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The Big & Dandy ++++ Thread

The Shulgin scale is useful as a tool to compare different people's reactions to drugs, but I really don't see much use for it myself anymore. I used to really try to figure out where I had landed with each experience, but now I mostly find it arbitrary now. Little plus signs are not what I experienced at all...
 
Too many people automatically assign a ++++ to their trips because it was more intense than their last +++. A trancendental experience has nothing to do with how "intensely" your tripping. I'd say that 40 of my 50 or so trips have at a +++ (but that range is huge w/in that category). This includes some of the most difficult experiences I've had and some relatively light ones as well that still qualified as +++.

This scale was really just designed as a way for Shulgin and his colleagues to determine the activity of a new drug. If it got them to a +++ w/o too many toxicity/body load issues, then it was a winner and it probably had the potential to provide a ++++.
 
dondante makes a good point as well, it can sometimes be very difficult to properly identify a ++++ trip, at first, i was unclear as to which plateau id reached, but i was sure it was like nothing ive ever experienced before, it took me a few more trips, and a lot of research to realize exactly what happened
 
Semantics aside, a Shulgin +4 is defined as an experience that is unrelated to the intensity of the drug (although it often occurs during an extremely intense trip), a state of mind reached that is a trotal breakthrough. I've had three trips I would consider to be +4, and in each of them I was definitely aware that I had reached a special place that would stand out from every other trip. My first was actually not physically a very strong trip compared to where I've been since. it was my first trip, which was on mushrooms, but the novelty of the experience allowed the effects to manifest themselves fully and I experienced oneness. I felt as if I had woken up from my life which was a pleasant dream, and I became aware of a vastly huge infinity of experience, past and future, that makes up my higher self.

I've also had two other experiences where I reached a place of oneness and realization that my life is transient, just a blip in the radar of existence, and those were my other two +4s. In my experience, they involve ego loss and new realization. If you reach the same place again, I would not personally call it a +4, because it's something you've already been to.

The experiences can be life-changing, but it just depends on what you do with yourself afterwards. During the experience, especially if it's your first, you will probably get the feeling that your life will be changed forever. In practice, this is rarely true. But if you apply yourself and the lessons you've learned in that state, and use some discpline, it can elicit positive changes. Then again, so can any experience. A full-on transcendental psychedelic state is just one of those.
 
Thanks

Thanks a lot. This really helps me to understand the nature of the magical +4.
No more questions –so far!
So reintegration seems to be everything.
I thing there are no rules of thumb to reintegrate or make the +4 as friendly as possible.
 
Consistently? I'd say the closest things to that would be 5-MeO-DMT and Ketamine. n,n-DMT can definitely produce the state as well but I find it to produce much less of a head change than 5-MeO-DMT, which produces a state of oneness. Ketamine reliably produces an extremely profound state of pure consciousness.

Good candidates for powerful, full-on psychedelic states capable of +4 experiences include (but are not limited to):

mushrooms
2C-E/2C-P
LSD
DOB
Any 4-HO-tryptamine, and to a lesser extent the 4-AcO versions.
Any tryptamine really
DOC

These are in approximate descending order of power and reliability according to my own experience, and as such is totally subjective.
 
I'll do my best to explain the nature of "++++'s" as I've had two of them in my entire life's duration... granted I've had MANY STRONG +++'s but they are not anything like a ++++ experience, nothing at all.

As for what drug it would take to attain this, it all depends. The only NEED you would have to have is for your body to be very comfortable so that your mind would not have to bother itself with feelings of being ill. Personally I've had my true +4's on mescaline and 2C-E.

There is no thinking to yourself "Oh I think in 3 hours I am going to try to have a +4 experience when this drug peaks".. it just does not work like that. You will be relaxed and most likely in a strong state of thought...and then, it builds. One of the occurances that was the same with both of my experiences was that it felt like my entire life was building up for this moment. This was the peak, not of my trip, but of my life. Existence as you know it comes to an end. This experience becomes your life... NOTHING else matters..and as it takes grip, your outside stimuli become less meaningful. I honestly cannot remember if my eyes were closed or open during these experiences..

For the duration of the event, time will probably lose all meaning. I was not able to tell if I had been in the experience for 4 hours, 2 days, 5 seconds or 40 years. I do not think you are ever fully aware of the experience until you come out of it either..because without your ego there to tell you THIS IS HAPPENING TO ME then you have no way of really processing it as happening. It is just beyond words, and I'll sound more and more like a fool if I try to explain. Lets just say, to answer your question, I do not believe you can direct a trip towards a +4..it must just happen.

I don't exactly understand your question of avoiding a +4 in a trip if you are at peace with your life. Being in a +4 IS being at perfect peace. I don't really see a way of avoiding it when it starts to happen, because it would not have happened if you were trying to avoid it.
 
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Xorkoth said:
Consistently? I'd say the closest things to that would be 5-MeO-DMT and Ketamine. n,n-DMT can definitely produce the state as well but I find it to produce much less of a head change than 5-MeO-DMT, which produces a state of oneness. Ketamine reliably produces an extremely profound state of pure consciousness.

Good candidates for powerful, full-on psychedelic states capable of +4 experiences include (but are not limited to):

mushrooms
2C-E/2C-P
LSD
DOB
Any 4-HO-tryptamine, and to a lesser extent the 4-AcO versions.
Any tryptamine really
DOC

These are in approximate descending order of power and reliability according to my own experience, and as such is totally subjective.
Click to expand...
wheres pcp, 2cb, amt, and ghb, u seem to be missing a few
 
1200mg of DXM, I was at a showing of the amnityville horror at the planitarium on campus. I wasn't expecting to hit a +4, but when I did time started going by really quickly and I melted into the overhead screen and I really thought I was in the house.

Ketamine- my first time- 250mg plugged (pure S isomer). I was in the ocean, I was in a tornado, I was burried alive with batman action figures. Very hard to explain.
 
GHB providing a ++++? I don't think so. It's not a psychedelic. Passing out defintely does NOT count. ;) Also, the list is only from Xorkoth's experience.

I've been extremely far out with ketamine and salvia (further than any classic hallucinogens), but I don't consider those experiences ++++. I suppose the rare transcendental experience can mean different things to different people, but for some reason the ketamine experience doesn't feel "transcendental" to me like the serotonergic psychedelics. I know it is pretty much worthless to argue over semantics ... it's so difficult to define because words can't describe it. I feel like I have never quite reached that level. I've had glimpses, but I haven't "been there."

Also, I mentioned previously that substances that could provide a +++ would probably have the potential for a ++++. Now that I think about it, at least for me, I'm pretty sure 2C-C, 2C-B, 2C-T-2, and 2C-I are incapable of producing a truely transcendental experience. I've had some very strong and enjoyable trips especially on 2C-B and 2C-T-2, but never got near that state like I had with various tryptamines. I agree that 2C-E has that potential as do many of the tryptamines.
 
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For me, a ++++ is a one time deal. It happened on my first ever psychedelic experience. It was on DXM, but nonetheless, it was definately a ++++. I was on my bed the whole time, I had no clue where I was, who I was, when I was, nothing. And it was complete bliss, nothing has ever compared to that, not mush, L, or E

And before the flames start, I know DXM is inferior to L, but my point still stands.

Wait, what was I talking about
 
I know someone who had a +4 his first and only trip (mushrooms), but it brought up realizations that he had not been seeking. He wanted to remain ignorant and organized religion-based but found it extremely difficult, which led to him later thinking that the drug was "Satan" and that he was damaged and sinful, which led to years of guilt and depression and feelings of worthlessness. Very messy.

He has now completely blocked it out and denied it, but abuses ocycodone and heroin and lives with his parents, and just generally dropped out of life.
 
samadhi_smiles said:
You need not have ingested a chemical to attain ++++.

Peace and Good Luck.
Click to expand...

A very good point. Such an experience can happen as a result of meditation, lucid dreaming, or due to random chance because of other factors in life. Psychedelics do happen to be good catalysts for such experiences, however.

I tend to believe that a real +4 is only possible once in a given situation and point in life. However, I've had 3. They were far apart and each dealt with the matter from a totally different angle. Each has affected the rest of my life profoundly.
 
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