DOSE:	750 ml	oral	Cacti - T. pachanoi	(tea)
		smoked	Cannabis	(plant material)

BODY WEIGHT:

155 lb

Me and two of my friends have been making cactus concoctions for about 3 years. Many different processes have been tried and most have been good but it seemed that there was always room for improvement. As one of these friends was visiting family in the L.A. area he noticed some large trees of San Pedro growing in many of the front, side and backyards of surrounding residents. He had recently stopped using psychedelics but knew that our other friend and I were still indulging on a sporadic basis. When he left So Cal so did 6 feet of beautiful fresh cactus. Later that day the stalk was transported into my freezer. 2 weeks later our equipment was ready for use.

We thawed out the cactus in a the oven at 150 degrees then proceeded to slice the first ½ to 1/4 inch of cactus from the sides. With the stripped cores discarded the skin and green flesh was chopped into smaller pieces and blended with equal parts water and cactus in small batches. The foamy liquid was put into a pot and placed on our electric stove at a low temperature. Subtle adjustments were made to assure that the temperature of our brew would not vary below 130 and above 150 degrees, this was done with a handy dandy candy thermometer. After 36 hours of cooking the liquid was sufficiently reduced to a manageable amount of consumption. The liquid was cooled and strained using a clean damp shirt.

My friend and I had 1500ml of cactus to drink. Anyone who has tried it knows that it is some of the foulest stuff on earth, but in order to combat the unfortunate taste cilantro and lemons were employed. A little chew on the cilantro followed by a long pull of cactus and finished off with a bite of lemon makes the process almost enjoyable. I drank 750ml within 10 minutes and decided to wait until my friend drank his first glass before continuing. I also wanted to give my system time to get used to the mescaline. As my friend was about half finished he vomited a little mouthful of puke into a bucket we had close by. I made a joke about the necessity of him slurping it back up so he wouldn’t waste it, this broke the flood gates and he emptied the rest of his stomach. As I heard him vomiting in gross detail I started to feel a bit sick.

Now begins the reverse hangover of cactus. Pain surged through my lower abdomen and everything in my body was telling me that I was going to die of pain. It felt as if my stomach was being continuously punched while I was being run over by a train. I started to have a distinct feeling that I was being filled up with cactus. A small cactus was sprouting in my stomach and growing up my esophagus, spines spreading and piercing as it rose. Soon I was harboring a cactus in my body that filled me from stomach to the back of my throat. It hurt so bad and I wanted to throw up so bad but the pain was so intense that I didn’t want to move or risk the more severe and intense pain of puking. I kept telling myself that it would all be worth it if I could just keep it down for another hour and a half. After that point I would be tripping and the pain would dissipate.

I was lying on my couch thinking that I might be seeing some patterns but not quite sure if it was placebo or actual images. They didn’t increase for about a half hour and I began to wonder if maybe I didn’t eat enough. I went to the bathroom and pissed, after fasting for 12 hours before drinking the cactus I knew it was all useless cactus juice that was coming out of me. When I got back to my living room I was feeling a whole lot better almost good. Then I felt great, and then I felt as if I could float off the floor and drift around the room. I looked around and suddenly my vision was supplemented with technicolor rainbow clouds. As the waves of color increased in vibrancy, amount, and mobility I had an urge to listen to some music.

My friend, who had by this time consumed and processed another 750ml of juice and was tripping pretty hard as well, went into his music selection and put on The Residents. Weird music to begin with it seemed even weirder then, I began to have auditory hallucinations and could hear the music bouncing off of different walls and echoing down the hall. The music gave me feelings that seemed to relate directly with the music, I felt really weird but REALLY good.

It was about this time that I said, “Let’s go to the beach,” one of the best ideas ever to be had by anybody. As I walked the 1/4 mile to our beach I was in complete awe of everything. Trees, sky, people, ground, cars, birds, buildings, concrete, sand, each was unique and each was beautiful, I wanted to praise each thing I saw for hours, I wanted to give speeches on the usefulness of leaves and the fantastic color of candy wrappers, but I had more pressing business, the beach was calling.

It was a sunny Saturday and people were at the beach when we arrived but it hardly mattered. I had no fear of anybody knowing that I was intoxicated with this wonderful spiritual gift. My friend and I sat on the sand in the shade of a large tree and began to trip VERY hard.

My friend sitting on the beach suddenly and quietly exclaimed, “Whoa, I just saw beyond the clouds.” This was a surprise to me since I had completely forgotten that he was there at all. Not only had I forgotten that he was there but I had also forgotten that I was there I was in a different world filled with ideas and feelings that I cannot even now explain, nor could I ever. I was thinking without words or concepts, I was seeing geometric shapes that were so complex, with detail and color they could never be completely mapped or drawn or filled. I wasn’t seeing them from one side either all sides were perceptible and equally perceived. They were created controlled and destroyed by me.

Thoughts started to enter my mind and I attempted to think of some poetry the only words that came to mind were, “This is the place where unity and diversity converge.” At the time it seemed to sum up the entire experience of being alive.

As I continued to drift in and out of my awareness towards my physical surroundings I noticed that a lot of men in leather jackets were congregating on a small cliff that looks out over the beach. I started to wonder if some sort of biker convention was occurring. I alerted my friend to the situation which was forming only 20 feet from where we had been sitting for the last, I dunno, 2 maybe 3 hours. We were both laughing and making jokes about this unfunny event when I noticed that a lot of children and women were also around. “Oh,” I thought, “It must be a wedding.” And so it was we saw as a priest arrived and a center isle was formed. The kids were yelling and throwing shit near us while they were playing so with great reluctance we decided that our spot was no longer the most comfortable place to be, and moved down the beach past and outcropping of rocks.

Evening was coming on and the clouds (the real ones) were simply beautiful. As we were sitting and smoking a bowl of choice marijuana, the newly wedded couple walked around the rocks with their photographers in tow. As we sat and smoked the couple was taking their wedding pictures. I only hopped that as they looked back on their most cherished memory with fondness and devotion, skimming through the pictures they would always come across at least one picture with two insanely drugged up hippies smoking weed and laughing in the background with pupils the size of quarters.

During this time both me and my friend were having many auditory hallucinations, I was hearing many different synthesizers in my brain phasing up and down, increasing and deceasing in volume, basically a large team of psychedelic keyboards going hog wild in my brain. My friend kept hearing a garbled voice talking in no particular language and kept turning to me and saying, “What?” “I didn’t say anything,” I would say. “What?” I would then say 5 seconds later “I didn’t say anything,” he would reply. Once I thought I heard him say “Weird,” so I looked around and started saying rather loudly “What, what’s weird? What?” then I noticed that the wedded couple was no more than 10 feet from us.

We went home an hour later and being that it was almost a day since either of us had eaten we had a feast: pasta with tomato cheese sauce, garlic bread, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, bananas, apples, and oranges. After a good rest we took a trip to the liquor store on the corner. We each bought some beer, a 40oz of Steel Reserve for me, and some candy, Almond Joy, Gumi Bears, and a Three Musketeer were my selections. Of course with all the selections possible, but more importantly the different colors of each selection, this process took about half an hour.

With the effects of the cactus wearing off after 12 hours of intense visual, auditory, and mental hallucinations I was tired. I lay down in my bed and rested, with the trip still having the strength of at least 2 strong hits of LSD all I could do was close my eyes and smile at the shapes forming behind my eye lids, this was probably the most enjoyable part of my whole day. 2 hours later I fell asleep and continued to sleep for 10 hours.

When I got up the next day I was still seeing small trails and colors. Im not sure how many grams of mescaline I ingested but I know it was beautiful. I felt like I was ridding 2 inches off the ground for the next 3 days, completely content with life, love, and this gorgeous world. San Pedro is a gift.

Exp Year: 2006	ExpID: 52072
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Apr 16, 2006	Views: 7,185
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Cacti - T. pachanoi (64) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Glowing Experiences (4)