I will try to describe my first two experiences with spice, and the couple of things I learned during those few powerful minutes.

Here's a little introduction, in this post I'll concentrate on my trips.

- 1st trip: Initiation

Setting: 10 PM, university meeting room, that has seen quite a few things so far... Brings back good memories, proved to be a fine choice. Nice carpet, but a bit too bright fluorescents.

Set: A friend and I had a glass of nice wine with some pals about an hour before the trip. Couldn't really feel it in my head, but it made me relaxed, which is always good thing. Was a bit anxious before, as always with new and potentially powerful stuff. In retrospect, the dose was probably around 10-15 mg-s, one not-so-big toke.

The journey: We measured 40 mg-s of spice each (on a 0.001 scale), and proceeded to load a freshly made mini-machine bubbler stem with the first dose. I'll take some pics of the stem and micro-bubbler we used, it seemed like an adequate setup with room temp water in it. I chose to be the first to try, in case something goes wrong - does no good to endanger one's friends. I warmed up the stem with a torch lighter to melt the spice into the mesh, and then proceeded to vaporize with a normal lighter. Soon nice white vapor started to form, and I was pleasantly surprised by the smooth and foggy sweet-rubber taste - not the harsh, razor-sharp plastic vapor I so much feared.
But here things started to get interesting. I used to swim a lot, so I have a large lung volume, can usually blow up a balloon in one big breath. I wasn't even finished with my first toke when I started to feel something coming on very strong, and my hands felt very much like candy-floss so I put the bubbler down. I had some expectations what this trip should be like (and I know that's never a good start), but it turned out totally different. Even before I breathed out some huuuge pressure started to build up inside me and when I blew out the thin white mist, I felt like when going up in a roller-coaster, but without the feeling of movement. It was a very strong body experience, I felt my blood racing, my heart pounding like crazy and felt flushed (but not warm). Also the pressure was very strong, but not directional, couldn't really tell if it was coming from inside or the outside. A feeling of excitement and an urge to smile, but not giggle - this was too intense for giggling. My perception changed, the sharp edges seemed to smooth out a little, the colors got warmer, more saturated, sometimes tinted with pink and yellow. No visuals though, maybe some closed eye almost-fractal almost-shapes, but those might have been just ghost images. The thought patterns changed significantly, but it was nothing spiritual, mostly confusing, cannot-find-that-word-on-the-tip-of-my-tongue like, but not just with words. I tried to describe the feelings to my pal, but coherent speech wasn't a real possibility at that stage. What came out was something like: "WOW....this...I...wow...incredible...too strong...no visuals..just...this talking won't work...." The ending was slower, I started breathing more easily, I found my thoughts to form more clearly, than edges started to return slowly, colors desaturating a bit.
The whole experience lasted about 3-5 minutes, with a coming down period of about 10 minutes - lightheadedness, lack of fine motor coordination, unwillingness to stand up, stuff like that. My friend had a less body intensive trip, very up and happy-smiley, colors intensified, even though he managed like 2 tokes, likely not even half of the 40 mg-s.

Looks like learning to vaporise a full breakthrough dose will take some time, and in retrospect, the stem intake might have been a bit tight, will try to open it up a bit. I started to wonder if the yellowish color of my spice is sign of some 5-Meo-DMT, because the trip was so body-heavy and lacking visuals, but I decided to try a bigger dose/better vap technique next time, to see if breakthrough might bring the visuals and the hyperspace-launch with it.


- 2nd trip: Do NOT want!

Setting: ~11AM, at home, nice warm and fuzzy blanket on floor, beeswax candle on fireproof cupboard. Ambient window lighting, light cloud cover outside.

Set: The day after the previous experience, I decided to give it another go, now that I know what to expect - how wrong I was! I felt okay with myself, calm and open, expectant. Some hibiscus and green cardamom tea with orange blossom honey on an empty stomach, and 20g-s of dark chocolate 30 mins before the journey.

The journey:

The bubbler stem had plenty of leftover spice in it, so I scraped most of it back onto the mesh, and added what looked like 20 mg-s (half of yesterdays dose) to it, just to be sure. I wasn't expecting to down the whole thing at once, but I decided to go on with toking as long as possible, aiming for a breakthrough. I once again melted the product on the mesh with a torch lighter applied to the outer glass walls of the stem, and then pulled the candle flame lightly in - just the tip, not wanting to burn spice.
When vapor started to form, I paused for a few seconds to catch a breath, and took a serious toke - the effect was instantaneous, I could barely manage a second toke, before my shaking hands let go of the bubbler (no water inside this time), and I breathed out through my nose (was still conscious enough to consider this way of enlarging the effective uptake surface, and decide to go for it), then I promptly lied down on the blanket. This was sooooo much more intense than yesterday: my body seemed to compress like it was going to blow up, my heart raced like all of my reserve adrenaline was fueling it, and even though I was aware of my breathing, it seemed like no air was coming in, and the shortness of breath was truly terrifying. It was very much like a near-death experience, in the sense that my brain was like "OMG I AM going to DIE!!1! Oh shit, ohshitohshit!" The visual distortions were intense, everything sharpened but the edges were smoothed out, colors became too vibrant, but nothing even close to the hyperspace reports I've read - and it was really hard concentrating on anything but not dying.
It was all so very much a body experience, and a truly terrifying one. I had some quite unpleasant drowning close-calls, and dangerously big tree-falls before, and this felt very much like those combined into a whole new level of terror and unpleasantness. It was like being chrushed by a huge wave while falling from a cliff and being hit by a plane, but all the while knowing that you are lying on your back unmoving, breathing. In a moment of absolute terror and clarity I managed to check my pulse, and it seemed pretty much normal, even though the pressure in my body was overwhelming, and the numbness in my heart and lungs was outright shocking. I tried to convince my brain that I am getting some oxygen, but it felt like my body simply rejected it, like my lungs have turned into smooth stone. It took some time to come out of this, probably not more than 10 minutes, but these were those special, hour long minutes you sometimes get when things get nasty. Afterwards it didn't seem so scary, but the relief that it was over played a huge part in that. I got seriously humbled by this experience, and learned a lot.


Conclusion: I will never, ever try this again without somebody close by. Living through the second trip alone, knowing that if something happens to me, there's nobody to turn to was one of the worse things I went through in my life. I learned to respect the Spice, and be very-very-very much careful with it. Considering the effects I am pretty much positive that there really IS plenty of 5-MaO-DMT in my product, this all seems so much like that. Especially after checking the leftovers on the bubbler-stem and finding out that the dose I had was probably only like 20 mg-s, 30mg-s tops. (Yep, still have to learn how best to vaporise) N,N-DMT just isn't supposed to be this strong, but a mix of the two could be (). I will recrystallize again, grow big, clear crystals, and then try to GC-MS the results, just to be sure. I did some toluene extractions after my naphta pulls, and got a small amount of ugly brown, foul-smelling oily jungle xtals, but I will definitely put those away if even my mostly clear-looking Spice was this intense.

Could someone more experienced hypothesize what happened here? Could the 5-MaO be responsible for this? Could there have been some problem during the xtraction? I will soon put together a post about my extraction, and some things I found exciting during the procedure, maybe that will help. I also have some 30x magnification pics of the xtals, will upload those too.

Doesn't really sound like 5-MeO to me. For many people, sub-breakthrough doses cause great discomfort until one gets used to them. What source material did you use?

A lot of people don't like low doses. Personally, I think the body load is an acquired taste. With higher doses you can't feel your body and you'll get the amazing visuals you've read about.
If you plan on going bigger, make sure you're in a good state of mind. I have very grounded trips when my heart beats fast. Also, work your way up in your own time. You need to be able to give yourself fully to the trip. You need to be able to smile and go with the flow no matter what. I think after you've done it a few more times, you'll start to remember more of the trip also.

The source was MHRB, but about 1.5-2 years old, stored in a freezer.

Thanks for the feedback, I'll give it a couple of weeks of rest, and then try again in a different setting (probably nature), with a friend nearby.

It's a good thing to hear that the body effects get less pronounced with higher doses, in retrospect the second trip wasn't that bad, only really unusual and more intensive than the stuff I'm used to, so I got a bit frightened.
I suspected the 5-MaO mainly because of the yellowish tint and strong body effect. I noticed that the spice I made has two distinct melting points, one around 49°C, and one above 53°C. Also, when dissolving it in slowly heated heptane, most of the white crystals dissolve, but some yellow oily part stays in the bottom of the tube, which dissolves more slowly, on a higher temperature. Next week I'll measure the temperatures exactly, and probably try to make some white crystals exploiting the above behavior. I probably should try to slowly recrystallize the whole thing in RT evapping heptane, I got one nice big crystal that way, but the chemical hood is a bit overbooked next week, and I certainly don't want to do that at home...

In the meantime, meditation and working on my vaporization technique seem to be the things to do. Any advice on some materials that can be vaporized without much effect? I'd like to try some different designs without wasting any of the special stuff.

MHRB doesn't have 5-Meo DMT. it's yellow because i'ts impure and your trip will resemble the purity of your spice. i can smoke low doses of clean spice and feel like i'm floating on a cloud.

Dopestone is correct. There is no 5-MeO whatsoever in MHRB. The yellow tint is most likely due to inactive oils and tannins, oxidation, or a combination thereof. Recrystallizing in the manner you described - separating your residual yellow gunk from clean solvent will result in a cleaner end product.

This will probably sound intimidating, but the experiences you describe above sound like classic underdosing. At low doses, the experience tends to be all body load (which can be jarring and unpleasant) and often little else. At the breakthrough level, you will simply lose all physical awareness. There is no getting around the drowning/dying sensation at the onset - and the deeper you go, the more dramatic it becomes - but the process is quick and you WILL transcend it, at which point all becomes disembodied stillness (as far as your actual physical self is concerned). If you have the presence of mind (or physical ability) to be talking or taking your pulse, you've still got a ways to go, believe me.

My advice is to do it next time with a sitter. Make a game plan. Weigh out your dose, commit to it beforehand and have your sitter keep you accountable. Have them handle the pipe and lighter - just switch to auto pilot and keep inhaling until it's completely vaporized. Before you are done, you won't recognize the pipe, the lighter, your friend or yourself - but if you follow this procedure, by the time you lay back and close your eyes (which is an absolute must), you'll be well on your way and disembodied within, at most, a minute.