Greetings all...
Been putting off this 'Introductory Essay' off for a while. I've been lurking around here for over a year at this point - signed up for an account last fall but haven't really felt the urge to participate in too many of the threads that pop up in the lower circles here... Hoping to start being more social now as I've found some of the members here to be extremely intelligent and hope to be able to share knowledge, culture and stories as time passes!
So anyway without too much ceremony:
I'm currently facing down the middle of my third decade on planet. I'm a computer nerd by trade (and by education) - a husband and father of 3 girls (a couple scarily headed into teenage years). I really have too many interests and hobbies to really effectively summarize in a box... (as I believe is the case with most individuals) but I have more than a passing interest in art, music, computer science, cognitive science/neuroscience, (more recently) chemistry, martial arts and a variety of other things. I have that 'Jack of all Trades' type of personality I guess...
To save Pandora copying and pasting her 'get to know you questions':
I can thank the early days of the internet + usenet for making relatively quality information available to my otherwise impressionable younger brain (I do pride myself on being a somewhat more informed 'drug' user (especially more-so than those around me)). It's been over a decade really since the 'crazier' times but I've had innumerable (probably 80+ if I could remember them all) experiences with LSD in my younger days... Most experiences were exalting and quite formative, more than a few made me feel dirty, and a couple were downright terrifying. I've actually only taken psilocybin mushrooms a dozen or so times (more on this later) and MDMA 3-4 times (probably a story in there somewhere). However I quickly stopped seeking ecstasy and other 'synthetics' (a term that I realize is sort of ignorant now that I'd advanced my understanding of chemistry a bit more) drugs once I started reading issues of the 'Microgram' journal around '01-'02 and realized how poor quality most of things that pass for MDMA on the street were
. That information and being thrust into fatherhood has kept me (relatively) straight and narrow... although it probably comes to no surprise to anyone that I've been a persistant long-time cannabis user (although I'm feeling my desire and interest waning in this area a bit). I've never really had any interests in other amphetamines or strong opiates. I've also recently started experimenting with various Ampakines taken with various synergistic supplements (yes... I had an interest in this before 'Limitless'
. Am very interested in investigating the effects of electrical stimulus/ tDCS. I've tried to meditate on and off since I was 11-12 but haven't been able to keep a habit of it...
Call it boredom or some sort of pre-midlife crisis but I've again been feeling a call to explore the deeper recesses of my psyche through the means of psychedelics... Over time this led me here. Late last year ordered 1/2 lb of mhrb from a relatively trusted supplier I located here at the time (freaked me the hell out what happened to them a nary a week later (so you probably know who that is) - I'm glad this place was able to procure relatively solid and reassuring information during that time - saved my sanity...)
With that amount I experimented with a couple extraction techniques. 1st couple were a STB (naptha + lye) which was pretty successful... I followed that up with a lime based drytek which was also pretty successful. I kind of preferred the drytek at the time due to its relative ease but with the situation now kind of wish I would have dove into an AB... Learning/reading more about technique I'm pretty sure I wasted/threw away or left soaking quite a few desirable alkaloids during these learning processes. I ended up with a decent overall yield but have sadly exhausted all my mhrb (without too many immediate prospects for resupply on the horizon - I'm thinking acrb is probably the next step).
With the spice acquired from my first extractions I've had more than a baker's dozen of very interesting experiences. As I honed in on my vaping technique (started with bowl I use for cannabis and graduated to a homemade glass 'machine' type thing (which was what finally pushed me over the edge a few times)) I had quite a few sub-par (and even downright hateful) dosages but I've (mostly) gotten the hang of it... I probably burned through most of it being an idiot not knowing how to properly dose (didn't have a mg scale for quite a while). Sadly all I have left now is just a couple doses of 'enhanced leaf' (mullein + spearmint). Planning of taking the rest of that soon... (might try to write up a trip report or two in the future)
I also tried a couple of unsuccessful pharma doses and this has give me some love for harmala alkaloids (only syrian rue at this point). Recently I've been loving making some tea for a nice relaxing evening. Along with trying out extractions using acrb I'm thinking that I might soon invest in some Caapi + psychotria viridis or Chaliponga to try my hand at grandmother aya once time (and funds) permit (scary and excited at same time).
Having lurked around here for a while and the with varied gamut of experience I myself have had with the spice I know that I still have much to learn and really only have a toe-hold on the experience at the this point. Excited to do more swimming in the deep end of the pool in time. To add fire to those persistant 'atheist' threads that keep popping up I will say that my experience with spice has kind of warped my dogmatic views somewhat. I still don't feel the need to assign anything to any sort of higher authority - but merely come to realize how much more I don't know - or maybe can't 'know'... I've always been somewhat of a 'spiritual atheist' (no that isn't mutually exclusive). I just think the brain is quite an amazing sort of machine (more so now than ever). Happy to just live the life I have the fullest I can!
Lately been listening to too many McKenna talks on psychedelic salon that has now sparked an interest in high(er)-dose psilocybin trips... I realize that while I've had some pretty large dosages of LSD (I'm pretty sure it was anyway - this was '95-'00 so before the RCs were super prevalent and before the well started to dry due to the 'great bust'
but never taken more than 3g of mushies of unknown quality/vintage. I'm thinking a monotub is in my future (I'm quite a bit more analytical and discriminating than I was in the past).
sorry for the book - easy for me to be wordy at times. Pretty sure someone awesome said: “I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” Thanks all for all the amazing information and resources over my time here so far
and I hope to learn even more (and contribute when I can) in time!