DOSE:	repeated	smoked	Datura	(plant material)
	repeated	oral	Datura	(plant material)

BODY WEIGHT:

10 kg

This is a report on my experimental use of Datura. I am writing this 4 years or so after most of the experiences so can remember all the details but I think what I want to say should be useful to anyone wanting to experiment with this fascinating plant.

Whilst walking in a local (English) market I chanced upon a flower stall selling some quite bedraggled looking specimens of Datura Metel. I recognized the plant and having heard its reputation and with a keen interest in plant based psychedelics decided enthusiastically to buy one. I was at this time a 23 year old student living in a shared house. I have taken most hallucinogens by this time including DMT, Ketamine, mushrooms, acid etc… and was still in the habit of smoking cannabis daily and using ecstasy and other recreational drugs fairly regularly.

After re-potting I kept the plant on a sunny windowsill in my gardenless house where it thrived, producing many beautiful double trumpet purple and white flowers over the summer. Although only a few feet high the plant seemed to dominate the others in the room and people visiting would frequently comment on it even without knowing what it was. I think that they are fantastic looking plants with a real look of ancient, dark, magic about them. The way that the flowers unfold and the shape of the leaves reminds me of the wings of a bat or the classic magicians cloak. The smell is also worth comment for I found that although the smell of the flowers is only faint when rubbed the leaves leave a strong smell almost like coffee, especially when the plant is in full growth.

It was only a matter of time before the temptation to experiment came. I read extensively on the subject as I do with any new experience and was very wary having read some pretty scary stuff about people over dosing. So I started small firstly by smoking it in the evening sometimes accompanied by my girlfriend. I started with a single leaf which was a quite unpleasant, heavy, chlorophylly experience. The effects were negligible with a slight not un-pleasant heavy, intoxicated, feeling that lasted for only a short while. I tried smoking bits of flower which was really quite nice after the leaf. The flowers smoke well, they burn evenly especially when mixed with tobacco or cannabis. The effect as described is not unlike being stoned and we decided that it was like a different kind of stoned not as good as cannabis but in the same league and with a similar duration. We occasionally started smoking datura/cannabis spliffs and would always get the same mild, buzzy effect, trippy, but nothing special.

We started to experiment with a few concoctions. I made a brew with only a small amount of leaf and found a similar effects but stronger. The intoxicated feeling was more profound and I felt slightly disassociated from reality rather like taking valium. In my sleep I experienced very vivid dreams. The next experiment was more extreme. We had stared experimenting with HBW seeds and had bought a load off a website but they turned out to be disappointingly week. For some unknown reason I decided to make a kind of potion with a load of these week seeds and about 3 datura leaves, the biggest dose yet.

We cycled off to a nearby forest on a real sunny day and found a beautiful glade sat down and drank the potion. After about 20 mins we both started to feel really fucking weird the plants around took on a very strange, threatening aspect and I felt very nervous and uneasy. My girlfriend started to throw up which made the once jolly scene even more scary. I felt queasy and out of fear I refused to hold down the brew and also chucked. After this we both felt a lot better but definitely felt a bit trippy, whether it was seeds or datura I don’t know but the seeds were duff as equal amounts on their own had done nothing. We wandered off and got a bit lost ended up battling through the undergrowth and eventually found ourselves in a pub where we had a drink and praised being back in civilization and felt very glad that we had both been sick when we did.

After this I left datura alone and at the end of the summer the plant produced some fantastic brain-like seed pods with thousands of seeds. I was still drawn to occasionally smoking the stuff throughout the autumn but always found it a bit dull and less pleasant to smoke than cannabis. At one point we found ourselves on hard times and started smoking datura very regularly as a cannabis substitute. However I noticed myself sometimes becoming quite aggressive after smoking it especially if I had been drinking. We stared arguing a lot and it seemed to be having quite a profound but subtle effect on both of our moods. We came to the conclusion that the plant was trying to split us up so packed it in and stopped smoking it. About that time (early winter) the plant died, succumbing to spider mites (which seriously love indoor daturas!)

The biggest dose that I ever took however was shortly before the times discussed above. I was at a party that my sister was having at my parents house when me and my girlfriend were staying there between moving. I had been at the pub and was a bit drunk. Me and a friend decided to brew some Datura for a laugh and made a potion with 3 leaves in it. The effect was (you don’t hear this often about datura) fun. I felt my drunken intoxication enhanced and stumbled around the party having a good time. My friend also enjoyed it describing it as a super kind of drunkenness. I don’t remember much but apparently was talking about some weird stuff and not making much sense.

I slept and woke about 4am feeling very trippy and bit spun out. The party was winding down and my parents were still away for some reason I was feeling pretty hardcore and I was clearly not thinking straight as I went downstairs and made a brew of datura with a single flower. I put this into two cups one for me and one for my girlfriend who was at the hospital with her friend who had fallen and cut her head (a different story.) When she returned shortly I offered her the drink but she though I was mad and went to bed. I didn’t see the problem so I drunk both cups and lay down. I slept and had the most vivid dream mostly about walking down a street coming to the end and then waiting whilst the street re-built itself then walking down it again. The dream was seriously in technicolour and I was very vividly traveling through it.

I awoke the next morning and I can only describe say that I was tripping. I had traces and could see patterns and colours everywhere. If I started staring the patterns would morph into shapes and images. I was surprised as it was rather like acid but with a very mellow sedated physical sensation. I felt truly fucked all day I couldn’t see properly, I couldn’t read and I was tripping out. The effects lasted unchanging all day so I just sat around the house waiting to come down. I slept that night (Sunday) and woke in the morning to go to work at my crappy job in a mortgage centre for a popular high street building society.

When I woke I was STILL tripping. I considered phoning in sick but decided against it and spent the day at work watching my compute keyboard pulse up and down and quietly observing a little deamon that would appear in patterned objects and dance around, actually quite an interesting day at work. It took me about a week to totally recover and in retrospect I certainly had permo-visuals of a stronger degree than normal seeing blocks of dark colour and traces throughout my day to day life for months after the time in which I was taking the drug regularly.

The last time that I took datura is also worth comment as it demonstrates how the strength of the plant varies. It was the following summer and I hadn’t smoked it for 8 months or so. I had grown a few new plants from the seed that I had and felt a strong desire to try smoking the flowers again. My girlfriend was away so I would get no grief. I rolled a joint with only part of a flower which should have been a very small ‘stoned’ dose. I cruelly tricked my mate into smoking it with me telling him it was MJ and me and him took only a few tokes each. For some reason the joint was way strong. Both of us tripped off it. I was totally unprepared and received proper acid style distortions and patterns, traces etc… We went to the cinema and I couldn’t concentrate of the film I was getting big perceptual distortions the whole time. The trip was dark, I felt very uneasy and paranoid at some points and had a dull stimulation in my mind that wouldn’t calm. I tried smoking MJ later but it only made me more para. I lay in bed all night unable to sleep with a racing pulse that was a quite unpleasant experience. It was surprising as the effect from this was very different to the other times that I have used it was much more powerful and physiological, trippy in the same way but not much fun. Needless to say I have not used datura since.

In conclusion I think that the plant is a beautiful thing in itself, it gives of a powerful aura. I have since acquired a brugsmansia as well but have not consumed any and am happy to keep and admire it as a plant. I think that these plants have a strong spiritual presence as teachers but they will seriously take over if you are not prepared for them, I am comfortable with the plant as a external presence rather than an internal one. For some reason I think that the plant temps me into using it even if I haven’t for a while, I remember it as more pleasant than it actually is. The decision not to use it is, I think, a major part of the process of forming a relationship with this plant. Once you do that then the plant knows its place. Years have passed since I took datura and my Brugs is now massive. I still feel like I could stare at it for ages and regularly feel the need to just go out and touch it and smell the leaves and flowers. I have even been tempted to smoke some but I don’t think I will. Me and Miss datura have a purely platonic relationship which ultimately suits us both.

Exp Year: 2002-2004	ExpID: 53161
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 23
Published: Nov 3, 2007	Views: 60,943
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Datura (15) : Post Trip Problems (8), Hangover / Days After (46), Retrospective / Summary (11), Relationships (44), Not Applicable (38)