I found the Nexus right around my first attempt at extracting DMT, which was the outset of my psychedelic voyaging. DMT will always hold a special place in my heart and I certainly don't think my work is done with it. Several months later and many substances later, however, I would experience mescaline for the first time, and the conclusion I arrived at then has not changed now, which is this: mescaline borders on perfection. I'm not trying to be controversial or incite an argument, but merely stating a humble opinion.

I recently attempted mescaline again with a friend who has shared many psychedelic experiences, and he confidently +1'ed this conclusion. I've done my fair share of experimentation at this point, but where--if anywhere--should I go from here? Perhaps nowhere. Perhaps mescaline is the holy grail of the psychedelic experience, or perhaps not. I certainly can't seem to find any fault with it. I can't think of another good reason to experiment with any other hallucinogen except to say that I've done it. One way of putting it is this: mescaline is like the amalgamation of all of positive aspects of the psychedelics I have experienced. What can I get out of any other psychedelic that can't be gotten from mescaline? I'm not sure. At this point, I find myself drifting away from most other entheogens. Ayahuasca is powerful medicine indeed, but the combination of paralyzing nausea, the inability to interact with my environment, and the utter perplexity and intensity of the experience are not entirely desirable. Again I am only speaking for myself, but I suspect some may feel the same way.

I am excited to continue working with the cactus, and hopefully will be able to experience Peyote one day.

Mescaline is damn near perfect for interacting with the environment and moving around. It's one of my favorite psychs for sure.

But if I really want to go deep into my mind I find aya or shrooms to be better because of the dream like nature they induce in me for the first half of the experience.

I don't have favorites anymore really. If I want to be with people and do things mescaline takes the cake. If I want a visionary experience I opt for shrooms or aya as it's shorter and less taxing on the body.

Peace

I totally agree with you man. I just recently had my first mescaline experience and I proclaimed to all of my friends that mescaline is my new favorite psychedelic. To me the experience is so friendly and positive. Social interaction with people is pretty easy (even enhanced), dancing and movement is amazing, music sounds great, and the visuals are pretty great too. Mescaline to me is what alot of other psychedelics lack.

This is precisely how I feel Kash. Tryptamines are fascinating compounds, but it's much harder to navigate that experience. I could spend many days trying to contemplate what the DMT experience is about and never even come close to the answer, if there even is one. That does not take away from the fact that Ayahuasca might have been the most "life-changing" experience of any other psychedelic. But mescaline is so much more navigable, and the spirituality of it is not diminished in any way. The ability to control the experience is rather remarkable, being able to either remain in the moment or immerse oneself in visions seemingly at will. I am filled with love and euphoria and at the same time I can accomplish the same amount of self-analysis and do as much work on myself as I can with any other substance. I think experimentation is key, but once you stumble upon something that really resonates with you to stick with it.

Mescaline is great, I love it! Too bad it becomes expensive and troublesome to extract when good yielding cactus are not easy/cheap to find and one needs so much of mescaline for effects.

Anyways I dont think any psychedelic is better than others. But there's definitely cycles in life where taking one or other substance makes more sense to me.

Dont forget to share what you learn with mescaline so we can learn with you

I have to chime in here... I too LOVE MESCALINE! Such a gentle yet profound experience. Obviously it has the potential to give someone a bad time, but in my eyes it is such an amazing substance. The hassle to extract it is so worth it for the return it gives.

In theory I agree, specially considering set an setting and al.. But I never had any bad mescaline trip and never saw anybody have one. Did you?

i too came here for dmt and now am a cactus/mescaline fanatic, dmt is great and all but mescaline has the depths dmt has to offer yet offers a socializing experience enhancement. it is both a full on entheogen and a recreational positive experience. i love cactus/mesc and am most thrilled with its growing popularity

I haven't had a bad trip, but both myself and my gf have had moments on mescaline that have been fraught with emotional distress.

In the case of my gf, it had a lot to do with unresolved emotional stuff and the long comeup combined with the fact that we had been planning on attending a show. Once we scrapped the show and she peaked/plateaud (having never done anything other than cannabis and mushrooms, she started to get scared that the long comeup meant it was just going to keep coming up and up and up, even after the 2hr mark) things improved significantly.

We actually wound up talking through a lot of the unresolved emotional stuff over the following 6 hours. Not a bad experience for her in the end, but definitely some rough patches at the beginning.

My rough experience was somewhat of an existential crisis brought on by a poor choice towards the end of a day of dosing mesc throughout the day. By the time the evening rolled around, I had taken 200mg of red acetate five times in one hour increments, starting around noon. I was writing lyrics to tracks and found myself suddenly working on a track that painted the parallels between the concentration camps of the holocaust and the modern-day prison industrial complex (to the beat from Nas' "My Country" ).

Needless to say, after ~20 minutes and a two of the five verses complete, I found myself full of a lot of distressing emotions. I stopped writing, took a warm shower, put on some much brighter music and straightened up around the house. When my roommate came home, we had a great chat and he reminded that I tend to forget how powerful of an empathogen cactus/mescaline can be, and that it's a double edged sword. Feeling much better, I hung out with him until he went to sleep and went for some late night walks around the neighborhood, before coming home and finally falling asleep around five or six in the morning.

On the whole, it wasn't a bad experience...but it did have some distressing moments. I love mescaline a lot and find it's one of the gentler psychedelics, but being in an open/suggestible suggestible state leaves you open and suggestible (duh? ), and that carries its own "risks".

my experience so far with mescaline is that, yes it has a hyperspace of it's own..however, for me at least the depth of DMT and mushrooms has not been matched by mescaline..close though on one occasion.

It is def one of my 4 favorite psychs along with mushrooms, DMT/aya and salvia..but I dont work with it often and I think mushrooms and DMT are just closer to my heart..and that is fine.. Mescaline is nice and I love it and will continue to work with it occasionally..I grow trichs and I have 1000 bridgessi seeds here I just ordered so I will be growing more of them.

I have had 2 very difficult experiences with cacti..like freak outs. Yes it is possible trust me. One time I had combined it with some cannabis and it was easily as mentally warping and freaky, panic inducing as other psychs..the other time I took no cannabis but started to feel very disoriented and confused..then weird and tingly and faint. My mind started to race and I got extremely paranoid. I could tell I was getting low blood suger on top of it and just made it to the store in time to get some juice. I nearly blacked out in the parking lot. It was extremely unpleasant for about 25 minutes and then the trip cleared up and was okay again.

Mescaline also feels rougher on the body than DMT or psilocin..I dont want to say it feels "dirtier" cus that seems like the wrong word..but does feel more taxing on the body, and combined with the length of it that has kept me from working with it the way I have with say ayahuasca and even mushrooms.

I would have to say it has become my favorite too. It's just so friendly and easy going and very euphoric. It possesses all the good things I like about LSD, but few of the negatives. It sucks it's such a pain to prepare and consume. I guess my only criticism is that the visuals don't hold a candle to a high dose of mushrooms in the dark.

i ate 1.1 g of mesc hcl and let me tell you, there was no lack of visuals in the dark, infact because of my ability to remain partially lucid i had an easier time inspecting the incredible multidimensional geometric technicolor transformation

and that was just 1.1 g, higher doses have yielded experiences that pale all but one mushroom experience and one aya experience, totally paled smoking dmt

on entheogenic doses ive noticed the cactus "hyperspace" is more consuming than dmt's and because of its duration, i am immersed longer in its eternal state and have the entire next day to still be partially cactussed and continue my reflection of the experience before returning to baseline 24 hours after ingestion

I could see that about being more lucid to enjoy the visuals. Mushrooms kinda make you so delirious. I find the cactus mindstate to be much clearer. I guess I just haven't ingested a large enough dose yet to experience those types of visuals. My problem is I have a hard head and a soft stomach (at least when it comes to cactus. Mushrooms, no prob.) and have a hard time keeping a large enough dose down. I may have to experiment with an actual extraction. I hate leaving out all the other goodies, but it might just be where I need to go.

Mew, I understand the time thing with mescaline..but what I am talking about in reguards to high doses of oral DMT/ayahuasca is that it is very easy to just go way too far and end up fully out of body in a state that is timeless and ego is just gone..time makes no sense. My strongest ayahuasca peak felt like it lasted forever and I really only peaked for probly 2-3 hours..and still you come back knowing that you just skimmed the surface..DMT goes so deep it is just imcomprehensible and has challenged everything I think I know over and over again..mushrooms can also do this same thing but when you have beta carbolines in the mix it just shoots you that much farther out there. To be honest I am scared to ever get to that level with ayahuasca again. I dont understand how people can drink doses that huge and just sit there and go with it..it is the most powerful force I have ever felt in my entire life, more real than real and it leaves you seriously drooling in awe that this stuff actaully does grow on trees.

Now, with vaped DMT it is very different IME..vaped DMT can def put you far far far out there as well but it has never for me been the full on hours long life or death existential ordeal that high dose ayahuasca and psilocybin can be..even though that state is timeless as well..

With mescaline I cannot say if it can get to that level..I have heard yes from some and no from some..but the concensus seems to be from the range of people I have spoken with is that it can take you far out there..but DMT and psilocin seem to be like the crown jewel and matched only by 5meoDMT. I cant really say as I have only taken mescaline a dozen times at most..

I will say this though...there seems to be something else going on with the tryptamines that is related to, well I want to say language but it is just way deeper than that..I find myslef saying they are just more "cosmic" but it is not that either..I know Johnothan Ott says he conciders the tryptamines(and LSD) to be nootropics that exercise the brain sort of and bring all these new ideas, but that mescaline in his opinion does not do this at all...and I can see what he means..but even that is not really the issue..what can I say?..there is just something about tryptamines that sets them apart from anything else but it is hard to put my finger on it..

Mescaline I like because it has such a clam stillness to it. I actaully do not find myself having all kinds of cosmic revelations etc with mescaline or insights into the dimensional nature of existance(unless cannabis is invovled) in the way that I do with tryptamines..mescaline I just realize this divine stillness and heart opening and I can sort of tune into the spirit inside of things, if that makes sense.

It really does not compare to DMT or psilocin in many ways..one is def not a substitute for the other in my life. I would rather just have them both.

@ nicechrisman

the strongest experiences ive had have been from achuma, prepared by dehydration and other simple techniques. the gram of mescaliine was awesome but trivial in the depths that achuma can reveal.

@jamie

i know what you mean about aya, and yes im scared of it too (in those doses). i didnt think cactus could do the same for a few years, i thought of it as an empathogen with psychedelic effects. boy was i wrong, about a year ago i finally managed to eat about 3 feet of achuma and that is what i consider my introduction to true cactus entheogenisis, everything before that was leading me there. it was the gateway to my practice now, and it has proven to me that not only is cactus a viable means of entheogenisis, but i can safely trust in its power to deliver me through such an experience. i shutter to think of anyone accidentally dosing on that level, just as i shutter to think of anyone dosing high amounts of aya without serious consideration.

in conclusion, cactus is just as valuable and deep of a teacher as aya has been to me. admittedly ive only done aya 30 or so times, so i am no expert. one of those experiences however was a definite breakthrough and the cactus experience was equally if not deeper for atleast twice as long.

the difference in the breakthrough experiences for me between tryptamines and cactus is that the tryptamines are this eternal experience where there are these profound cosmic revelations about divinity and consciousness, whereas the cactus breakthroughs are these visionary dreams that are saturated with impossible situations from which later great meaning and day to day synchronicity can be understood. the cactus tends to give the user the most personal immediate ecstasy at the very end, after the visionary state just before tapering off to the intergration, thats when i find myself riddled with joy and profound understanding.

with cactus i dont feel like i need to do any dieta besides from fasting all day and drinking tons of water, then bathing. with aya there is a requisite for me to do these long exhuasting dietas for weeks if not months before, limiting my already limited diet to foods that ultimately leave me slightly mal nourished and unable to be as phsyically active as id like.

i also appreciate cactus's long come up period chalked full of lethargic delerium vs aya's really fast ramp up without much comfort. i dont have 1/100th the nausea with cactus i do with aya and that just makes it so much more simple to lay in bed without worrying of purging on my nice clean clothes and sheets.


i cant say one is better than the other, however i do prefer cactus for both deep experiences and recreational activities, if i had to pick just one entheogen it would be achuma, hands down

well mew, you are kinda just crazy though..

I mean, who eats 3 feet of achuma?



Naw..one day I will try that. I dont think I have heard of anyone else eating that much..

I just planted 100 achuma seeds about 2 hours ago..so I will have some time to prepare until they are big enough.

hail achuma ;3

Haven't seen anyone have a bad time on it actually. It is definitely pretty fail safe, as it has such a loving quality to it. Hence why I love it Even when I was in rush hour on the london underground (it came on quicker than previous experience) I still handled it better than if I was on any other psychedelic.

However, like any hallucinogen, it has the possibility to go south. I've heard of people freaking out on MDMA. It definitely can happen, but like others said- it has a gentle quality compared to mushies or acid, so freaking out is much more rare in my experience.

Rofl, that made me laugh. Ya I cant even imagine stomaching that much slimey cactus. Atleast I bet you werent hungry during the experience mew .