The Other Side of the Leaf

Since my first experience with SD which was absolutely amazing I obtained some additional 5x and 10x leaf from another supplier. A few days ago I underwent my second SD experience. The setting was my bedroom, about 4 PM. I closed the door and the shutters so that it was almost dark. I packed about 1/8 teaspoon of 5X in a water pipe and took a long hit. I then placed the pipe back on the nightstand and waited. Presently I felt a pins and needles sensation in my legs and the effects of the SD taking over, but it did not last long. Rashly, without stopping to consider, I packed about 1/8th teaspoon of the 10x in my pipe and took a long hit.

I placed the pipe back on the night stand and before my head could hit the pillow, I felt a huge "WHOOSH", and it was as if a tornado had just hit my brain, or like I was being sucked into a huge vortex, pulling me down, down, down. Perhaps this was Alice's proverbial "Rabbit-Hole" that I was experiencing, but unlike my first experience with SD it was not gentle, it was ferocious and extremely scary. But as scary as the physical sensation was, it does not compare to my mental state. I felt I had died, was dying, would forever more be dying, stuck in this place where the more I tried to free myself from the grip of this force that had taken control of my mind the more it held on to me. It was absolutely, mind-numbingly terrifying. Never have I been so scared. The feeling was that it was all over, my life was over and this is where I would be stuck for eternity. Looping around and around for ever in this strange place.

Although I don’t have any recollection of it I got up and opened the door of my room. Then I must have fallen down on my back in the hallway. Eventually I woke up to my dog licking me all over my face. I was sweating profusely. Lick, lick, lick. My eyes, my forehead my cheeks, it was wonderful. It was as if she knew I needed her and she was there trying to help me through this nightmare. About 50 minutes had passed.

Finally, thankfully, the effects began to fade. I was stunned... I was humbled... I never thought... I was also pissed. I knew that something had gone wrong, and like being thrown from a horse I knew I had to get right back on if I ever wanted to ride again. I went out to my living room, and did a much smaller amount of 5x. It did not take me too far so I was able to stay relatively conscious of the effect.

I picked up my copy of Timothy Leary’s The Psychedelic Experience, and read some lines from The Tibetan Book of the Dead. (This is an indispensable guide for entheogenic explorers, I highly recommend it.) The instructions calmed me down. Above all, it says, is if you are having a hard time do not fight it, RELAX. Ok I was ready. I did about 1/8 tsp of 5x. Took a big hit and kept it in. Then I felt it again, that pulling feeling, of being sucked down into an abyss. Again I started to panic but this time I remembered to RELAX. I felt myself gripping the table in front of me and the couch telling myself this is real, this is real. Slowly my mind calmed down, the sucking vortex stopped and I was able to enjoy the experience, to transform it into a very gentle soothing and calm wave like feeling in greens and blues. This was much more positive and enjoyable.

So what did I do wrong? My only answer is dosage. The smoked 10x was simply too strong for me at my present level of SD consciousness. What I reckon is that the effects were so strong at 10x, especially what I call the "WHOOSH" sensation-that immediate sense of losing my vision and all my other senses at once and everything dissolving in front of me, of complete loss of all sensation, that my mind (I, ego?) was fighting back to recover its precarious grip. But who is fighting whom? It can only be my mind fighting itself. None the less panic sets in and feeds on itself. I was falling down the "rabbit-hole" at 1 millions miles per second and all I could do was stick my arms out to stop myself, but this is precisely what I should not have done. I should have let myself go as terrifying as this may have felt at the moment. Let myself go, "go with the flow", not fight it because fighting it only intensifies the panic effect in an endlessly amplifying loop. Later when I did the 5x and remembered to expect the pulling and to go with it and relax the experience was much more like my first SD experience.

Conclusion: From reading about other's SD experiences, I noticed that most of the "Bad Trips" people had were at the higher smoked doses, 10x, 20x and even higher! Also I wonder if smoking is simply not the way to go (especially for inexperienced users), since from what I have read the Mazatec people of Oaxaca, Mexico do not smoke SD, they chew and suck the fresh leaves. When smoked, the "WHOOSH" effect is so unexpected and sudden that if you are not prepared it truly feels like you are losing your mind. My next experience will be with the SD liquid elixir in the hope that the effects are slower to come on and thus more easily managed and merged with.

Finally what I learned and hope to convey with this report is that there is indeed another side to this amazing leaf, and she will KICK YOUR ASS (pardon the expletive) if you are not careful, especially when the user is inexperienced and smoking higher doses (as I was). So please be careful and hopefully we can all learn from each others experiences, so that our relationship with SD will be always be a safe, positive and enlightening one.