Allegory takes a little trip (was forum=28)Follow

Down, down, down into the rabbit hole. Tonight I sampled salvia--one of the strongest hallucinogens available. My exposure to drugs previously had been very limited. I have only had painkillers prescribed for two minor surgeries, a brief period of Ritalin for the ADD fad, encounters with alcohol countable on a single hand, and one special brownie that had no effect. A friend having mentioned it, I was interested in trying a very potent drug without any of the risks present in heroine or crack.

The experience was completely unlike described by my friends and especially television. I had been told I might see fractals or strange vision, that I might feel as if it was a dream like state, that there would be a period of euphoria following a very short "trip." I found none of this in my experience. To those familiar with salvia, I absorbed it through smoking and did so properly certainly bypassing the threshold quantity so I made no mistake in my dosage or application.

To others the situation appeared as thus. After inhaling I held it in my lungs for approximately thirty seconds, counting with my fingers to not only keep time to myself but as a sign of my own sobriety. After exhaling the effect kicked in almost instantaneously and I began laughing loudly and exclaiming "this is my room, holy **** this is my room," (in a stranger's house) for approximately five minutes before ending the trip and regaining partial awareness.

From my perspective the situation was very different. I assumed I blacked out sometime after inhaling and before exclamations of how someone else's room was my own. According to others (and a video) nothing else occurred between those two events so I had been conscious the entire period. I don't believe I truly hallucinated, or at least it was nothing like what I expected a hallucination to be. It wasn't so much that I saw the room as my own and wanted to tell everyone about it as it was I was not in control of my actions and my statements were like that of a seizing individual. There was only a brief period of time, mere seconds, where I saw the room actually as my own, and the rest of the time I was involuntarily making exclamations and had a strong feeling of familiarity (as if the room should have been mine). What I expected of a hallucinations was to see or otherwise sense strange images or feelings and be unable to distinguish them from reality, that I would be a fairly rational person wearing a virtual reality helmet feeding me false images. Instead I saw the world pretty much exactly as it was, but my body involuntarily acted on a false notion. After wards I felt no euphoria--at least it was indistinguishable from my normal state.

Overall it was largely disappointing. I can create stronger, more detailed, and more vibrant images in my mind through simple imagination while maintaining the sobriety necessary to enjoy them. Based on the very few but significant experiences I've had I can't imagine find any type of drug enjoyable. From pain relievers to alcohol to powerful hallucinogens they all seem to just dull and numb my mind making it more difficult to enjoy the world around me. The way I naturally perceive the world is far more stimulating.

So don't do drugs kids!

Smoked pot for the first time last weekend. Didn't do much to me, going to need to try another time or two.

Yeah, if want to trip like that, you need to try real drugs. Not talking acid or shrooms, either, because anyone with even the most tenuous grasp on reality will still be able to say, "Haha, that's not real". Nope, to hallucinate the way you expected you need to deprive yourself of sleep for I suggest a minimum of 72 hours. This is easily accomplished via meth. Another, faster-acting alternative is huffing gas. You will see God during your time travels on gas. I say huff some gas. Let's huff gas.


Edited, Jul 3rd 2010 4:41am by Barkingturtle

You need drugs to do that?

I don't know how much research you've done into the whole area, and I didn't bother reading all of the replies, but here goes.

There are four kinds of drugs described as "hallucinogens". I've done three of them, pretty much. Salvia is the only member of the fourth group and the one time I did it I tried chewing a very very concentrated extract but spat it all out on accident, so that didn't work out. I do know that it's so vastly different from the other kinds that you shouldn't even try to compare them.

The other kinds work differently.

True hallucinogens (i.e. nightshade alkaloids) make you actually see stuff that isn't there. They also cause you to forget everything you see and do during the experience and you're not aware you're in an altered state because you're way beyond that point. The dosages are usually so low that even if you take the safe way (i.e. use the pure compound rather than plant parts) there's still a huge margin for error. And basically even at "safe" dosages you get so dehydrated that even attempting to drink can damage the mucous membrane in your throat and will at the very least hurt like hell. The only time I've been given one of those was as part of the mix of drugs they gave me when I had surgery to stabilise my heartrate, so I was unconscious anyway, ergo don't remember any of it.

The second kind are dissociatives - cough syrup, PCP and ketamine basically. The experience is... different. You lose the ability to understand basic things (like how the chinchilla is wet because it took a bath in its own water bowl), along with basic motor functions (like getting your legs to move in a way that resembles normal walking) and any feeling in your body - those drugs are seriously strong anaesthetics. You also definitely have a shifted perception of reality, can't really describe that, though.
It's not a pleasant experience in my opinion, but it's certainly... different, and I've found that university on low dosages of that stuff can be very entertaining. You sort of get tunnel vision sometimes and this really intense focus on the tutor.
Apart from the whole thing being really unpleasant, I've seen enough people get brain damage from these, and nearly as many psychoses triggered by them as by cocaine, so it's just really awful.

The third kind are psychedelics <3
I don't even want to call them drugs because I honestly think that word can't sum up what they can do for you. Psychedelics are stuff like shrooms, LSD, 2C-I, Ayahuasca... I've got long, long lists lying around in the spare room. They sort of overlay reality with a film of awesome (or horrible if you've got the wrong mindset) and you end up having silly misconceptions, like thinking you're on a run way, or mistaking a poodle for a pygmy goat, or (this is less silly) thinking you can fly. For me personally, that's not the main point, though. Very low dosages of psychedelics and also the afterglow of LSD give a new perspective on the world and as long as you're sober enough to write stuff down and such it's really interesting to go over your notes at a later date. Also, experiencing greener grass and more melodical birdsong kicks ***. Higher dosages have their merits, the inability to quantify space and time is quite curious.
I've also had "visions" that correspond to religious stuff I'd never seen before the time on very high dosages with my eyes closed, but I don't really wanna think about those.
And now I want to do acid again but I know I'd never be able to fit it into my schedule as I want a lot of time to evaluate my experience afterwards and I don't have large enough chunks of time I can just take off anymore.

Another little thing, I've found that MDMA, as much as I hate it, makes dreamworlds I step into (which is what you were referring to, I think) much more vivid, or at least used to. After a while, it stopped doing anything even remotely positive for me except providing a sort of euphoria that was just fake and icky and triggering epileptic seizures, so I don't even want to do it anymore.

.

Be that as it may, it's my understanding that you played FFXI while sober. For the life of me, I haven't been able to figure out how anyone could have fun doing so sober. At least when I'm high (pot onry nowadays), I'm not bored doing so.

When I did drugs, internet forums were not even hallucinated about yet. Life was easier back then.

Your Brain. Ur brian on forUms.

It means he still hasn't gotten over the China thread.

pfffft. lol, the levels of "amazement" expands much further than that one single thread...