Let me preface this quesiton, I've never done anything besides pot. But I've always been interested in acid. With acid, what % of trips are bad? Do you automatically get a bad trip if you look in the mirror? Is the trip out of control to the point you completely lose touch with reality and jump out a window as in Jodie Foster in an after school special? My buddy said he took acid once, and thought he was glass of orange juice, afraid to move or he'd spill. Is that shit typical?
The most important thing when tripping is set and setting. DO NOT trip if your not in a good state of mind or your depressed or dealing with a bunch of shit or whatever. Be with people your comfortable with and trust, ideally people that you are comfortable opening up and being yourself with. Cause shit will get weird and if you're not experienced you don't wanna be around a bunch of strangers. You don't automatically get a bad trip if you look in the mirror, in fact, I find it kind of interesting and always end up doing it at some point when I'm tripping. I end up staring at myself in the mirror for like a half hour as the world goes crazy around and I think it's pretty cool, but it's not for everyone. I've also never found myself in a situation where I completely lose touch with reality. It's more like reality is there but just different. That shit your buddy said about the glass of orange juice is a long standing urban legend that's been told and retold for years, but that doesn't happen. That's not something you need to worry about. Some people might find it easier to start their psychedelic experience with mushrooms before trying acid. Mushrooms are a shorter trip (about 6-8 hours compared to 12 or so on acid), but I'm not sure how great that advice is. I feel like acid is more controlled (as controlled as things can be when your tripping) where as mushrooms you're along for the ride. I feel like they're like riding a roller coaster; it's exhilarating and a lot of the time you're like "AHHHHH" and then it's over. Acid you're like "woah this is weird" for a long time. You're definitely tripping, but I feel like you're more in control where as mushrooms are taking you where they want to go and you're just along for the ride. That last paragraph may not make sense if you've never tried either one, but I've found that's the best way I can describe and compare them. If you ever end up trying acid I hope you enjoy yourself. I do have one warning though. You will lose shit. The next day you'll realize you don't have your wallet/keys/phone/whatever and you have no idea where they are. It happens. Best solution is not have them with you when you're tripping or give them to someone sober(er) to hold. edit: Just saw this. In my experience that's really expensive for hits of acid, especially the tabs. Maybe they're double dipped (two hits per tab)?
There's more labour involved in making tabs then in cubes - but usually it's just a supply and demand thing - if the local tab distributor that your dealer sources his gear from is hard up for money after eating too much of his own product or to keep paying his providers or if he's got a cops kid to keep in college or something - prices will swing. Black market economics are frequently non-rational and the influence factors usually occur at a level beyond where you can see. Prices are based largely on some junkie's idea of what he deserves and how much he can get and are then balanced out by competition that's influenced by said junkie's willingness to shoot people or break legs. That shit changes whenever someone in the chain that you're buying from gets arrested or shot or cleans up or whatever. This is a 'how long is a piece of string' question - Acid affects people differently and your mood and psychological/emotional state when you drop will dramatically influence how your trip plays out. Personally, I don't get bad trips often if at all. But I'm careful not to drop when I'm not in the right place for the ride. Thinking you're a glass of Orange Juice on acid is unusual in my experience. That would be more of a Shrooms sort of trip. Most people I know drop acid and get some euphoria and uncontrollable laughter and then a bunch of visual and auditory enhancements. The pattern of a lattice wall turns into all kinds of swirling colours and shapes, the faux tile linoleum expands and moves and swirls like a tiny civilization of ants as you perch on top of the bathroom cabinet, watching them grow and too enchanted to destroy their colony by stepping on the floor, wondering if this is what god feels like and if we're really just the imaginary society of a higher life form, hallucinating as he watches patterns in the linoleum swirl, oh shit a butterfly! Shrooms I get to talk to trees and see purple dogs playing poker around a kitchen sink in the middle of a park and shit. The visuals are much more like my imagination has stepped outside of my brain and is really there, very Where the Wild Things Are. Acid is just colours and swirls while I'm high and distracted. Put on some pink floyd and call me in the morning, I'll just float through inner space. Hallucinogens are also heavily influenced by your environment. Dropping acid at a rave or a festival is very different from dropping acid in your living room. Dropping acid in a night club in the middle of the city is a world away from dropping acid in the middle of field, a hundred K's away from the nearest light pollution. All very different experiences. Kandi flipping E and Acid at a rave and sucking down a couple of nitrous balloons is as good a time as I've ever had. But it's got no comparison at all to laying on the grass above a beach cove in the middle of summer, far enough out of town that there's no light pollution and watching the stars while I listened to Wolfmother and rode a double drop of microdots straight into the sky.
As Scootah said, environment plays a huge factor in your trip. I remember turning the corner in our house in college from the dining room into the kitchen. A housemate was sitting on the counter next to the sink. Just as I turned into the room, someone flipped on the garbage disposal. My mind associated the sound with the housemate's proximity to the disposal, and all I saw was him getting sucked into the disposal. A 6'5", 235 lb. guy going downhill fast on an acid trip isn't a good thing to be around.
Just a note people - Shrooms and Acid are VERY different drugs. Both cause you to hallucinate - but that's where the similarity ends. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybin_mushrooms http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysergic_acid_diethylamide The ride from the two is a very, very different experience. Don't assume that because you didn't like shrooms you won't like acid. Also don't assume that because you've done one - you know what the other will be like.
That shit is one of the oldest urban legends in the book. I'm not saying your friend was wrong, but he probably heard it from someone else and he could have thought of it again while he was tripping which might have lead him to having a similar experience.
Are there certain people that just aren't able to trip? My buddy and I did shrooms this weekend and he said he didn't trip, but I did trip. He's a little bigger than me, about 220 pounds, and we both had the same amount. Thanks in advance.
One thing to keep in mind when taking LSD for the first time is that you don't have to take the whole hit at once, sometimes a half or even a third of a hit will do. Obviously this would be impossible with a sugar cube. Also, if you need to store LSD for any length of time keep it in a cold or cool dark place. A friend of mine just called me after taking some marshmallows that had been dosed and stored for over a year and they worked just fine. As for mushrooms, I find them stronger than LSD because you never really know just how potent they are. Also, for me the first hour or two of a mushroom trip is much more intense than LSD.
Rule of thumb for having a nice trip is to eat a 1/10th of you body weight in grams. Meaning your buddy should be targeting about 2.2 grams of mushrooms to get a desired effect. This is obviously less than a half an 1/8th which is considered a common moderate dose amongst casual users. Also, with respect to cubes v. blotter. Cubes are a good housing for LSD. If your supplier has liquid, one of two things can occur. You drop it right there or he spikes a couple cubes as doses. It's important to note that LSD blotter does require cursory chemicals to preserve the drug on the paper; Strychnine is common chemical used. In my experience, this has introduced a higher probability of having a more tense (ie. somewhat not good) trip. I also agree with the bad trip discussions, pretty much verbatim. Some people are JUST NOT WIRED to handle LSD. Hence why the CIA wanted to use it against our enemies. EDIT: And to the dude that said his friend felt like a glass of orange juice, next time you see him, punch him in the mouth for being a lying poser.
2.2 grams does not equal less than half an 1/8th. 1/8= 3.5 grams. And I think 2 grams is a fine dosage for someone much less than 220 pounds. Half an 1/8th and you might not even feel much of the effects, depending on the potency obviously. All I know is I weigh 150, took 2 grams of my quite potent homegrown shrooms, and had a good trip. I went to the fireworks on 4th of July and despite the fucking rednecks and weirdos and the fact that we got caught in a giant crowd of people for 30 minutes, I didn't come too close to having a panic attack or anything. The body buzz was heavy and most of the visuals I saw were moving fractals overlaying my field of vision. Don't take my word for it, but 2 grams should be a good dosage for someone my weight (140-170), provided the setting is safe and you are of the right frame of mind. If you weigh more maybe take a half gram more. 3 grams for me is a pretty intense trip, something I would not recommend to a beginner. First timer though, up to 2 grams should be A-ok, and chew a little bit more if you're a bigger dude.
Individual body chemistry plays a factor. My wife is about 2/3rds of my body weight and she can smoke 3 or 4 times as much pot as is required to knock me right the fuck out and not have any noticeable effect. Something in her body chemistry just makes her fucking immune (which pisses her off no end). I have friends who need to take much, much higher doses of LSD then I do to get any kind of trip. Psycho-actives can also interact to diminish the effect of other psycho-actives - IE alcohol can kill the buzz of an E tablet, anti depressants can dramatically increase the dosage required. Pot can knock the edges off all the fun parts of ketamine, etc. If your friend is on any one of a thousand prescription psycho-actives (for either mental health or a bunch of things like epilepsy or even diabetes - they can dramatically influence his drug experience. That's true. If you're a pussy. I'm mostly just kidding. But with almost any drug - the first time will be more intense then any time following - unless you take a few years between trips. Addicts call the increasing dose spiral trying to get that same effect 'Chasing the dragon' - but that first ride can be one of the most incredibly intense experiences of your life. It's a risk to take the full dose your first time because it might go badly or put you off, and it's safer to take a half dose. But my first trip was a microdot (typically something like taking 2 and a half trips) and 6 and a half years later I still grin thinking about it. It's one of my fondest drug taking memories. There's the responsible adult part of me that wants to say 'Be safe, ramp up to the really intense experience' - and there's my inner junkie that just wants to say 'You never forget riding the dragon. It's something that stays with you for a lifetime. Fuck safety.' Deciding if you're going to be a responsible adult when you use drugs or if you're going to flop your balls on the chopping block and say 'lets see what this bitch has got' is something everyone has to do at some point in their personal chemical safari.
How long has your wife been smoking? Does she smoke often? The reason I ask is because weed usually takes awhile to get to you. It took me about 3 months of solid smoking, then about 6 months of sobriety before I got high for the first time. Most of my friends didn't get high until their 4th of 5th time smoking. I still remember that first time too, because I was knocked on my ass after about 3 hits, and it rivaled a moderate mushroom trip. From there on out I loved mary jane, but I remember getting pissed that I would smoke 3 bowls and cough my brains out just to get a headache. I remember my friend getting smoked up his 5th time, and complaining that weed was overrated because it doesn't get you that high. 5 minutes later he was giggling like a retarded schoolgirl. It's kind of strange and I've never experienced it with other drugs. Something just needs to click into place for some people.
I just wanted to add something about mushrooms. Almost everyone agrees they taste bad. Some people don't mind it and just chew them up and go. If you're like me the taste comes very close to making you puke. My friend and I made shroom smoothies which both covered the taste and chopped up the shrooms so they hit you faster/harder. Here's what we did for one shroom smoothie: 1/8 of dried mushrooms two handfuls of ice cubes 1 tall glass of OJ (supposedly vitamin C makes shrooms/acid/e hit you harder. I dunno if it's true but it tastes good either way) 1 coconut ice cream bar (found them in the freezer and said "Why not?" Blend it all together and drink it as fast as possible. About 15 minutes later I was rolling a blunt figuring I had another fifteen minutes before it hit me. I had to stop rolling the blunt because it and my fingers were melting together. I just thought of a question for all the fans of boomers on the board. Do you normally vomit after eating mushrooms? I have two or three friends who always puke at the start of a mushroom trip, every single time. I usually feel a bit of a weird feeling in my stomach, but have never needed to puke. Maybe I just have a strong stomach/they just have weak stomachs? EDIT: Just thought of another question. I've been told that there's a difference in the stems and the caps. One is more visual, one is more body (I think). I've never really noticed it myself as I've always had roughly equal amounts, but is there any truth to this?
I didn't get my point across very well. I meant to say that if a couple split an 1/8th, then consuming 2.2 grams would not have been achieved. That's why I like quarters. As far as consumption, peanut butter is king in my opinion. As for different parts of the mushroom, the bulbous stems are purple for a reason, it's called psilocybin and it will contribute to both the physical and mental effects of the plant. Stems tend to be stronger in my opinion, but Amsterdam tends to tout the trouffels (Philosopher Stones-no stems), which I've never encountered in the states.
Dried mushrooms are very tough and fibrous and hard for the body to digest, which is partly why they can cause nausea. I have a somewhat weak stomach so when I'm eating dried shrooms I generally make mushroom tea. You cut the shrooms up into tiny little pieces, throw them in a tea bag or coffee filter and steep in close to boiling water for 5-10 minutes, along with another tea bag. Squeeze all the water out of the shroom muck and drink the tea over the course of 10 minutes. It hits you faster and with less discomfort. Hands down, the best way I've found for dealing with nausea is to take a couple hits off a bong the minute I start feeling sick. Don't overdo it, but for me this completely alleviates any stomach pain and its happy tripping from there on out. Stemps and caps - absolutely no evidence that this is true. What you feel depends on so many factors that you're unlikely to have a similar trip twice, let alone repeatable differences between a cap trip and stem trip. As far as I (and a lot of other experienced people) can tell, there's very little difference between the two, and they both contain roughly the same percentage of active ingredients.
I've never puked on mushrooms, but I've taken them with friends that do nearly every time. The people that do are the same people that throw up a lot when they are drinking, so I think it is a strong/weak stomach thing. I used to be one of those people that could just chew them up and swallow, but I can't anymore (Just the smell of mushrooms makes me gag because it reminds me of the horrible taste). My preferred method is to warm up a bowl of soup and just put them in there. It's also good for me because I would always be FAMISHED after a mushroom trip, so starting off with some food helped (Maybe a bad idea if you have a weak stomach).
Similar to theking's method, the last time I did them I crushed them up into a Jamba Juice smoothie. Worked perfectly -- a lot better than peanut butter. Also, has anyone heard of someone having a mini-seizure while on shrooms? I shroomed with four other friends on a hike, and this happened to one of my friends (laid on the ground, twitched a little bit, and eyes rolled back into his head). Although it only lasted ten seconds and he was fine two minutes after, this freaked all of us the fuck out, especially because the shrooms were at their peak, the sun was going down, and we were an hour hike away from our car (so much stupidity went into planning this last trip). I looked it up and found a couple references to it -- anyone else know of anything?
I read awhile back that THC is released when heated, ala smoking or vaporizing it. Why is THC laced lip balm, among several other THC laden products, able to be effective if no heating element is present?
not 100% sure, but probably the same way pot brownies and other baked goods are made. Weed is cooked in oil to release the THC into the oil, then the oil is used to make lip balm and other products.
THC is the active agent in the plant. Which is to say that along with a bunch of boring fibers and proteins - Marijuana contains THC. When you smoke or vaporize Marijuana, the THC becomes a gaseous agent which can be absorbed into your body through the lungs and is then passed along to your blood stream along with the oxygen and nitrogen and shit that you breathe in when you're not getting stoned. When the THC laden blood reaches your brain, the molecules are broken down and absorbed into your neurochemsitry and you get fucked up. THC laced lip balm is a chemical product where pre extracted THC in its liquid form is mixed into a gel that you then smear over your lips - which are absorbent. So the THC follows the path that moisture would normally take into your blood stream. The THC molecules still ride along your blood stream like oxygen molecules from water would and eventually reach your brain, affect your neurochemistry and make you fucked up. Brownies and other ingested THC products like space cakes go through your digestive tract and reach your blood stream the same way iron and other vitamins do - and then the blood reaches your brain - and you get fucked up. If you snort dried drugs they're absorbed through the mucus membranes in your nose, rub them over your gums or hold them under your tongue and they're absorbed like liquids, or stick them up your arse and the absorbent tissue cells there take them straight to your blood stream also. The idea behind plugging (stuffing it up your arse) or snorting drugs is that they then avoid your liver, which is a toxin filter - and go straight to your blood stream. Orally consumed products are filtered by your liver so have a diminished strength as your liver purges what it sees at toxins and delays the arrival of the psychoactive elements into your blood stream. If you inhaled alcohol - you'd get much more fucked up on far less alcohol - because it bypasses your liver. People have died from alcohol poisoning from a relatively small amount of alcohol included in an enema - because only a relatively small amount of the ethanol (the fun part of alcohol) actually reaches your blood stream when it's ingested - when it's absorbed straight into your blood stream that filter isn't in place. It's also worth noting that a relatively tiny amount of most recreational drugs in their pure form - is immediately fatal. LSD, THC, Nicotine, are all very diluted in the common recreational consumption form. A single drop of 100% pure LSD in the water supply would fuck up all of Detroit for a week. A single drop of pure nicotine ingested is fatal. Inhaled or absorbed - a fraction of a drop is fatal. A single drop of THC is fatal in much the same way. Speed/Coke/Heroin are all commonly stepped on a half a dozen times before the 'pure' form reaches your local dealer. Stepping on commonly reduces purity by half. Speed is notably commonly cut with glucose and a drop of diesel. If you're travelling the old nasal highway - most drugs that people do for fun are highly abrasive and damage your mucus membranes and irritate your sinuses - which is why you end up with snot and blood dripping down the back of your throat afterward and sinus infections and shit for days after a binge. The finer you can grind your product - the less likely this is to be an issue (although it's still going to be an issue - your nose is built to filter everything except gasses - when anything except gasses goes up it, shit is going to go wrong, also drugs are rarely/never ph neutral so you're still getting acid or alkaline burns to the sensitive flesh). Grinding your product with a mortar and pestle in a 1:1 ratio with Glucose can dramatically smooth that passage. dipping your finger in a bowl of water and sniffing a single drop up either nostril can re-lubricate the membranes (you don't get water in your lungs because the hair in your nose is designed to stop humidity from causing you to drown, among other things) and was the left over product off your membranes so you don't get the chemical burns and associated issues. Plugging can cause stomach issues because hey - that shit is usually either acidic or alkaline and damages the membranes. So you need to decide if the side effects are worth the high and indignity of shoving a pill up your arse. If you're that hard up for a high that you're going to do it, consider grinding the product up in the a fore mentioned mortar and pestle and floating it in glucose again, and use gel caps for the insertion. You'll still end up with some side effects - but it'll limit the irritation. Note that you probably shouldn't give yourself an enema after shoving a pill up there, because while it will diminish the side effects - it will also probably wash out the larger part of the product that you're trying to get a kick from (unless you're incredibly dehydrated, in which case you shouldn't be taking drugs anyway, unless you're looking for a really embarrassing autopsy report) - so you've got enema based diarrhea, the indignity of shoving pills up your clacker, and you're not even high. Which I imagine would suck. Giving this advice used to depress me - because it's sad that people do drugs without a basic understanding of chemistry or their own biology. Now it just entertains me to imagine the people who actually need this advice discussing it with their friends and debating if people on the intarwebs were just fucking with them, or if you can really get a totally awesome high by shoving pills up your bum. Hallucinogens commonly interact with your cerebrospinal fluids. That fluid carries the impulses from your nervous signals to your brain - which is why you hallucinate. Everything your senses experience is converted to an electrical impulse, carried along your nervous system, through your cerebrospinal fluids and interpreted by your brain. Every action your body takes is a response to an electrical impulse transferred through your cerebrospinal fluids and through your nerves to your muscles. When the chemical makeup of your cebrospinal fluids changes even slightly, that communication process is interrupted - like Chinese whispers, things are added or go missing. Which is why you see a cloud and think purple monkey dishwasher. It's also why you think about breathing, or blinking, or having your heart continue to beat, and twitch or seize or convulse. Your body is pretty resilient. Especially around core functions like breathing and keeping your heart beating and not falling into a convulsing lump and chewing off your own tongue. But hallucinogens in particular fuck with that process and interfere with the way those electrical impulses are translated and interpreted. A few shapes or petit mal seizures shouldn't really be unexpected.