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The Awakening
Cacti (San Pedro, Peruvians)
Citation:   mk.ultra. "The Awakening: An Experience with Cacti (San Pedro, Peruvians) (exp91439)". Erowid.org. Oct 24, 2013. erowid.org/exp/91439

 
DOSE:
3.5 lbs oral Cacti - columnar (extract)
BODY WEIGHT: 185 lb
Saturday, August 21st, 2010

6:30 – I just got off work a half hour ago. I will begin the preparation within the next two hours. I am feeling excellent, and I could not be more excited to partake in this revered sacrament. I feel that it may be difficult to convert the esoteric feelings a psychedelic substance imparts into words, but I will give it a valiant effort.

7:28 – I just ran to Wal-Mart to buy a pot. The one I had was not nearly large enough for my cactus brew. It was over $40, but that's alright, I'll just return it tomorrow. Wal-Mart is a filthy scumbag of a corporation anyways.

8:17 – The 3.5 lb, 12' Peruvian Torch cutting has now been de-spined, diced, and blended with distilled water. It is currently boiling. I empathetically thanked the cactus for the knowledge it might bestow upon my mind before beginning the preparation. I have a very positive feeling about tonight.

9:24 – The boiling process continues. This is taking quite a long time, but that was to be expected. Patience is a virtue.

10:08 – The hour of awakening draws near as the strange green brew boils on. I sense that truth is on the horizon.

10:21 – The mixture has been strained and is cooling. Soon I will squeeze the remaining juice out of the pulp and begin sipping the divine medicine.

10:41 – The first sips of the tea have been taken. The taste is quite tolerable, slightly bitter with an almost sweet aftertaste. A chaser is hardly necessary. I ended up with much more liquid to drink than anticipated, about 2 or 3 very large cupfuls. However, once it cools down it will not be difficult to chug.

10:52 – The first cup has been downed with ease. No changes in consciousness as of yet, but my body is warm and comfortable. Heart rate is slightly increased, although it is very plausible that it is being caused from sheer excitement.

11:13 – The final cup and half have been finished off. The last few sips were increasingly disgusting, but I gulped them down with pleasure. Slight facial tension is noticed, now it's merely a waiting game. The Starcraft 2 replay I've been watching is losing interest rapidly.

11:31 – I've been laying on my bed for a few minutes, breathing deeply and taking it all in. The experience isn't overpowering, in fact very subtle at this point. In combination with the calming music (Llewellyn – Sapphire Blue) I feel very much at peace. No daunting hallucinations or trouble typing this whatsoever. This is a very different psychedelic. I am at home here. I'm seeing my tapestry in new ways, but quite unlike the waving and undulating of mushrooms or DMT. I zoom in and out of focus, constantly discovering new, underlying patterns within it. The angle I've placed it at on the wall makes it appear completely three dimensional.

11:36 – My jaws are somewhat tense, but I'm easily refraining from grinding my teeth. A few whiffs from my Neti-Stik reawaken me. I am infinitely comfortable in my body. I've started drinking a 'Brain Toniq' drink. Its taste wants to be an energy drink but is rudely denied. Still no outstanding visuals, but the feelings of bliss tingling in my face and running down my spine are tantalizing enough. I wish I was outside right now. In fact, why can't I be? Aren't my limited freedoms enough to grant me such power? Truly the only thing holding me back is the fear of being stopped and questioned by a curious and nosy police officer. 'What are you doing out here? Why are you walking funny? Why are smiling at me?' would be the questions he'd ask, with the fury of an unrelenting tsnunami. 'I'm transcending reality in search of universal truth. I am becoming one with all of existence, sir.' I would answer prophetically. But this would not satisfy his needs. He would proceed to cuff me and tell me that I am insane. Am I? What defines insane? Maybe it is he who is unconscious, walking through his life like a robot, allowing his pessimistic take on the material world to consume his body and soul. It's a damn shame he never had a psychedelic experience...a damn shame.

11:46 – My body is somewhat tense but my mind is free and alive. This is really not what I had expected. Then again, I didn't know what to expect. I've just finished off my 'Brain Toniq' drink, although I don't feel particularly more enlightened by it. The feeling of the mescaline is swimming happily through my body, a school of fish frolicking about, miles beneath the surface. Writing is flowing effortlessly and readily from mind to page. Very little editing is being done at this point. This is my own version of journalism, a broadcast of unending truth emanating from my soul. Life is a beautiful thing, never to be taken for granted...many things may sound clichι, but this is only because they are simple and powerful truths which resonate deep within us all. We are all one, we are all connected, somehow, in some indeterminable way, we are interwoven in the fabric of consciousness. We are all a thread, a part of the whole, small and seemingly insignificant at times, but together we are strong. Together we form the cloth that adorns the Gods. It is beyond my grasp, it may be beyond anyone's grasp, these underlying principles which bond the universe together. But why grasp at nothing, why grasp at that which cannot be fathomed, cannot be comprehended by our limited senses and abilities. As a famous man once said, let it be.

11:58 – The experience is expanding, climaxing it may seem. Inanimate objects take a life of their own. Posters on my wall waving like the gentle tide coming in on some lonely, unseen beach. Fractals dance in the background of my computer screen, teasing me to explore the divine. Alex Grey's artwork is above me, deep and sucking me in like a black hole. I wonder in astonishment what kind of profound experiences gave birth to his artwork. Simply incredible. Words defy the psychedelic experience. At this point words cannot begin to do it justice. Mescaline is the most natural feeling substance I have ever ingested. Warm and inviting, it beckons you in like the grandmother you haven't seen in ages. It guides you like an ancestral spirit. It doesn't feel nearly as primal as mushrooms, not as ancient. But in it's own respect it is much more gentle and calm. A pioneer's map. Once the groundwork is laid, the plumbing and the electricity can be dealt with accordingly.

12:05 – Still merely a human being sitting at a computer chair, but feeling more powerful and eternal than ever. I need to lay down. No. More revelations come. There is nothing scientific to be learned from the psychedelic experience. Nothing whatsoever. The knowledge to be gained is from within, a greater appreciation for nature, for life, for Earth and all of it's creatures. A deep sense of peace that stems from within. A sense of peace that all should possess. Imagine the power if it were bestowed upon the money hungry corporations and power mongering politicians. Imagine the potential for change then. Their self centered tendencies would dissolve like dust in the wind. They might realize the intense suffering they are causing other nations, other people, other human beings. A deep sadness resides in my heart for them. Even for the people who cause such suffering, for they are blind. This type of experience is exactly the remedy for such desolate creatures. Reawakening the sense of connectedness with people, with nature, with everything, is an ineffably powerful undertaking. It cannot be understated. It is all that is necessary to awaken these raging beasts who have lost all sense of compassion. It is the great catalyst for change.

12:20 – I feel exceedingly redundant at this point. My valid points have been made, need they be reinstated by some new, exciting rambling adventure that mazes us through the stars and takes us right back to the beginning? Right back to where we started. Square one. What the fuck, right after I typed that I was brought back to reality at frightening speed and precision by a thundering noise. A phone call from Keith. I answered it awkwardly of course, “whaaaaaaaaats upppppppp duuuuuuuuuuude!?!?!??” but to my alarm, it was his mother, asking if I was with him. Whoops.

12:25 – Wow, mescaline is perfect for writing. Words steamroll out of my brain like a freight train with turbo boosters on crack and acid. I could write an entire novel like this, just rambling on about the universe and such. Would anybody buy it? Probably not, it would go down in history as one of the most ridiculous works of the 21st century, or all of humanity for that matter. Why am I even keeping time any more? Time is just an illusion, as is all of this, which I am beginning to believe. Dangerous to let thoughts stray like that though. In a material world our lives depend on being materially stable. Money drives our quest to survive. Where are we all going in this life? What direction are we headed? What is our purpose? These age old questions hold great significance. I have come to believe that in this day and age, our purpose in life must not be to achieve wealth and fame, or even to simply raise a family with a white picket fence and be happy with that. We must lead a consciousness revolution, one by one liberating the minds of the masses. Open their eyes to the blatant hate and destruction that we ourselves create. Stop walloping in our baths of self pity like retarded pigs and CHANGE. One by one, person by person, a realization that this world is charging rapidly, and headlong, into disaster. Like a dog chasing its tail, we have become a violent and enraged dog that will willingly devour his own tail, and continue on to rip apart his own intestines and innards, and eat them with such lust and passion like some sort of sick fucking freak. Disturbing, really, to even think about. Not that image, the bigger picture of what's going on here. Wrap your head around it. Climb inside, feel it out. So twisted of a story that only a mescaline ridden mind dares to write about it. No fear, no remorse, treading easily and readily where others dare not set foot. The anthills of the mind. These words are a roller coaster ride for me. Seemingly no direction, up, down, loop-dee-loop, where the fuck am I. Reducing myself to type passages about such trivial things as this, forcing myself to continue on while the feeling of defeat is all pervasive. But I can't stop thinking, my mind is unwinding itself in a calculated and precise maneuver. This feeling is all too natural, it is all to welcoming, it is all too real. I cannot force myself to leave my chair, let alone the keyboard.

12:41 – Why has the music been stopped for so long? Ah, the phone call, the sobering jilt back to reality. The soothing music melts right back into the experience. I become more conscious of my breath, of my body. Harmonistic melodies envelope me. Why is Open Office Writer's dictionary so blatantly attempting to tell me that words I am typing are not correct or real, when in fact I look them up in the dictionary to be quite exactly the way I imagined them to be, such as the word harmonistic. Apparently the intricacies of my own vocabulary trounce this piece of shitty technology. The power of the human mind is unrivaled. Harpsichords and aural ambient soundscapes mesh together in perfect unity. Everything is perfect on mescaline.

1:19 – Countless worlds have been dissolved and instantly reassembled whilst I was laying on the bed for that immeasurable period of time. Each inward breath a symbolic rebirth of myself. Each exhalation a deep sigh of relief, an exaltation of pain and suffering. Tearing down and reconstructing the framework of my own mind. Swimming in an ocean of consciousness amidst the soft covers. Infinite levels of reality meld together to create this 'one.' But while 'one' it is all encompassing, a vibrant love that covers the entire Earth and shines radiantly from its core. Several small steps on the road to recovery. Great milestones have been made.

1:27 – This is bar none the most clean, organic, and beautiful high I've ever encountered. Everything else revels in comparison. The clarity achieved through this state is unparalleled. Completely conscious of my actions, and every minute move I make holds infinite significance. As every human should realize...The power of our actions are tremendously frightening. With one fell swoop a fly lays victim to our mighty hand, a nation crumbles over our incompetence. Millions of lives lost over a stupid chess game. The Earth mortally wounded from our recklessness, devastation left in the wake. Vivid fractal imagery clouds my immediate vision, but a deep center is found within myself. My heart is resonating with 100% pure, unadulterated love.

1:39 – The window is now open in longing of nature. Crickets chirp endlessly in the night. Will sleep ever be found on this perilous evening? Perhaps not, but it was a risk worth taking. I may toss and turn restlessly in search of myself. But no matter what happens, the Earth will not abandon me. This experience is climaxing, no doubt. The tapestry on my wall is waving and changing in incomprehensible patterns of complexity which are self-organizing. The visualizations are quite vivid, unlike any I've seen before. They should be startling and alarming, but are quite the contrary. They seem like natural undulations of the Earth. The instability of which the universe is actually built on. The fluctuating infrastructure of the 'material' world. I will not be able to grasp these thoughts quite as profoundly tomorrow, on a clear and sober mind. They escape me. They defy words.

1:51 – Where does the time go? It slips so easily away. Weathering the years of our lives, even the seconds are precious. This document is worthless. It cannot convey eons of suffering on the back of mankind's ignorance. Obscurity defies obscurity in search of itself. My mind is withering and expanding simultaneously, right before my eyes. How can I watch it happen so easily? These ridiculous ramblings must draw to a close eventually. Soon enough I will crawl beneath the security of my blankets, only to awake to another day of pure existence. Will any trace of this remain? I can only hope so. I will live and breath it out for eternity.

Post Script: I went to bed soon after the last passage, and that was a mistake. I tossed and turned for hours, with a vision repeating itself incessantly in my head. It was of an alien/human hybrid fetus, swirling into itself and constantly being reincarnated. This lasted for an indefinite and possibly infinite period of time. What this means is for now a mystery to me. I awoke quite hungry and tired, but I slept like a baby for 12 hours the next night. Overall it was an invaluable experience, one which I shall never forget.

Exp Year: 2010ExpID: 91439
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: 21
Published: Oct 24, 2013Views: 15,937
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Cacti - columnar (10) : First Times (2), Personal Preparation (45), Alone (16)

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