DOSE: T+ 0:00	1 tsp	oral	Syrian Rue	(seeds)
T+ 1:15	13 seeds	oral	H.B. Woodrose	(ground / crushed)

BODY WEIGHT:

170 lb

The purpose of this experience was to try an extract of Syrian Rue followed by Hawaiian Baby Woodrose, sublingually. I have tried HBW alone a month ago, but I felt some of the problems I had encountered could be avoided this time. Nothing worked out as planned, but thankfully it wasn't an all-out disaster.

Prior to the experience:
I am seventeen, and have too much time on my hands. Since you are reading this, the obvious conclusion to this introduction is that I use drugs. And that conclusion is right. I have dabbled in alcohol (too much, too young; I've found better since), marijuana (anywhere from monthly to weekly), DXM (these days, monthly; my reference trips in terms of intensity), nutmeg (to spice up a boring weekend, once in many months), as well as the odd kratom, kanna, diphenhydramide/dimenhydrinate, yarrow, wormwood, the unsuccessful salvia and ayahuasca... Anything really, as one could guess, but mostly easily available (legal) stuff.

Two days before this experience, I ground up ten grams of syrian rue with the intention of making an extract, with acetic acid, non-iodized salt, distilled water and the whole thing... which I ended up not using at all because it didn't work. A tea would have been much simpler. I also ground 13 seeds of Hawaiian Baby Woodrose after sanding most of the darker skin, scraping my fingertips bare in the process.

The day before to the experience, I fasted all day, then ate a little dinner, obviously following the MAOI restrictions.

Ah, finally, the day of the experience. The following will be written in real-time as much as the experience allows me.

-6:30 I wake up and eat a little rice to facilitate throwing up if need be. Good mood.

-7:00 I shove a teaspoon of syrian rue seeds in my mouth and chew them. I expected what it would taste like because I chewed up a few seeds the day before to make my mouth glow under a black light, but I could not be prepared for the intensity of the taste. I only managed to chew half the seeds in my mouth before I swallowed, because I would have thrown up if I kept them there any longer. I then washed my mouth with lots of toothpaste, and chewed peppermint gum.

-7:45 Not feeling anything peculiar yet, I chew up a little more seeds, and chew more gum. I feel no nausea once the taste is gone from my mouth.

-8:15 I decided my MAO must have been as low as it gets, despite not knowing what to expect from MAO inhibition. I put the ground HBW seeds in a little water, let it sit in the glass for a minute, added orange juice, and into my mouth it went. I swallowed some as I was swirling it around my mouth, but I didn't fear nausea too much because I scraped the seeds...

-8:45 I chose to swallow the whole seed mush and juice, alea jacta est, I'll deal with the nausea. The sublingual absorbtion prior to swallowing will at least guarantee me that I get some effects even if I throw up.

-9:45 I spoke too fast. It took me 15 minutes to gather the strength to type this. At maybe 9:00, I started to feel the nausea (which is more of an extreme body load than pure nausea, much like food poisoning). I laid down in my bed, where I started to feel some effects: strobing in the peripheral vision, powerful imagination (almost like dreaming), sedation. At about 9:30, I went to puke and take a shower, and the effects are somewhat weaker since... They'll probably come back, I've read that MAOIs tend to make the experience come in waves. Now listening to Blockhead and lying in bed.

-10:30 The experience seems to have taken an empathogenic turn. The slight visual effects I first had have disappeared completely, but lying in my bed, I almost dissolved in bliss while listening to music... Plus, I simply can't stand up without the nausea returning.

-13:10 I spoke too fast, again. Whoooaaah... I finally snapped out of it, and the world is a beautiful place. I laid in bed, writhing in pain for all this time, and all of sudden, it felt as if a blanket of lead was lifted off me. First, the effects are FAR from gone; I might still be coming up. My thoughts are rushing forward and on themselves like a mighty river, yet very still like a dark forest; yes, I do feel very cliché-hippy. Everything seems like a dream but crystal-clear, even though objects are slightly moving, morphing, bleeding... I can't put it into words, but if LSD feels like this but MORE intense... Whoooaaah...

-14:30 Ah, spoke too fast once more... I spent the last hour fighting nausea and doing chores. Why rake the leaves, when all this rich, moist food could return to the Earth? Oh, we have a beautiful lawn now, all clean and everything, the Man will like it. I had to find a pretext every ten minutes to go inside and throw up, all the while avoiding any eye contact since my pupils are so huge they could be the next place where Mankind sets foot. I finally proposed to do other chores so I could go inside, so I cleaned the toilets, puked, cleaned the toilets some more... I now have a bit of time to myself, I wish I could just lay down until I feel better, but I can't pretext to be sick once more. That would be the third time in a month.

-15:00 Well, the only conclusion I can think of for this experience is that I won't try it anytime soon. I'd need a weekend alone to avoid busting what little cover I have left, with all the fasting and puking and lying in bed for hours. It would have been lots of insightful fun, a real “death and rebirth” experience, if only I had the day to myself to enjoy and reflect upon the almost near-death experiences I've had. I'm still tripping, but I don't think anything eventful is going to happen soon, so I'll sum this up by saying: I spoke too fast. Thanks for reading.

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Yes, I spoke too fast, one last time; it was an all-out disaster. Ironically enough, when I finished writing the above yesterday (unchanged since) and turned my computer off, I was far from done with LSA... Or rather, the LSA was far from done with me. I drifted pleasantly in my bed, between sleep and consciousness, until maybe 17:30, where I gathered my thoughts to acknowledge someone screaming downstairs. My father was once more mad at everything for no apparent reason, yelling and punching objects around. It's not the first time he's done this, and it always gets to me; I always feel like I want to disappear until he's done, but this time, with the LSA still having its hold on my emotions, I was overcome by sadness and grief. This feeling swelled instantly to incredible proportions, and I was now sad for everything wrong in the universe, and tears came rushing down my cheeks. I was sobbing so hard I had trouble breathing. I put my clothes on, went downstairs, put my boots and my coat on. My sister asked, “what's wrong?”, to which I could only reply “I'm going for a walk. You can come.” Sure enough, she put on her coat and shoes, and ran after me since I was already heading towards the park. Nobody saw us go away.

I burst into tears once more, and explained the whole situation to her, how I felt everything was wrong beyond any hope in the universe, but especially how our family had an enormous communication problem, and that's when she burst in tears too. I felt like a ridiculous sobbing giant (I'm six feet tall, which isn't that big, but with my much smaller sister holding me in her arms I felt huge at the time) and asked her that we go to a particular place in the park, with benches and a good view of the river. By that time, my grief was of nihilistic proportions. I only felt this bottomless pit inside me, and felt like I was sinking in it. To me, there was no meaning to anything watsoever, and I knew everyone felt the same but that nobody ever talked about it, and that was why there was so much pain and sadness in the world. I felt I would have set myself on fire if it could have eased the grief in the world.

My sister told me she felt the same (but in a more pragmatic, non “LSA-induced metaphysical existential crisis” way), and we took the very weird resolution that if nothing meant anything, then we could take the huge risk of confronting the whole family. Our determination was very high for a minute or two, but as we came closer to home, I felt like I wouldn't be able to do it. We finally arrived, and my father asked my sister “where were you?” She started explaining in a calm voice, when my father noticed my contorted, red, wet face.

The following would be quite hard to explain, both because I can't make sense out of it and because I still feel extremely bad. I tried to explain how I felt, but I couldn't reach in my mother the feeling of powerlessness towards the lack of any meaning every human has to face; it frustrated me even more, because I was persuaded at the time (and I still am!) that everyone is unable to deal with nihilistic thoughts but just put them aside, but all my mother could reply was “explain me! I can't understand what you're talking about! I don't feel that way!”. That did nothing to help my sorrow, of course. The only thing I can conclude from the weirdest discussion I've ever had with my parents is that they want me to tell them the next time I feel like nihilistic shit instead of escaping with drugs (which wasn't the intent in the first place) and the promise that they would try and manage their stress better. Ah, the joys of intergenerational communication.

It is now the next day, 5 pm. I feel worn out, both emotionally, mentally and physically; I only slept two hours and have had muscular cramps all night. I never thought LSA could precipitate emotions so strongly, but now I know I'll have to wait until I'm more stable before I try anything like that again.

Exp Year: 2008	ExpID: 75117
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jul 31, 2009	Views: 19,114
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