, I feel a single prolonged trip with my analyst would gain me more than months, or even years, of ordinary analytical work. For far too long I have allowed uncertainty in this regard to enter into discussion, whereas I should stand by what I know to be true and right with pride. I am angry at myself for my weakness and timidity.

But I am still growing, as we all are. In the end, I am still very young. And though I may be angry at myself, or have self-disgust in me, and though I am wounded, I am still, at this moment, most of all grateful to myself for braving the psychedelic experience once again, and witnessing its healing potential so directly. It gives me hope that, with concurrent analytical and psychedelic work, I might manage to uncover what lies under my ribcage as well, near the liver; and perhaps finally, by way of this healing, manage to pry open the constraining shell I have psychologically forced myself to inhabit, and give myself freedom.

Exp Year: 2014	ExpID: 103593
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Sep 21, 2014	Views: 11,128
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4-HO-MiPT (342) : Alone (16), Therapeutic Intent or Outcome (49), Health Benefits (32)