I've tried caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, Kratom, HBWR seeds (LSA), DPH, weed, San Pedro (mescaline) and shrooms.
Caffeine... everyone knows what it's like.
Nicotine I've had in two flavors: cigarette and snuff. I like the rush and the increased focus. Snuff felt more intense than cigarettes, so I prefer it. To create an habit would damp the rush, so I don't.
Alcohol could be problematic. I like to binge drink and get right on the edge before I start getting amnesia, sometimes I fail. Once I got myself in a alcoholic coma. It was the first time I had free access to alcohol and I had no idea about limits. On the other hand, I find it very easy to just stop and not drink anything for months, with no cravings.
Kratom and HBWR seeds were underwhelming. The former gave me a body load almost like coming down with the flu and nothing else. The latter just gave me nausea. I might have gotten some slight change in color perception, but that could be placebo.
With DPH I wasn't looking for a high. I was curious about the hallucinations. While working my way up, there was a low dose (175 mg) which made music and masturbation more interesting; a medium dose (300 mg) which gave me an enjoyable high, but also made me sleepy, which felt wasteful; a higher one (425 mg) which finally let me see ants crawling on my skin, not very clearly though, this one also made me vomit. Then I chickened out. Overall, I'd say the high can be enjoyable, but sleepiness makes it feel wasteful. Combined with the association between chronic use and dementia later in life, I'd rather just drink alcohol instead.
I've had two very weird experiences with weed. At first there's nothing, then my lungs feel full of smoke, it's hard to breathe. Then I get stuck in a time loop. I'm living the same moment over and over again, but my thoughts are different every time. I get bored and bit worried about how it looks from the outside, and I just wait. Eventually, that moment progresses and I start seeing double: the present and a faster version of the past from that moment onwards. I don't feel in control at all, but I'm also not acting abnormally. It's only when the past catches up that I feel in control again. The first time I did 3 hits. The second, just one. I decided to just avoid it.
San Pedro was like a more manic version of a level 1 shroom trip (see below), but gave me the worst nausea I've ever had. Not only I was nauseous, it felt like I had swallowed a soccer ball. It's supposed to get better after the purge (vomit), but I couldn't do it, so it just stuck around for the whole thing.
Onto shrooms, I'd rather start with Shroomery's description of levels:
Level 1
This level produces a mild "stoning" effect, with some visual enhancement (i.e. brighter colours, etc). Some short term memory anomalies. Left/right brain communication changes causing music to sound "wider".
Level 2
Bright colors, and visuals (i.e. things start to move and breathe), some 2 dimensional patterns become apparent upon shutting eyes. Confused or reminiscent thoughts. Change of short term memory leads to continual distractive thought patterns. Vast increase in creativity becomes apparent as the natural brain filter is bypassed.
Level 3
Very obvious visuals, everything looking curved and/or warped patterns and kaleidoscopes seen on walls, faces etc. Some mild hallucinations such as rivers flowing in wood grained or "mother of pearl" surfaces. Closed eye hallucinations become 3 dimensional. There is some confusion of the senses (i.e. seeing sounds as colors, etcetera). Time distortions and "moments of eternity".
Level 4
Strong hallucinations, i.e. objects morphing into other objects. Destruction or multiple splitting of the ego. (Things start talking to you, or you find that you are feeling contradictory things simultaneously). Some loss of reality. Time becomes meaningless. Out of body experiences and e.s.p. type phenomena. Blending of the senses.
Level 5
Total loss of visual connection with reality. The senses cease to function in the normal way. Total loss of ego. Merging with space, other objects, or the universe. The loss of reality becomes so severe that it defies explanation. The earlier levels are relatively easy to explain in terms of measurable changes in perception and thought patterns. This level is different in that the actual universe within which things are normally perceived, ceases to exist! Satori / enlightenment (and other such labels).
Personally, visuals never go beyond level 2, but other effects do. At first I tried a 2~3g dose from a bad source, didn't feel much. Got from another one, thought I was just naturally tolerant and went straight to 6g, which should be an "heroic" dose, and it was. The way it works is during the come-up you're climbing through these levels and then it peaks. Higher dosages make sharper climbs and higher peaks. With no further ado:
1g: level 1. Too recreational, no insights.
2g: level 2. Very enjoyable. Doesn't feel like it's doing anything. A common situation is I'm smiling, giggling, looking at all the pretty colors and thinking I still want to die. But I always come out it with hint of what I could attempt and gives me the initial push to do it, e.g.: get an internship, persist, connect with someone, finish that thesis.
3g: level 3.5. Bad trip. It felt like I was coming up to the 6g trip, which I didn't intend to do at all, so it gave a panic attack. I took a cab to the hospital, but went back after realizing it was just a panic attack. Passed the time playing Hearthstone and laying in bed, but got no insights.
6g: level 5. 5 years ago, based on current memory:
I eat the shrooms with honey in my bedroom, wait a bit and fire up a competitive match of CSGO. I start noticing brighter colors, then sudden changes in contrast and saturation. It's hard to keep track of the game, my short term memory doesn't work very well, I'm not entirely sure of what's happened in the round, who's winning and who's losing. I see multiple frames on top of each other creating a trail, like when Windows XP hanged and you dragged a window around. The match ends, somehow we win and I'm the top of the leaderboard. I close the game and look at my hands.
I'm amazed at the concept that just like the character in the game, I have hands. I look at them and analyze every single inch. A fly lands on my left hand, I say hello and send it away.
I want to go to the bathroom, but I keep getting lost in thoughts. Eventually I make it there and see myself in the mirror. I have a face, I have eyes, I lose myself in my own gaze for a few minutes. I go back to the bedroom. Clothes seem too limiting, I take them off.
I start watching a movie, can't focus, so I lay in bed.
Thoughts come and go, sometimes in loops. Time is very slow. I forget I've taken shrooms. I start losing my sense of self. I look at the computer screen, still playing the movie, and I wonder whether I could be one of the actors, or all of them, the computer, the bed, the walls, the room...
The experience is too much. I start thinking about death, I want to jump out of the window and stop it. I think I did and now I'm dead. I'm caught in a thought loop where I reason I can't be dead because I'm thinking and I'm not really thinking because I'm dead.
After an eternity I remember I've taken a massive dose of shrooms and I can just wait it out. I stop fighting and submit, letting the shrooms do their thing.
I close my eyes, there's a mix of sounds: a washing machine, a sheep, birds, and dogs. It's very musical and goes on for a while. Then there's nothing, an atom, a molecule, a cell, an organ, a body, a room, a town, a country, the world, the solar system, the galaxy, the universe. Back to nothing and back again. This goes on for another eternity and leaves me with a deep sense of connection with everything.
It stops, I remember who I am, but not where I am. I remember my relatives, I know they love me and want me to be happy, I appreciate it.
I remember where I am. I get up, put on some clothes, look out the backyard, see the trees, the animals, the sky. It's all beautiful and I'm grateful for everything.
Overall, 2g is like condensing many sessions of therapy in a few hours and gives me a push, but anhedonia stops it from becoming a virtuous cycle. 6g was very powerful, but the afterglow didn't last long, and I don't know if I can handle the whole ordeal again.
In the end, I think I'm very curious about exploring different states of consciousness. But even when I say I like nicotine and alcohol, there's always a part of me that wants to be dead. There's the sense of "this is great, but I still want to die" and maybe that's why I don't really crave for these substances and never create an habit.
