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Miscellaneous Stomach contents and experience intensity

S

scabbard

Bluelighter
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Apr 2, 2024
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How much does the contents of your stomach (i.e. empty vs. full of food) have an effect on the intensity of a psychedelic experience for orally ingested psychedelics like 2C-B, mushrooms, LSD, etc.? Is it really important to fast before you take them, or would not doing so just delay the onset but not reduce the overall intensity once they kick in?

Also, what about for insufflated substances like ketamine - would stomach contents affect the experience in terms of intensity, duration, onset, etc.?
 
on the one hand, fasting, like breath holding, is a good expression of delayed gratification which is a fine meta behavior to be proud of, and that pride is self soothing in itself.
otherwise this varies from person to person,
material moving in the gut is a confirmation signal of being here and now which is good and self soothing.
vomiting is a bit traumatic, but also is a release and that also is self soothing
we vary - person to person - and context to context - as to what smells and images are nauseating.
the come up involves many sensations that are confusing, and that is nauseating to many people but also a confirmation that the drugs are working as well.

I recommend a habit of small meals through the day, easy to prepare, easy to access. with or without pre-fasting.
 
As a rule of thumb for any drugs taken orally, I try to eat a small, light meal ~3 hours before.
I'll talk about mushrooms in particular because I’ve experimented with how different amounts of food and timing affect the experience more than others.

If I take it on a totally empty stomach, I find that the peak comes on hard and early into the trip. It seems to come on really strong and then fizzle out almost as fast as it came on.

If I take it on a full stomach, it comes on rather slow and the peak is blunted, but I still prefer it to taking it on an empty stomach.

If I take it ~3 hours after a small, light meal, it comes on fairly fast without being unpleasant, forming a nice peak that comes on in waves. I prefer this option, and it seems to be the best option for other psychs too.
 
pupnik said:
on the one hand, fasting, like breath holding, is a good expression of delayed gratification which is a fine meta behavior to be proud of, and that pride is self soothing in itself.
otherwise this varies from person to person,
material moving in the gut is a confirmation signal of being here and now which is good and self soothing.
vomiting is a bit traumatic, but also is a release and that also is self soothing
we vary - person to person - and context to context - as to what smells and images are nauseating.
the come up involves many sensations that are confusing, and that is nauseating to many people but also a confirmation that the drugs are working as well.

I recommend a habit of small meals through the day, easy to prepare, easy to access. with or without pre-fasting.
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Quite an artfully crafted response, thanks for sharing. You're addressing a different aspect (primarily emotional) of the effect of having food in the stomach, which is interesting. That's not really what I was getting at with my initial question but without a doubt, the state of our emotional consciousness is likely on par if not more influential on the experience during a trip in comparison to the physiological state of one's body.
 
In most cases having a full stomach significantly delays onset and reduces intensity but it depends on the psychedelic; LSD under the tongue for example having eaten recently might not make such a huge difference but for 2cb it can turn an hour to come up into three while reducing intensity and adding nausea at the same time. In all cases being able to feel food in my stomach makes the come up more uncomfortable. Most psychedelics kill my appetite anyway so by the time it kicks in I'm not worried about being hungry.

Re ketamine: I once made the mistake of trying to hole immediately after eating a big bowl of granola and came to to find both my self and my laptop covered in peanut butter flavoured vomit.

That's been my experience anyway. I try to fast for six hours and know better than to even try if it's been less than three. These things to vary from person to person though ymmv.
 
Shinji Ikari said:
In most cases having a full stomach significantly delays onset and reduces intensity but it depends on the psychedelic; LSD under the tongue for example having eaten recently might not make such a huge difference but for 2cb it can turn an hour to come up into three while reducing intensity and adding nausea at the same time. In all cases being able to feel food in my stomach makes the come up more uncomfortable. Most psychedelics kill my appetite anyway so by the time it kicks in I'm not worried about being hungry.

Re ketamine: I once made the mistake of trying to hole immediately after eating a big bowl of granola and came to to find both my self and my laptop covered in peanut butter flavoured vomit.

That's been my experience anyway. I try to fast for six hours and know better than to even try if it's been less than three. These things to vary from person to person though ymmv.
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Haha I hope your laptop fared ok. Thanks for the info.
 
I think in general, the slower a drug absorbs into the body and brain, the more the peak experience tends to be blunted, for better or worse. It's not something that can be compensated for completely with a bigger dose either. The results are qualitatively different regardless, just as they are qualitatively different with different routes of administration. I also think a significant part of a psychedelic drug's apparent effects have to do with its innate pharmacokinetics, that is the time course over which it is absorbed under any particular circumstances.

Many traditional contexts of psychedelic drug use involve fasting, and as already suggested, many people find eating during a trip or even the presence of food in the stomach to be nausea inducing. For others, eating some amount of food before or during a trip can reduce with nausea. There's no simple answer here given that trip-induced nausea likely has multiple mechanisms. For starters, there is a direct action of the psychedelic on the gut, which tends to manifest very early, before the drug has been appreciably absorbed. The serotonin increases gut activity, but may also induce an immune response that could lead to a rejection of its contents. Then there is the vagal response, in which the vagus nerve reacts to the rapid change in physiological state that occurs as the drug is absorbed into the blood. Then there is the brain, and there are likely multiple mechanisms that can be activated here as well. The distinction really comes down to the timing, which may be easier to pin down with drugs that develop slowly like mescaline versus rapidly like psilocybin. If the nausea is felt very early, then it may be gut related. If it sets in along with other physical effects, then it may be vagus related. If it sets in on the approach to the peak or even after, then it may be in the brain or possibly the emotional/somatic system.

When I was young, I tried to start on an empty stomach, but if I started before my first meal of the day, I sometimes ate a piece of buttered toast before I took my dose. This didn't seem to affect the onset too much but seemed to smooth things out in the stomach. These days, I'm more likely to start early in my day, and I almost always fast. On most days, I go about 14 hours without eating anyway, and I engage in plenty of exercise before my first meal of the day. I believe this helps keep my blood sugar very stable and trains my liver to maintain a good glycogen store, so that if I need to push my fast out to 20+ hours while running around tripping, it's not a big deal for me. For other people, fasting may be much more difficult and may lead to physiological stress that alters their trip for the worse.
 
I think overall, my emotional state has a far greater effect on my experience, in a psychedelic trip or otherwise, than my stomach contents. I'm not as connected to my body as I'd like to be, so that might be part of the reason, but I don't notice that food or lack thereof makes me nauseous when taking psychedelics. I do agree that it does probably affect the intensity/peak of the experience.
 
In my experience, yes, stomach content does affect come-up time and intensity of the peak, with some molecules being more affected than others. I find that psychedelic phenethylamines are particularly susceptible to stomach content, and I find that you get the most out of your dose if you take them on an empty stomach. Mushrooms are also significantly affected, more than pure tryptamines. LSD and analogues seem the least affected, probably related to faster and more efficient absorbtion.

I will say though that I don't really find complete fasting before dosing to be all that benefitial. Specially on longer trips, I feel that it makes me feel fatigued by the end and it increases negative side effects. Usually when I trip I don't get hungry; and even if I do I can't eat all that much before feeling bloated. So if I'm starting the trip on an empty stomach, after several hours of tripping my body would be begging for some calories, and either I feel fatigued and weak or start getting uncomfortable grastrointestinal symptoms, cramps, acid reflux, etc.

As @SotPoker1012 said above, I always prefer eating a relatively light meal around 3 hours before dosing, so as to have a nice ballance between having an relatively empty stomach but also not going into the trip on hypoglycemia or having my stomach acids burning a hole into my starving mucosas by the end of it.
 
I don't fast before tripping because the hunger experience will ruin the trip for me, but I don't eat heavy either. I just make sure my previous meal is mostly digested before getting started. Few things are worse for me than coming up on a full stomach. I've vomited more than once before from taking LSD with a full stomach.
 
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I wonder if the effect of a psychedelic is reduced on a full stomach due to the fact that energy in the body is being devoted to breaking down the food, or if it's because a psychedelic that's administered orally when the stomach is full of food simply takes longer to digest because there's other contents in the stomach.

I would be interested to know if the intensity of the experience would be reduced to the same degree if one were to plug a pill instead of eating it, with a full stomach in both cases.
 
It's most likely a matter of stomach contents slowing absorption, leading to lower peak levels and a less rapid "ramping" of concentrations, which with psychedelics is likely important for intensity in addition to peak concentration level. Anal/rectal administration will almost certainly avoid the slowing effect of food in the stomach. Of course the effects will also be qualitatively different than oral with an empty GI system because the drug will probably be absorbed much more quickly. A more rapid ramping of concentration can sometimes increase the chances of nausea, which is why splitting/spreading-out mescaline doses (and other things) can sometimes help avoid nausea. YMMV.
 
My GI tract ends at the ileum, so take this with a grain of salt, but the fasting advice is usually to reduce nausea risks with certain things like mushrooms and mescaline imo. I've taken LSD, 2C-B, DOB, DOC, DOM, various 25X-NBXX compounds, mescaline, mushrooms, allylescaline, 3 other 4-substituted tryptamines, LSA, etc. right after eating and I've never had any issues personally. Hell, after you trip enough you start to get psychedelic munchies sometimes which are fascinating.
 
scabbard said:
I wonder if the effect of a psychedelic is reduced on a full stomach due to the fact that energy in the body is being devoted to breaking down the food, or if it's because a psychedelic that's administered orally when the stomach is full of food simply takes longer to digest because there's other contents in the stomach.
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Rather your second option, the absorption through gastrointestinal mucosa is slowed down by, and the doses are dilluted in, the stomach contents.

If you were to administer intravenously, your probably would have an almost instantaneous come-up even on a full stomach. Plugging would probably be similar; though I would wager having empty bowels would also help absorption to an extent in that case too.
 
When plugging something like 2C-B, as opposed to taking it orally, I know the onset will be quicker but will the overall duration be shortened as well?
And how do you take 2C-B rectally? Normally I weigh it out and then put it in a HPMC pill capsule for oral dosing. I was going to use that same pill capsule and then insert it rectally but google said that HPMC pill capsules aren't suitable for suppositories.
 
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OK I answered my own question. Yes the onset is much quicker, and the duration is shortened as well. 11mg went pretty strong for about 3 hours. Definitely nice to be able to have that full experience but not have it last as long.
 
I have to ask what you meant by insufflation. I worked in the operating room so the only insufflation I'm familiar with is using gas to fill the abdomen to create room for laparoscopic surgery. I'm guessing you didn't mean it that way.
 
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