I think I got all that I can handle from this gift for now. After a week of experimentation I can now say that this experience is nothing at all what I expected. At first, I thought "that's it?" and couldn't understand the hype. After a few more ventures I began realizing how intense the experience is and my first couple times my mind kind of kept me from remembering exactly what had happened. It was so shocking I couldn't even remember - it's like my mind naturally repressed it. Unlike other psychedelics, the effects didn't make me feel empty and hollow afterwards. It felt as if I had only dreamed the entire set of experiences.

I had researched this for years before finally "biting". The knowledge made integration very smooth and this helped in many ways. What I'd like to share in this post is the various forms of media and art that helped me significantly.

Films:
Last Year at the Marienbad by Alain Resnais
-The entire film is chaotic, but does have some loose structure. It's like brain training to attain a sense of "logos" amidst a confusing chaos with dazzling visions (much like the cinematography of the film).

Existenz by David Cronenberg
-I think anything by Cronenberg could really mentally prep you for diving headfirst into the "absurd" world of spice. When I say absurd, I mean it in the philosophical sense (anyone familiar with Kierkegaard or Camus should be familiar with this usage. Anyone who isn't - as Nexus members love to say - "Google is your friend". The film is about a new virtual gaming system where users plug a flesh-like system into their spines. Throughout the film, the virtual world and the "real" world get meshed together. There is a radical "realist" faction in the virtual world who wants to destroy the game developers, and then there are the developers/allies themselves. If you like the Matrix, but would like to see something EVEN BETTER, than watch this film.

Faust by Jan Svankmajer
-This film is the classical Faust tale, but from a very different perspective than the Goethe poetic retelling. Faustus, in this film, comes across a hollow egg he finds in a loaf of bread that opens up a sort of Pandora's box to some type of spiritual struggle. Mephisto, a demon trying to seduce Faust into selling his soul for enlightenment, keeps appearing trying to convince him to sign the contract. Each time he begins to consider it, something happens to prevent him from doing so. At the same time, there is a recurring scholarly figure who tries to get him to devote himself to "reason" - basically the conventional notion of God. He is reluctant to give in to either side the whole time, because each daemon-like character can't hide their ultimately malevolent intentions. Philosophically, the film is great, and aesthetically it is a masterpiece. If you watch this, the puppets and stop motions scenes might be bizarre, but I promise you'll end up loving it!

The Holy Mountain by Alejandro Jodorowsky
-If you can sit through one of his films and maintain a genuine interest, you can handle spice...nuff said here.

A Scanner Darkly by Richard Linklater
-Great adaptation based on the PK Dick novel. Substance D could be anything really, but I feel that it's a useful cautionary tale. Image what would happen if drug circles began using spice recreationally? I feel like this film captures the paranoia and psychological breakdowns that the abuse of any substance can cause the user. Also, great film aesthetically. There is also a scene where a very paranoid user OD's on the substance and sees aliens who evaluate his whole life during the trip.

MUSIC:
Jay Electronica's Dimethyltryptamine
-One of the first things that really got me thinking about the spice. His whole collection of mixtape tracks and his EP are really worth going through. He's clearly someone who has been to other worlds, although he never references the use of any substances to get there.

Ab Soul - Pineal Gland
-This song is just a fun take on the experience. After trying the spice, I find some of the lines to be even more hilarious than before.

The Beatles - Most of Revolver
-Especially I'm Only Sleeping. I'm sure most people are already familiar with this one.

Capital Steez (R.I.P)
-I was actually listening to his Amerikkkan Corruption mixtape throughout the week of experimentation and found his words to be very helpful/enlightening. I know how crazy it sounds, but during my last experience I felt some sort of vague spiritual connection with the late artist. He writes a good deal about the "astrals", Third-Eye Connection, and resistance to "the machine". Free the Robots is a cool track to get started.

Hieroglyphics - Third Eye Visionz (album)
Just a solid album.

Deltron 3030
-Incredible production and lyrics. Positive Contact and Upgrade really remind me of the spice experience in their own ways.

Literature:
Anything by Phillip K Dick, but I'm sure most people on here know that already

Immanual Kant's Prolegomena to any future Metaphysics
-I'm not a fan of much of what Kant has to say, but his scientific outlook on metaphysics really helps understand the experience intellectually.

Nietzsche - This Spoke Zarathustra
- This one is funny and insightful. It's about a prophet who comes down from the mountain to "enlighten" the masses, who basically just laugh at him. If anything it reminded me not to take the whole spice ordeal TOO seriously. The novel is definitely extremely significant, but it's also playful and makes fun of itself a lot. That is basically how I felt the spice interact with me.

Albert Camus - The Myth of Sisyphus
-Has been my favorite philosophical work for a while now. It reads a lot easier than any other philosophy I've come across. It gets right to the point instead of speaking a bunch of BS to "prove" something. What he says about the "absurd" pretty much prepped me for what I was going to encounter with the spice.

Franz Kafka - The Trial
The protagonist is fighting against some absurd bureaucracy that is persecuting him, but nobody in the hierarchy can give him any answers. There is a logical structure to the "law", but none of the people who work for it can give any answers and engage in bizarre behavior throughout the work. The protagonist finds the whole trail absurd and meaningless, but participates anyways. It's really about alienation and getting past the notion that "everything is meaningless and I reject society". We're social beings, therefore are connected directly to the madness of society so we have to partake in it to some degree. The work is very ambiguous, but that's my imperfect interpretation of it, anyways.

Ok, there's a lot more...but those are the ones coming to mind at the moment. I guess the moral of my post is to affirm the importance of keeping your intellect and understanding of the world sharp before deciding to slice your way into hyperspace. The more you know, the less you understand the unified picture. The less you are attached to seeing reality through a conventional lens, the easier it is for your psyche to make sense of the phenomenal experience. The most important thing I believe to have gained from the spice was to digest more easily that discordant unified picture that would often drive me to the edge of sanity. I hadn't messed with any psychedelics for nearly three years - so that "insanity" was induced by ingesting as much philosophy and art as I could. A few days after my spice escapade, I feel much more collected and all those contradictory ideas and worldviews I've absorbed through my studies feel more compartmentalized and easier to process. I feel like I've gained a part of myself back that hasn't been present since before I even ingested anything psychedelic. The internal dialogue is still present, but it is much calmer and ordered than before. The ability to focus my thoughts seems to have been greatly enhanced. I feel no compulsion to embark on another trip for the time-being, but I will most likely visit again sometime in the future.

I just want to give a big thanks to this incredible forum. The information here is so vast I was able to find anything I needed no know just by searching Google. Some of the stuff freaked me out, though. For example, I read about someone believing that they were being controlled by "electronic Jews" and that terrified me. It's really unfortunate that some people have that adverse effect. For me the experience really clarified things and helped me plant my feet more firmly on the ground.

PS: I was working on producing some music before the experience...about the experience. Listening to it afterwards I feel I did a decent job capturing what was to come. I'd love to share what I have with anyone interested, so feel free to PM me. It might make a nice addition to the art section of the site.

Peace to all and One Love