Hi Folks,

Mescaline has been my favorite plant medicine for many years. Recently I learned it can have a rough body load for some people. Is that just an unfortunate side effect, and does it affect the mentality of the trip?

I have this idea that mescaline is the psychedelic that is easiest to integrate into society. It's the one that, if legalized, it has the least possibility of causing any unintended social harm. Mescaline is self-guiding (does not require a trip sitter), heart opening (facilitates good-will and connectedness), and non-addictive (similar to most psychedelics).

I've also believed it's not possible to have a bad trip on mescaline. Is that true? Or maybe a bad trip is possible in rare circumstances? Unlike shrooms for example, where we've probably all had at least one bad trip. Or we need trip sitters to ensure we stay grounded.

What's people's experience with mescaline trips?

I've never had a bad experience on cactus other than some lower back tension about every other time. On a higher dose I have had some pretty hard rushes which would start with everything in the room humming like a tuning fork, my vision blurring from the vibration and feeling a rumbling like a helicopter was landing on the ceiling, then reality lost coherency as if the air was being stirred like a bowl of set jello. The first one caught me off guard and I have to admit I wondered how I would handle it if they kept ramping up in intensity. The next couple were about the same so I was back to "Ok, I got this" mode.

So what if I'd dosed significantly more? Not sure, but I got a little glimpse of the next level and, while it was totally awesome I can see how it could scare the bejeebus out of someone.

So yeah, I believe you could have a bad experience on mescaline just like you could on any other psychedelic.

While on this topic... I plan on doing my first mescaline trip( HCL, synthetic ) soon with 400mg.
Does it sound an OK dose for 1st time ?

Cheers

As long as you've had moderate trips on other psychedelics before, you're good to go. For a total newbie to psychedelics I would probably recommend 250 mg, since everyone has different sensitivities.

400 mg is a "strong" dose according to Erowid. If you're experienced with psychedelics, 400 mg will be a nice time. Be aware that some folks experience stronger body load than others. See this recent post.

By synthetic, do you mean extracted from cactus? Or actually synthesized using some chemical manufacturing process?

I think that due to strong body load and long duration of mescaline trip, integration into society is not really possible.
For me, with moderate doses body load is just annoying or at worse unpleasant, it never affects the trip in the way similar to ayahuasca or shrooms.
With these, body feelings are often directly and strongly connected with mental effects.

Mescaline is gentle and warm at low to moderate doses. At higher doses though, you will find it can be just as unforgiving as any other powerfull entheogen.

I personally never had a bad trip with mescaline or cacti, but i've experienced it's wild side. And i have certainly had some fearfull moments with it.

Mescaline is no joke. It should be treated with the utmost respect, because it can rip your whole universe and everything in it apart mercilessly.

I think mescaline is a bit like a big, pink-haired tiger that you can cuddle, and everybody is like:"well, that tiger won't eat you because it's pink and cuddly".

My first experience with mescaline was not good. I was still integrating a powerful vaporhuasca journey from less than two days prior. I ate an unknown quantity of impure mescaline citrate goo. It could have been a light or a medium dose; hard to know exactly because I had a solid 3-4 hour nap during the peak of the experience (dream-laden of course)Visual effects were not extreme. I felt quite dysphoric during the whole experience however.

Now of course, taking an unknown quantity of psychedelic is never wise. I thought that it would be fine since the amount of citrate I had was derived from a single 18 inch cutting of SP.

Without going into more detail, all I want to say is that it is definitely possible to have a bad trip on any psychedelic!

Definitely possible, but ime quite unlikely, at least compared to other psychedelics. I've never had a bad trip on it, regardless of dose, but I know a couple of people that did.

It is definitely possible to have challenging experiences from cactus. I can't speak to pure mescaline, but I'm sure that it is also capable of producing challenging experiences.

Its just a matter of dose. The higher you go, the more intense it becomes. As the intensity increases so does the potential for a challenging trip. If you go high enough you will black out and the bodyload will be huge.

I see a similar phenomenon with mushrooms, where people take 3.5 or 5 dried grams and think that these are big doses, when actually they are not at all. Take 10 grams or 15 grams or more. It just keeps getting more intense the higher that you go. And the same is true with cactus. Yes, cactus is more clearheaded and gentle feeling than other psychedelics. But go high enough, especially with full spectrum Bridgesii, and it becomes a very intense ride. To say flat out that bad trips are not possible with mescaline... to me this just means that people need to go higher to understand what the potential is.

Yeah sure, mescaline can get mind loopy like acid and weird/alien like mushrooms.

Thanks all for your comments! Very illuminating to hear everyone's experience.


The analogy here with shrooms is helpful. I've taken up to 20 grams and although I didn't black out (was babbling the whole time), I had almost no connection to my body or the outside world, and my trip sitter said looking into my eyes she couldn't perceive anyone there.

In my 15 years experience with mescaline, I've never had a rough trip (body load, yes). But it sounds like I've been at safe dosages where mind ripping effects are unlikely to occur.

I will modify my opinion that mescaline is free of bad trips.

Everything is possible with psychedelic
but it's hard to imagine for me to go wrong with huachuma !
What can happen though, is a lot of emotional processing, and going deep into the heart ; but it's, ime, awlays in an elegant, safe, warming way.
But of course, really high dosage is for experienced people ... as it can bring quite dramatic ontological shock, ego dissolution, and the psychedelia is hard to match

Many years ago I had one bad trip with mescaline. The day before my trip I'd done my first DMT extraction using the Lazymans tek and did not adequately protect myself from the voluminous solvent fumes. The next day's cactus event was not from a large amount at all (a little over a pound of fresh San Pedro prepared as a tea) and began as usual. Within a couple hours a crazy bad headache set on me and an hour or so after that I had powerful visions of the damage I'd done to the Earth by the release of all the solvent fumes. The subsequent hours were spent in physical agony apologizing to Gaia. Definitely not the usual warm and fuzzy connection with all existence that I normally feel with mescaline, but a hard, necessary lesson was learned.

For me the set and setting encompass a long stretch of time.

Be safe and be well!