DOSE:

Mescaline

BODY WEIGHT:

160 lb

Naturally derived drug (per trusted supplier), dosage unknown.


This experience took place at a friend's very pleasant, mellow but funky off-campus house when I was in college in 1970. We were mostly on cushions on the floor. I hadn't prepared for the experience, as I didn't known anyone would be bringing the drug and had never tried it or anything else trippier than opiated hash before. I'd had a fair bit of wine and some pot that evening, but was sobering up, and had become rather depressed and a bit nauseated. My friend, who was good at settling me down, got me back in a positive frame of mind and we began to laugh and clown. He asked me if I wanted to try something 'safer and better than acid'. I said I would. He put on some music, possibly CSNY; more about that later.

This was 48 years ago, so I don't recall how long onset took. I remember it as longish, but once the drug came on, time wasn't something I noticed. 
I do remember experiencing some mild, rather rhythmic stomach cramps, but they weren't deeply unpleasant, just a rolling sort of 'pulling' sensation. I also felt something I thought of at the time as flows of pleasant, chilly electrified water on my body from time to time, always moving vertically as if poured down me, mostly from neck/shoulder level.

I found the visual effects utterly lovely, though I didn't get any of the wild 'fractal screensaver' hallucinations you see in the 'what a mescaline trip is like' videos on YouTube. It's possible I was on a lighter dose. Even without the drug, the room had a pleasant light; with the mescaline, the light became a glowing, softly but strongly vivid, sharp-edged separate entity from the room, fitting the space perfectly but not in any way the same as the space. This is extremely hard to describe. I'm not mathematical, but if two solids can have the same dimensions and shape, and yet multiple profoundly different, interpenetrating, harmonious geometries, and if colors can simultaneously and clearly be blue or rose or white and yet not carry the usual meaning or emotional valence of blue or rose or white AT ALL to my brain or body, that's what I was seeing.

And it was all perfectly, cosmically peaceful and okay, and so was I, a sensation I wasn't terribly familiar with at that age. I felt no need to talk/explain it to death in my head--a VERY unfamiliar state. It felt like the quiet presence of God, but without any doctrinal component or any of the usual religious stress or guilt.

The body effects continued throughout, but were only mildly distracting until I began to come down. Tactile sensations were mildly enhanced, but didn't seem important. The weirdest thing is that it was such a visual trip that I lost consciousness of the music as music and began listening to it with my eyes , as masses of light and as instinctive, non-intellectual geometry. I'm a musician, and have never before or since been much of a synesthete. Every other mind-alterant I've ever taken has sent me deep off into the aural-to-brain circuits. This was very different.

Coming down was a little uncomfortable; the stomach cramping was still there, not any worse but somehow more bothersome. My stomach was quite acid, enough to require some baking soda; that may have been the wine from earlier, as we drank some really dreadful shit in those days. This distracted me for only a few minutes, though, and then I was just peaceful, tired, very quiet inside, and a little hungry. I felt good for several days.

PS--It's possible I was on the tricyclic antidepressant Elavil at that point. I don't think so, but again, this was nearly half a century ago. I have no idea if it matters, but knowing the serotonin and/or dopamine effects of most classic hallucinogens, I thought I should mention it.

Exp Year: 1970	ExpID: 112143
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: 20
Published: Jan 29, 2023	Views: 359
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Mescaline (36) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Glowing Experiences (4), General (1)