In my experience, San Pedro and Bridgesii have amazing efficiacy when it comes to treating social anxiety. I can eat a small dose of full spectrum cacti extract and be social. I have massive problems initiating contact with others due to fear of rejection. I also have a hard time keeping conversations. With mescaline cacti, i'm in a cheerful mood, stimulated yet with less anxiety. I ask people questions and sincerely love it. I smile at them, they smile back...it seems to change something in the matrix as strangers talk to me more while on mescaline cactus.

It does not cure me. I still can't walk into a packed room with like hundreds of people talking and initiate any contact. It still scares me. But with the cactus, i'm so much better...to the point that i actually see the potential of making real human connections while i don't see that sober.

My question: WHY IS THERE NO RESEARCH ABOUT THE POSITIVE SOCIAL EFFECTS OF MESCALINE CACTI?

Social anxiety is very hard to treat because there are so many facets to it and general anxiolytics don't help that much. In that sense, it is indeed a wonder drug.

Possible reasons:

1. I'm crazy
2. I'm overstating the effects
3. My physiology is so unique that it only happens to me
4. There is not enough research into psychedelic substances


What i'm asking of you:

- Please tell me if you suffer from social anxiety and describe wether or not cacti has helped you in this regard.
- If you are scientific minded, try to offer a hypothesis to explain the efficiacy of cactus extract to treat social anxiety.


Research into this has to start SOMEWHERE and if it is only a silly thread on a forum in which we aggregate anecdotal evidence.

hmm interesting. I myself have still not experienced the cacti. I cannot wait till I do but this interests me as I also have social anxiety. Mine is weird. I don't have it in all instances. Sometimes I can be comfortable enough to initiate conversation, but the situation has to be just right. Still not sure exactly how it works for me as I haven't ventured into that section of self improvement yet.

I know that alcohol helps drown it out, and mushrooms too a little. Cannabis works the opposite, makes it worse.

Interesting post
i dont think mescaline makes me more social, the opposite is true w/me.
however, i am more social on mescaline than many other hallucinogens

also, i'm not anxious in most social settings, but i am while high on acid, mushrooms, various RC's, and even the cacti to some extent

This is indeed a very interesting post.

I've battled with anxiety for as long as I can remember. Anxiety for me is an instinct that overrides logic. No matter how much I tell myself otherwise it pretty much always wins. I can now see that people aren't adverse to me like I used to believe. On the contrary. People LOVE being around me, but something about me makes me send people away. I was once told that I gave someone the impression that I thought I was "too cool for that person", whereas the inner feeling actually wanted to talk to them, but couldn't. I overthink opportunity to the point that something straight forward and simple becomes an impossible task and is consequently aborted.

So I guess my anxiety is perhaps more obsession based than based on a rational fear. Many situations feature me overthinking the moment rather than living it, especially when people are involved.

Mescaline does indeed at least temporarily, eliminate this symptom.

It silences the voice inside that makes you overthink the moment without impairing your logic, at least at low to moderate doses.

I must stress this is nothing like lowering your more sensible inhibition a la ethanol. It seems much more target'd to a particular behaviour in me.

It also makes me a little more selfish. Maybe a bad choice of words, but a behaviour of mine which I believe is compensating for my anxiety is being far too nice to folk. I do like that side of me, but often I take it to a level that impedes on my own life. Mescaline also balances my outlook on this to a point I consider fair.

It's interesting to note that LSD, Mushrooms etc makes me more inhibited around strangers or in uncomfortable situations. It doesn't change my inhibitions around friends.

Mescaline makes me less inhibited around strangers or in uncomfortable places. It doesn't change my inhibitions around friends.

Alcohol makes me less inhibited around strangers, in uncomfortable places and around friends.


The major difference with the kinds of inhibition I get from mescaline compared to alcohol differ in many ways. The most noticable being that with alcohol I don't think and therefor, don't care. This doesn't mean that deep down I'm not still scared or functioning on a different level to normal, it's just numbed.

Mescaline gives me the ability to connect, realise I am connected and appreciate the fact others are connected to me. Some people may be aware of a difficulty to maintain eye contact with others beyond a polite manner. The real magic happens between two individuals when eyes stay met. Diverting eyes can even be felt as derogatory...

Starting to ramble a bit now, but trust trying to squeeze in observations.

There has been quite a bit of related research done with MDMA (another phenethylamine). For me, at moderate doses, cactus can be very similar to MDMA.

I find many phenethylamines to increase sociability (e.g., 2C-I).

As far as cacti go in particular, I am curious as to how you determine the proper dose to maximize the effects you like (without treading too far into psychedelia)? In other words, have you had problems with alkaloid variability?

My perfect social dose is 90 - 150. It depends.

Obviously my state of mind prior will influence the experience greatly.

75mg is great for dealing with crowds at airports. Only tried that a couple of times though.

Funny to add this but earlier I recalled a mushroom trip I had nearly 10 years ago. In London at the time you could still purchased wet psilocybes legally and I had a small dose before getting the train back to Cambridge About 3-4 small colombians. Maybe 1 hour 30 from London to Cambridge. The effects came on just before boarding. Anyway I thought the carriage was full of people all singing along to my headphone music for about half the journey as I was merrily bouncing around. I Then realised it was just me on the train. Spent the other half wandering around the empty train, crashing first class just because... I could.

Anyway when I arrived at the station there were plenty of folk about and I don't recall ever having so many conversations with so many different kinds of people in any place. Ever!

I think the experience on the train integrated a strange trip in a strange place so much to the point where anything seemed comfortable, my guide being my music.

I'm pretty sure mescaline hasn't ever done that. Nothing has since for that matter.

Through the whole experience at the station I felt kind of sedated and sleepy. Almost like it was a strange dream, but it definitely happened.

But to the point. I don't think I could ever recreate that mindset in a million years and 99% of the time I would just be keeping my head down in fear.

Mescaline's MUCH more reliable.

Mushrooms have a way of soaking up the bad vibes of passers by. Especially miserable or aggressive people. As well as dealing with the inner situation, mescaline can helpe deal with the external setting around me. I guess in theory they are one and the same, but in practice separate parameters.

During my train trip I think I was very lucky I happened upon merry people.

I didn't read carefully enough. I thought you were ingesting the cacti itself.

I don't know about social anxiety, but lifetime use of mescaline was recently shown to be associated with lower incidences of agoraphobia than the general population.

Might that have something to do with it?

I would certainly place the 2 in similar categories, for sure.

Googling 'Agoraphobia' and 'Mescaline' gives interesting results

Thanks for the replies so far. Let me add a quote i found today:

Nice find obliguhl. Its a shame that more research hasn't been done on the cactus/mesc.. From people who are really experienced with it, in lower doses it seems to do pretty much most of what mdma can do, and a lot more besides. I'm personally not experienced with it yet, having only taken it a few times, but interestingly it did cure my social-cannabis anxiety once.