I wasn't sure what category to post this under. Not really a trip report, but def spice related.

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Ok, so I decided enough time has passed now for me to tell this story as I am now able to see some humor in it. It wasn't very fun at the time though. Please let my stupidity be a lesson for others!

I have not told many people this story, only 2 of my best friends and my ex wife knows the whole story. It's a bit long, but should be worth the read.

Edit: Well except for a girl I briefly dated, told her about all my craziest drug stories in an attempt to scare her off. Didn't work, so had to break it up the hard way. (She seemed to be attracted by it for some reason)

This took place in the summer of 2015.

Who am i
I am a 39 year old male IT engineer from Norway, but living in The Netherlands since 2006. At the time I was married with a 3 year old daughter. Now 2 years divorced and a year into a new long term relationship. I have a broad with various substances, mostly briefly experimentation. . The only thing i really had problems with was Cannabis. Was a heavy weed smoker for 10 years. But Psychedelics and Entheogens was relatively new to me back then.

Less than a year prior, I discovered via a random documentary Ayahuasca. Had never heard of it before, and went on a documentary bender. Also found out that there was a large number of retreat centers in the Netherlands. I was in a sort of crisis with anxiety and insomnia, and a marriage that wasn’t optimal to say the least. I played one of the documentaries to my wife, and she immediately said we should go.
So my first Ayahuasca retreat was with my now ex-wife. She had a pretty hard time Physically, but for me it was the start of my new life. I finally felt whole, felt love and opened up spiritually. At the time it felt like I was made for the stuff. Was like finally coming home. Later almost every experience I had was about love, connectedness and tantric energy. It was the happiest time of my life. I had discovered the secret.

Long story short(ish); I started going to weekend retreats every second weekend. Then started brewing myself and doing solo ceremonies. And occasionally had small ceremonies with friends. I also started growing mushrooms, not just grow kits, but from scratch with spores in a massive DYI grow tub. I had a bit less than half a kg of dried cubensis at home. And with ayahuasca I went big and brewed way more than i would ever need. I loved cooking and growing as much as journeying. It became a passion/obsession. Then I took it a step further and made my first extraction with CYB's salt TEK. Had a few sub breakthrough experiences with my volcano. And then discovered Changa…

At the same time I was holding a full time job, and being a dad and husband. And although my marriage had major intimacy problems, my ex wife was fully supportive of my activities and change. We were always good friends, and still are today.

Anyway, let's get to the main story:
I had a week to myself while my wife and daughter was on vacation, so I also took out a week vacation to work deeper with the plants. I started drinking Ayahuasca every evening by myself. And discovered vaping Changa on the comedown from ayahuasca. I could smoke 4-5 time in a row to bring back the peak from ayahuasca. Towards the end of the week, I had done so much inner work. Was so open and connected and full of love. Doing solo ceremonies I was able to unleash completely, be naked and just completely let go.

On the 4th day i think, I decided to start extracting more (I had lots of plant material) I needed to make allot more changa. I think I extracted about a gram and made it into changa. Everything went well. I did the same on the 4th day.

On day 5, this was the day I am was supposed to pick up my family at the airport in the evening. I had originally decided my week of healing was now over. (I never made it to the airport) But then decided to make 1 more extraction; At this point there is 1 bowl of finished Changa, and a pyrex dish in the freezer from previous day.

I was doing this in the kitchen, and I was heating the jars in a water bath on my gas stove (You can probably tell already where this is heading.)

I had a jar with the pulled Naptha on the bench next to the stove, and was reheating the jar i was pulling from over the gas (water bath)….At the time i lived in the second floor in a busy shopping street. This was in the middle of the day, street full of people. (and neighbors)

My arm hits the Naptha jar with warm spice saturated solvent and spills right over the burning stove. This spiralled out of control pretty fast. My kitchen was burning, flames licking the roof with black smoke pouring out the balcony door. I panicked and shouted for help out in the busy street. Fire brigade and police was called.
In the meantime I was able to put the fire out with a big towel, allot happened very fast and I was running on pure adrenaline. My memory from this is a bit blurry. I was moving jars with burning naphtha with my hands, it spilled here and there, and small fires started and extinguished. My curtains caught fire briefly, but i was able to stop it as well. I can't remember exactly how. I was on autopilot.

Then Police was banging on my door. I panicked, and tried to hide stuff. I was thinking;
I tried to hide what i could. I was able to move jars to the balcony, and hide a bowl of the Changa from the day before.

I obviously had no choice but open the door. I was asked to leave and wait outside, so I was guided downstairs. Outside I met the owners of the hair-salon under my apartment, they took 1 look at me and said we need to call the ambulance. I was so full of adrenaline i didn't even realize: My entire upper body and hands was severely burned. A mix of second and 3rd degree burns. At this point i start shaking and starting to feel the intense pain.

The fire brigade confirmed that the fire was indeed out, ambulance and more cops come. I am rushed in the ambulance, and they immediately inject me with Oxycodone. (I remember seeing Oxycontin on the bottle) I remember the immense pain relief and euphoria. I was thinking;


Arrive at the emergency, rushed into a treatment room where i get treated with silver cream and bandaged. A bit later I am told the police are here to see me. An officer come in, introduce himself and state:
He didn't take any official statement then, but I denied strongly that I was running some sort of drug factory. I was quite morphine stoned, and acted shocked and didn't understand, .
This is one of the worst moments of my life. The next one is when my Wife and daughter arrive at the hospital. The shame and feeling of letting them down and hurting them….I was also sure I was going to jail, but had a hope that the police wouldn't make sense of what it was. It's not exactly a common thing.

Now in the meantime there is obviously a police investigation going on in my apartment. Which at that moment contained:

- Pyrex dish full of spice in the freezer
- Bowl of changa
- Several jars of mimosa sludge
- Close to half a kilo of cracker dried cubensis in a large desiccant box. (Cubensis are now illegal in NL)
- Cubesis spores, syringes and other grow stuff.
- Several bottles of Rue, Mimosa, caapi, chaliponga and chacruna tea. Some in the fridge, and some in the freezer.
- A capsule filler machine
- A few hundred empty gelcaps
- 2 large kg bottles of fine white powder. Labelled Vitamine C, and MSM. (It happened to be exactly that!)
- 4 Large beautiful weed plants growing in a greenhouse on my terrace, about to start flowering. It is sort of allowed to grow up to 5 plants for own use here. But the cops destroyed and stepped on all the plants and tilted the pots.

At the time I was taking a lot of vitamins, and was trying to save money by filling my own capsules. I can only imagine how this would look from the Police point of view. Turns out they suspected I was making and selling GHB.

I spent a few days at the hospital while still officially under arrest, with 2 uniformed cops guarding my room 24/7. Imagine the looks i got from the nurses that thought I was some sort of heavy gangster. The younger ones seemed scared. Very bizarre situation.

With a lawyer present, the police came to take my statement. I told them i was cleaning with cleaning alcohol and accidentally spilled it on the burning stove, acknowledged the mushrooms and Ayahuasca. And told them about the vitamin powders. They didn't ask, nor did I mention the spice. I pointed out I was living a stable life, had good income and would have no need to supplement financially with illegal activities. Turns out their main focus had been on the 2 kilos of vitamin powders, lab results was pending.

My story about cleaning alcohol was actually confirmed later by the insurance investigation agent. She had some sort of device that confirmed a solvent of sorts had caused the fire, and could have been alcohol.

At this point I was fairly certain I was gonna be released as soon as the lab results was in, but I also knew if the docs discharged me I would have to go to the arrest. They were about to, but I begged the doc to let me stay just 1 more day. He did, and the day after lab results was in and the police escort was gone and was free to go home.

And by the way, the jar of Changa I had hid they didn't find. I still have that Changa. And they left my VG alone.

The next year and a half I just waited. I knew my case would come up at some point, but in the meantime just lived my life. Went on a few more Ayahuasca retreats after that. This also stopped after a while (which is another story in itself.)

Then I get a letter to come to the courthouse for a hearing and “out of court settlement”. I decided to hire a good lawyer, and she gets the papers from the prosecutor: Now get this, I kid you not!:

- All the jars had been accidentally spilled on the sidewalk in front of my apartment.
- All the mushrooms had somehow been misplaced or lost during this time. It was in the initial documents, but as the prosecutor could not locate them!
- They had one small 100 ml bottle of Mimosa tea, and had Identified DMT. That’s all they had.

During the hearing, we pushed hard for the religious right to use Ayahuasca. There is a supreme court case in NL where the Santo Daime church won and gained the rights to use it as a sacrament. But in the end they didn't relent, and I reluctantly agreed to pay a fine of 300 euros. It was finally over. I could probably have won in court, but didn't want to push my luck. I already had more luck in this disaster than I fucking deserved!!!

And now I am planning to go for my first Ayahuasca retreat in almost 4 years. Coming up in less than 2 weeks. Nervous as heck, but also have a strong calling. After years of bad life situation, divorce and bad health I am finally starting to “come alive" again. I have been so sick, and so emotionally dead for so long, I didn't think I was gonna survive. Except for intensively hating my job, my life is not bad now. Health improving, in a good relationship and very good cooperation with my ex regarding my daughter. And that little girl gives me so much joy. I melt every-time she tells me she loves me more than the stars and the planet.

I hope to find the courage to quit my job and start writing and somehow work for myself to generate a living. I am desperately longing to nature, and to grow my own food again. Fuck the corporate life draining desk job. I want to be myself, to be happy so I can be as good a dad i can for my daughter.

I am considering to make an extraction soon. Needless to say, this will be done without any heating whatsoever and far from even the smallest potential spark

That is my story.

Love and light

Wow....that's intense. I can totally understand how this has been weighing on your shoulders for quite some time.

Good to hear you feel better now.

I loved, loved, loved your story! Loved every panic inducing, adredeline fuled moment of it. Loved how it was written!

Thank you for this post. Glad you made it through to the other side of your misfortune. Negative lessons can be good lessons too (Don't I know it). Your story is compelling and resonates with me. I have vivid fantasies sometimes about how my life would change if something were to go wrong along those lines and, after reading this account I will be yet again contemplating my security situation.

Again, glad you made it through your difficulties.

That's wild. Glad you are ok.

A comedy of errors, I'm certain there was little humor in at the time, but you have to admit there's some chuckles there.

Thanks for sharing, it shows how anyone can do something stupid that has severe consequences. You played the game well however, and were able to ride the law enforcement's stupidity to freedom-good job.

Behind the funny there are some serious lessons that we all would do well to pay attention to. Sometimes we can become overwhelmed with our own inner work, and come so close to god that we lose sight of the very real divine souls that inhabit our daily lives. It sounds like your child's mother is a remarkably understanding woman but i wouldn't expect anyone to react with anything but extreme emotion to a loved one who did something like that.

Great story telling.

Thanks



Haha, there definitely are now. Which is why I am able to write about it. It was good to write it down. Never did that before now.

And before the nightmare, it was one hell of a week

What a great story, indeed. It particularly resonates with me as some of my experiences have been in a similar vein - yours really takes the biscuit though!

Perhaps your plans for self-employment might involve writing in some way?

All the very best to you

wow, that's a crazy journey. Thanks for sharing. I get the feeling that there's a cosmic balance there and when we try to get more and more, at some point it'd tip the scale to propel the momentum into the other direction. Corporation slavery is real. So many of us are being deprived of freedom in aspects of our lives. Perhaps you'll get the answer in your next retreat!

best dmt trip ever....dark scary and lifechanging