TRIP #3 OF FILM-FRAMES AND TUBULAR BIPEDS

I was in a good, curious, but typically trepidatious frame of mind when I smoked approximately 40g (eyeballed) of spice in 2 long hauls. At first I saw the familiar multi-speckled gateway-style circles and geometric figures (bearing a surprisingly similarity to this : http://www.collidoscope....odernca/parityrules.html , that very quickly broke apart into predominantly red-hued jigsaw puzzle-like pieces that hurtled toward me.

They resembled jigsaws, but in form were really only a vague reference to puzzle pieces, more like the incomplete shapes of illegible ciphers suggesting they were indeed parts of a larger whole, a greater message : they were a barrage of primary coloured block-like chunks emanating from a center that was populated by a strobing of tens or hundreds of successive manga like faces, that slowly flitted in and out (much like what happened on my previous trip), alternating with what I can only refer to as a sort of broadcast. It was a black and white image which, once it settled and cleared, revealed itself to be bordered by what seemed to be a film frame (I should mention here that I am a filmmaker and cinematographer).

There was also the sound of a distant strange and indistinct arhythmic music and an accompanying tone.

The content of the frame was a silver sparkle-skirted woman « shot » from the hip down, wearing high heels and walking what appeared to be a poodle on a leash across a non-descript grey floor. As soon as I perceived the full image, the « poodle » stood up and transformed into a furry tubular biped ! Before I could make sense of this, it flitted out and was replaced by the flying puzzle meteors, then slowly the whole thing faded to the hissy grey-black of my closed lids.


TRIP #4 IS WHAT’S OUT THERE'S WHAT’S IN HERE ?

So this is the trip I need help understanding. It floored me. It horrified me to my core - humbled, baffled, obliterated, and scattered me like nothing else has. It made me swear off spice and all other entheo/psychedelics forever (although I bought a scale two days ago, so I guess my resolve was quickly dissolved…) I guess I deserve what I got, under the circumstances : I had done about 40mg the night before and 4g P.cubensis three days prior, and was probably a little more zealous and confident (read « cocky »…) than I should have been, as these other experiences were uplifting, soulful and at times playful lessons.

In addition I have no scale. My first two trips (reported elsewhere on this site) were pre-measured 40mg doses. My 3rd one (above) was a well estimated 40 (judging by the experience), but I subsequently put the spice in some tinfoil to be transported in a book to my chalet. I think the crystals crushed down so that when I estimated the small pile I laid in the pipe to be about 40-50 (a bump more than the last times), I was probably off by a factor of at least two, maybe three, putting the dose possibly in the 75-150mg range. I know – foolish, foolish, foolish me…

Other than you guys, I am all alone out here with respect to these substances – I am an autodidact and have no one to advise, teach, mentor or otherwise supervise me (I am certain I am not alone in this). So I learn from my mistakes, I guess. And sometimes the errors are large in scope....

In terms of setting, a few things should have warned me off as well. That day, walking my 14 month old son in a stroller out a dirt road a couple of km from my chalet, I came across a very recently emptied skull of some beast laying on its crown, the bared teeth in its mandibles a wry smile from my angle. It was big, bloody but cleaned of meat and brain down to the bone. Medium sized, I am guessing it was a decapitated wolf : the jaw was long, the teeth carnivorous and the small, wild, grey/brown tuft of hair on its upturned crown told me that while the right size and shape, this was no dog skull. Being the city boy that I am, i thought « cool, I’ll grab a quick shot with my cell camera ! ». After the « photoshoot », as I continued my walk, it slowly dawned on me that some VERY hungry, VERY large animal had been there not long ago gnawing on the skull of its recent kill, and had perhaps even been watching me and my sleeping son as I snapshotted my « cool » find.

Now, had I been alone, no big deal. I don’t frighten easily (another classic sign of stupidity), but with my son there I had a revelation : if it came down to it and a bear came charging out of the woods at us, I felt certain that I would run, drawing the beast away to sacrifice myself to save my son . I don’t take this lightly : it was the first time I realized, despite all the philoso-babble to the contrary, that you can indeed commit a truly selfless act. It freaked my selfish little self out. I was terrified (for the first of two times that day as I was to discover later…) - terrified both for my son and by the realization that if a bear did present itself, I would die a grizzly death (pardon the pun…).

I bring this up because someone somewhere else on this site wrote about awakening the reptile brain, that part of us which is controlled by the basest of instincts, and is comprised of the original, reptilian consciousness that is an evolutionary hangover and resides in us all. This experience opened a channel to my inner reptile, if you will, and there were definite residual unfelt currents as I loaded the pipe that evening.

Finally, the pipe loading was awkward : I spilled the spice twice on the table and had to scrape it up both times and place it back in the bowl. Each time I thought the spice was trying to warn me ; whether true or not, I went in thinking something wasn’t right. Anyway, enough context ; the report itself is a transcription of notes I scribbled down in the moments and hours afterward. There are some notes written during the transcription that are identified, but otherwise, beyond spelling and grammatical corrections, they are verbatim. Thanks for reading, and I apologize for the length ; these things are hard to abbreviate. And once again any advice, criticism or reassurance will be appreciated more than I can express.


First of all, much respect to those who can navigate these deep swampy waters; I for one have no vessel and no oar, and in the absence of a keel to direct the path, I am lost lost lost and fear I shall never be found for there is nowhere to be found and no one to find or do the finding and nothing but this maelstrom, this void that is as empty and vacuous as anything my imagination can behold…

Massive primary coloured letters of sorts – most indecipherable, but at least one a strange permutation of the capital letter E, hurtling toward me without really moving in the chaotic miasma that I am in/that is in me/that is me.

Thrust into the maelstrom and stripped so profoundly of the impression that « I am » and that I exist, that whatever is left of me is thoroughly convinced that all I believed I had experienced, up to now, reveals itself, like a dagger through the heart of the mind, as an elaborate illusion to which I shall never return. Worse than cessation, more painful than the thought of death is the realization that you NEVER WERE… (note : I have, in my clearer moments, accepted my death and have faced it numerous times with other materials, but this, as with my experiences with salvia, was of an order more disturbing, to say the least…)

In the midst of the mess was a chorus : « it’s Saturday, Saturday, Saturday, it’s Saturday » screeching across the vista of my mind, until, sitting up and opening my eyes in a futile attempt to dispel the hell, I realize, seeing the room utterly transformed, that it is me screaming the day of the week – but it’s not me as well. And it’s Sunday. And I am never coming back to know what a day of the week is, because there is NO BACK TO, NO FROM, AND NO TO (let alone the mundanity of a day of a week of some year in some life). (note : I had a similar salvia trip where my field of view was filled with orange monochromatic, puffy and expanding, thick, black-outlined cartoon school buses, and a similar chorus was singing, invitingly, menacingly and with ambivalence all at once in voices that were a dis/harmony of insectoid screeches layered over the clearest of sopranos : « it’s Wednesday, Wednesday, it’s Wednesday Wednesday Wednesday… » ; yes, accompanied with the same sensations described above – IT FELT LIKE THE SAME PLACE. Maybe my mind is not constructed for the use of these substances…)

A loop - endless inexorable recursion… I sit up and then fall back into a cartoon abyss of colours and Saturday Saturday Saturday… Endless eternal indomitable recursion, an irremediable feedback loop (note : curiously I have always maintained that video/audio feedback loops are the face/voice of god…) – consciousness itself ? Am I at the root of the Hofstadter loop? The MandelThought ? The firmware of my mind ? Is this a breakthrough, pure and horrifying ? Have I disabled the illusion, unbuilt the edifice of « consensual reality » to get down to the base, most reptilian and ancient form of simple consciousness – a terrifying self-referential eternal loop of non-being ? or un-being ? the horror…

The universe and our consciousness (common and universal or not) is neither good nor evil nor ambivalent, but rather profoundly indifferent, and as neutral as any void can be. I feel this more than I know it.

Once the most intense of these sensations passed, I am able to open my eyes. There is another dimension visible : height, length, width and the passage of time have newly revealed themselves, but in addition to these co-ordinates is another. I don’t need to tell you it was indescribable, but I will nevertheless do my best with these monkey paws and keystrokes. Like trailers from walls and stairs and in the very air itself, but at once so much more than a simple visual phenomenon, I feel I am glimpsing something new to me, but that has always been there. I feel not unlike a beast who understands up, down, to and fro and has a sudden epiphany that it exists also in a universe of passing moments, conceptualizing past, present and future in an instant through the sudden awakening of a new sense.

I realize I am no more than a raw ego-less nerve of consciousness, subjected to a nonsensical and arbitrary string of luminescent and aural detritus. (Note : I meant during the trip, but the cynic in me supposes this could be applied to everyday living…)

It felt about as spiritual as a kitchen knife excoriation. I can only conclude that the spiritual aspect of this substance lies in the interpretation of the experience - but that contradicts my very understanding of spirituality as something felt not thought. I don’t…

I enjoy challenges, but this seems insurmountable, an unassailable task of back and forth and down down down through a self-perpetuating, Sisyphean recursive loop, like a perpetual motion ride past the far reaches of sanity… Where is the value in this ? What wisdom is to be had that cannot otherwise be gleaned ?

Cresting and lulling waves messing with the fine mesh of mind…

Other Spice journeys stimulated, made me think ; this one ground the thinking apparatus to a precipitous halt. Beyond intellect and beyond description and above all beyond even intuitive comprehension. The ball that rolled didn’t only cease to roll, it first became a cube, then vaulted through and beyond the realm of multi-dimensional polyhedra and became an ineffable 8i5v n 843-tg8i’jiknp2… I can’t even attempt to understand. The only questions that remain are whether it is worth returning to hyperspace (assuming I was there…) and – is…it…dangerous… ?

I don’t want to discredit the advice often given on the nexus to remain calm and not to resist, but to me at this point it is analogous to hitting someone in the head with a bat and telling them not to feel the pain (note : I am sure some zen aficionados out there will have something to say on this subject). I suppose I did resist, but I have no clear idea through what mechanism, ‘cause I did not feel there was an active I to resist with. « I » was obliterated, so if there was resistance and an absence of calm, from whence… ?

If you can’t make sense of something because the word sense no longer applies or signifies, then is there a point, a meaning beyond simply an absence thereof ?

At what cost wisdom ? and is it wisdom if it proves unwise ? There are so many paths to wisdom, and none of them promised or guaranteed – therein lies their beauty and value. But in the balance of things, is the price and the risk involved in certain behaviours, along uncertain paths worth the distant possibility of wisdom ? Someone hit by a truck, paraplegic, learns lessons everyday that no one not confined to a wheelchair and incapable of voluntary movement can learn. There is wisdom here that can be learned nowhere else, but no one in their right mind would throw themselves in front of a truck to gain these insights. There are other paths and other wisdoms ; are we throwing ourselves in front of a truck called spice ? Or am I ? Or is it only me that feels this way ?

Thanks for reading ; sorry for the length. Tough write. Not really in my nature to expose myself like this, nor to ask for help. But I guess that’s spice right ? Any sincere comments will be appreciated and deeply considered.

Thanks Nexus, I have nowhere else to go with this …

JBArk

dont ask what your arent ready to understand, to know love its to know pain, everything needs to be balanced. its if you choose what good or evil you will live, or to let consume you.

Its all love.

Yea man,,dont give up..My friend made the mistake of throwing out a good gram of spice cause he got scared one time..he said he'd never so it again, but sure enough, he got the calling and ever since, has been doing really good..some difficult experiences, and yes, even some fear, but he has learned how to manage it over time and with more experience..

Do yourself a favor and get a decent MG scale..He has one made by AWS--they can be found on amazon for like $30-50--it makes things SO much easier..

Dont forget-a few MG may still be caught in your smoking device (unless its a vaporizer) he's gotten into trouble with this before..Thinking "oh theres not much" but that soon turns to "oh, shit" and rapidly finding a place to set the stem down and get ready for lift off..

I am unable o read the full post at the time being, but it sounds like the actual visions werent that shattereing.....from my perspective. Id just give yuorself some time to get used to the idea of being HAD! I was definitly grateful for those knowing eyes watching over me when I re-enter from a particulary deep experience, Id say get a sitter!

With all due respect 3rdEyePryed, how do you know what you understand UNTIL you ask? Hard to tell with just a string of written words, but your response sounded mean-spirited. And I am in a kind of a vulnerable state. My apologies if I misconstrued your intent.
JBArk

This particular quote resonates with some of my more difficult experiences. To undergo the obliteration of self, the annihilation of ego, as it is happening, is, for me at least, a very disturbing process. And this is not like “ordinary” ego-loss.

My salvia experiences often involve profound ego-loss, but it consists of a loss of identity and memory – not knowing who I am, what I am, not having any memories of a past. This is what I always thought of as ego-loss.

But the obliteration that I’ve felt with DMT is something else. There is a preservation of self, and memories, but like you said, a “realization that you NEVER WERE”. A realization that, I suppose, we are being “dreamed” into existence. In my most difficult experience, this sense was very strong. The dreamer was awakening, and by awakening, I would cease to exist.

What lies beyond our everyday life is beautiful and awful. I’ve seen that awful beauty, and it has changed my relationship with DMT and with life in general. I’m compelled to go further, but I don’t know why. Maybe the dreamer knows.

i don't understand how that was offensive. Its all from the soul.

my apologies then, 3rdEyePryed. Vulnerable sometimes equals defensive. Thanks for clearing that up, and thanks for the response.
JBArk

Thank you for sharing this jbark. Wow.



No. Its not just you. I've wrestled with this, not just with spice, but salvia too -- why pull the trigger? I still wonder.

I have experienced moments of such profound grief and sadness and terror -- unspeakable and horrible. And I don't have an answer. And I don't quite understand (even though, or perhaps because I have asked). But those moments have become so profoundly personal to me in how they have thrown everything here into relief -- how those moments dishabituate me to what I otherwise, day-to-day, take for granted. But those moments take a long time to process, for me. I still shake my head over them.

Anyway, your report struck many familiar notes for me and I so much appreciate how well you articulated those things. Perhaps, somehow, that is part of the why?

Gibran2 wrote:


I guess that the sense of being dreamed is a good way of summing it up, with of course the accompanying sense for me that there is no dreamer, that the dream has just ended and there's nothing beyond.

I also, my friend, feel compelled to push on and continue. This is almost a bigger question for me; Why the compulsion? Is it healthy?

I read trip reports and the overwhelming majority are deep, positive and beautiful experiences. Is it really just a question of perspective? of not feeling the pain the bat imparts? of remaining calm through an onslaught? I honestly don't know if I am capable. But at the same time I am ashamed that I expect an easy path - be just nice for it not to always be so horrifying everytime I go deep with either salvia or, now, DMT.

I tell you, the next time I hold that pipe it won't be just my hands trembling, but a quaking right down my gut and through my soul...

thanks, JBArk

I haven't tried DMT yet, but may I ask what is so "horrifying" in it?

I tend to think that the only thing that would horrify me is chaos: a turmoil of - possibly very deep and reality-shattering - experiences which are not presented in an understandable way (like as successive steps on some inner path, elements of a voyage), but as random misfirings of some transcendental brain.

I had such experiences on LSD and it was like psychedelic OCD, terrible, mind-exhausting loops with no meaning whatsoever.

First off, I’d suggest not going so deep right away. Work your way up slowly – start over from scratch. Approach it like something new. Learn to trust yourself with lower doses first.

I’m currently going through a “rough” time with DMT myself, but there have been many beautiful, loving, euphoric, funny, playful, amazing experiences too. They’ll come – trust yourself.

There have been times where breakthrough after breakthrough left me dissatisfied and questioning why I do this. Then, a deep spiritual breakthrough happens – a mystical experience – and all the “whys” melt away. You’ll see.


I suppose we each are horrified by our own personal “demons”. I don’t think the word “horrified” quite fits for me. Maybe “deeply shaken” is better.

Why have I been deeply shaken? Death. I had one experience not that long ago where I was certain I had physically died. I wasn’t afraid, but I was very sad that I wouldn’t be returning to the place I called home for so long. Since then, I’ve had several other death experiences.

Why have I been deeply shaken? Beauty. I recently had an experience where I was in a “procession” of some sort with many other beings, and at the head of the procession was a being of incredible beauty. I have never experienced such beauty in my life. A beauty so overwhelming, that I became seriously concerned that I would physically die if I continued to look. (I looked away.)

Why have I been deeply shaken? Revelations. There are some who doubt the reality of DMT experiences, who believe it’s “just” chemicals interacting with their brains. They haven’t seen. There is an immaterial realm beyond our simple understanding, and upon returning from this realm I’ve asked myself more than once, “How can I possibly function in society after having been shown what I was just shown?”

headphoneperson wrote:


Yeah, one thing that astounded me was how at this dose (remember the dose was accidentally VERY high - somewhere between 75 and 150 mg...), was how similar/identical the experience was to salvia. With a few days distance now, though, I am starting to perceive the slight differences. With salvia, as spooky as it is for me, there is always some kind of narrative, or at the very least a progression of images/sounds/sensations that makes it at least describable.

For example, on one trip I was in a sea of presences, or souls that, like me, were comprised of two parts. At least two huge, mechanical "rollers" were rolling over this endless field, gathering the top halves of these souls and carrying them up and over the rollers to be deposited on different bottom halves, so that the entire soul-field were in an endless procession of transmutation, becoming different souls, or selves. Of course, the rollers were headed inexorably toward me, and I knew with certainty that My own "soul" would be cleaved in half, to be deposited and have deposited on two different halves from two different distinct selves: in short, "I" was about to become two different people distinct from myself with no memory of who I had been... (Buddhism,anyone...?)

In this last DMT voyage however, it was a veritable onslaught of turbid void, of overflowing nothing, ineffable and as as empty and all encompassing as anything the imagination can construct. That's why I chose to just include the things I wrote immediately after, verbatim, as these shards were the only way of describing the experience for lack of any cohesive images or an A to B progression.

This is what perplexes me. In the other trip reports I have read there is generally MORE of a narrative or a describable experience or a sense of progression than with salvia (with the understanding that all descriptions fall horribly short of the actual experience, and that in travels with spice "what happens on the road stays on the road". (The strange gets stranger - I didn't add that smiley, but it's curiously appropriate. If Ididn't add it, where'd it come from?)

And yeah, (to mix metaphors!)why pull the trigger hits the nail on the head...

headphoneperson wrote


What do you mean by this? That sharing is part of the why? Or to underline that we will never understand, but there are lessons there nevertheless? Either way I appreciate your interest.

And many thanks for the response.
cheers,
JBArk

gibran2: I'm interested in psychedelics exactly because of these deep experiences. A fear of the divine is a fear I would love to learn living with.

Yes, I suppose I meant that sharing is part of the why; that despite how difficult it is to integrate these kind of experiences and how deeply personal they can be, whether shattering or beautiful, the act of communicating them to someone, somewhere, seems to be part of the point.

As gibran2 said above: 'How can I possibly function in society after having been shown what I was just shown?' Having asked this question myself, I suppose, for me, the one salve is knowing that there are other people out there who have seen things similar to what I have seen. That connection seems really important, somehow.

Your description of the experience with salvia is so familiar to me; I too know that feeling of being transmuted from one soul or self to another. And that kind of death has been so sad for me, in the way gibran2 describes above, that I still have tremendous difficulty integrating that experience. The fact that others know this, though, helps to ground me little bit.

I will definitely be starting over, gibran2, treating it like a new experience as you suggest, and beginning with smaller CAREFULLY measured doses...! But probably not for a while ( but knowing myself and my resolve in such matters, i give it a couple of weeks). Part of me thinks that to understand this particular experience, i need to go back in. Just not right this instant! Amazing what a few days and a few words of support can change!
Cheers
JBArk

Just came down with a bout of bronchitis... After smoking 3 times in 1 week, my lungs hurt a bit after each time - then 8-9 days later (3days ago)it hit me in the chest hard. Coughing up chunks, and enduring never-ending fits like I'll never come up for air and breathe again. Anyone get this after smoking spice? Is it maybe the impurities? I still haven't purified or re-xed my first extraction... maybe unconnected, but I just wanted to see if anyone out there had ever had lung difficulties as a result of short term (or prolonged) use.

Thanks. JBArk

Were you the one who used Coleman and decided not to rxl before smoking? If so, it very well might be related. Clean spice used the amount you describe isn't apt to cause bronchitis.

Entropymancer wrote:


Yeah that was me. too zealous, I guess - that's maybe what got me into the trouble that started this thread. I'll "tail between the legs" now and go re-x...
thanks!
JBArk

Thank you for sharing this jbark. A lot of it seems like an artifact of taking too high a dose. Have never heard of any bronchial effects from the spice before. Good luck.