Miscellaneous Daring to return to psychedelics 30+ years after a heroic dose of LSD

[placebonaut]

could use a bit of advice please.

Had a heroic dose of LSD in my late teens which included an element of a bad trip but was also a positive life changing experience (though as might be common, not 1 I feel the need to repeat at that dosage!), I had 3 other normal LSD trips before that and a few doses of mushrooms (liberty caps), and after the heroic dose had flash backs which reduced in frequency for a couple of years afterwards.

I've stayed away from psychedelics all this time but feel I'm ready to give things another go.

I would like to start very gradual, plan on micro dosing to begin with, and then slowly increasing the dose.

Looking for something other than an LSD experience so I've acquired some 2C-B because I do enjoy visuals very much and Hill Billy mushrooms because they seem to best fit the mental fun side I'm looking for.

I will be taking these solo, a trip sitter is not an option, so even more reason to start with micro dosing and work up.

Plan will be good mindset, nice music, safe environment, I'm comfy taking new substances and managing the anxiety of the unknown that goes with it.

Any advice on the best way to proceed with 1st toe in the water, how fast to titrate up the dose, and getting to threshold/medium dose, possibly with a longer term plan to introduce combos such as MDMA (lots of experience with this), and ketamine (a more recent addition to my box).

Any different psychedelics that I should consider instead/as well as 2C-B and mushrooms? I may try different varieties if the hill billies work out well.

 

[PsychedelicSummer]

2C-B is a great choice, though I'd start at 12-15 mg. IME microdoses can be more anxiety generating with your history. Seems you've got the right attitude regarding set & setting. I'd ad go in with an attitude of that you are going to to accept and face whatever emotions that may come up; breath in to them; stay with what you feel in your body. If too much - change your location; your body posture; music. And have a benzo on hand (mostly to just know that you have it is calming enough to not need it). Even 20 mg 2C-B is very friendly, tough if not used to it, the come up may have some body load. If that's a worry, take some ginger tea and magnesium. Wish you a safe and satisfying trip! Though not easy to find, 2C-T-21, AL-LAD and MIPLA are very forgiving too. From what I've read, 2C-C and 2C-D could also fall in to that category. And 2C-B fly.

 

[placebonaut]

IME microdoses can be more anxiety generating with your history.

is that a general point on all Psychedelics or 2b-B specific?

I'd ad go in with an attitude of that you are going to to accept and face whatever emotions that may come up; breath in to them; stay with what you feel in your body.

this was pretty much how I went about ketamine for the 1st time a few months ago, seemed to worked very well for me, especially as I titrated up to a full hole.

reath in to them; stay with what you feel in your body. If too much - change your location; your body posture; music. And have a benzo on hand (mostly to just know that you have it is calming enough to not need it).

good advice thanks, is xanax best for it's anxiety reduction? familiar with it, diazapem and kpins, guessing that might fit the bill best

come up may have some body load. If that's a worry, take some ginger tea and magnesium.

normally nothing I can't deal with but guess no reason not to have ginger and magnesium anyway

 

[iom]

Yeah, 2C-B is a great choice for getting back to psychedelics. Mushrooms are a bit heavy duty IMO, but everyone is different. With mushrooms, I suggest starting with a fairly large amount, grinding to powder, mixing it, and then measuring and dosing the powder. This reduces the chances of being surprised by the sometimes dramatic variation in potency between pieces.

If you want to start with threshold doses, I suggest ~3 mg 2C-B and ~0.25g of P. Cubensis. Note that Cubensis potency can vary a lot, but that should be "safe" even if you get a pretty potent strain.

 

[pupnik]

@placebonaut I do not agree that microdoses produce anxiety, they merely begin to get the eyes open, and if you are already tense then sure, you begin to see it.
microdoses and mini doses are eye opening things and very valuable ways to spend your days. Like normal life with an open channel to euphoria and resonance.
15mg 2cb is a pretty full on dose. -I love 2cb but it is also a pretty strong stimulant, so you want to be able to move around a bit if you are going that high to start.
My go to with 2cb is about 8-10mg - then repeated in a couple of hours.

I agree with @iom about the size of threshold doses, although it has not been easy for me to measure such small amounts.
I end up doing it by eye with chopped up powder and that is not very good.

at the moment I am 2 hours after taking 50 ug lsd, and that is a very nice way to be while on a holiday on a sunny day.

 

[ErgotFiend]

Make sure you have something to distract your mind with if need be in case anxiety shows up. I like to draw. My friend would play the guitar.
You seem to have a healthy amount of caution and humility. I think the most helpful thing for me has been reading tons of trip reports. There is a lot of wisdom to be found in them. I hope you’ll extract DMT and try freebasing that some time. You can go to that heroic dose level of psychedelia with much less risk

 

[xdrc]

I think 2C-B is a perfectly adequate material for getting reintroduced to psychedelics. When I first started out, I was a stupid teenager and stupidly overestimated how I could handle LSD (I knew Hofmann had 250 μg for his first trip, but he didn't know what was coming so I should be able to handle 200 μg of a pro-drug, after all I have read a couple books and experiences!). Boy was I wrong.

Years later I got myself a nice stash of 2C-B, now more careful, started with 5 mg, then 10 mg, then 15 mg, 18 mg, careful increments. 15 mg at first were already quite intense, but it was easy getting used to it. Especially with phenethylamines while underdosing can be a bit disappointing, it rarely is uncomfortable in my opinion.

2C-B is the safe option, provided you have access to powder and a good scale + volumetric dosing. It doesn't form too much tolerance and doesn't act too long, so if it was not enough, easy to try again after a short break. Once you got your bearings and know what you are looking for you can always make the switch to mushrooms again. But I really believe 2C-B wants you to have a good time Balm for the soul!

 

[placebonaut]

With mushrooms, I suggest starting with a fairly large amount, grinding to powder, mixing it, and then measuring and dosing the powder. This reduces the chances of being surprised by the sometimes dramatic variation in potency between pieces.

I'd not thought of that but seems like sensible sound advice thanks for the tip!

@placebonaut I do not agree that microdoses produce anxiety, they merely begin to get the eyes open, and if you are already tense then sure, you begin to see it.

I'm not feeling anxious about it, just thought that it made sense in my mind to start off low and build up to bigger doses, so it's reassuring to hear thanks

I agree with @iom about the size of threshold doses, although it has not been easy for me to measure such small amounts.
I end up doing it by eye with chopped up powder and that is not very good.

need to do a bit more research but I thought given 2C-B is more visual and less mental than mushrooms that 2C-B would be a better starting point for me, I have pills, plan to crush them and either weigh them using 1mg scales or put them in solution (have read that 2C-B is water soluble, but not sure how practical this option is), then will measure out a controlled amount and build up gradually

Make sure you have something to distract your mind with if need be in case anxiety shows up. I like to draw. My friend would play the guitar.
You seem to have a healthy amount of caution and humility. I think the most helpful thing for me has been reading tons of trip reports. There is a lot of wisdom to be found in them. I hope you’ll extract DMT and try freebasing that some time. You can go to that heroic dose level of psychedelia with much less risk

thanks, yes I do generally read a lot of trip reports before I try anything, learn so much that way.

DMT is on my to do list, in fact I almost went down that route 1st given it's duration, and might use that once I feel comfy beyond micro dosing

Years later I got myself a nice stash of 2C-B, now more careful, started with 5 mg, then 10 mg, then 15 mg, 18 mg, careful increments. 15 mg at first were already quite intense, but it was easy getting used to it. Especially with phenethylamines while underdosing can be a bit disappointing, it rarely is uncomfortable in my opinion.

2C-B is the safe option, provided you have access to powder and a good scale + volumetric dosing. It doesn't form too much tolerance and doesn't act too long, so if it was not enough, easy to try again after a short break. Once you got your bearings and know what you are looking for you can always make the switch to mushrooms again. But I really believe 2C-B wants you to have a good time Balm for the soul!

great thanks, this is reassuring, I'm very happy to underdose and be disappointed, then increase the dose gradually, much safer way to do things in my mind.

Don't have access to powder, but what should be a decent source of quality pills which I'll measure and record dose & effects against each time - I'm enjoy keeping a trip log of most everything I do!

 

[xdrc]

If you must use powder, I suggest homogenising a decent quantity of pills and titrating from there. 2C-B is very friendly indeed, and once you get used to it can be used over a wide dosage range, but in the beginning I think it is better to have a little bit finer control. Unfortunately even pills from the same batch can have noticeable spread in dosage due to improper manufacturing.

In any case, I believe there is a high likelihood of it treating you right.

 

[placebonaut]

If you must use powder, I suggest homogenising a decent quantity of pills and titrating from there. 2C-B is very friendly indeed, and once you get used to it can be used over a wide dosage range, but in the beginning I think it is better to have a little bit finer control. Unfortunately even pills from the same batch can have noticeable spread in dosage due to improper manufacturing.

In any case, I believe there is a high likelihood of it treating you right.

makes sense to use a number of pills to help average out the dosage, and get finer control, nice idea.

you mention homogenising though which is more about mixing fat and water together, I thought 2C-B was water soluble and not fat soluble, I think you might be more talking about making a homogeneous solution which is a blend of all the pills i.e. a consistent strength overall. Just checking my understanding of 2C-B solubility isn't wrong

 

[xdrc]

makes sense to use a number of pills to help average out the dosage, and get finer control, nice idea.

you mention homogenising though which is more about mixing fat and water together, I thought 2C-B was water soluble and not fat soluble, I think you might be more talking about making a homogeneous solution which is a blend of all the pills i.e. a consistent strength overall. Just checking my understanding of 2C-B solubility isn't wrong

I was suggesting crushing the pills together to a big pile of very fine powder by mortar and pestle. This should avoid hotspots pretty well if done correctly, but you can go further by making a solution. 2C-B is rather stable in aq. solution, but you need to use enough and pill binders could make it a hassle I imagine, plus it is hard to judge for complete extraction from the non-soluble binders etc. I think grinding to a fine powder, measuring the total mass of powder and dividing it by the amount of pills that went into to dose one "average" single pill would be good enough for your purposes, provided you have an accurate scale. If not, volumetric dosing is great, but you might want to add a bacteriostatic.

 

[cnnka]

Idk about 2CB , but I have walked away from psychedelics too for similar reasons.
IMO if I wanted to make a comeback I would do it it with mushrooms a nice tea with low dosage is actually very smooth and you can easily cut it off by eat some food and take a benzo whereas with a chemical you’re stuck.

 

[xdrc]

I agree that low dose mushrooms are a good option too, especially if you follow iom's recommendation of blending them.

But you are not any more or less stuck with a "synthetic", especially one that is so short acting as 2C-B (ime, it is a little bit shorter than mushrooms).

 

[iom]

In general, I'm always very reluctant to suggest mixing powders because it can be very problematic. However, mixing crushed tablets from the same manufacturer may be ok. I think using the mortar and pestle is a good idea as is trying to grind as finely as possible.

What you don't want to do is try to dilute or "cut" the powder in any way, because then you are mixing two dissimilar powders which can be very difficult to do properly. Fortunately, any tablets will probably dilute enough that one can use a fairly inexpensive scale to measure the powders to determine the dose. My first drug scale was a manual balance that could reliably indicate to +/- 5 mg. That would probably work fine for measuring tablet powder. I actually used it to prepare many of my early volumetric solutions, using it to confirm that the 250 mg (or whatever) I ordered was actually 250 mg. (Often it was quite a bit more!)

 

[placebonaut]

I was suggesting crushing the pills together to a big pile of very fine powder by mortar and pestle. This should avoid hotspots pretty well if done correctly, but you can go further by making a solution. 2C-B is rather stable in aq. solution, but you need to use enough and pill binders could make it a hassle I imagine, plus it is hard to judge for complete extraction from the non-soluble binders etc. I think grinding to a fine powder, measuring the total mass of powder and dividing it by the amount of pills that went into to dose one "average" single pill would be good enough for your purposes, provided you have an accurate scale. If not, volumetric dosing is great, but you might want to add a bacteriostatic.

only reason for thinking about putting it in solution would be to make it more controllable in terms of finer dosing granularity, if it's going to make it harder then I won't bother. I'd rather not mix it with any other powder though, think that's more likely to make things worse if anything as adding in another variable.

maybe I'm overthinking it! I've 5 x 25mg 2C-B pills, and scales that weigh to 0.001 grams.

it should be fine to just go with crushing and weighing a dose.

Just need to read some more trip reports and decide on 2C-B or mushrooms 1st, and at what dosage.

Is Xanax or Diazepam a good idea to help things be a bit more relaxed? should I just have that on standby or better to take it at the same time?

 

[iom]

it should be fine to just go with crushing and weighing a dose.

I think so, especially with a 0.001g scale.

Is Xanax or Diazepam a good idea to help things be a bit more relaxed? should I just have that on standby or better to take it at the same time?

Generally speaking, no. Even if you have a difficult trip, it's usually better to ride it through if you can. Only If you feel you are having a crisis and want to greatly soften or abort the trip, you can use these drugs to to so.

 

[xdrc]

maybe I'm overthinking it! I've 5 x 25mg 2C-B pills, and scales that weigh to 0.001 grams.

it should be fine to just go with crushing and weighing a dose.

One note: dealers often claim to have 25 mg pills, but in reality quantitative testing typically puts them at around half that, like 10 - 14 mg. There are of course pills that are dosed higher, and ones which are dosed lower. Personally I'd say a "full" psychedelic dose with all important effects expressed is 20 mg for me. So if your pills are say only 5 x 12 mg in reality, that would only be 60 mg which are 3 full doses for me. Enough to start slow titration, but as soon as you figured out where to dose you might run out already. Variability in psychedelics both in users and also individual preference for each situation is why I believe such compounds should only ever be sold as pure (!) powders and responsibility for accurate dosing be put into the hands of the user.

Benzodiazepines should only ever be used in case of emergency in my opinion, not to pre-load a trip. With careful dose titration, they are not needed at all to be honest. This is if you actually want to encounter and process subconscious material. I know there are some people who pre-load with benzodiazepines to have fun and visual trips, but for me this is besides the point and I think there is a tendency to get off the rails and when then shit hits the fan, it can probably go really bad.

 

[placebonaut]

ok thanks both, very helpful

Only If you feel you are having a crisis and want to greatly soften or abort the trip, you can use these drugs to to so.

not really thought about aborting the trip, can xanax be used to bring you right back down then?

Enough to start slow titration, but as soon as you figured out where to dose you might run out already.

I get your point, not too worried about that right now, I'm just at the point where I want to try a very gentle dose to see if it's and experience I want to continue with, if I do then I'll get another batch and work up again to a full dose

 

[xdrc]

not really thought about aborting the trip, can xanax be used to bring you right back down then?

I don't have experience combining benzodiazepines with psychedelics, but from my understanding they do not "stop", but rather "calm" the trip. So to speak they calm the storm, but it is still there in a way, you still trip, things might even be still intense, but you "give less of a shit". But I've read some reports of people eating benzodiazepines like smarties and yet tripping very hard.

You mentioned in the first post you intent of managing the anxiety of the unknown. Are you on benzodiazepines for anxiety regularly?

 

[placebonaut]

You mentioned in the first post you intent of managing the anxiety of the unknown. Are you on benzodiazepines for anxiety regularly?

I've been trying lots of new things, with that comes anxiety such as "will I have an allergic reaction", or is this new supplier/batch safe, that's what I was more referring to - I'm very selective about who I buy from to help derisk this, I titrate up, and have home test kits + know about using test services such as Wendios in the UK.

I don't suffer from anxiety, not taking anything for it, I use benzo's generally after stims to help with the come down.

So don't think anxiety should play a major part of going back to psychedelics.

I gave ketamine a try for the 1st time a short while ago and really enjoyed, but took it slow and built up to a K-hole, even so the 1st little test naturally creates a bit of angst around what's going to happen! Just human nature