DOSE: T+ 0:00	30 mg	oral	Proscaline	(powder / crystals)
T+ 0:45	15 mg	oral	Proscaline	(powder / crystals)
T+ 1:00	1 cup	oral	Coffee
T+ 10:00		smoked	Cannabis
T+ 10:00	repeated	oral	Alcohol - Beer/Wine
T+ 0:00		smoked	Tobacco - Cigarettes

BODY WEIGHT:

175 lb

A Wonderfully Complete Musical Experience

First proscaline trial, dosage 30mg + 15mg 45 minutes in, all orally

Expectations: an idea of the effects of this drug, and hopefully some musical enhancement as I had recently read about

2:15pm - Ingested 30mg, orally, of proscaline, received as a flaky, shiny batch of crystal shards. The taste is slightly bitter but much less so than mescaline. I have band practice later, and work right now (I work at home). Hoping the reported music enhancement and general enhancer effects, coupled with a very clear mind, make for a great band practice.

2:51pm - Just ate a late breakfast, not enough to get full but enough to be satisfied. Maybe some faint alerts, but it could easily be placebo.

2:59pm - Definitely beginning of effects, a warm blanket type of feeling, but a sparkly blanket. Very nice feeling in the body, but mild yet. I am about to take 15mg more, orally.

3:04pm - Just ate that 15mg more. This time I let it dissolve in my mouth and swished it around, and there is actually a pretty sharp bitter taste, but it doesn't linger. The general feeling right now is reminding me of 3C-E, but less stimulating. I wouldn't even classify it as particularly stimulating right now, though I am certainly awake and aware. Kind of like how mescaline isn't stimulating in the classical sense, even though there is energy, but it's like that energy can be externalized or just comfortably directed inward. With mescaline, I can sit completely still with no need to move, or I can run with seemingly no effort. This has a similar sort of feeling to it, so far. But it's only just getting started.

3:12pm - My heart rate is up, but I also drank a cup of coffee just now that my wonderful girlfriend so generously provided for me. So not sure how much of it is what. I will say that it feels like it's beating harder than it does from a cup of coffee normally. I am fully comfortable, just an observation. I feel somewhat more inclined to do work tasks than I was earlier in the day. But really I'm just waiting for work to end so I can go play music and hang out with my friends. I'll be drinking some beer too but I want to let this fully develop first.

3:17pm - Thus far, there is absolutely zero bodyload to speak of, no nausea either - but it should be noted that I don't get nausea from anything very much at all, these days. Strangely, I used to, earlier in my psychedelic explorations. Hints of visual alterations are teasing around the edges of my vision but nothing concrete or even describable. I have the feeling that smoking weed will really kick this into gear, but I'm going to hold off on that until band practice.

4:23pm - I just felt the urge to defecate, and to my surprise the entire contents of my bowels came rushing out in a continuous liquidy stream. There was no discomfort or effort to this, it was like it just leaped out but it was astonishing how much there was. I sometimes get this rectal purging effect from stimulants, but I haven't ever gotten it from mescaline. I'd say this feels more traditionally stimulating than mescaline, but it's still very comfortable and calm. I've been alternating between working on a work project and compiling my four 3C-E experiences I've taken notes for into a trip report. The latter has been interesting, and makes me think of the similarities between proscaline and 3C-E so far. They both have a similar sort of body energy to them, a warm stimulation with little in the way of psychedelia. Proscaline so far feels more serene and less stimulating, and perhaps a bit more psychedelic... I can feel a head change possibly in the works, and whenever I stop and stare for a minute I'm getting some movement around the edges.

5:08pm - I feel relatively stimulated, it feels nice but I'm getting a bit antsy sitting here at work. Just figured out something I've been working on for days though, which is cool. I'm getting some head rushes, similarly to how when you stand up quickly and almost pass out, except it doesn't feel like those, it just reminds me of that. A similar sort of feeling as right before a brain zap, too. These head rushes are pleasant though. Throughout my body, I feel a warm, slightly electric glow. I don't really feel euphoric, but I feel content, however the body high is pretty delicious. It's almost time to be done with work, I'm really looking forward to socializing and playing music. Also to smoking a cigarette (I have resolved to keep cigarettes/tobacco to band nights and going out nights, and it's been a few days since one of those).

11:57pm - How do I transcribe the events of tonight in words, being that they were so internal in nature? Well, I'm gonna try.

Shortly after the last time-stamp, I finished up work and headed out to band practice. At this point I felt pretty good, but a rather intense body energy was building. I found myself feeling fairly exposed and, for lack of a better term, intense. On the way I stopped by my neighborhood veterinary clinic, where I get my cat's prescription food. I have to go there weekly because my cat has urinary issues which he's almost died from four different times, and he's an expensive little dude (but so completely worth it). I know all the people there, I mean, I don't know them but we have a good customer-provider relationship, they know what I need as I'm walking in the door. Upon entering, I felt very socially exposed, it was an awkward feeling, yet I handled myself as if I didn't feel this way. In fact if I had to rate my interactions (and I suppose I am implicitly doing so), I'd say I did above average. I made the girl behind the counter laugh with genuine mirth, which made me feel good. As it was happening I felt pretty amazed, since internally my stomach was flipping. It was an odd juxtaposition, particularly since before I left the house I felt completely centered.

In another few minutes I reached the band house and went inside. My great friend was there, who until quite recently lived there, along with my bandmates. We began the customary hour of hanging out and slowly moving towards music that happens every time (a little too slowly for my liking but hey, these guys are my brothers so it's all quality time). I noticed I still felt that damnable sense of social exposure. I felt like I just didn't know what to say, or rather, that I could think of good things to say, but it all felt like it was happening so intensely, like, here it is, I'm supposed to say something, could be anything, what do I say? I always figured it out, and it's unlikely my friends even thought anything about it, but to me it was pretty intense. I actually felt somewhat uncomfortable. There was a pretty intense body energy going through me and a rapid self-analytical process. I felt not entirely unlike LSD, except that the feeling was more alien in my body, and my mind was perfectly clear. I didn't feel mentally inhibited at all, but I was very aware of all the minutiae of the things going on around me. I felt good physically, it was a pleasurable feeling, but it was producing some anxiety as well. Again, an interesting juxtaposition. There were no visuals at all other than an increased vibrancy of color, not on the level of mescaline where I feel like every subtle difference in hue is its own unique color, but something along those lines.

Before long, we smoked a bowl of some really choice, beautifully cured nuggets, which I was looking forward to since I figured it would help to kick in the full effects. Which it certainly did. The change was subtle but it was just what was needed. As my friends and I smoked weed together and continued to talk, it helped us all to get on the same wavelength. I began to feel more comfortable. I also cracked into my first beer (I ended up drinking 2 40oz PBRs over the next 6 hours). The conversation became more animated and we were making each other laugh a lot. The introduction of two chemical facilitators of relaxation began to erode away at my sense of social exposure , but I still had a pretty intense body energy. It wasn't manifesting as a restless energy, but as a feeling of needing to do something. I knew what that thing was, it was what I came here to do: play music. But I was conspicuously missing a feeling of inspiration. I felt unconfident in my ability to play, in my mind.

At a lull in conversation, I went inside and sat at my keyboard/synth station. I started playing some familiar progressions and improvising. I felt choppy, like my hands wouldn't quite communicate with my thoughts and intentions. It felt like there was this vast infinity of anything I could play (and indeed there is), and like, how do I decide what to play? It was a feeling exactly analogous to my earlier insecurities about conversation, except that I additionally felt clumsy. In retrospect I think I was being hyper-critical of myself, since the nature of the experience included a constant and rapid self-analysis. What I considered clumsy in the moment often turned out to be simply minute timing issues that in some cases were barely noticeable to me afterwards, where in the moment they felt like disasters, or in other cases were turned into something really cool and sounded as if they were planned. But in the moment, I felt exposed and awkward, once again.

Then our drummer came in and started playing along with me. With someone else there to bounce ideas off of and get inspiration from, I quickly began to feel in my element. We jammed around for a few minutes and then we started locking into a new groove, a chord progression and rhythm we haven't done before. It was kind of punky in its speed and rhythms, which diverges from our usual range of sounds, which I would maybe best describe as progressive psychedelic space funk/rock with a healthy dose of classical influence. We started to get the groove really tight, and then the third member of our supertriangulation (not my word, a handful of people will enjoy that though) joined in, the guitar. He added a spacey part to it that pulled it all together into something similar but different. Adjusting was as easy as thought, as it increasingly is with us, because we've played together for so very many hours. It's the thing I love the most about playing music with people, especially in an improvisational setting. You can all bring an idea to the table, and it can be a great idea. If you're a good fit for playing together and especially if you have a lot of hours playing together, and especially if you're close friends, you'll have a similar idea but the variations in your versions of the idea will combine to create something greater than the sum of its parts, something you couldn't have imagined on your own.

After that jam, we all stopped for a few minutes to converse about it and smoke a cigarette. Through this time, and the time to come, I continued steadily drinking my beer. I can definitely agree with several reports on proscaline I've read, that it mixes exceptionally well with alcohol. I felt like it kept making me looser and looser, and it shrank and eventually destroyed (with the help of playing music and, no doubt, time) that internal sense of unease or indecision. At the same time, I know how I react to alcohol very well, and I made sure to keep it under the level where I would be physically impaired. This is what I normally do at band practice, as I find that alcohol is a really good way to get less inhibited, and that certainly pertains to music playing as well as anything else. The synergy with proscaline and alcohol and music went beyond what is typical, though. I felt like the alcohol was fully amplifying all of the positive effects of it while introducing no negative ones. I experience a similar thing with a few other psychedelics, generally post-peak, most particularly DOC. In general I like alcohol post-peak with psychedelics, if at all, but with proscaline, I felt like the alcohol helped propel me into the peak.

It's hard to say where the peak was, really. What happened, as we played, was that I became intensely engrossed in it, and felt almost overwhelming feelings of inspiration. When we'd stop because someone had to pee, or during our 'set break' cigarette, I was jamming so hard in my head. In the bathroom I heard background sounds from the TV upstairs, and the pipes, and a snatch of conversation from the other room, and birds outside, and to me they outlined a fucking masterpiece, that I was hearing in my head, but the likes of which I am not currently capable of making real or even fully conceptualizing. I got the sense throughout the night, as I have so often had from psychedelics, or as a kid listening the wind blowing the branches of the trees out my window, that playing music, or doing any art (but especially music, for me anyway), is a tapping into the infinity of potential energy latent in every subdivision of time. There is always music, all music, music is just the energy of infinity bursting from the mind of an instance of the universe experiencing itself. The thought felt profound, feels profound now. It is profound. But under the effects of proscaline, these were thoughts that came as naturally as breathing, in a place of full comfort and self-control. Nothing about the experience was intrusive even though it was profound, and it didn't come from an external source. These were thoughts I've had before, I've long ruminated on the concept. But still, I was struck with the visceral reality of it, and I felt the reality of it in a powerfully actualizing way.

As practice went on, I became more and more able to pull things off with near-perfection that normally I would falter on. What I faltered on (or even pulled off) were complex ideas that were right on the peripheral of what I could pull out of what I was feeling. In general I am able to think of stuff that's a certain amount more difficult or complex than I can play, and that's what I work towards and therein lies the road to improvement. But tonight I was able to play closer to the level of what was in my head, which in turn started pushing out the boundaries of what I can solidify in my head. Tonight I learned, in every song, and every jam, and next time I will be better because of it. This is always true of band practice and my own practice by myself, but tonight was an exceptional case. We played for over 2 hours, until a little after 9, before we called it a night. Fortunately we record everything and our space (the guitar player's house) is a recording studio (he put it together and has recorded some EPs for bands and is about to record a full album). So, flush with pleasure and good will as a result of very most primarily the post-music euphoria (but aided in no small part by proscaline, weed and alcohol), we set about the second half of band practice night, which is listening back to what we just did and learning from it.

1:26am - I'm feeling so good now, confident, peaceful and present, with waves of pleasure emanating down from my core through my extremities. I just got back from runnin' down the way to pick up some beer and meat. I've been eating primarily vegan plus eggs in the morning, because my girlfriend has been having stomach issues developing for the past year and a half or so, and she can't eat a whole bunch of different things at all or it fucks her up. So I've been learning to cook with what she can eat, and eating almost entirely vegetables and nuts besides the morning eggs. I actually love that I've been doing that, but sometimes I feel the need for meat, so I picked up some nice sausages, and a 6-pack of Elysian Space Dust IPA. Great stuff. Hey, why not treat myself to something nice? I've worked hard to get where I am and made the most of my opportunities, and I can afford to. Perhaps you can tell that I feel really good about myself. But there's no reason I shouldn't. I'm proud of myself, and that's a good thing to recognize and celebrate.

As the music ended, we put on what we had just recorded, packed up another bowl of cannabis, and arrayed ourselves to listen and discuss. Until this point, I felt really good about the ideas we put out, but as I mentioned before, I had noticed every little imperfection or flub and exaggerated it in my mind. But as we listened, I started to realize just how much of a music enhancer (indeed, an enhancer in general) that proscaline is. The vast majority of flubs that I remember making were barely noticeable, probably mostly only to me anyway, or they were inconsequential. Perfection is nice but it isn't necessary, as long as the groove is tight. And as I so often have lately, while listening to our practice I realized how much we've been improving recently. Everything was sounding good, the only issues I had with it were details, little passes where once another month goes by I'll be able to do it every time, or parts that could be (and will be as we keep playing the songs) more filled out.

Once we reached the halfway point of the night's recordings, my friend wanted to take a break before listening to the rest and put on a record he just found at the record store. Turns out there was an original pressing of Led Zeppelin 1 in great condition just sitting in the unsorted new used arrivals. He snagged it right away, it would have immediately sold once it was on the shelf. He put it on When the Levy Breaks first, intending perhaps on only showing me that one since we both love that song above most any other, and he really wanted to hear it on vinyl. It was glorious, the best listening to that song I have done. I was struck more deeply than ever how much better the sound quality is with vinyl. It's because it's analog, it records an exact vibration, and then the needle of the record player vibrates as it turns, replicating the sound waves exactly. With digital, no matter how large you make the files, it's still compressed data. There are subtle aspects in songs that were recorded in analog that are entirely absent or fuzzed over in even the highest quality digital approximation. Not only that, but the sound is so warm. Robert Plant's vocals just cut through my soul, it brought me to my knees. I felt like I was hearing the song for the first time.

After that, as you might expect, we decided to play the rest of the album. What an amazing first album. Damn. I knew that already but the combination of proscaline and hearing the vinyl for the first time really emphasized that in a beautiful and profound way. As we listened, I had many introspective thoughts about myself and the music, and my friend and I discussed some of them. At one point I decided to jot down a few phrases to remind myself of some of it. It brought to mind the dramatic difference in my trips since I stopped taking them with the intention of doing time-stamped notes. It allows me to much more fully immerse into the experience when I'm not worried about that, but at the same time it makes it harder to remember all the details. I haven't taken any notes for a trip in a while except when trialing something and trying to provide information about the kinetics of the effects, but this trip unexpectedly provided enough content for me to want to.

After the album, we turned back on our practice recording, and the second half was really on. We were fully warmed up and playing exceptionally well for us. The first thing was an instrumental cover of Neil Young's Down By the River. We first played it when we had a 7-piece band with 2 lead singers, and only started playing it again a week or so ago, because we had to fill out our set list for a show and figured we could adapt it to our new arrangement quickly. This was the fourth time playing it since about 8 months previously to that, in a new way, with more complex parts and only three people, and to me it was my favorite thing of the night. Some of the stuff the guitar and I (playing keys, piano in this case) were doing with complex interplay of harmonies and polyrhythms were blowing my mind. My ears felt tuned to optimal musical enjoyment and processing speed, so every aspect of everything we were doing was clear and open to me. I always learn from listening back to our practices, but the proscaline helped me to learn even more from it. We truly did advance our songs that night.

At one point I got myself so worked up my heart was pounding and I felt in complete ecstasy... the music high was mixing with the proscaline, and I felt boundless, powerful. I thought back to all the times I do this, to how hard I go on music days. How the night after we play a show or have a great jam I am wired and can't sleep sometimes, even without drugs. I began feeling sad that my girlfriend really doesn't have much to do with my musical life, we spend 3 or 4 days/nights of the week together, and she'll come to a lot of our shows, but the music is really my thing. I sometimes wish she could be or wanted to be a part of it, but I realized that without her to balance me out, I would be going hard every night I possibly could. I really think it's a good thing she's so much less intense than me. She rarely does drugs, though we do have occasional trips together and smoke weed together with some regularity, and that helps me to stay more grounded. Case in point, last winter when she went to California for 2 months, I burned myself out pretty hard, ended up losing my voice and getting pretty sick by the end. And besides that, I love that since she is not involved, we both have all this time to focus on ourselves and our things, rather than always being an 'us'. I took a minute to give thanks for my wonderful relationship I've found myself in, so unlike the last one.

The rest of the night consisted of listening to Deep Purple's Motorhead on vinyl, and me getting all pumped up about that and eating chips (I was ravenously hungry, having not eaten dinner) that I crunched only in time to the music, and petting/drumming on the dog, also in time to the music, which greatly amused my friend and his girlfriend and which the dog loved. My mind was whirling with thoughts and I felt overjoyed. Eventually I went home and started writing this report, and now I'm basically done with it.

3:10am - So yeah, proscaline. Great stuff, it exceeded my expectations. I found it to be a subtle yet undeniably powerful enhancer, similar to mescaline but less instinctual/spiritual, yet still definitely sharing some properties. Both are warm and loving in nature, though I would characterize proscaline as more jovial and mescaline as more wise, and certainly more psychedelic. Mescaline is a teacher, while proscaline is an enhancer. In the early hours of the trip I was finding a lot of similarities to 3C-E, but as it developed fully I definitely found it to be fully psychedelic, yet it was so in the most subtle of ways. If I hadn't exposed myself to a night of music and camaraderie, I might have had a different story to tell. I would have had a good night anyway, without it, but it undeniably enhanced my experience in a beautiful way. This is something I feel that I have added to my 'psychedelic toolbox'. It's something I would like to take hours before we play a show. It's something I now plan to take on my first night of the music festival I'm going to next weekend. It's not something I would take to try to explore the depths of existence. Really good, subtle stuff.

Not very tired yet, well, a little, but I am fascinated with being awake... I think I'll drink another beer and read my book now.

5:03pm the next day - Well I ended up coming back to finish up a few paragraphs towards the end. I really wanted to read my book and was tired of writing for the time being. I drank 4 more beers, which were quite strong at 8% each, wasn't feeling too drunk, and stayed up quite late (like 5am-ish). This morning was kinda rough, I felt drained from lack of sleep and had a bit of a hangover, and felt like I possibly was feeling a bit of additional depletion but it's hard to say. I've also had a few more than normal late nights with substances involved recently so I think I'm generally a bit depleted. That said, today am still looking back on this experience with great fondness and a desire to repeat it, soon.

Exp Year: 2017	ExpID: 110472
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 33
Published: Jul 18, 2017	Views: 5,591
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