DOSE:

12 in

oral

Cacti - columnar

(fresh)

BODY WEIGHT:

170 lb

It is the morning when I realize that it our annual fall psychedelic drug and music festival. I had had several different ideas for my source of entertainment that day, but none had panned out. With some small amount of intent, I decide to talk to my friend and dealer.

My friend and dealer H informs me that if we trek on over to a certain program house, off campus, there is a chance I can get in on a communal drug experiment with San Pedro cactus and mescaline. I decide to do so and it becomes evident that I will indeed be able to participate. Another friend, B, offers me two tabs of Dramamine to cure the nausea. I take it more than willingly.

We get to the house and I spend about 20 minutes helping prepare the cactus. The bulk of the preparation was done the night before when the people who were already prepared to trip, cut and despined the cactus. We are left with just the green outer layer of the cactus diced in bowls. Apparently there is approximately one cactus cutting for each person. I believe maybe 12 inches a cutting. When everyone is ready, the cooks begin to prepare the dishes. Onions, cactus, ginger, garlic and sauce and combined in a wok and stir fried with sauces. I am in the first group and we go upstairs to eat our respective bowls of stir fry. I am offered a horse pill’s worth of vitamin C. I imbibe it too.

I have fasted all day to this point and I begin eating at one o’clock. Everyone is having trouble getting it down. I, on the other hand, simply scoop a large portion into my mouth, chew it a few times and swallow. This seems to be the secret to eating the cactus effectively. I am done eating at one twenty. The next person will be done at two. There are 15 of us. At this point I get a little apprehensive. I begin to shake and shiver uncontrollably. There are three things that could have caused this and all likely contributed in some way. Due to the season, and the open window (for ventilation purposes) it was fairly cold outside and in the room that I sat eating the cactus. I was also pretty nervous as mentioned earlier. Lastly, it is well documented that mescaline is stimulating to at least some people. The latter reason is what I believe to be the main cause, though the rest likely played their part.

By two twenty it has begun to kick in. Some people have mild tracers on them as they walk. The walls begin to breathe slightly. I am by far the first person to have the effects kick in. I am with the nexus of drug dealers on campus so many bowls are brought out and many bowls of fantastic weed are smoked as well as several joints. My jaw is clenching slightly and I am shivering and moving profusely. As it begins to kick in to other people, the same effects are observed.

I need to go to the bathroom. I do so and notice that sounds have become greatly emphasized. There is a general silence around and louder sounds break it echo. I notice this the most when I go to the bathroom.

When I come out of the bathroom, the height of my visuals are reached. My friend B’s torso appears to stay still while his head, slowly changing size, rotates around and around.

We decide to walk back to campus to check out the music. We enter the courtyard all at the same time and are immediately a curiosity. My roommate appears to want to talk, but I have become extremely introverted. The music is very nice, but I am not completely immersed in it. The visuals have died down seriously since I was coming up. Instead, I fall into long, at least thirty minute, spells of intense introspection and silence. Otherwise, I can interact fairly well with society. Mescaline as I experience it is not an all encompassing drug. It is completely dissimilar to salvia as another hallucinogen, and also very (though clearly, for those who have indulged in all three, not to nearly the same extent as salvia) different than mushrooms. After the festival, my friend B and I decide to go smoke in his room. After changing socks (the like), we go and smoke for a while and then trip out listening to the Grateful Dead. Again, the visuals are only intermittent. It is as if the word is very complicated and patterns are extremely desirable and noticeable, but very little shifts or changes occur.

At around five o’clock we get a call. Without explaining B tells me to run. We do so across campus, in a dead sprint until we get off campus and then into town. In just ten minutes, tripping fairly heavily, we transverse about a mile somehow. We end up, at sunset, on a graveyard atop a hill. I watch the sunset in silence for a while. We have linked up with the original mescaline group as well as several people on shrooms and several drunk and stoned people. My friend S finds me sitting on a grave, looking at the fading sunset and thinking. She, tripping on shrooms, calls me a wise-man and demands wisdom. I try my best to sate her but I am not really in the mood.

It is early November (2004) and a very sad moment in our nation’s history has just occurred. A guy named T, the conductor of the situation, collects some thirty miniature flags off graves. Sacrilegious in itself, he sets them alight in a crazy blaze near some graves. It is oddly beautiful, but also dangerous considering how many drugged up college students are on the top of the hill after sunset, trespassing. We stamp it out and move. After a time of more introversion, my friend B and I, cold, decide to go back to the dorm to eat and smoke. Along the way we spy a leaf pile and jump in. We lay there for what feels like five minutes, tripping out, and are surprised to see that we have actually been there for close to an hour.

We make it to the cafeteria at around seven. It is bustling with as many people as may ever be expected on a Saturday night. I begin to trip out again in the ridiculous sounds. I will remind the reader that all sound was greatly emphasized, as if the other senses have faded into the background. We eventually leave and go back and smoke. The trip begins to wear off somewhat, around eight. It is still coming on, tripping out and in, but the tripping out phase seems less frequent. We go and eat again, and by the time I leave the cafeteria, I have completely come down.

I would say I tripped fairly well from two o’clock until at least nine, maybe nine-thirty. The drug, aside from the early effects was not very visual, and not very physical, but it was extremely introspective and interesting. I came to no cosmic realizations or important self-discoveries, but I did have a very interesting time observing myself and having a day of it. We did so much and thought so much that after coming down I was extremely emotionally exhausted. I fall asleep extremely early at eleven. Today, I am introverted and tired. Social contact seems tried and exhausting. That said, the trip, though not what I expected, was really interesting and gratifying. My friends all had extremely “good” trips, and though I was unprepared and apprehensive, I still managed to have a really interesting and good time.

Great experience overall.

Exp Year: 2004	ExpID: 38050
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Nov 8, 2005	Views: 10,483
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
Cacti - T. pachanoi (64) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Music Discussion (22), Glowing Experiences (4), Difficult Experiences (5), General (1)