DOSAGE: 20 - 40 mg.
DURATION: 10 - 15 h.
QUANTITATIVE COMMENTS: (with 25 mg) I was first aware of any effects as I was sitting in back of the house on a big fluffy pillow. The sun was warm and the grass tall and green, but I felt strange inside. There was distinct uterine cramping, and I could not find a comfortable position for sitting. The others had gone out to the garden leaving me here. It seemed that walking might relieve the physical discomfort, so I went to find them. Walking was easy, but I was a little light-headed and I had to watch my steps with care. They were not there (we had passed on opposite sides of the house) and I returned in some haste to my warm nest behind the house to find my pillow gone. A strange detail, but it perhaps gave me the flavor for my day. The pillow was for me. It was gone. My place was gone. Therefore I am gone. I am dead and yet I can see and think. The small touch of panic at finding myself dead dispelled any internal concerns and I ran inside to find the others; they had brought my pillow in. I was alive again, but the entire day balanced between the alive unreality and the illusion that I was something removed and merely watching the surrounding alive unreality. Everything that happened was completely unlikely.
Like the soup scene. We decided that some hot soup would be welcome, and so R. brought out three cans of Campbell soup for the three of us. But one was cream mushroom, one asparagus, and one tomato. The discussion as to how to use two cans only, which two, without mixing, and even how to decide to decide was totally beyond any of us. The situation was hopelessly unresolvable, hilariously funny, and distinctly schizophrenic.
Or like the kite scene. We were returning from a short walk to the back of the property, and I spotted a red thing in the parking area. It had not been there before. None of us could identify it from this distance, and we speculated wildly as to what it was, as we came closer. And at the last approach, we found that there was loose string everywhere about the driveway, all part of a downed kite. The red object had apparently fallen from the sky, right here in front of the garage. There had been no sounds of voices of kite-flyers, and there was no one to be seen in any direction. And then one of us spotted a sheet of paper, torn to the center where there was a small hole, and it was flattened up against the kite. There was a message. Apparently whoever had been flying it had put a message on the string, and let the wind take it up to the kite itself. I reached for the sheet of paper, and removed it. Nothing on either side. The message was that there was no message. Exactly out of Marshall McLuhan. Completely appropriate for this particular day.
That evening we were to be picked up by my friends for dinner. Choosing what to wear, how to dress myself, how to adjust my persona to fit other people, all this was chaotic. Somehow the dinner succeeded, but I was able to flip in and out of the immediate company easily, but not completely voluntarily. Sleep was com-fortable that night, and I feel that the entire day had been very intense, not too much fun, but somehow quite rewarding.
(with 30 mg) At the one and a half hour point, I was reminded more than anything of LSD, with a distinct feeling of standing just a few feet to the right of ordinary reality. There has been a mild tremor ever since the first effects were evident, but it doesn't bother me except to make my handwriting uncertain. I would not want to double this level. Suddenly the concept of my 5:30's swept over me. I had a penetrating view of myself as a person who had become invested in a pattern of behavior that I had succumbed to, to come home and complete my day with a transition from the work-world to the home-world, by changing the inside clock at 5:30. My wife had been my 5:30 for nearly 30 years and this had been my tacit agreement with her. Never questioned, never challenged, and certainly never violated. And with her death, I have found myself imposing this same 5:30-ness on myself, as some form of an emasculating pattern that is comfortable and stable. No, it is not comfortable, it is simply the course of the least thought and the least disruption. If I were to meet someone else, would I have such a negative image of myself that I would expect her to become my 5:30 so as not to have to disrupt these tired and comfortable patterns? That would be completely unfair to this other person. And I can see where it is completely destructive to me. No new person should ever have to play my wife's old role. I need never again play my old role. And I won't.
(with 30 mg) At 2:20 PM I ingested 30 mg of TM. It had a mildly alkaloid taste. Since the afternoon was warm, I took a two mile walk with the dog, and with my two companions K.T. and T.T., both also with 30 mg. We talked without any difficulty even after the onset of the first signs of effect. The major emotional and physical effects came on very gradually and quite pleasantly as we sat in the patio. But soon we all grew chilled, and put on more clothing. Nothing really helped the inward chill, and we were to discover that it stayed with us throughout the ex-perience. At 3:30 we went inside where the room temperature was set at 70 degrees, and we all lay down. I launched into an engrossing, somewhat chaotic and erotic reverie, that followed no linear progression, but which lasted perhaps an hour. The ease of talking surprised me; the content was cogent and I felt myself to be articulate. It dawned on me after about two hours had gone by, that the height of the experiment had already passed without any real exhilaration on my part. But my companions suggested that my expectations from the past had been misleading me and, as time went on, they proved to be correct. The clarity and the continued ability to talk, especially with K.T. on a personally difficult topic, were for me the particular genius of this material. When I went inward, which I could do without effort, the sensations were neutral in affect but restful in some way. But coming out was entirely lucid and pleasant. I soon found that I preferred this. I enjoyed a light supper at 8:30 and found the dropoff gentle, and the conversation most amiable until we separated at 1:00 AM. Sleep did not come until 3:00 AM and then only after 10 mg Librium to quell the active mental processes. The next day I awoke around 8:30 AM feeling languid but cheerful.
(with 40 mg) For quite a while there was some physical concern. Not actual nausea but a generalized uneasiness, with a distinct body tremor. There was little urine produced (500 mL in 18 hours), and I felt the need to search out fluids. There was mild intestinal cramping. I found that my thoughts were able to go in several directions at once, but since they stayed nowhere long enough to structure anything, this was more annoying than constructive. I saw this as a reality shell about me like a Möbius strip, continuous, yet with no consistent side being presented. I was reminded of a similar place with DOB, some few years ago. While lying down with eyes closed, I found the imagery to be very impressive, but my thought processes were quite convoluted and disjointed. Some were most interesting, and some were ugly. I cannot see this as a party drug.
EXTENSIONS AND COMMENTARY: The dosage range has been broadened to include the 20 milligram level, in that several subjects found that even with that small amount there was difficulty in walking and in keeping one's equilibrium. Walking was described as a floating procedure, and one could tilt to one side or the other if care was not taken. Anorexia was occasionally noted, and most people commented on some degree of anesthesia to touch.
All in all, this drug evoked a mixed bag of responses. The most startling and unexpected property was the dramatic increase in potency over the parent prototype, mescaline. The substitution of a sulfur atom for an oxygen atom increased the power of the drug some ten-fold, without any apparent decrease in complexity of action. As there were many materials that were outgrowths of mescaline with the studies of ethyl this and diethyl that, each and all of these would be interesting candidates for synthesis with this or that oxygen atom replaced with sulfur. Most of these have been made, and many of them have proven to be interesting.