First ever psychedelic experience on Peruvian Torch?

Hi everyone, I am new to this forum as well as entheogens and everything related in general, so I am pretty much a noob here. Hopefully I am posting in the right section so here it goes.

With a friend I am planning on my first ever psychedelic experience. I've never tried anything before apart from pot which I did three times. Once via a joint where I didn't really feel anything, just a bit shaky which wasn't pleasant. The second time was from a bong, it hit me straight away, lots of coughing, feeling weak and shaky (I hardly ate that day, maybe that's why?), and alcohol like vision. I went through lots of different feelings, scared, etc and had a bit of a bad experience, most likely due to the setting, there were people around that I did not know, and I never really knew what to expect. One of the best parts of my experience was when I looked in the mirror when trying to wash my face and it looked as if it was in a kaleidoscope where different shapes where seen, hard to explain, especially because it was over a year ago. Oh and munchies too. The third experience was from a bottle and slightly less than a year later, with different people and while drunk. It was a good experience as far as I remember, I laughed a lot at random things but I can't remember much due to alcohol. My friend hasn't tried anything other than pot but never with me. He hasn't really told much about his experience with pot, but he's probably done it more than I have.

So after my experience, I became quite interested in psychedelics, I don't like smoking in general therefore not a great fan of pot. I first found out about cacti about a year ago, I didn't really look into it much at the time but nevertheless was interested. Recently I felt ready to deepen my knowledge and do some research. I read through some of the information on Erowid including at least ten different experience reports as well as information available on various forums. I quite liked the fact that cacti seems to be a gentle plant and a one where a bad experience is less likely to happen. I think I've done enough research to give it a try and I want to do so within the next week with one of my friends who doesn't know much about cacti other than what I told him. I want to do this with this particular person because I can trust him and I feel safe to do so with him as he's a very responsible friend.

I and my friend decided to order 25g each of dried Peruvian Torch chips, so 50g together, from an online ethnobotanical source. I understand that drinking this as a tea will most likely be really hard and I want to do all that is possible to avoid puking. I don't want to do any extracts at this time, nor do I want to boil the chips for hours. After reading all sorts of information I was thinking of trying the following:

- Powder the dried chips
- Add small amounts of lemon juice as well as water
- Mix until it's like dough
- Make small swallow-able pieces
- Put them in the freezer to let them cool (maybe)

- Drink ginger tea made fresh from ginger root (and have anti nausea tablets handy)
- Swallow them with apple juice (or any other juice)
- Drink ginger tea again

- Have buckets handy (just in case)

I think that this could possibly be a nice way of making this work. Other than that it would just have to be tea (powder mixed with warm water). I was wondering what you think of this? Has anyone tried mixing the powder with milk?

We're both waiting for the weekend and can't wait to see your reply. Advice as well as anything we should know is also very welcome.

PS. I posted this on another forum as well because I wasn't sure if I'd get a good response by the weekend as cacti seems to be less talked about. Hopefully this isn't against the forum rules.

PSS. During the experience I was thinking of trying to look back at good old memories, is this possible?

 

25 g is a bit low. I would start with 60 grams.

Milk sounds awful. Just spoon the powder down with water, or make an alcohol extract with everclear if you are too squeamish about the taste.

 

I thought that 25g could be a bit low too but then again I've never had any real psychedelic experience before. I thought of trying more but then again my friend thinks we should stick to 25g and test the waters. I might order some more though but not sure yet. The 50g package I have for both of us doesn't exactly look large.

 

I second the 25g being too low...I started with 40g and got a decent enough trip. As for your ingestion method, I have my doubts.
I've tried the rolling into doughballs method, and it didnt end well. I ended up throwing most of them up, and feeling terrible for ages.

I know you said you didnt want to boil for ages, but thats what I'd recommend. If you do 2 or 3 seperate boilings of the material for around an hour per boiling, then combine the resulting liquid (Fully strained of course). You'll have a lot of liquid, so will have to boil it for a few more hours until its reduced. Its upto you how much to reduce it, the more you do it the stronger and thicker it becomes.

I found that reducing to about half a cup per dose works well, and then I combine the truly awful tasting green tea with a LOT of fruit smoothie. It masks the taste somewhat...but not totally. I've never puked from this method, but do still get some stomach cramps and a little nausea at the start.
Anyway, however you do it....Goodluck and enjoy your experience

 

Are there any specific methods you would recommend when boiling? One of the main reasons I don't want to boil for hours is because I live with other people. And boiling something green that smells doesn't look too normal...

I understand that the main point behind boiling is to reduce the contents as well as the likelyhood of nausea? Because other than that it would seem easier to mix the powder with water and that would be it.

Would it be reasonable to take 25g at first and then another 25g once it kicks in?

 

I usually broke the chips up a little before boiling them, but never felt it necessary to powder them. For straining I used a piece of muslin cloth, but an old t-shirt would probably work just as well.

I dont know if theres any science to backup boiling reducing the nausea, but it did for me! I guess it just means you're ingesting less off the nastiness in the cactus. Living with people who arent down with it could be a problem, because boiling it does create a VERY unpleasant smell I found. Its certainly not the most inconspicuous method....

I've always ingested the whole lot at once, but usually do it slowly....maybe over an hour. If you take it staggered like that, there could be tolerance issues (I'm unsure...).

 

I think I might try this during the night when they're asleep or during the day when/once they leave the house making sure that I keep it ventilated.

I just checked my pots and the only ones I have are made from aluminum, from what I've read it is bad to boil cacti in aluminum pots as it will react with the pot which isn't something I want? I've also read that when it comes to straining the cacti it is easier to do so when the cacti is in powder form as it can sometimes be hard to strain all of the chips fully.

PS. I really like your signature, it looks awesome.

PSS. In regards to 25g not being enough, does that apply even to someone like me who has never tried psychedelics?

 

I think the alcohol extract is even easier than making tea.
(Mostly because I've tried making tea with powder, and it was virtually impossible to filter out the powder because it was so fine, even with an old tee-shirt. Tee-shirt would break before I could squeeze all the liquid out...maybe just impatience. Goo would stick to the tee-shirt and hands and everything. etc.)

I've evaporated alcohol in an electric oven on it's lowest setting.
I have mixed the tarry stuff with flour like people suggest, and then form it into the size of large capsules. There was no need to put anything in capsules, because the black dough was already in the shape of a capsule.

I suppose some of the magic is lost if more good stuff is soluble in water than alcohol, but it's pretty crude, so my guess is that you more than just the mescaline if there's anything else active in there.

It definitely smells a lot less when making it, and seems to work very well. I guess it might take a little longer from start to finish, but the amount of time you actually have to work on making it is much less. No worries about boiling over or anything like that either.

So, I'd definitely suggest that also.

(20g will almost definitely be too low and barely noticeable.)

 

Trust me. It's going to make a difference to go ahead and wait to take 50 grams each, even if you have to order more. What do you want, your first real psychedelic experience? or your first real psychedelic disappointment? Ive taken this cactus in dried form from a lot of vendors and 25 grams would be too low from any of them to feel much. heck sometimes 50gram can be on the weak side to be honest.

So many first timers think the point of your first trip is to eat just a lil and test the waters. I disagree. I think the first trip it is extremely vital to make sure you get full spectrum effects. The nature of these substances changes from low to high doses dramatically so you might as well not mess around the first time when you have less ideas of what to expect and can fully appreciate the novelty of the full experience without fear. You can work with low doses later on to see the difference.

 

To be honest at first I was thinking to take at least 50g but my friend thought it would be better to try less. This sounded like the logical thing to do and therefore I thought that 25g each would be good enough. I'd normally say go in for the full experience or don't bother. But after thinking through, although I have done my research I won't know what it's like until I actually try it.

In regards to the alcohol extraction I don't think I will be able to do this as in the UK pure alcohol isn't legal, I think, and therefore hard to find. I think we will just gulp it down with water.

PS. Has anyone here read The Doors of Perception? What do you think of it?

 

I had 25g of dried PT chips and it was way too much and a very long trip, I expereinced ego loss as well. I'd hate to even think what 50g would have done.

 

Are you sure that was peruvian torch?
I've never had a decent trip with anything less than 40g.....I guess the potency of the cactii can vary a lot.

 

Alright, I've had my first experience, it was a bit disappointing but if your not too busy and don't mind reading it, here it is:

Alright folks, I've never before written a trip report so I don't really know where to start but here it goes. During the last week me and my friend ended up acquiring 50g (each) of dried Peruvian Torch chips. We wanted to find out a way to prepare them without having to take hours to boil/extract via alcohol and so we did. We ended up powdering the chips, mixing them with lemonade and finally freezing them in order to drink them as frozen ice. The proportions were eyeballed because we didn't have a scale, and to make sure we would have roughly the same amount we also cut up the two frozen ice boxes in half in order to make sure we'd have a proportion that would be as equal as possible. We thought a hammer would be necessary to break up the ice but when we saw it we ended up using a knife to cut it up into small pieces. We didn't want the pieces to be too small as otherwise they would break up. We ended up filling 6 plastic cups each of the frozen cactus pieces.

On Friday night, just before Saturday we were getting ready, we've bought all sorts of fruit and a few other things to eat. In terms of drinks we've had orange juice, apple juice as well as water bottles and lemonade. We also prepared ginger tea for stomach pains. We've put some music together, made some plans and all of this took some time so in the end we ended up having only around 5 hours of sleep time.

Time - Details

07:00 - We've woken up from around 5 hours of sleep ready to go on our first ever psychedelic journey.
07:05 - We've each taken motion sickness pills, around one hour before starting the journey and we then just got ready like you would in the morning after waking up.
07:50 - We've reheated ginger tea and drank it down.
08:10 - We've had two toasts each as we thought that could help. We've not eaten anything for at least the past 14 hours.
08:20 - We started to prepare the ice by chopping it up into edible pieces. Orange juice was also prepared.
08:46 - We asked for a smooth journey as well as mind expansion. In total we had 6 cups of cactus ice with lemonade that we started to take in. At first it wasn't bad but because the pieces were slightly too big to swallow we had to munch them and then gulp them down with orange juice. With the first cup it was quite easy and we didn't really feel the taste. As we moved onto the second cup it was still fairly easy but we started to feel the taste. The next two cups got harder and the 5th cup was where it started to become a pain. We each ended up drinking about 1.2 liters of orange juice as well as 5 cups of ice.
09:14 - 28 minutes later we were only left with one cup each but my friend started getting headaches and stomach pains. Both our stomach's were bloated and although I didn't feel great I wasn't complaining as it wasn't that bad, no headaches for me.
09:28 - Since my friend couldn't do the last cup and we ended up waiting too long I decided not to take my one too, so we ended up pouring our last cups down the toilet. We then, not feeling too well headed outside with nothing else but the keys and a banana. As soon as we entered the park I started feeling really bad, I stopped because I could feel that I was about to vomit, saliva was building up and I thought it was all about to come out but I was calm and managed to hold it in, soon the feeling of having to vomit passed and I was better, we found a bench we sat down and rested for a bit. After a few minutes we got up and started following the pathway again, suddenly from nowhere my friend just let it all go right in front of him, he couldn't hold it in and it all came out. This was roughly about 40 minutes after taking in the last cup. As soon as it came out his headache and stomach pains disappeared. I felt disappointed and didn't want to be the only one tripping so I kept thinking about vomiting it out as well, I didn't want to force myself as that's not something I would do but I also didn't want to be the only one tripping.
10:32 - After around an hour outside we decided to get back inside. My friend popped into the bed where as I went into the toilet for #2 (it was smelly, lol), I was in there for a bit and as soon as the urge to vomit came, I let it all out, I didn't even try keeping it down as I wasn't feeling like being the only one with cactus inside my stomach. This was roughly an hour and a half after taking in the last cup, maybe slightly more, maybe slightly less. As soon as I came out of the toilet I felt good, I had some apple juice and popped into the bed aswell.
10:51 - Feeling fairly alright with a bloated stomach and still in bed as it felt nice and warm.
11:11 - Around two hours after take in, not seeing/feeling anything really, while in bed with closed eyes, very light colors could be seen but only for a bit. We ended up feeling extreme hunger after smelling some nice food smells from downstairs and so we ended up baking a pizza. My friend randomly started cleaning up the kitchen, I was surprised.
11:22 - Friend feeling hungry where as I'm feeling full with only a bite of pizza. We ended up having some fruit, after one of those fruits, watermelon, I sort of started getting a painful stomach ache. Still feeling bloated but it wasn't too bad.
12:06 - Around three hours after take in, feeling a little buzz, we don't think it's working and feel a bit disappointed, but then again we did vomit it all out way too early. Although it doesn't seem to be working, we're not feeling normal either.
12:16 - Friend isn't thinking about time, nor am I, feeling a bit empty minded.
13:30 - Don't think it's working, just feeling a body buzz and from then on we decided not to even bother with logging anything or timing anything.

13:30 onwards - So we ended up listening to some music, in general it felt really nice. We had all sorts of TV shows, including six episodes of Planet Earth but we didn't even think about watching it, we instead decided to watch some comedy TV show. As time went on my friend wanted to go outside, we didn't really talk much as our minds were pretty much empty I guess. I think it took us quite a while to get outside as I ended up in a sort of loop where I would do the same thing and then I'd feel as if I forgot what I was doing and in general I didn't feel the urge to do anything in the first place, but in the end we ended up going outside. My friend felt good, no stomach pains, no nothing, whereas I started getting really bad stomach cramps/pains, it felt like gas was building up inside the stomach and it would feel good if I was able to pop the gas bubble inside. Since I was feeling stomach pains we stopped every now and then to sit down for a bit, I sat on the pavement whereas my friend stood, the day was awesome but colors seemed to be normal just like in any other day, bright and colorful but nothing amazing as we've read from some experiences. Then again I usually wear lenses due to my eyesight so maybe if I wore them at the time, maybe it would be different. It felt good to sit down and not think about anything and just look around and feel the air and everything around. After getting up we talked a bit about trying something else like shrooms to get a comparison since we pretty much don't have anything to compare too. We walked around the neighborhood stopping here and there where in one place when we sat down I sort of tuned out and felt "one" with everything. My stomach was still bloated with even more pain, painful but bearable, I think the body high was helping with not really focusing on it. My friend felt fine but we decided to go back inside, before we got home we sat down for a bit once more and when I looked into a bunch of tall tree's I saw them swaying together in a clockwise motion which was really cool, my friend couldn't see this but I did. Once we got back inside we just jammed, listened to music, watched TV shows, ate fruits, etc. I though ginger tea would help with the stomach pain but in fact it felt as if it made it even worse. In general some periods felt as if time was passing by really slowly at other times it didn't feel like anything, I noticed that when I was in certain positions when laying on the bed that the stomach pain would go away and it would be possible to fart out the gas (not really sure how to put this). Anyway, there's not much to say to be honest we felt good for the whole day but it wasn't really what we'd expect, we ended up walking to get some food at around 21:00 and in general we just watched TV shows and listened to music through the whole day, nothing exciting but it felt good. The whole body feeling wore completely off at around 1AM where we were then able to fall asleep. In general we had some random conversations but most of them where bullshit as I didn't really know how to put things into words, or I didn't really have the vocabulary to put things into words. In terms of the stomach acke I think I've had hangovers from alcohol that were wrose than this.

In Conclusion

In conclusion we pretty much felt an all day body high similar to maybe weed but different in many ways. We were clear minded for the whole day. A few days before I was recommended to read a 24 page PDF, "The Doors of Perception" by Aldous Huxley, with his experience and although I found the read to have a lot of stuff that I couldn't be bothered to read I still read it. I didn't understand most of it but some of the parts I found very interesting. After the experience I've had I started to slowly understand what Huxley really meant. While I was downstairs washing my cups I saw myself washing them but I felt like I was this "something" I felt like I was in a different state of conscious which was really nice, it wasn't powerful but it was there. That's where I started to understand some of the things that I've read from the book. I felt "one" with nature, my friend didn't seem to but I did. I don't really know how to explain this but even before trying cactus or anything else for that matter, when I was a young teen, even a young child I've always had this feeling of that "something" that "one" which I never really knew how to explain, I thought about it and tried talking about it with others but no one would really understand so I just left it but now after trying cactus I really feel the urge to find out more. All in all, although quite disappointed, we enjoyed the experience as it was and will be looking forward to another one soon, though this time maybe with two extra friends and definitely a better way of taking in the cactus, either an extraction through alcohol or a boil. The only thing that worried me at the end of the day is that I still haven't had any real psychedelic experiences, no visuals, which kind of keeps me anxious as to what I have yet to see. Anyway, I'm not great at explaining, writing down trip reports so there may be things that I wanted to add/say but I just can't remember them now. PS. We felt completely normal the following day, no hangover no nothing.

Some Questions

We were wondering how different are shrooms to cactus? Do you get that feeling of "one" with shrooms too? Or is that just from the cactus? I really want to experience a stronger feeling of "one".

We were thinking of soon trying cactus again though this time through an extraction and we wondered if it would be good to continue with cactus or maybe go for something easier?

Thank you for reading this long report and taking your time to reply.

 

Your method of ingesting it was to blame, I'd say. 6 CUPS of frozen material, and 1.2L of orange juice? holy shit....no wonder you vomited!
Dont give up on cactus because of that experience. Try it again, this time boiling and concentrating as has been explained previously.

Of course, if you have access to LSD...thats easier on the stomach and requires no prep....but the effects are a little different. Personally I prefer the mescaline trip...

 

I'm definitely not giving up and want to give it another go as soon as possible. I don't know what LSD is like but from what I've read about LSD, Shrooms, and Cacti, and the light experience I've recently had, makes me think that mescaline will be my favorite too.

ancient powers posted a nice little method in my other thread here: http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=446386&f=113 I was wondering what you'd think of that?

 

The PT i had came from the wilds of Peru and it was VERY potent.

 

unknown75,

i recommend coffee grinding the chips and then put them in capsules. Size 000 capsules work great. capmquick.com

 

I've heard that capsules can give huge stomach pains and after the method I tried I'd rather stick to boiling or alcohol extraction. Another reason I don't want to try capsules is because the amount of capsules you have to swallow can't be good for your body.

 

A lot of the stomach distress can be avoided by simply NOT eating the plant material. Kinda why the thousands of years old methodology for consuming those South American cacti involves the brewing of a tea, not eating the actual plant matter. Peyote is different due to the higher mescaline content, less needs to be consumed, but many still prefer a peyote tea. Digesting cacti matter is rugged on the belly.

I have tried San Pedro a few times, each as a tea with very good results.
Mescaline is a very clear headed experience, so if you expecting a "stoned" trippy mind fuck, you won't get it from mescaline unless you push past the 500+ milligram of mescaline dose, actual HCL, not cactus concoction.

My first major trial with a tea brewed from about 36" of cactus resulted in an 18 hour journey of magnificent quality.
Trip report:http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=374174&f=117

 

Just get lemonade, mix and chug. Bad after taste but doesn't last long.