DOSE:

3 seeds

oral

H.B. Woodrose

BODY WEIGHT:

150 lb

My first real trip took place during the autumn of my final year of college. The entire trip took place within the confines of the campus grounds. I had been a habitual pot smoker for about two years at this point, but hadn't really experimented with any psychedelics. However, after meeting my friend Q who was heavily into psychedelic drugs, as well as finding myself listening to more and more psychedelic music, I felt I was ready to begin experimenting with something other than pot. Thus, myself, Q, and my friend Z all agreed to eat some baby woodrose seeds one rainy Saturday afternoon. Despite the gloomy weather, we were all in a very good mood. I had not researched nor read very much about psychedelics before this trip, and wasn't entirely sure what to expect (especially since these seeds weren't as commonplace as magic mushrooms or LSD).

Q, Z, and I each consumed three baby woodrose seeds at 2:00 PM, without preparing them in any fashion. I should note that I did not swallow them whole, but rather chewed them and held them in my mouth for about fifteen-thirty seconds each seed. Again, we did not wash them or prepare them in any way, but ate them straight out of the bag. We hung out in Q's room and listened to the entirety of the album 'Forever Changes' by the band Love. By the end of the album, I was beginning to feel a slight alteration in my general perception, but nothing significant. At this point, I was wondering whether we were actually going to trip.

We spent the next hour or so simply talking, listening to music, watching the fractal visualizer on Q's computer, and more or less feeling pretty good about things. About two hours after eating the seeds, I began to experience some nausea. Q had warned me about this possibility, and while it was noticeable, it wasn't overpowering in any way. Since the three of us were all feeling a bit nauseous, we all agreed that perhaps going outside and taking a walk might be a good idea. The minute we went outside I felt a shift in perception. The air was refreshingly crisp, and appeared as if it had been ionized. The time was about 5:00, so the sky was darkening. It had been raining for most of the afternoon, but was no longer. I felt intensely interconnected with nature, unlike I had ever before. I had no interest in modern technology whatsoever, and desperately craved to be deep into the woods and close to nature.

Fortunately, our college grounds had a huge forest, so the three of us trekked into the glen and descended down a hill. The descent felt very symbolic in a way, representing our own descent into the depths of the human mind. The ground was damp and muddy, and the air was cold. The woods were foggy and made the experience more mystical. The sounds of the forest were much more intense than usual, both my visual and aural perception had greatly increased, and my mind suddenly became very curious and powerful. The effect was becoming more and more physically powerful during this time, my chest and particularly my legs had become numb. Although the numbness was not unpleasant, I was still feeling a bit nauseous.

After about an hour in the glen, we decided it might be a good idea to eat some food. After ordering some chicken fingers with french fries, I realized that I had little appetite and the nausea had increased. The bizarre color combination of the cafeteria walls and the general decor seemed tacky, and it was very unpleasing to my senses. I preferred the browns and dark greens of the earth. I took a bite of a chicken finger and it lacked taste. I could taste the processing and chemicals in it, and could not taste salt on either the chicken nor the french fries. I ate one chicken finger and maybe a dozen fries before we all decided that processed food was not working for us. Z became very nauseous at this point, and wanted badly to go back. I too was feeling increasingly nauseous. Now a little after 6:00 PM, we went back to Q's room. At this point it had been nearly four hours since having eaten the seeds, and we were clearly reaching the plateau of the trip.

As we exited the cafeteria, I immediately felt the need to vomit the food I had just eaten, even though it was a small amount. I tried to puke in some trees off the path on the way home, but I simply couldn't. I decided it would be best to at least go back to Q's room before vomiting, which at this point felt inevitable. The increases in aural and visual perception, which were very noticeable at this point, but were being completely overtaken by the extreme nausea. Back in Q's room, I was sitting leaned up against a door resting on a pillow (any other 'normal' position seemed unthinkable). My vision was swirling, I could not stand up, and I feared lying down would increase the nausea. Closing my eyes also worsened the nausea. After about ten minutes in this unusual position, I vomited. As a means of trying to take my mind off of the nausea, I started to read aloud 'The Aleph' by Jorge Luis Borges to Q and Z, which helped distract me from feeling miserable. Nevertheless, I was still becoming more nauseous and now truly petrified. I vomited a second time, virtually all of the food I had eaten that day.

In Q's room there was the famous Japanese poster of waves and a whirlpool by Hiroshige. Staring at the poster, I could see the waves moving as if they were real. Everytime I stared at the poster, I became more and more nauseous, so I avoided looking at it. I tried to read Borges again, but was unable to do so, so we basically just hung out, trying to get a grasp of our experience. After about thirty minutes, I suggested we go outside again onto the big soccer field near Q's dormitory. It was at this point that my world was spinning, my nausea had increased yet again and had become very intense. At the same time, my perception had increased greatly and my entire body was very numb. Because I was so sick, I wanted the feeling to stop as soon as possible and simply desired to be in a normal state of mind. I could barely stand up straight, my legs felt like jelly and I was stumbling around in a bizarre attempt to counter the nausea.

I went with Q, Z, and our friend X to the field. It was dark now, but there was a sort of orange glow over the trees at the other end of the field. The horizon line between the trees and sky did not exist, the two seemed completely connected and inseparable. I was not experiencing any substantial visual hallucinations, although there were some minor auditory hallucinations. Despite the silence of our environment, the field sounded very loud, almost as if nature was attempting to directly communicate with me. The voices of the others were becoming irritating and only increasing my nausea, I tried to focus on the sounds of the grass, the field and the nearby forest in trying to help me forget about the nausea. I walked about 50 yards away from the others and squatted on the ground. I divided my focus between the grass and the overwhelming darkness. I could hear the grass 'speaking' to me, the water droplets on their tips were making a crisping sort of noise that was very loud. I enjoyed it, and tried to continuing to focus on it, but at this point completely lost control.

Being alone, the effects of the LSA were increasing so rapidly that I became frightened. My nausea was not going away, and I realized that I was in for a very bad trip. A huge wave of paranoia set over me, and my heart was beating so rapidly I had to control every breath consciously. I felt as if I had made a huge mistake, and that not only the day but recent years of my life had been one giant mistake. I felt as if I would never come down from the drug, it was utterly paralyzing. I felt the pressures that typically lie dormant in my subconscious overwhelming me, and at this point, I irrationally believed that I would either die (or worse) be stuck in this state forever. I decided that I needed to be in a safer environment where I could focus on simply making it through the experience.

I decided to part from the others and headed back to my own room, which was comfortable and familiar. I discovered that I could still perform basic tasks, like taking my shoes off, putting on music on my computer, and opening the door to my room with my key. I set up my garbage can next to my bed where I anticipated much more vomiting. I left the lights on as to avoid closed-eye visuals, which were simply unwelcome to my current state. I climbed into bed, and found that my heart was beating even more rapidly. This was the peak of my trip, and I was terrified. There were small rectangular reflections on my blinds that were moving around and making me feel sicker. The checkered patten of my navy and white comforter was also swirling and shifting, so I tried to stare at my grey carpeted floor. I was also vomiting profusely.

I put some music on, very soothing spiritual music by a band called Brightblack Morning Light. I knew that with every song, I was that much closer to coming down and re-entering the safety of 'reality' where I could control my physical sickness. I was now dry heaving, and I decided to drink water so I would have something to throw up. Because I was dry heaving, I began to panic as if I'd done something truly terrible to my body. I went online to find similar LSA experiences to what I was experiencing, but I wasn't really able to comprehend them. I irrationally feared that I had somehow eaten too many seeds, that we hadn't researched properly, and that something was truly 'not right.'

As I continued to dry heave I contemplated calling my friend D, but since she had now drug experience whatsoever, I decided against it. However, I was desperate for a babysitter, and although I did not want to interrupt my friends' trip, I ended up calling Z to ask him specifically how much we had taken and tell him of the horrors I was experiencing. He and Q took this as a cry for help and came over. The entire time I had been in my room alone was only forty-five minutes, but felt like an eternity, and are more vivid in my memory than some entire months of my life.

Q and Z tried very hard to help me mentally conquer what I was going through, though every time my mind would drift back to the dark side, I would begin vomiting again. They came up with the idea of watching something entertaining to take my mind off of it. We began watching episodes of of the show Curb Your Enthusiasm which did in fact help take my mind off of it. I continued to drink water and was still vomiting it up, but I was laughing and understanding the episode, which made me feel that I wasn't completely insane, just very physically ill. Q and Z continued to help me work through it while watching the show, and the vomiting decreased.

After about an hour of watching, it was around 8:00 PM, and I was feeling much, much better and beginning to come down. I was finally able to sit up after having vomited everything in my system and what felt like a gallon of water. I was slowly sipping water, and at long last, not puking it up. Q and Z ordered chinese food, and I agreed to get some food for later for when I was feeling better later or the next day. I was able to emerge from bed and go into my dormitory's common living space, where a number of my friends had come to hang out. Their presence cheered me up, and it was nice to be in an safe environment with my friends.

I very quickly was starting to perk up and turn things around. I was still very much feeling the effects of the LSA, although not nearly as intense as before. I was feeling so much better than I was even able to eat some food without vomiting. The chicken itself did not have the flavor I desired, however, the simplicity of the white rice melded perfectly with what I wanted to taste and what I felt comfortable digesting. The rice was excellent for me due to its ability to retain in my stomach, and I was also able to eat chicken and brocolli comfortably.

Our other friends were preparing to get drunk in our common space, and I understandably had no interest in doing so at the time. We hung out in the common room and the trippers among us engaged in some philosophical musings, and eventually the others came back having bought a lot of alcohol. They were being loud and rowdy, which was incongruous to my state of mind. Their voices and actions were irritating me greatly, and I needed to be removed from them. I had now returned to an excellent mindset, so Q and I went to Z's room and listened to Terry Riley's 'Rainbow in Curved Air' set to a visualizer. My mood had greatly increased, in fact, I rarely remember feeling more cleansed, more at peace, and generally good-natured then than at any point in my recent life.

Q and I went back to my room with X and his girlfriend. We put on some folk music, and I read Chuck Klosterman aloud to them, which had us all howling hysterically. This lasted us for a few hours. At around 1 AM we went outside to smoke some marijuana, which positively brought back the trip. All negative feelings had completely vanished, and we spent some more time in our common room chatting before we all went to sleep. I went to sleep around 2 AM, and was still feeling the effects of the LSA. As I was drifting off to sleep I was having some interesting visuals. A beam of light was coming out of the green glow of my alarm clock. I could alter the thickness and length of the beam, and had some fun playing with it. Then, I let my eyes go unfocused, creating doubles of the green glow but also of the other digital glowing light in my room, such as the blue power circle from the speakers and the red glow from the mouse. The different colored glows were dancing around, shifting back and forth.

Eventually, I fell asleep, and presumably had some interesting dreams, though I cannot recall them. I woke up the next day feeling an warm afterglow. I felt very peaceful and contemplative, and still very close to nature. I was unable to do productive things (like homework) and remained in a reflective state. Overall, the experience was simultaneously one of the most enlightening and harrowing of my life, and I suspect that I will not forget it anytime soon.

I should also note that since the experience, I have continued experimenting with psychedelics (mushrooms, morning glories, salvia, yopo, amanita), mostly, in small doses, and have not had a single trip nor experience resembling this one. I can definitively state that psychedelics have only positively enhanced my life, and they have done so in a number of ways. I have, however, stayed away from the baby woodrose seeds, and would recommend that others who are thinking of trying these should know what they're getting into, as well as recommend doing the proper preparation/research necessary. And of course, for anyone taking their first psychedelic trip, do your research and be absolutely sure to start with a small dose, because there is no way to prepare you for what you're about to experience.

Exp Year: 2006	ExpID: 63938
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jun 25, 2007	Views: 39,924
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H.B. Woodrose (26) : Glowing Experiences (4), First Times (2), Small Group (2-9) (17)