Taking notes

[a tree]

Hello,

I´m wondering if many users here are taking notes about the psychedelics they use(d). If I havent taken a substance for a few months I often cant remember details like what my previous dosage was. It would propably be helpful to keep notes which contain dosage, set, setting,... of your previous experiences so one knows how much to take, how long it will last, what combinations were worthiwhile so on.

Some people here must have tried a ton of different psychedelics. Its hard to imagine that they can keep everything in their heads for such a long time

 

[krrl]

I do take some notes, usually of the time (of administration / come-up / plateau), the substance & the dose. If the effects are particularly interesting, I might also write them down, though I usually let myself just enjoy them. I do actually remember a lot though and haven't needed to check my notes for dose references, for me it's rather to keep track of time during the experience (& eventually to know if it's ok to redose & if yes, when to do it). I used to keep a calendar of days that I'm using vs. days I'm not using but stopped a few years ago.

 

[knockout_mice]

I can easily remember my doses, since I don't use psychedelics that often. I recommend taking audio notes. Sometimes the trip becomes too fast and speedy and writing in that state seems a really slow way to record your thoughts.

k_m

 

[hypnagogic]

I tried taking notes for a bit but found that during certain trips I would obsess over them and try very hard to write out things that I just couldn't put into words properly. Wasted a lot of time I could have enjoyed doing other things. I find I have an easy enough time remembering each psychedelic experience without notes, no matter how many I have.

I did try recording notes one time during a particularly intense experience and on the come down was surprised to find I'd been in a thought loop and had an hour long clip of me reciting the same few sentences over and over.

 

[Sandozer]

I've been thinking about taking notes during my experiences, but only as needed. For example, I might stumble upon a really neat idea or concept, and have no way of recording it, then it's lost forever in the melting pot.

I'd say that the need for note taking is dependent on the frequency/intensity of trips and how many compounds one favors(and what you want from the experience). I don't need to take rigorous notes to retain information because I don't trip more than bi monthly and I only really favor LSD and 4-aco-dmt(plus I'm usually tripping too hard during the peak to take notes and don't feel like taking notes after such experiences), but people with more of a plethora of compounds and stringent guidelines to their research (e.g. Shulgin) may very well require note taking strategies of said magnitude. I myself just use my watch for the duration and hang on for the "ride". .

 

[MagickalKat777]

I used to take notes but I found over time that I would waste so much of the experience on notes... so I'd try to get a retrospective typed up and posted somewhere the next day or when I was coming down or at a redose point, etc.

 

[Black Rabbit of Inle]

I've been thinking about taking notes during my experiences, but only as needed. For example, I might stumble upon a really neat idea or concept, and have no way of recording it, then it's lost forever in the melting pot.

I've tried that. It was near impossible to make any sense of it when I was sober though. Words were scrawled across paper in every direction and it was nowhere near linear.

Taking notes on dosages etc would be good for substances with low doses and a sharp dosage curve

 

[EliCash]

I've always left a word processor open on my laptop and jotted down sparse notes, nothing too time consuming or in depth, just stuff to help spark my memory when I write a retrospective the next day and keep track of dosages and timing(how long was the come up, plateau, and come down).

A few times I tried writing one while on DXM... everytime I gave up when I started tilting me head at odd angles thinking that would make it easier to parse out the words on the screen lol

 

[kingme]

oddly enough i always try to write up a couple of notes here on bl... easy to keep track of psychedelics or substances ive used and how they affected me...

during trips it is very hard to keep notes... most times i write up something on the comedown phase...

 

[PriestTheyCalledHim]

When I was into psychedelics I would take such high doses that it would become impossible to write or type coherently, and fast enough. I never did any sort of audio recording but that sounds like a better idea. Sometimes I would take low/moderate doses of psychedelics and those are more conductive to taking notes via writing or typing.

 

[Lambda188]

I trip with a tape recorder, and I keep tapes of my ramblings during a trip. I always say I'm going to listen to the tape after and take notes but I'm not very good about that. So retrieving any information about the trip involves listening to a bunch of tape (sometimes a couple hours' worth...).
It's nice, though, the next day, to go back and listen to the tapes and remember some stuff that I'd forgotten. And it's easy enough to work the tape recorder while tripping. Though, there was that one time I spent the better part of an hour trying to figure out why it was broken, only to find that I'd been trying to put the tape in upside down. It's good having information about how intense the effects are at various times. If only there were a way for the recorder to automatically timestamp the tape every time I hit record, sometimes I forget to say what time it is.

 

[Transform]

Yup, if I am trying a new substance then I take very brief notes (single sentences every ~30mins) with timestamps which allow me to properly remember the intensity and write a full report the next day.