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Fleeing Ego Death
Huasca Brew (Syrian Rue & M. tenuiflora)
Citation:   Hypersphere. "Fleeing Ego Death: An Experience with Huasca Brew (Syrian Rue & M. tenuiflora) (exp83644)". Erowid.org. Jul 20, 2010. erowid.org/exp/83644

 
DOSE:
20 g oral Mimosa tenuiflora (tea)
  6 g oral Syrian Rue (tea)
    repeated smoked Cannabis  
BODY WEIGHT: 120 lb
Background: This experience occurred in April, 2007. I am male, at the time of this experience 22 years old and weighing around 120 pounds. I smoke marijuana and drink yerba mate on a daily basis, but take no prescription or over-the-counter medications. I had one previous, pleasant experience with Mimosahuasca, at a dosage of 13 grams of Mimosa hostilis root bark and 3 grams of syrian rue seeds. I am familiar with other psychedelics including mushrooms, hawaiian baby woodrose, LSD, 2C-I, Trichocereus cacti and MDMA.

Substances ingested and dosage:
Mimosa hostilis 20 grams shredded “premium” rootbark
Peganum harmala (syrian rue) 6 grams seeds
Marijuana smoked 2 joints + 2 bowls

Preparation: Plant materials combined in a stainless steel pot and boiled 20-30 minutes three times in tap water with just enough lemon juice added to make the water cloudy. The first two boilings were dark blood-red in colour, the third a lighter peach or honey colour. The strained and combined liquid extracts were reduced in volume to about 1 cup. During the reduction process the colour of the solution changed from translucent red to murky brown/black with tinges of purple. Like radioactive Coca-Cola. The tea was cooled briefly and poured off into a bottle, discarding some scudgy-scummy nastiness at the very bottom (dregs, yes, that’s the word!).

Set and setting: It is finally warm and sunny outside. I finished my last class of five years of University today. As it is the last day of class, everyone at the university is hammered and ready to party. Somehow it seemed like a good day to make some Mimosahuasca and hang out in my local park enjoying the sunshine. Life at-the-turning-point, that kind of shit. My last experience with Mimosahuasca had been pleasant, but I felt a desire to go deeper. So I was going to attempt a larger dose of Mimosa hostilis than last time, along with twice as much syrian rue as I had ever taken, to ensure full inhibition of MAO.

The experience:

T + 0:00 Begin to drink the tea in large gulps, on an empty stomach. The bitterness is so strong it numbs my tongue and tastebuds. But that’s a good thing, because after the first sip it does not seem quite so bitter, like I’ve already saturated my tongue. I get down about three-quarters of the brew in about 5 or 6 large gulps. Beginning to feel very nauseated so I lie down on a nice patch of (still not green) grass next to some spruce trees and gaze up at the sky. I roll up a joint, in case later in the experience I find it too difficult (I can’t roll worth shit on mushrooms).

T + 0:30 I’m not feeling as nauseous anymore so decide to take another gulp of tea. There is already something going on, I feel a soothing, gentle high coming on. This must be the syrian rue taking effect, it’s a calming feeling and everything glows or shimmers like its suffused with light. I am not being hit by the tea as fast as the last time I did this. So I take another large gulp, and the taste is awful!!! It makes me gag, and then I have to throw up. No real warning at all. Impressive fountaining gets rid of that big gulp of tea I just swallowed, and whatever other limited stomach contents I have.

After purging I feel totally pure and clean inside. This might sound funny to say, but mimosahuasca is very natural feeling and easy on the body. Sure it makes me purge, but it does not make me feel overstimulated, or give me strange and unpleasant bodily effects. Everything seems to be in the mind. I don’t really feel I am “on a drug” because it feels like such a natural state of consciousness. Kind of upset I threw up my tea though.

I lie down in the sun, eye shut, and feel a gentle drifting feeling. I feel like I am disintegrating slightly, small fragments of me blowing away with the breeze blowing over me. This is similar to a feeling I had peaking on my last mimosahuasca adventure, but it’s not as strong yet.

T + 0:45 There is a little bit of my tea left, and three gulps of the bitter brew is enough to finish it off. This time it stays down. I am kind of thinking I am not going to get high this time, because I threw up too soon. It’s 45 minutes in and I still have my time sense, that can’t be good! I am definitely feeling the rue right now, but rue is pretty mild. My thinking is calm and clear. Nothing above a light ++ state. The visual aspect is kind of interesting, I am beginning to see tiny coloured firework things in the sky and when I look at things it feels more like I am looking through them. Everything is still glowing with that inner light.

Questions go through my mind. Did I keep the tea down long enough? Did I absorb enough harmala alkaloids to be fully MAOI inhibited? Was there enough DMT in the Mimosa bark? I decide to smoke my joint to try and boost the effects.

I spark the joint and take a few puffs. About half way through the joint, the DMT kicked in. I put the joint out because I am seriously blasting off. Not sure if the weed helped to kick it in or whether that rush was coming regardless and I just happened to smoke the joint as it was coming on.

Time sense ends here...

It begins with the trees and the sky. The spruce tree branches in my vision and the wind-wracked clouds are suddenly one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. There is a sort of mathematical or fractal pattern that I perceive being expressed in both the clouds and the tree branches. An underlying vibrational pattern connecting all physical matter. The spruce tree starts to look flattened and very much like a big green snowflake. As I think about snowflakes giant spruce-tree snowflakes are felt (not seen) falling from the sky.

So this is why they call it a DMT “flash”, I say to myself. From a mild ++ to full open eye visuals in perhaps 60 seconds. The sun goes behind a cloud just as the DMT feeling starts getting strong. A cold wind now comes up and whips and tears at me. I am shaking, half from being chilled by the wind and half from the rushes of energy going through me. Feeling sick again. Try to throw up, nothing comes out.

Something about the combination of the sun going away, the cold wind, the nausea, and the rising DMT freaked me right out. I pace restlessly back and forth, thinking of walking somewhere more comfortable or less windy to lie down. I desperately desire a fuzzy blanket that I can wrap myself up in and loose myself to the world.

The DMT steps up another notch. Visually everything is boiling and writhing like a strong mushroom trip. The grass is a waving ocean of grass blades, flowing up and around and back down just like the mimosa bark in my pot had flowed around when boiling it. I am overwhelmed and terrified. I quite literally feel I am about to die. Mimosa is trying to kill me. I don’t know why I expected to have ego-death come on gently and comfortably. It wasn’t until my ego was about to be violently ripped away from me that I realized how much I didn’t want to let go. Please! I’m not ready to die today!

A mad energy rushes through me. I begin walking quickly, fleeing actually. I walk like I’m fleeing from demons. Psychic crisis. I am thinking, “Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! If I stop walking, Mimosa will crush my soul! I can’t stop walking or Mimosa will catch up with me!” As long as I am walking I have some semblance of control, and I know I am still alive.

I walk all over the park I am in, half looking for a grassy nook to curl up in and hide, half being driven by the wind. Nowhere seems like a good spot to lie down, so I just keep walking, letting the wind push me farther and farther from home. There’s this bike path that goes through a whole series of parks and I start following that. I have my hood pulled down low trying to cut out some of the sensory input overwhelming me, limiting what I can see. Keep walking. Don’t stop, no matter what!

Slowly the DMT flash is beginning to fade, to mellow slightly in intensity. Eventually I come to this grassy bowl-shaped bit of park. It is much more sheltered and the sun is peeking out again. Okay, I’m not going to die. Things will be alright. I find a piece of sunny hillside and lie down again. All kinds of bright colours with my eyes closed. I hear people biking and walking by on the path near me, but feel no paranoia or fear at their presence. That empathetic feeling I got last time I took this drug was definitely present again. I felt open and caring and not at all threatened by the presence of strangers when I’m tripping. I keep running my right hand through the dry grass, it feels really amazing for some reason.

Now that the sensation of panic and immanent death is over, I am quite enjoying myself. Still feels like a totally natural “drug” if such a term should be used. Even the psychic crisis period was very “real” feeling, not induced by some foreign substance but just a normal and very human state of consciousness. I feel much stronger now, having lived through those moments. Part of me realizes I made my own situation worse, by not accepting the ego-death, by running away from it. But I really was not ready for it, perhaps in a more comfortable environment I could have accepted what was happening to me. Next time I will plan my setting better. And I’ll bring a fucking blanket with me!

T + 2:00 I smoke the second half of my joint. By now I feel I’ve earned it. It does intensify the high but there is no second DMT flash lurking around the corner. Just this pleasant feeling of the DMT fading off, mingling with that sense of serenity and acceptance caused by the rue. I am quite surprised when looking at what time it is. The peak time of mimosahuasca is very short, and yet it takes me so far out in that period of time. It is relieving to know that no matter what kind of mental frizzle I am in, that time really is on my side. It may feel like forever, but forever soon passes.

T + 2:30 I roll a second joint, listen to some music (Bass Nectar and Gaudi), and walk a little further down the path before starting to head back. Effects are back down to a solid ++, the rue being evident and the DMT almost gone already. Some visual shifting and swirling like on a couple grams of mush is still going on. Every time a cyclist whips past me the sound and their speed trips me out. Very mellowed out by the pot and starting to feel tired.

T + 3:00 Get back to the park near my house where I started. Surprise surprise! I run into three friends from High School who I haven’t seen in a long time. “How are you doing?”, they say.

There’s no point beating around the bush. “I’m on Ayahuasca” I reply.

“What’s that?”

“Some crazy South American hallucinogen. One plant containing DMT made orally active with another.” They are suitably impressed, lol.

We decide to smoke a couple bowls of marijuana. I am very surprised to find that their pot is actually tastier and more potent than mine. They must have finally found a dealer who gets decent weed. These two bowls get me very stoned, and the grass begins to writhe again. Reminds me quite a bit of mushrooms right now. We chat and catch up for awhile, then they head off and I head home. Even though it is only around three and a half hours since drinking the tea, I am down enough to converse rationally and feel no concerns about going home and interacting with my parents. The rue gets rid of all my anxieties and fears.

T + 4:00 to T + 8:00 The rue makes me very sedated and sleepy, I spend these hours dozing and sleeping, warm and comfortable. Finally I have my fuzzy blanket.

T + 10:00 There is still a noticeable but subtle alteration of consciousness when writing this. I am glad I took the mimosahuasca today, the experience was both beautiful and terrifying and it gave me a lot to think about for future experiments.

Afterthoughts: Using 6 grams of syrian rue instead of 3 grams did not increase the feeling of the rue as much as I thought it would. The main difference seemed to be the way 6 grams of rue made me tired and sleepy when coming down. Triple-boiling the mimosa definitely seems necessary to extract all the colour from the bark.

I’m pretty sure I lost some of the goodness from purging too soon. Not really sure what to do about this, sipping the tea slowly only prolongs the interaction with this terrible tasting liquid, but maybe that’s the price I will have to pay to keep it down. It would be nice to be able to extend the “flash” of the DMT. Perhaps a separate brew of Mimosa sipped over an hour or so would do the trick.

More explorations to come I’m sure!

Exp Year: 2007ExpID: 83644
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: 22
Published: Jul 20, 2010Views: 25,405
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Syrian Rue (45), Mimosa tenuiflora (74), Huasca Brew (268) : Alone (16), Nature / Outdoors (23), Difficult Experiences (5), Preparation / Recipes (30), General (1)

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