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Beyond the Void
Huasca Combo (Syrian Rue & DMT)
Citation:   Pusefidelity. "Beyond the Void: An Experience with Huasca Combo (Syrian Rue & DMT) (exp103790)". Erowid.org. Jul 11, 2016. erowid.org/exp/103790

 
DOSE:
T+ 0:00
3.5 g oral Syrian Rue (tea)
  T+ 4:00 50 mg vaporized DMT (powder / crystals)
BODY WEIGHT: 140 lb
7:00AM
Woke up very energized, ready for the day. Headed off to the beach for a morning dip, a cleanse after the emotional wake of the new moon the night before.

12:00PM
Arrived at home, gathered the medicine. The plan was to drink a Syrian Rue decoction (3.5g) followed by 150mg of yellow DMT crystals with a friend, we’ll call her Momo.

2:00PM
Arrived at Momo’s house. Placed 9g of ground Syrian Rue in a small sauce pan, added the juice of one lime and 2oz of water. Brought it to a light, rolling boil and allowed it to simmer for 10min. Added 1oz of water and allowed it to simmer 10 more minutes. Strained off the muck and allowed the tea to cool.

2:30PM
Divided the rue decoction into two portions and drank up. Not the most pleasant of tastes, sharp aftertaste, but it didn’t linger for too long. I had only eaten a few blueberries and 2 cups of carrot/mixed greens juice around 11:00AM; Momo had a fruit smoothie an hour before the Rue was ingested.
We decided for one reason or another to smoke the DMT instead of ingesting, and went off on a walk to allow the Rue to take effect. We were not anticipating any psychoactive effects from the Rue, since most sources said more than 3.5g is needed for strong psychoactive effects.
Boy were we surprised.

3:00PM
Walking along a railroad track, we both began to notice shifts in visual perception. The clouds would be sucked into which ever point of the sky we’d focus on. Very light body feel, very similar to a low dose of mushrooms (but more aching to LSA.) We were talking about visual conditioning. The concept that fractal visuals and such experienced on psychoactives are the true faces of the natural world, a world that exist only in motion. We are raised as kids learning from books and pictures so we begin believe and are trained to see the world as still and unalive…

3:30PM
Arrived back at the house. At this point we were really feeling the Syrian rue. The body feel was very drunk-like, slightly impaired motor function.
We pulled up a guided meditation by Deepak Chopra and sat down to take a look within.
Surreal body awareness is an understatement. During the meditation, I had to open my eyes and check my body because it felt like I was twitching all over. Perfectly still. I felt an intense and quick pulse in my right arm and had to check the pulse on my neck to make sure. Slow and steady. Momo noticed me checking and confirmed the same feel of twitching and pulsing. By this time we were aware that we were just feeling all the minor functions and movement in our body that we don’t notice on the regular. The meditation went deeper as the close-eyed visuals enhance. Black backdrop with small golden lights coming together to form small lotuses along the silhouette of where Momo was before I closed my eyes. As I would focus on the breath, the walls and all of this physical reality felt like it was right up against my eye lids. My physical body was never more apparent, and I could feel the fluids and breath circulating through all the channels.
My physical body was never more apparent, and I could feel the fluids and breath circulating through all the channels.


After the meditation, I walked to the car to get my didgeridoo (which proved quite challenging from the drunken body feel.) This sensation only occurred while moving and would take a few seconds to go away when stillness was attained. Pushing and pulling became very strange sensations. When I pulled the handle of the car, it felt like the whole world was coming towards me along with the door. When I pushed the door of the house open, it felt like the whole world was rushing towards me from behind.

I sat on the floor using the couch as a backrest and began playing the didgeridoo. Momo sat on the couch behind me with her hands on my shoulders and began channeling her breath through her and into me. Playing took a few seconds to get acclimated to but then became so natural and fluid. The body awareness proved to be very useful to control the smaller details of sound. After a few minutes I stopped playing because I noticed a strange sensation flowing down my hands. I sat and observed, realizing that whenever Momo would exhale, I would feel a rush of sensations flowing into my shoulders and down my arms, out my fingers. As she would inhale, a calm would ensure - very similar to the rise and fall of the shore line, the water rushing in, and slowly receding. We both began laughing at the realization and the implications of what we were feeling. We stepped outside as the body feel began to weigh down on us. At this point, nausea kicked in.

4:30PM
The nausea began to take me to an uncomfortable headspace. Momo felt a slight strangeness but no nausea till an hour later. I lay back on the grass which helped a little, watching little spinning/twinkling dots spread out grid-like in the sky.

5:00PM
We came back to the house and straight to the couch. Any movement would be registered significantly more intense than it really was, which began to feel very uncomfortable paired with the nausea. After a few minutes of lying down, we decided to nap, and also decided not to take any DMT this time around, the Rue was more than enough for the moment and there was some discomfort. The nap was interesting, the body would rest but the mind was very active. We put on some Spanish medicine songs and vibed out. Listening to music was so profound. Every note was felt echoing within the body. Very similar to the first time listening to music on LSD.

6:00PM
We got on up, Momo was going to shower. I began to play a flute and noticed myself a little more revitalized. Much less of the drunken feel, but definitely still feeling psychedelic. Visuals began to be more consistent trails as I would turn my head - as compared to abrupt and random visuals from prior. While she was in the shower, I decided I felt up to for the DMT so went ahead and prepared the pipe. I use a small bubbler without water. There is a screen with some, mostly burnt (black/ashy) dried passion vine. I placed ~50mg of crystals in the plant material, and placed another screen on-top (there ends up being about 1mm of space between the top screen and the plant material/crystals.) I’ve found this setup to be very effective to vaporize the DMT, especially after the pipe had some resin accumulated.

6:30PM
Blast off. Nothing could have prepared me for what was about to happen.

Before venturing into this, I feel the need to share my ‘experience’ with psychedelics and the void. I have been exploring with plant medicine for a few years. I’ve taken mushrooms (psilocybe cubensis) countless times from micro-dosing to 5g of penis envy. I’ve experienced high doses of fresh truffles (P. tampanensis) and blasted off with Psilocybe azurescens (peak waves were on par with DMT breakthroughs). Smoked DMT over a dozen times with three being full-blown breakthroughs. Also have sat in one Ayahuasca ceremony and two Peyote ceremonies, and taken peyote out of ceremony several times. I have messed with LSD over two dozen times but never exceeded two stamps. I meditate daily and have been practicing Kundalini yoga for two years. I am very fond of astral exploration, a true psychonaut at heart strongly rooted with plant medicine and experiencing the great mystery to its full extent. I have always taken pride in being able to find peace in these altered states of consciousness, and consider it as part of my journey to explore these realms and share the fruits with my brothers and sisters in the form of music, herbal wisdom, body work and the origin of it all, love.

I mention all of this to stress the intensity of this experience. It made any amount of mushrooms or DMT seem like a walk in the park. It is to date the most INTENSE and paradigm/life-shattering experience I have ever lived through. I would NOT recommend this to anyone who does not have a profound background with psychedelics, and even then I caution to proceed with much mental preparation.

So Momo lit the bowl for me. I saw the crystals beneath the screen melt, tasted the vapor travel down my throat. One pretty large toke (I should have stopped here…) Half way through the second toke I began to feel the DMT onset. The vibration, the humming, the oscillating visuals. Went in for a third toke, already feeling this reality tearing away. I closed my eyes and saw striped women revealing a gate, but it was pulsing, opening and closing, opening and closing. Up to here it was very familiar, the visuals were familiar, the feeling and sounds were familiar, except things were significantly more intense and I felt a commotion…

I believe in layers. There is the physical/material layer which we see on a day to day. Then there is the energy realm, which is where we’d see chakra systems and meridians and those Alex Grey paintings we love so much. Then I believed there was the DMT layer. The onset was very much like curtains revealing the layers one by one, and when I got to the DMT layer, that very fabric was being ripped apart and I honestly freaked out. The beautiful palace that is revealed on DMT was being split right down the middle by a piercing white light. I felt the tension of the final layer of reality, I felt it tear right down the middle and I went on a downward spiral from there. My very essence (this goes beyond visuals) began to break down and I watched all that I am poof off into fractals until there was nothing but white. Very quickly I watched myself be reassimilated and I opened my eyes to find the room disintegrating into the void, and just as quickly my whole essence and consciousness split up into little fractals and there was nothing but void. Then quickly everything came back together. This cycle kept repeating over and over, over and over, being torn apart and rebuilt.

This went beyond sensations and visuals. My ability to THINK would break off into a fractal and disappear into the void. The ability to perceive would break off into a fractal and disappear into the void. I kept thinking this was it. I went too far. I peered too deep. I kept trying to tell myself that things will be okay tomorrow but the very concept of tomorrow would be ripped away. I thought of my family and that would get ripped away. I started thinking about everything I hold dear and that would get ripped away. I came to terms with my death, but even that would get ripped away. I felt like I was going to be stuck in the constant build/rebuilding process forever. Part of the issues was that it was happening so fast, there was no space to get comfortable. Anytime I would focus on a visual, on an idea, on a concept, it would fractal off and drag me into the void with it.

I somehow crawled over to Momo and placed my head on her lap, talking was impossible save a few grunts of desperation, moving was beyond me. She noticed that things took a bad turn. She put her hands on me and began to repeat “breath in love, exhale gratitude… Breath in love, exhale gratitude” Her voice and being able to kind of see her behind the crazy wall of DMT visuals felt like the only connection to human-life as I knew it. Controlling my breath was difficult, and would be calming for a few seconds before reality would disassemble again.

After what seemed like an eternity but turned out to be a few minutes, she helped me get to a bed in the other room. I don’t remember the journey to the bed except strange bubbly cones floating in Salvador-Dali meets futuristic computer animations, kind of reminded me of trippy screen savers back from window 98. I lay in bed for a while unable to move. I was beginning to get used to the assembly/disassembly of reality but it had in no way reduced in intensity.
I was beginning to get used to the assembly/disassembly of reality but it had in no way reduced in intensity.
I started gaining awareness of my body for the first time since it began. It felt like surges of electricity were traveling through me, I could feel and see sparks and tingles pulsing through me.

I was still in a state of fear and panic, thinking was still near impossible. But here is where the learning began. I want to note that in every other psychedelic experience I’ve had, no matter how fully the void presented itself, there was always a presence. In this void, there was no presence. There was no ‘mother’ of ‘father’ or ‘ancestors’ presence. There was literally, nothing. I realized that I was worrying about people close to me. I started realizing that as I was being disassembled, the last things I was able to hold on to were those things I valued, but then even those things were ripped away. It got to the point that I was seeking comfort in the ability to think and perceive and even that was ripped away. I was sure something in my brain short-circuited.

The experienced started to lessen but still no assurance of it passing soon. We had ordered food for pick up before the blast off, and while they said it’d be ready in 20min I’m sure by now half an hour had passed. I was able to kind of talk now, I was entering a more familiar place but still in complete and utter shock. Everything was still being periodically broken apart into nothing and then back together again. Momo realized I was easing out, and said asked if I was okay to be left alone so she could go get the food. I agreed and just asked for my phone. She left and I managed to dial my girlfriend because at that moment all my entire being desired was comfort. My phone was coming apart and coming back together too, somehow I managed to get in contact with her and I closed my eyes and began to speak.

Words have never left my mouth in such fluidity and grace. I quickly told her what I had taken and a brief explanation of what I was feeling and of my panic. I explained to her that there is no I. All we are is a vantage point of observation. We are not beings being shaped by experiences, we ARE the experiences. We are not being conditioned, we ARE the conditions. Without conditions and beliefs, there is no experience, there is nothing. We set up the conditions through which the Universe and existence can express itself through. The people we surround ourselves with give us the illusion that there is an individual but really all we are is the experiences and bonds we share with those people. I realized that everything that I thought I was being disintegrated into nothingness, and at the end, all that was left was a point of reference for the Universe to experience through. But without conditions, there was nothing to experience.

Talking was so alleviating. I would close my eyes and become the words which took away from the experience of disassembly. Even though my words and train of through would spiral off into a fractal and I would have to pause to regain the ability to start forming words again… So many emotions came through, some tears, some laughing, much talk about my relationship with my family and general comfort. We spoke of the Sanskrit word Sat, which means truth. That was resonating so much as she would recite the mantra Sat Chit Ananda (Truth, Consciousness, Bliss.) When Truth and consciousness are combined, bliss is experienced. Sat Nam, Sat Nam, Sat Nam, I kept repeating for a while. The embodiment of truth.

After some time of talking the cycling stopped, I felt much more present, much more intact. I opened my eyes and things were much more familiar. A nice blend of the Syrian rue from where it was before the DMT with a very profound Ayahuasca touch. Momo got back with the food, I handed her the phone and she spoke to my girlfriend for a bit while I recollected myself. I got up and stretched around. Trails lingering but I was just so happy to be back on ground zero. Never felt so happy to not be tripping… I checked out the clock towards the end of the conversation on the phone and it was...

7:45PM
I checked the phone later and my call went out at about 7:00pm, which means the intense peak reached a plateau for about 30min before I was able to verbalize to Momo that I was okay and was able to utilize a phone. The fractalization of reality lasted most of the conversation so I would say the come-down was about 30min and lingered for another 30min. Total time for the DMT portion: ~1.5hrs

8:00PM
I felt pretty normal, a feel good similar to low dose of mushrooms. Mind completely blown by the experience. Heart overwhelmed by gratitude for all those around me and every being that has crossed my path and allowed me to experience this life. I realized so much about myself, about my values, about the fragility of life, about conditions and the truth of this human experience.

In hindsight, it was the most enlightening and cleansing experience I have ever lived. I would definitely try it again but with more mental preparation.
I would definitely try it again but with more mental preparation.
Knowing what I know now, I believe the experience would have been more enjoyable and easier to digest. I do acknowledge that fear got a hold of me, I lost my footing and the panic affected the ability to observe and take in the experience. But that is what I needed, sometimes we do need to feel fear to be reminded of the genuine and simple appreciation of this life. I thank Momo with all my heart for the comfort and compassion she provided during the experience.

Two days have passed since the experience. Still somewhat in shock. Occasional but slight flashbacks of the void and all the layers in between. Intensely patterned clothing has been over-stimulating and evokes the omnipresent presence of the void.
Aho creator, thank you for this experience.
Thank you, for taking the time to read through this experience – safe travels.

Exp Year: 2014ExpID: 103790
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: 22
Published: Jul 11, 2016Views: 21,507
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Huasca Combo (269), Syrian Rue (45), DMT (18) : Small Group (2-9) (17), General (1)

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