Bridgesii has been stronger than the other Trichocereus species, for me. Which leads me to wonder, Why is Bridgesii so strong?

If we look purely at mescaline levels, then Bridgesii is at the higher end, but not indisputably the highest. So why does it feel so much stronger?

I keep coming to the conclusion that secondary chemicals uniquely present in Bridgesii are contributing to the perceived "extra strength" of this species.

Furthermore, I will add these observations: Bridgesii gives me muscle tremors and terrible nausea. When I consume blue cheese or other dietary sources of tyramine (such as sardines or sandwich meat or Duke's smoked sausages) shortly before a Bridgesii trip then I experience noticeable unpleasant vasoconstriction in my extremities during the trip.

These observations lead me to believe that there are MAOIs in Bridgesii which are amplifying the effect of mescaline.

Do a Google search of 'maoi in bridgesii' and the results reveal that tyramine is claimed to be present in Bridgesii. It is also is claimed that Bridgesii contains quercetin, kaempferol, and potentially other MAOIs. Bridgesii is also claimed to contain 3,4-DMPEA, 3-methoxytyramine, and potentially other phenethylamines. Bridgesii is also claimed to contained Bridgesigenins A, B, and C, and potentially other triterpenes.

It is fairly convincing to me that the unique mix of secondary chemicals in Bridgesii contributes to a perceived "boost in potency" that is unique to Trichocereus bridgesii. The combination of high levels of mescaline in Bridgesii along with lower levels of these secondary chemicals lends a noticable "amplification effect" to Bridgesii trips. Experientially, Bridgesii trips are more "intense", "visual", and "sickening" compared to the other Trichocereus species. Bridgesii trips are more likely to lead to "ego death" and strong psychedelic effects than trips from the other Trichocereus cacti. Bridgesii takes a greater physical toll and goes deeper into the psychedelic realms than the other San Pedros. It is a very powerful species, and probably the first place to start if one is interested in delving deep into psychedelic space via Trichocereus cacti.

First of all thanks for sharing your thoughts, speculations and personal experiments. It is with collective thinking and community feedback that we can advance in these matters.

How do you measure your cactus when consuming it? How do you prepare it? Do you consume all parts?

Have you consumed with others the same cact?


From the evidence I could gather, posted in this spreadsheet, and summed up in the analysis thread, there is as of yet no evidence that Bridgesii has a unique profile of active alkaloids, all the same alkaloids have been found in pedro and peruvianus, though the rumor seems common. That isn't to say that it is absolutely not possible that the bridgesii you have is uniquely different or something, but I wouldn't necessarily believe that before eliminating other possibilities.

Eventually if it's really something related to other alkaloids, we'd have to gather evidence for it. At the very least some TLC tests could at least give us good indication it is happening, and then we could try getting a proper gc/lc-ms test to confirm it. Otherwise, blind tests can also be a great tool to help answer some of the questions, but not everybody is willing to do it. Either way, keep us informed if you further investigate these matters.

Hi Endlessness. Yes I agree with you that we all learn through the process of discussing these topics. And this is especially important regarding Trichocereus cacti, since they are one of the less well understood and discussed psychedelics compared with the other more well known and popular ones.

I use the entire cutting, core and all, when consuming San Pedro. My first dozen or so trips consisted of pulling the spines, peeling the clear skin, and eating chunks of the whole cactus. The last 20 or so trips have been as tea, using the entire cutting, core and all, without peeling the clear skin and only sometimes pulling the spines.

Most of these San Pedro trips have been on my own, though I do have a couple of friends who have joined in on a few of the trips.

I base the dosage on length in inches. I have a strong preference for fat cuttings from older, larger plants. I always avoid bringing the tea to a hard boil during the brewing process. I aim for long brew times, always over 12 hours, with a good simmer, but never a raging boil.

Endlessness so far I have consumed 9 different clones of Bridgesii. All 9 of those clones have been stronger than any of the Pachanoi, Peruvianus, Macrogonus, Scopulicola, or Cuzcoensis that I have tried. Bridgesii gets me higher everytime, and usually makes me sicker too. I have never consumed a Bridgesii that was not strongly active.

Have you not noticed a difference with Bridgesii? Why are there so many reports on the internet of people finding Bridgesii to be stronger?

I think that the higher dose experiences of San Pedro are not well understood or discussed on the internet. The old refrains that "San Pedro is gentle" or "San Pedro is light" or "San Pedro doesn't have strong visuals" come from misinformed points of view. It all speaks to lack of experience with the higher doses. Bridgesii is the most consistent and straightforward path to those experiences. That is why it is held in high regard by so many.

I can attest to bridgessi being consistently strong and compared to other cactus I have tried like San Pedro. I can also say it has a distinctly different feel. The pedro cactus have a very mellow and dreamy undertone and lends to more empathic thought space, but with bridgessi there is an intense edginess that comes off as very speedy and rough on my body, very vasoconstricting and whilst empathy is there its pushed aside a little, I feel like I could walk forever or something on bridgessi..so powerful feeling.

Just 5 dried grams of bridgessi powder will send me flying, but I can't do tea or powder any more because they always end in skull splitting headaches. With full spectrum hcl extract I get no headache.

Do you get the same effects with this full spectrum extract as with 5 dried grams of powder?

Are you basifying, pulling with NP, and salting with HCl? What pH are you titrating to?

I'm asking because I have never consumed bridgessi but I have 100 grams of powder waiting. Having read about the potential of the other alkloids, I was debating how I should prepare. I only consume torch these days through extraction and acetate or HCl salting. Tea gives me nausea, bloating, and I end up forcing myself to puke after a couple hours. Then the trip starts.

So with the bridgessi powder, wondering if I should consume powder, make a tea, extract/salt with HCl titrating to pH 6.5, or titrating lower so I pull more of the other alkloids?

Hey, yeah the effects are pretty similar, the hcl extract is just way cleaner and easier in the body feeling, but the whole plant is arguably a more biochemically "complete" feeling or something, but not anything worth the discomfort for me, eating the raw powder or the whole plant form in tea etc, in general is just very rough on my body with nausea and extremely excruciating headaches after about 12 hours..any cactus does this to me, and extracted full spectrum alkaloids do not cause this.. some people don't have this problem and can somehow stomach the dry powder, so in that case I would say eat the powder and try it that way..

So I extract with Kashs A/B tek, long cook on the tea, reduce filter, Basify with lye, 5-10 pulls with xylene and then salt with hcl acid...last time I overshot titration big time as my PH meter broke in the process after spilling hcl acid on it...be careful..it ended up at PH 2 , so then I evapped the hcl water at a PH of 2 to yield dark brown full spectrum Crystals, evapped all the hcl and yeah..it's nice and clean mescaline experience with minimal discomfort, 100g of my bridgessi in powder would yield like 4g of mescaline, but i have never tried extracting from power...

all round I say try the powder first, see if it's workable..if not extract and don't worry too much about salting a little below The standard 6-7PH, those extra alks do not seem to be problematic at all in my experience, it's something else in the cactus that makes it feel so rough and give me headaches..

bridgesii is so powerful. much respect to the plant and to anyone with the balls enough to drink that.

Here is another example of why Bridgesii is so good.

These columns fell over from a single Bridgesii in my collection. This has been the pattern with this plant for the last few winters. The columns fall over when we get a strong winter storm. I cut it back to a stump. Then over the course of the year it grows new columns, only to drop them again the following winter. That bench is 5 feet wide.

So a single Bridgesii, once established, can "volunteer" enough cactus material for a year's worth of tripping.

Bridgesii grows the fastest of all the Trich species in my collection. It also volunteers the most columns. I believe that it is part of the cactus's plan to expand it's footprint. Its growing in a favorable spot, so it wants to keep dropping more babies to root and grow around it.

If I could only grow one cactus, it would probably be a healthy, fast growing clone of Bridgesii like this one. I paid $20 for a cutting of this unnamed Bridgesii back in 2014. I call it "Workhorse" because of what a great producer it has become of high quality cuttings. A good Bridgesii like this is a must have for any collection.

Oh yeah, No Name Bridgesii is my go-to. I have lots of named clones but no type of Bridgesii has ever disappointed me. It's been so consistently potent for me that I have doubts about the few reports of weak Bridgesii.

The effects for me have matched the conventional wisdom, in that the alk mix seems to be vary greatly compared to Peruvianus. Some Bridge seems more stimulating than others. I was happy chugging tea for a long time, but full spec extraction has given me more powerful experiences, and I also haven't ever purged on extracted. On tea I purge like clockwork at T+1.5 hours so I wonder if I was losing a lot of the mescaline by purging.

Also the last several times I've dosed mescaline with Cosmic Lion's anti-nausea shots https://www.dmt-nexus.me...mp;m=1006548#post1006548 which contain fresh ginger, Lemon, Lavender, Clove and Peppermint Oils. Lavender and Clove Oils I believe are MAOI's and may potentiate Mescaline. All I knew was I was having some heavy effects, and then 3 friends tried a decent dose of the same, but without the anti-nausea shots and described the effects as "Mild". More data needed

Hey Grey Fox, your growing that bridgessi in the ground right for it to drop so many baby shoots off? I currently have mine growing in small pots, they are each around 40cm at the moment, 9 of them, but quite thick as they were cloned from a very old strong mother plant, in wondering what the best way to go is for setting them up to yield me an abundant supply..planting in large containers and then waiting till they are huge, And then harvest a select amount from each plant every year? Not sure..be a year or so before they are big enough for me to want to harvest anything from them

I agree, I have only purged once on extracted mescaline and it immediately haulted the come up. Any time I purge on ayahuasca It also stops the come up, I feel avoiding the purge with mescaline is necessary to going deep..

Yeah that Bridgesii is growing directly in the ground. I think that growing them in ground allows them to reach more of their full potential in terms of size, and it also provides some protection to the plant when temps get very high or drop very low, compared to growing in containers.

I like to wait until a cactus gets to a decent size before harvesting it. Larger cacti just seem to be better at handling the stress of being pruned. They grow back quicker and with less etiolation, in my experience. I also think that larger cacti produce more potent cuttings. So personally I like to let a cactus get at least 4 feet tall before cutting it. It takes patience, but I think its worth it in the long run. Once they get to a good size and the roots are well established then they can take a fair amount of pruning and bounce back from it just fine, as long as the growing conditions are good.


Regarding purging, my understanding is that mescaline is absorbed in the small intestine, not the stomach. That is why the onset of the experience is delayed compared to other psychedelics. The mescaline has to get past the stomach into the instestines before it can have an effect.

So it stands to reason that vomitting will definitely weaken a trip, because the mescaline is being vomitted up from the stomach before the intestines ever have a chance to absorb it. Avoiding the purge is pretty important if you want to maximize the intensity of the trip. But if the tea is strong enough, then you can still trip really hard on what has already passed into your intestines, even if you puke and empty your stomach after 1.5 or 2 hours.

Does only 5 grams of dried Bridgesii really do that much?? I see so many different doses recommended and 5 is the lowest one I've seen yet. I'm incredibly sensitive to psychedelics in general and trying to figure out. a good test dose

I've always started with fresh cactus, but I doubt 5 grams dried Bridge would get you halfway to a threshold dose. My standard potency test is to start with about 400 grams of fresh cactus. Most Bridgesii will light you up nicely at 400grs fresh, brewed to tea. I forget the fresh/dry conversion percentage (10%, 7% ??). Anyone?

I'd assume 400 fresh is 40 dry. I've seen some any different recommendations form the above mentioned 5 grams all the way up to 50. I guess I'll just keep growing and drying cacti till I have enough powder to work my way up from 5 to 50 grams haha

it's less, 4-6%

Yep, those numbers a right for a well hydrated trich. So,400g fresh is more or less 20g dry.

The 4 bridges i extracted (whole) gave from 1.1 to 2% of mescaline/dry cactus. So 400g fresh could give between 220mg (=nice trip) and 400mg (=solid trip) of mescaline.
5g dry could give between 55mg and 100mg (threshold). This is for the whole cactus so if only the green flesh is used the numbers would be higher.


Of course, those numbers are based on my limited experience on few specimens, YMMV.

Thanks for the breakdown guys.

Another approach would be to not harvest at all until your cacti are large enough to yield adequate material for a full dose. That way you could use fresh plant material. And your cacti will grow faster without being cut until they are big enough for that full trip. Also keep in mind that with young / smaller sized cacti you will need to use a greater amount of plant material to achieve the same effect that you would get from larger, more mature plants.