This was my first attempt at preparing and ingesting San Pedro cactus, this one being the pachanoi strain. I am a relatively experienced psychonaut, having done psilocybin, salvia, H.B. woodrose, kratom, and a number of different entheogens. This was to be a trip to remember. I took 12 in. of it, cut it into slices and then into quarters. Then I put an equal amount of water with an equal amount of cactus chunks and blended them together. After this, I boiled the foamy brew for 5 1/2 hours. I used the mj shroomer preparation which is preparation 5. I was left with a large glass full of greenish brown liquid. I soon found out that I didn’t boil it down enough…..not nearly enough. 11:00am- I sat down with a chaser of apple-grape juice and peanuts. I didn’t know what to expect so I just grabbed whatever sweet and salty foods I could find. Cactus juice is the WORST tasting substance that I have ever put in my body. The bitterness is overwhelmingly ridiculous and the taste stayed in my mouth for 5-7 minutes after each sip. It took me 45 min. to drink down the glass, and I was still only able to drink ¾ of it. After that I knew I was going to vomit if I tried anymore. Now to wait….. 12:00- I am now feeling increasingly drunk, a feeling that I am used to from the very beginning of shroom trips. I am noticing a brightness to everything, as if everything has a slight aura around it. 12:30- I look over at the time and feel like it should be later than it is. I then notice the glass of cactus juice leftover and immediately get nauseous and empty the glass into the sink. I thought of saving it for later but the sight of it was unbearable. I sat down for a little bit and then decided to go play my saxophone. 12:45- After I played a couple songs I came back to my family room where my sister is (she was my sitter) and now am feeling the onset of a trip. I can’t really believe it because I wasn’t sure how well I had extracted it. I was definitely noticing vibrations in anything that I would focus on. I have a Tool poster with artwork by Alex Grey (I think that’s his name). It’s very typical of his work, with many eyes and galaxies all over it. When I would stare at it, all the different parts of it would start flowing and moving. I then turned on the boards of Canada on my windows media player and enjoyed the background visuals that are very trippy. 1:10- I soon found that the visuals on the windows media player didn’t interest me as much the visuals of everything going on around me. There was definitely a growing sense of awe and wholeness that was bringing about a great euphoria. I had been smiling for the past hour it seemed and my cheeks were cramping up, but I didn’t care at all. It was one of the best feelings. Time was a bitch, everytime I would start talking to my sister and ranting on about something, I would look at the clock and only 3 or 4 minutes had elapsed since the last time I looked. This continued for the rest of trip and actually made me feel as if the trip was 5 times longer. I got caught up looking at the poster when what I think was the beginning of the climax happened. I was staring at the center of it and was noticing how all I could see was eyes and galaxies moving all around the poster and in one moment they all zoomed out a little and froze in place. This was wicked and I started laughing hysterically. From here on my recollection of time is pretty hazy so I’ll stick to general periods of time. Between 1:45 and 2:45, I was in a state of perfect bliss. My body was very lethargic but my mind was unbelievably active. Everything was shining with a brilliance that is indescribable. The blinds on the window had shadows on them that were forming Aztec looking patterns of completely random things. I would see a face grinning whose grin would get pulled upwards and then would form a bear, which then would melt down into a statue, so on an so on. It was random but amazing. At around 3:00, the peak came and boy was it overwhelming, but in a very good way. I was staring up at the sunlight on my white ceiling and I saw a bright dot of light form. The more I stared at it, it would growing bigger and brighter and flood my field of vision with an amazingly bright white light. I felt an extreme flow of happiness and positive energy going throughout me and when I looked back down at the windows, everything was zooming in and out and shining with colors and white light. It was as if everything had light shining from within it. I was having full conversations with myself in my head and could handle usually negative situations with a positive, rational attitude. I was able to work a lot of stuff out that had been on my mind. After that I started to return back to baseline over the next three hours. It was a very nice return with the same kinds of visual melting and waving of objects, but just less intense. What was sort of cool was that after my peak, I placed a pizza order. It was around 3:30, so I was mentally tripping, but without so much of the physical effects. When I was placing the order, I realized that I didn’t really know what I was saying, but I kept on saying it. Every time I started to doubt that I was saying the right order, I wouldn’t think about it and just keep talking. I ended up getting the order absolutely right and my sister said that I sounded the most normal that I ever have on the phone. It was a killin experience existing in two realities like that, and it just added to the whole trip. It was an amazing experience that I would definitely recommend.
Thank you for sharing your first sacred journey with San Pedro.I find first hand accounts very fascinating.
