DOSE: T+ 0:00	3 bowls	smoked	Salvia divinorum	(leaves)
T+ 1:00	8.0 g	oral	Mimosa tenuiflora	(liquid)
T+ 1:00	3.0 g	oral	Syrian Rue	(liquid)

BODY WEIGHT:

130 lb

Emotional Healing and the Singing UnVoid

I had my first truly psychedelic experience about two weeks ago, with the help of an Ayahuasca brew I personally prepared. I have had some traumatic life-changing experiences lately, and I was looking to 'The Good Medicine' for some insight and healing. I got more than I honestly expected.

I'm 18 years old. My dad was arrested six months ago for robbery. He then repeatedly attempted suicide. Since my mother was already in prison, and I make less than a living wage, this left me with no convenient place to live. I suffered out a couple of months in our house, alone or with an extended family member, but eventually the emotional pain of the place and the huge utility bills forced me out. The bank formally repossessed it and everything in it shortly thereafter.

I moved in with one of my father's business associates and tried to make up what I had missed in college, to no avail. I finished the semester with a 1.0 GPA. I was working almost constantly, so that I would have some money to buy my girlfriend something nice for Christmas, and so I could afford gas and food. My resolve and motivation was in tatters.

Having read reports of Ayahuasca healing, and armed with a healthy interest in psychedelics, I ordered some Mimosa Hostilis rootbark and Peganum harmala seeds from internet vendors. I had it shipped to my now-vacant house, as it was at the center of my trauma. It was there, a month later, that I finally decided that it was time to prepare the brew.

My recipe was fairly simple: I ground 20g of Mimosa Hostilis rootbark and 10g of Peganum harmala seeds together in a coffee grinder. I had to steal electricity from another vacant house next door, as my power and water had been shut off at this point. I added these to a mixture of half lemon juice and half water, by volume, in a quantity enough to fill four drinking glasses. These were simmered over a gas flame for twenty minutes, and then filtered through a T-Shirt, resulting in a dark brown, sour, bitter tea, the flavor of very bad lemonade. I bottled it up, and left it in the house overnight.

The following evening, I arrived at my house around 7:40. I carefully prepared a fire in the fireplace. I moved the remaining couch in front of the fireplace, so I could sit comfortably and rest my feet. As there was no electric light or heat, this created a very strange 'modern tribal' atmosphere. As I began to boil down the Ayahuasca on the gas stove to an amount I could reasonably drink, I smoked three bowls of unconcentrated, pure Salvia divinorum foliage. These created no hallucinations, but only a sense of profound disassociation, isolation, and an awareness of the presence of some kind of extranatural entities. This feeling decreased, but never fully subsided during the period I was reheating the brew. The feeling of presences never left.

At 9:00, I brought in the brew in a large aluminum pot, and set it in front of the crackling fire. The steaming tea and the bitter smell of the drink only added to the cozy, ritualistic atmosphere. At 9:10, holding my nose, I drank approximately one and a half glasses of brew, or about a third of what I had. The taste was foul, but not unbearable. I then rinsed my mouth with some distilled water, and waited for something to happen.

At 9:22, I began to feel a bit drunk, and a bit nauseated. At 9:26, I took a single hit from a small pipe of cannabis I had for the purpose of combating nausea. It wasn't a large hit, as I didn't want the pot to cloud my experience. At about 9:30, I closed my eyes and noticed some mild closed-eye visuals. The normal red floating spots behind my closed eyelids had taken on fantastic, but dim, colors. I opened my eyes in surprise. I had half expected the brew not to work, but it was, and much more quickly than I had anticipated. I closed my eyes again, and saw what looked like a neon lightning bolt flash across my vision. My thoughts were becoming a bit disorganized. I pulled a blanket over my body and my head, and watched the strange colors. Moments later, it began.

What followed, in this experience, is, mostly, entirely beyond description. Things were said without words, lessons taught without teaching, experiences had without experiencing them. I'll do my best to shoehorn it into words, but these descriptions will be crude, and, when put into words, mean very little. I'm not entirely convinced that most of the visual hallucinations were not meaningless. It was through the thought distortion and the strange emotional state I was put into that I learned.

First, nothing. The colors subsided for a moment. Then, in an instant, countless squinting, insectlike eyes covered my field of vision. Billions and billions. The more I searched, the more appeared. They rippled and coalesced in groups, though they all made up parts of a single consciousness, I sensed. That consciousness emerged, in the form of a huge, feminine, grasshopperlike creature. She welcomed me, and dissolved into a shadow of green, flowing, ribbonlike things.

I had brought some music to listen to with a pair of nice headphones, but she warned me not to. Her words, though not verbal, amounted to 'Though I'll do cool, pulsating things when you listen to music, you shouldn't. It will obscure the lesson.' She then proceeded to give me a taste, I suppose, of these 'cool, pulsating things', to some low, strange ticking music. She changed first into a blue, triangle-shaped room, and then into a series of pulsating lever-button things. I can't remember the music now, but it was beautiful and fantastic at the time. She said, 'We have our own music here.' I realized that I was having mild auditory hallucinations, though they weren't exactly auditory. It was as though I was given an understanding of beautiful music without actually hearing it.

Then the tone of the trip changed. Though I could still sense the guiding, feminine force, sinister entities entered my consciousness. The one I remember most clearly was a subversive, weasely one, which, visually, took on the form of blueish spaceship-zeppelin things with weasel snouts and ribbons of color running around them, lengthwise. I panicked. I have no idea how long I was in this profoundly panicked, distressed state before my nausea became overwhelming, but soon I needed The Purge. With the aid of my keyring flashlight, I made my way slowly outside. On the porch, I paced around for a moment, having typical bad-trip thoughts, such as 'What have I done to myself?' and 'Shit, I took too much.' But that wasn't my primary concern.

My bad experiences were welling up inside of me. I realized how overwhelming everything was, and how I had trapped it all inside of me. My stomach tensed. My ego prepared. Somehow, I knew that it wasn't just my anecdotal knowledge of The Purge that tied this nausea to my dispair; it was real. It was the spirit of this drug. There was something in this drug, guiding the experience. That was comforting. She told me, 'Though it's painful, you need to get it out.' There was a moment where I could have decided not to puke. I could have forced everything down again, and gone back inside my house. Inside my shell. Gone back to hide from the world.

But I stepped towards the edge of the deck, and, exhaling, I opened my mouth. Then I was heaving. While I was Purging, I had a vivid image of a red, anus-like shape floating over my face. I knew it was my ego purge. Liquid and solids came pouring out in huge quantities, though I had nothing but the brew for 8 hours prior. I collapsed to my knees. I was reeling. I think this is where I peaked.

An eternity later, I walked back inside, and sat down. I checked the clock: 10:03. I couldn't comprehend time. I tried to calculate how long I had been in this state, but it was hopeless. I had no idea. I had no concept of percentages or quantities, but, with extreme effort, I came to the conclusion that I had more 'time' to go than had passed already. I didn't know how that was possible, or how I would get through it. I discarded this fact, as time was meaningless, anyway. I closed my eyes, covered myself with the blanket, and returned to the teachings of the insect-mother-creature.

I have memories from the next two hours, but they are disorganized and incomprehensible, even to me. This experience was indescribable. It was fantastic. It was not euphoric. It was not fun. It was not scary, either, however. And it was interesting.

At one point, the entity, in a disembodied state, introduced me to a series of strange, singing, cave-room things. They were masculine, and they cradled me. They were like caves, but had a distinctly not-underground sense about them. They were carved from a plastic-like substance made of flowing rainbows of ribbons, or from air interlaced with transparent rainbows. They sang in clouds and images. They were the most beautiful songs I have ever heard. I cannot remember any of them, though I doubt they would translate well to actual, auditory sound, if I did. They were like songs of emotions.

At another point, I could feel every part of my body. It was all there, and all glowing, with a warm, blue light. Then it went numb. I thought I pulled my lip off. I wasn't sure what a lip was. I went to a mirror to make sure I was still recognizable. I had forgotten what I was, what I looked like. I didn't really care if I hurt myself, but I knew my girlfriend would think it was a pity, if I lost a part of my body to this experience. I lay back down. My ego dissolved again.

At another point, a large, cartoonish mouth made of the same insect-eyes that I assosciated with the mother-insect sang me another low, ticking melody. It had deep meaning. It soothed me.

I awoke from my trance and was in another state of panic, though milder this time. I had another problem that needed to be resolved. I needed to talk to my girlfriend. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to work my phone, but I managed to call her. I noted the time as 12:58, I believe. I gave her the times I remembered, and asked her to tell me how much time I had left before I would be in my right mind again. I couldn't do math or any kind of concrete thinking. I knew various numbers, but I had no idea what order they went in. I was no longer climbing, I knew. I was either on the plateau, or on the downhill side. Part of me wanted it to end, but part of me wanted to squeeze more out of the experience. It's difficult to describe what I was feeling, but it wasn't a bad trip. It was still neutral.

While I confessed to my girlfriend all of the wrongs I had done to her, I continued having visual hallucinations. I saw a spiderweb of flowers, black and yellow, and they started to melt. I knew I had escaped from somewhere when I saw that. I saw a strange, diamond-shaped colored plastic looking thing with holes in it, and balls whizzing up and down through the holes. This was confession. We talked for about an hour.

I continued having patterning-type visions for a while. They gradually subsided. My sense of time returned slowly. I told my girlfriend goodbye, and hung up. The clock on my phone said 1:40. Reality was still altered for another two hours. I stayed up and pondered my experience during this time. Then I fell asleep.

The next day, I awoke at about 9 feeling strangely energetic and optimistic. I made my decision to enroll in school full-time. I felt great. Mild headache.

Exp Year: 2007	ExpID: 71099
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Nov 8, 2008	Views: 38,563
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