Flickering
Bluelighter
I have taken three renowned hallucinogenic substances at threshold doses, on all three occasions intending to have a full trip, and to this day I've never been able to experience any of them 'in full'. So I am left only with the initial impressions the semi-trips left with me. I wonder if anyone else here has had threshold experiences with a particular substance, but never went for the full ride? What were your thoughts? Did you later take it at a higher dose, and if so, how did your first impressions compare to the later experiences?
My own were:
Salvia divinorum: I had about fifteen leaves but I chose to only chew five of them. To my regret, the other ten rotted before I could chew them too. The experience lasted half an hour, and felt completely different to any psychedelic I've ever taken. It's very hard to describe. There was a sense of extreme severity. I was at the footsteps of an unfathomable, definitely female, presence. She challenged me for daring to enter HER realm. I could feel the vastness and fear of her awesome being in the beyond, yet could not grasp the fullness of it - it was only a glimpse. There was a certain... hollowness to my surroundings, and a feeling of being somewhere sacred yet utterly alien. It was tense and uncomfortable. Towards the end, I had a distinct sense that there were insects crawling all over me. I did not experience any visual effects.
Ayahuasca: I fully expected this elixir to have an intense and terrifying character. I was amazed to find it was more like a friendlier version of magic mushrooms. I first experienced an odd coolness inside my eyes, followed by closed-eye visuals of electronic snakelike vines. There was a sacredness and a hard wisdom to the character of the trip that quickly became apparent and guided me to stop worrying so much about my problems. I was able to step past my worries and see them in an objective light. My mind was clear and I was in a very good, very lucid mood. The good mood lasted for two weeks after the very mild experience.
Ketamine: Snorting 55mg of this unfortunately wasn't enough to give me anything but the lightest effects. Mostly it felt like being drunk. My head felt clear yet my body seemed heavy, and I was detached from my problems and from my self and my usual sense of reality. I watched Milkdrop for a while after realising it wasn't going to get any stronger. I reflected on the absurdity of how humans cling to their problems when the self is a fleeting thing and existence is self-evidently eternal. I experienced a mild, intellectual kind of ego loss as I looked at my own life from a remarkably withdrawn, indifferent angle. I was indifferent to everything. It was nice not to care. I pondered what this surreal state of mind would be like at higher doses, and concluded the strangeness of what it does to your sense of self would be the main threat - if you cannot surrender you will likely find the ego destruction terrifying. That's my hypothesis, anyway. I experienced no visual effects.
My own were:
Salvia divinorum: I had about fifteen leaves but I chose to only chew five of them. To my regret, the other ten rotted before I could chew them too. The experience lasted half an hour, and felt completely different to any psychedelic I've ever taken. It's very hard to describe. There was a sense of extreme severity. I was at the footsteps of an unfathomable, definitely female, presence. She challenged me for daring to enter HER realm. I could feel the vastness and fear of her awesome being in the beyond, yet could not grasp the fullness of it - it was only a glimpse. There was a certain... hollowness to my surroundings, and a feeling of being somewhere sacred yet utterly alien. It was tense and uncomfortable. Towards the end, I had a distinct sense that there were insects crawling all over me. I did not experience any visual effects.
Ayahuasca: I fully expected this elixir to have an intense and terrifying character. I was amazed to find it was more like a friendlier version of magic mushrooms. I first experienced an odd coolness inside my eyes, followed by closed-eye visuals of electronic snakelike vines. There was a sacredness and a hard wisdom to the character of the trip that quickly became apparent and guided me to stop worrying so much about my problems. I was able to step past my worries and see them in an objective light. My mind was clear and I was in a very good, very lucid mood. The good mood lasted for two weeks after the very mild experience.
Ketamine: Snorting 55mg of this unfortunately wasn't enough to give me anything but the lightest effects. Mostly it felt like being drunk. My head felt clear yet my body seemed heavy, and I was detached from my problems and from my self and my usual sense of reality. I watched Milkdrop for a while after realising it wasn't going to get any stronger. I reflected on the absurdity of how humans cling to their problems when the self is a fleeting thing and existence is self-evidently eternal. I experienced a mild, intellectual kind of ego loss as I looked at my own life from a remarkably withdrawn, indifferent angle. I was indifferent to everything. It was nice not to care. I pondered what this surreal state of mind would be like at higher doses, and concluded the strangeness of what it does to your sense of self would be the main threat - if you cannot surrender you will likely find the ego destruction terrifying. That's my hypothesis, anyway. I experienced no visual effects.
