DOSE:	6 g	oral	Mimosa tenuiflora	(tea)
	2.5 g	oral	Syrian Rue	(tea)

BODY WEIGHT:

125 lb

I can only theorize about what occurred on the night of November 10th, 2013, what caused me to be sent into a veritable transitory lobby between the living and dead. To be segmented into separate wholes, none functioning in cohesion in any form is a thought that my brain cringes to entertain.

It was intended to be a night of universal unity, visions ripe with meaning, and profound introspection. I had obtained the brew from a friend who had been producing his own freebase DMT at the time, a product of his that I had partaken in on more than one occasion. In fact it was just after our session of smoking his latest batch that he decided to deliver onto me the elixir of the dead. In a mason jar was the result of the Mimosa extraction, and along with it he gave me a large bag of Syrian Rue seeds. This was all rather sudden, and my eagerness outweighed my rationality I can now say. The couple of months leading up to this point my mind was in an odd stagnation, a sort of dissociation from my mental processes that I am not accustomed to. I can say that this facilitated the impulsiveness of ingesting the substance with little preparation, in the probable erroneous measurement of the rue, and the nature of the experience to come.

A few days after obtaining these ingredients I hurriedly prepared the rue, and called for the one who was to accompany me on my journey. Once he arrived our impatience told us to skip any reflection or preparation for what was to come so we snatched the potions from refrigeration.

We brought the separate containers of the rue, and mimosa out onto my back porch in the coolness of the November night. Sometime after ingesting the repugnant tasting brews I began to feel nauseous whether this was due to excitement or the notorious effects of the purge I am unsure. Regardless with the prospect of vomiting in mind I suggested we transition to the flat field that lay just up the hill of my backyard past the wooden gate of my fence. We sat atop the field, a location ripe with childhood whimsical memories wrapped in a crochet blanket of warm yellows, and oranges awaiting the tendrils of the death vine to take hold.

In a few moments I felt a familiar somatic sensation that I've associated with tryptamines, a flourishing of bodily energy. However this energy continued proliferating, powerful waves starting from my feet that quickly advanced to my brain, fluctuating head to toe multiple times. With every passing wave my world further took on the mercurial form of a dream, each sight my eyes fell on was upon seconds of fixation transfigured into an infinitude of baffling fractal complexity, following the closing of my eyes resplendent gems, and hieroglyphics revealed themselves in the once pitch black darkness that I was so accustomed to in my quotidian world, a world that felt already lost behind me as the potion drew its reigns upon my mind riding me into a deeply perplexing chasm in the antipode of common experience. The trees bent into mangled more geometrically rigid fractals that breathed and waved, the sky became an impossible preternatural blue as the stars within the cosmic ocean aligned with each other in mathematical perfection. As me and the friend who was accompanying me on the journey stared into the sky a shooting star shot across our scope, and we were baffled as this was not an illusion in the throes of the psychedelic. I remained in the grass sprawled out for an infinity, staring at the visuals that evinced themselves in the darkness, and the world around me that continued to draw more complexity. The image of that sky and its transient counterpart are forever stored in a divine theater of memories.

The effects of the brew seized me before my fellow traveler, but once his fingers stopped plucking meandering notes on his guitar I knew that his mind began to manifest as well. The immense and humbling energy of the brew had me uttering a mantra along the lines of “I give myself to Gaia.” This peculiar mantra brought me to hallucinate the voice of Terence Mckenna speaking of the Earth mind, and he went on mostly in the background of my attention for some time.

As the sheer power of the substance continued to escalate I sat up from lying down, with the intent to cause myself to vomit I doubled over simply dry heaving with no success. With the failure of purging I decided a different method of catharsis, so I ululated with some melody but I halted this for I felt it was doing little other than making me seem as mad as I was. So with these failed attempts at mediating its strength or direction, this pharmacological behemoth achieved an inexorable status and continued to grasp at my sanity and comprehension. Eventually I said that we should get up, and go inside in a manically demanding manner, following my friend's confirmation I started sprinting with my companion back down the hill, and into my domicile. I felt as uncontrollably visceral as a child, and as absurd as one. I don't fully recall going up the stairs into my room, but my recollection yields the memory of trying to with great onerous attempts: to hook up my speakers to play music (further pointing to the unpreparedness of the trip). This went on for a spell although it was likely a short period of time that ended in me abruptly giving up, as I was beginning to become incapable of controlling both my motor skills, and ability to concentrate. I journeyed into the bathroom while I still had some ability to walk, and stared at my form in the mirror which became more nebulous the longer I stared, this was followed by me going back into the previous room.

The thirty or so seconds spent in the bathroom seemed to be dilated to an extent that I had not observed in any other psychedelic, which was alarming. At this point I began to lose motor control, and halted in giving coherent response to stimuli. I sat up on my bed with the wall behind me, attempting to sit with no back support yielded only failure which I was reminded of with each backward slam of my skull against the dry wall, but after being reminded my mind would immediately draw inward again. The disorientation grew, and a pall fell over me that ushered in the death of my ego in its entirety, a death that caused me to involuntarily moan in suffering. Identity was not simply a component that ceased to have meaning, but was a component I could not recall. Who I was could not be prompted to me in this state for I could not even tell you what who meant let alone show you the pieces of any remotely acceptable answer to such a question. I was stuck in a perpetuated mode of confusion, dysphoric intoxication, and bafflement at unintelligible revelations. In this intoxication: self, memory, language, and of course time were shredded into unrecognizable parts. Sometime I had gone from sitting up to lying down, and while lying down I rolled off of the bed sending myself crashing into the floor although I was not aware of this in my severely disoriented space. The holarchy of my body was disrupted, the parts completely separated from one another becoming their own creature. I mumbled fragments of sentences with an evident slur, and every writhing motion of my body was accompanied by the sensation that I was collapsing in on myself which continues to be the most disturbing somatic sensation I have witnessed. I was entirely unconscious of my surroundings, actions, and speech yet continued to be awake. Pure existential agony was a nigh constant, an agony that surely you could associate with living death.

In this realm of disorientation, confusion, time distortion, every phantasm became a reality, at one point I felt myself to be disabled from some horrific accident, my tripping partner being my caretaker as I had locked-in syndrome. Of course he was my caretaker for in this circumstance despite his own inebriation he was attempting to remedy my malady to no avail. There were brief moments of clarity in the confusion, and moments in which I would respond to the words of my friend with some articulation. His attempts at speaking to me in such a way to lead me out of unreality failed so he began speaking to me as if I was sane. This had the best measure of success in obtaining coherence from me yet did little to evoke sane responses. There was a moment where he said I should be careful in my writhing so I do not knock down the candle on my table that had been burning since before the trip began, apparently I stated from the floor slurring egregiously that if it did burn down it would be beautiful. He also joked with me several times apparently obtaining some coherent responses from me, but no lasting change of state. Another one of my companion's successes in coaxing me from my prison was when through admirable efforts he managed to get “Across the Universe” to play on his phone, I remember being almost completely drawn out of my confusion when it began to play. The song was beyond beauty to my ears, and allowed me to briefly return to a familiar yet extraordinary place despite the crisis.

Towards the last few hours I was becoming more aware of the external world as I heard my friend playing his guitar, and it still remains one of the most euphonious displays to grace my ears. One of the pieces he was playing I remember perceiving as decidedly western which painted a vivid story of redemption and revenge such as the Western genre is associated with, it became my very reality for the time it was played. Then he performed “Blackbird”, the richness of the song caused unbelievable euphoria, and has resulted in my even deeper appreciation for the song. After this I briefly lost consciousness, and when I awoke I was still for the most part unaware of my surroundings. What brought me to a more conscious grasp of things was hearing my friend get up, and leave the room. My eyes went ajar, and looked about my room seeing objects that made me remember a person very close to me. This person of course was me, and I soon started to realize this. When the realization took me I rose from the ground to open my door for I had the intuition that my friend had gone downstairs (of course this intuition was because I heard him leave the room, but it did not consciously register to me at the time). My hands were almost entirely numb and my motor control still quite poor so turning the door knob was an abnormally difficult operation requiring me to use both hands in unison to accomplish, the fingers were being uncooperative. Finally I came to the top of the stairs, and saw my front door slightly ajar so I fumblingly rushed down the steps. Opening the door I saw my fellow tripper who'd apparently been sober for hours smoking a cigarette. I questioned what had occurred, and we returned to my room to discuss.

Hearing myself speak was as if I was hearing another speak, the disassociation was still palpable. During the discussion, and the next few days I would recollect different pieces of the story that became lost initially after coming to my senses. The weeks following this I endured severe night terrors that brought on the panic that closely emulated my feelings after I had awoken from my prison. In addition for months afterward I suffered from depersonalization, derealization, and panic attacks. Luckily almost all of this has dissipated with the exception of the occasional panic attack which I had never had prior to this experience. My body was also in a great deal of pain afterward for I had thrown, rolled, and bashed myself about my room having had almost no sensation relative to the external world. I can say that the likely cause of the immense disorientation that had taken place was due to the improper measuring of the Syrian Rue resulting in an excess of the stuff which is known to induce intoxication alone. The disparity of me and my friend's experiences aside from the obvious subjective variables from person to person could be attributed to disproportionate concentrations of the rue.

The time spent in that madness was beyond difficult, and the fallout was as well. It showed me shades of insanity, the experience of a being with behavior having no perceivable rationality to the outside observer, a mind completely absorbed into inner worlds. Though agonizing there were beautiful pieces of this hellish tale that I will always remember. Witnessing an extreme that the punishing side of psychedelics has to offer has not ended my use of these substances as I knew at least in concept the dangers of the territory (especially if one is foolish), but its gavel has justifiably made me more cautious. I will one day return to ayahuasca for a proper dance with the substance, and to attain a much needed reconciliation. We can all gain perspective from these most horrific trials, and with repeated reflection learn to appreciate the story they offer.

Exp Year: 2013	ExpID: 104763
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 19
Published: May 13, 2019	Views: 835
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Mimosa tenuiflora (74), Syrian Rue (45), Huasca Combo (269) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Difficult Experiences (5), Combinations (3)