DOSE:

40 g

oral

Cacao

(ground / crushed)

BODY WEIGHT:

110 kg

I prefer to post my drug experiences on my own website. However, I've noticed an almost complete lack of information on cacao as a psychadelic.

So, yes, cacao can be an actual psychadelic, with hallucinations and everything. I'm not sure what is important here: the high dose; the lack of sugar accompanying it; or that the cacao should be raw and/or of a specific quality. I'd be interested to experiment with cheap baking cacao later. This time I used expensive raw cacao.

About me: I'm transgender female (MtF), 26, vegan and gluten free (though not especially healthy eating), 110KG in weight, Northern European both by birth and ancestry. I take topical estrogen and androcur, don't drink, don't smoke.

As far as drug history goes, I've taken weed twice, MDMA twice, psilocybin mushrooms twice, and cacao twice. Hey, 2 is my synchronistic number. Figures. Weed makes me feel awful, and MDMA gives me remarkable spiritual and orgasmic experiences unlike anything I've heard of elsewhere. Psilocybin isn't so dramatic but it's nice. I'm generally rather sensitive and perhaps a bit unusual in how I respond to stuff, is maybe what we can take away from this. Oh, and I can channel spirits with the help of MDMA and sometimes (unreliably) while sober.

My first cacao trip was in one of these fancy ceremonies with a self styled shaman guy (a White US American hipster). We used cacao that had been sourced from a shaman guy in Guatamala who apparently followed the guidance of the spirits to find particular breeds of cacao with greater psychoactive potency. I'm skeptical but open about that; certainly the stuff had a warm, glowing effect in me for hours. Unfortunately I didn't particularly like the ceremony, which seemed too cerebral and somehow pointless; I could have had a better conversation with the drug on my own. I left early when he wanted us to do some kind of forced catharsis exercise. Screaming in a circle with strangers just isn't my thing.

So my second cacao trip two days ago was just me and my partner. It was quite late, around 11PM. In preparation I felt inspired to make my dinner a light one; just fruit, nuts and soymilk (including dates for some satiety). My intention for this trip was to work on a trauma from childhood abuse which I experience as a sensation in my body.

We each had a mug full of hot water (not boiling; at a temperature where I could just barely hold my finger in it) blended with 40 grams of raw cacao powder and two generous pinches of cayenne pepper. Cayenne pepper is supposed to make the brew more potent, though it's not supposed to be absolutely necessary. My partner is incidentally quite a bit lighter than me, but we took the same dose anyways.

We lit some incense and drunk the cacao together, then lay down on my bed, holding hands but not cuddling.

I started to feel effects rather quickly. I soon felt warm inside my body, some kind of gentle euphoria, and rather connected to my inner body (I practice inner body meditation in the style of Eckhart Tolle, and I get the impression this would be a good meditation aid). I liked this feeling a lot.

Soon after that I had my first vision. I was a bit reluctant to believe I was really tripping in 'that way', so I described it to S rather hesitantly, half thinking I was imagining it. (Come to think of it, maybe all hallucinations are imagination? And that doesn't make them not hallucinations). I saw the Cacao Spirit, with dark purple skin and a red jewel on her forehead, sitting in the lotus position. I felt her to be rather motherly but also kind of strong or tough; she had broad shoulders.

I wish I remembered more of this, but basically I felt that the Cacao Spirit was working on me like a doctor. At other times I felt the presence of my third eye very keenly, and also saw the third eye of the Spirit, replacing that red jewel, staring into mine very intensely. It was an intense experience but not an uncomfortable one. She seemed to be teaching me.

The process felt very introspective. At one point I noticed that I wasn't feeling strong 'in love' feelings when I cast my attention towards S; my attention was so inwardly focused that such outward flowing feelings didn't come so naturally then. That is interesting because I've heard about Cacao opening the Heart Chakra. My heart was doing fine, but I didn't feel like it was the biggest aspect of this trip. I felt very very connected with the Earth and my body, and also to Water and emotion. Fire and air were mostly absent here. It was very grounded, very physical. Contrary to some reports I don't feel that I would ever be too sensitive on this drug, and I'm generally very sensitive and receptive. Perhaps I'd even experiment with using a small dose to feel more protected from outside influences.

I felt like the important thing for this trip was to relax and let it do its work, something which I struggled a bit with. When I 'tried too hard', I lost the flow, and the visions of the Cacao Spirit even disappeared for a while. I even think I channelled an annoying impostor spirit while trying to reach for the Cacao Spirit, which I later realised was the wrong thing to do; the drug kept her here, I didn't have to actively attempt to channel her. So tripping on this drug as with others seems to be a skill you can work on, and I expect the next trip to be better because of that.

At one point I felt that the drug was pulling me into a state of deep relaxation, and I felt that accepting that required a sort of surrender on my part; something that I found rather difficult. Images from two recent stressful situations came up, which seemed to have been remaining in my body as lingering tension. They were somehow exorcised from my body in what I visualised as a stream of bluish green energy that exited upwards out of my mouth.

Faster than I would like, my visions of the Cacao Spirit became less clear, as if more distant. I sort of decided to go to sleep. However, I found it hard to fully sleep. The Cacao Spirit was still working, and my awareness was deeply in the part of my body that needed to be healed. I felt like I was lying at a surgery table and she was doing surgery on me. 'Spiritual surgery' is a word that came to me. At one point I felt my participation was required; I said, 'I'm ready'. Yet, I soon felt like that was too intense, and I asked the spirit to stop work for tonight. I felt freaked out and kind of ungrounded. I think being half asleep while trying to do something so important wasn't right, and the half-dreaming state made me feel less in control. It was 3 AM, or rather 4AM if you count the fact that the clocks had changed that night. I did some grounding exercises, surfed the internet a little bit, then decided to wake up my partner so we could talk.

Apparently they had also found it hard to sleep fully, and had also experienced hallucinations, though more wispy and less meaning-laden (perhaps because they hadn't set an intention for the trip?). Both of us felt kind of groggy, as if hung over. I in particular felt nauseous, like it would be a bad idea to eat (good thing I'd had such a light dinner). We talked, and eventually decided to go for a walk, as neither of us could sleep very well. This is probably because of the theobromine in cacao, which is similar to caffeine. For the record it didn't have the twitchiness of a caffeine high for me, perhaps because of the relaxing effects of the other active components of cacao, but I could see the resemblance in some way; I felt energised, alert, indeed moreso than I wanted to be.

We went for a long walk, had a falafel once I felt able to eat again, and finally got home and slept at around 5 AM (or 6AM with the time change).

I think this is a powerful drug and worth respecting; indeed we should have respected it more than we did. I definitely want to work with it more, though never again at 11PM at night :)

For those who want to try this themselves, note that there are people who say that psychoactive doses of cacao shouldn't be combined with some antidepressants.

Exp Year: 2016	ExpID: 109465
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: 26
Published: Nov 14, 2016	Views: 17,388
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