DOSE:

50 seeds

oral

Datura

(seeds)

BODY WEIGHT:

78 kg

(ED, excuse the long intro, but it serves to show the lack of thought that can go into an experiment like this.)

- Preamble -

I was 17 years of age and had heard about a plant which would get you high. That fact, the name and what it looked like was about the only information I had on Datura, known to me then by its colloquial name of Malpitte. Typical of my approach to the experiment, mindless, I only registered the name phonetically and it only later clicked that the direct translation of the Afrikaans 'Mal Pitte' to English is 'Mad Seeds.' I live in South Africa, by the way.

Also, some half-baked methodology was told to me of having to put the seeds from the pod into water, this apparently seperated the 'good' seeds from the 'bad' seeds by a process of sinking or floating. The distinction of 'bad' was understood to mean poisonous.

Unfortunately there was no clarity on whether the good seeds would float or sink, so the philosophy was advanced that since the method would leave us with a 50/50 chance of choosing ALL good or ALL bad seeds, it would be better to rather dispense with the method altogether and just eat all the seeds, thereby softening the blow of a possible poison attack. Good work team!

It was an interesting situation the day I ate the seeds. I was a boarder at my school and had a day off school with virtually nobody in the dormitory, this was due to the exam timetable leaving a few days free at which opportunity most of the people went home. My home was too far away to justify this so I stayed.

I made an illegal journey out of the school grounds with a friend to go and buy some Weed but we didn't remember the directions very well and got a bit lost. We happened to walk passed a Datura plant which grows along the way and I remembered that I had some dried seeds in my cupboard at the dorm so the decision was taken to 'try some.'

- The Seeds -

I had half a handfull of seeds approx. on a relatively empty stomach. It was winter. Spent time throwing a large tins plastic lid as a frisbee in the dorm waiting for the effects with friend. First effects, a very dry mouth and the 'off' feeling sometimes accomponied with the flu. About 45 minutes in I decided to walk up to the school to obtain energy drink and pie at canteen.

First mental effects were like being stoned and I sat on the side of the road leading up to the school to enjoy it. Memory is effected from this point on and I can only give flashes as I remember things. After a blank spot I got back to the dorm with pie and drink but mouth was too dry to swallow either. I discovered a frighteningly shrivelled penis without urination capability when I went to the bathroom as well as eyes without near focus capability. These two things set me worrying and for the rest of the day things took a cold and lonely menacing character. It was about 10:30am.

I still do not know what happened to my friend but apparently he didn't feel anything and drifted off to chill with some other friends, totally unaware of my situation. So negative introspection and isolation were in order and I wandered off to the school sports field.

On the way, and whenever I was walking, my foot seemed to slip through an oil patch with a nasty jerk and I would closely inspect the ground for this oil patch but would not find it. Somehow I registered that because my eyesight was affected by the seeds maybe I could not see the oil patch, that the oil patch might not be real did not occur to me. And so it was with my hallucinations throughout the day, I would take it for granted that they were real, but if it were proven unreal it simply added to the negative menacing backdrop to the whole scene. I would rather attempt to find the reality of the hallucinations than admit that something was seriously wrong with my world.

The next memory is of a gigantic network of insect populations crawling into and out of a shadow which fell across a painted concrete wall. The image persisted for a long while until a banging noise interrupted my reverie and I realised I was actually sitting on the grandstand watching people on the sports field. That kind of thing would occur too, I would lose awareness and float inside a perception, somewhat pleasant, until it broke and the cold loneliness would be felt stronger with each return of it.

The closest thing I've experienced to it is delerious thoughts during sickness or fever, but on a bigger scale.

Somehow I remember the banging noise as golf balls hitting the grandstand(?) I may have attempted sleeping because I remember getting up from a lying position, the stands were metal and ice, ice cold. I was astounded to find that my feet weighed near 8 kilograms each, I think that's about 4 pounds? Very heavy.

Now the memory is flooded with conversations that I tried to add to but found myself talking aloud to no one, an extremely lonely and confusing feeling. I remember a long conversation with a person which was different in that he was vividly real and I am still tempted to think that he WAS real because we talked about the seeds and how I was high etc. it's just that this person had left the school about a year earlier. If it was an hallucination than it was an awesome accomplishment of the human mind.

At some point I was in bed watching my cupboard float up and down and left and right and up and down etc. in reverie again, when I felt the need to chase after a shadow I saw a from the corner of my vision, some quick and sinister thing. Each time I turned a corner it turned some corner up ahead. The last thing it zipped into as I turned a corner was the dark cavity underneath some ones bed, scared shitless I got back to my blankets without looking under that bed. Spiders crawled underneath my blankets up towards my face...

Even with the dormitory so empty and the hostel masters all up the school I was extremely lucky to stay out of trouble. There were signs that stuff happened which I don't remember, like grass down the back of my jersey and posters that were found in the dustbin. Other things I remember: showering and passing somebody shampoo and hearing the bottle hit the floor - nobody in the next stall to pass to - and talking to people who would vanish into thin air, visual ghosts at the edge of vision, and small reveries in emersive visualisations, they all happened in front of that cold aweful lonely emotional background. Even the fright aspects were flat and lonely, cold. It occured to me at some point that I was walking around hell. This feeling left me soul stunned.

- Book -

A little bit of heavan floated down out of the darkness as I was exhaustedly drifing off that night. Some kind of book appeared with impressive clarity, like the ultimate reverie and it wiped all traces of the cold and lonely away, leaving me struck with a fresh smiling amazement.

I remember nothing as to the content of the book, but to read from it was the most satisfying thing in the world. I can't relate any experience to it other then religious ones I've had at other times. But more so.

I could experiment with the book, like looking ahead from the line I was reading to the upcoming paragraph indentations to see if they would be the same by the time I got to them. They would stay the same, though if I jumped ahead the words would appear all jumbled and unreadable. I could think to myself, 'I have to remember what I'm reading, this book has everything I need to know' but as soon as I got to the end of a page, I would wake up with my hand shooting into the air trying to turn the page. I would forget what I was reading instantly.

Some one else I know has also had a similar experience when he tried Datura despite my warnings. (He would have a much worse experience than mine.) But the fact that two people can hallucinate something so similar and be so awestruck by it makes me think that it must be more than just an hallucination. I never told him of the book so he hallucinated it independently of any suggestion.

I think I've made this too long. I'll just say that my eyesight was still bad the next day, and without being able to study the previous day I ended up with 12% for math. If you are going to experiment with anything, be clever, respectful, patient and willing to not do it. My opinion is don't try Datura, try something else. The rewards are not worth the effort and danger. I thought the book was most excellent, but I will never go through that cold loneliness to get to it again.

Exp Year: 2000	ExpID: 60774
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Feb 17, 2007	Views: 93,550
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