Trip reports

Timeline

Below I will report only on some of the above trips and will only report the most salient and surprising phenomenological effects:

13 September 2023 — Maloca at night, Andrés sitting, 2-5mg

Setting

• around midnight, Maloca in very low lighting, only the ceiling lit with light on wood appearing red
• first 2mg, then 5mg, report below focuses on second dose (5mg)

Onset

• strong sense of body sinking down into enormous depth
• being absorbed by depth and darkness
• reminiscent of diving (although supine rather than prone)

Peak

• initial sense of jitter, locally heating energisation
• strong/total self-absorption with octagonal shape of Maloca ceiling (“perfect shape”)
• falling into deeper state, experience nothingness, extremely relaxing

Come up

• floating upwards from the depths
• starting to perceive sitter (Andrés) as very gentle and equanimous (in the sense of absorbing anything) presence/alteration of very smooth perceptive field

15 September 2023 — Outdoors with Asher

Setting

• around 3pm, sitting on wooden reclining chairs outdoor in front of lake
• sipping on pipe at 11W, took 3 sips

Onset

• experience dilation: world simulation seemingly slowing down by a factor of 5-10
• sounds feel much slower and with the feeling of being in the vacuum (no background noise)
• cars passing in the freeway behind generate a very pleasant feeling by slowly covering the entire back arc of my world dome in two passes, first sweep creating the sound and second sweep taking it away

Peak

• eyes open: two trees in front energise very strongly, losing the sense of depth against the background of the sky. The contour of the trees (branches and leaves) becomes very distinct and clean, despite the seemingly imperfect shape of the trees themselves

Come up

• flies accumulating on my shoulder, staring at my hairy knees, rubbing my back on the chair
• mind remember that these stimuli are somewhat annoying unpleasant but overall relaxation of the body and mind is too deep to care about it, simply letting anything happen, arm ends up covered in flies

16 September 2023 — Mettāannealing

Setting

• around midnight, Maloca in very low lighting
• preparatory dose with Teafarie and Andrés, doing self-guided mettā meditation (5mg?)
• then https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzYD1QVbq6PEqri4A6OY-gClBu71CWnRo (8mg?)

Onset

• the first sip was very strong and really kicked me out of park: for a moment I lost track of everything
• state felt crystallising into some very transparent triangles tesselating the world simulation
• felt a bit annoyed at the presence of words (mettā song) as they had a complex texture and a lot of information content and I was on the edge of a very low information content and high valence state
• words felt loving and kind, a part of me opened to them and I could feel them carving some felt sense of loving kindness deep into my brain

Peak

• took another sip, dropped the pipe and let go further.
• I felt as if I was floating in space, with zero gravity around me. The only sensations present were where my wrists touched the ground and I had high sensitivity in my open hands. I felt held in empty space by a circular swing.
• white bright light emerged in my visual field and was starting to merge with it

Come up

• a strong emerging feeling of sympathetic joy, a big smile opened on my face a few times. I remember once the smile was so long that I eventually started licking my front teeth with the tip of my tongue.
• a deep sense of love and connection with others around me both in the retreat and all beings in general. This felt a sense of deep love that is always there and we mostly connect to it unconsciously

16 September 2023 — With Asher

Setting

• mid-afternoon in Maloca, pipe loaded with a lot of medicine but sipping at it slowly
• playing with using the sipping method to go very deep
  • analogy of hiking to mount Everest by first going to basecamp

Onset

• finding comfort and even some lucidity in liquid-slipperly low 5-MeO state

Peak

• being absorbed by feeling of pressure differential between ears
  • at first, very unpleasant and distressing
  • applying equanimity and acceptance of condition smoothing over the rest of the field
  • experience feeling like an L-shape with smooth gradients around the L
• waves of light sweeping into visual field and smoothing experience

Come up

• heightened empathy towards all who suffer

17 September 2023 — Morning meditation group trip

Setting

• late morning in Maloca, post-meditation, group trip sitting in circle
• slow sipping around one pipe

Onset

• slowly feeling alteration of consciousness and emerging awareness of symmetries in the way the group sat and behaved
• oscillating between holding stillness sitting and letting go lying down
• person in front of me going into deep stillness and showing energy of composition

Peak

• letting go by lying down and allowing stillness to pass through me
• feeling my body midline propagate to the entirety of my world simulation and creating to slowly vibrating and synchronously resonating semi-spheric halves (very pleasant)

18 September 2023 — Evening meditation group trip

Setting

• late night in Maloca, group meditation sitting in circle and holding hands
• slow sipping around one pipe

Onset

• slowly feeling alteration of consciousness
• sense of group feelings moving across bodies around the circle

Peak

• after a longer intake
• feeling group shape as pentagon
• pentagon slowly expanding into infinity then coming back with wave motion (expanding speed equal to contacting speed)
• once pentagon contacted back into shape of group, exploding upwards like fountain dwelling (with wellbeing)

19 September 2023 — With Richard

Setting

• 2pm in Maloca, before ceremony I fasted, meditated (1h) and did qi gong (30m)
• Richard led ceremony following his method of doing “slurpy” sounds (channelling cerberus) and whistling (channelling a medicine man)
• Smoking from traditional pipe and holding in one go, probably 5-6 mg twice
• Prepared for first dose by doing some light breathing exercises

Experience (in my perception, peak happened immediately after smoking)

• After breathing exercises, I felt able to hold the smoke for quite a long time and I perceived I did so. Perhaps because of that, the dose hit me quite strongly and I was suddenly and rapidly sent somewhere else, feeling like I was transported to another universe
• At first the two things being present were just Richard’s sounds and my heartbeat
• Somehow from this two stimuli my brain constructed and entire ontology in which the substance was used for assisted suicide (but people didn’t talk about it because it was a sacred thing) and it was now my chance to decide weather to live or not
• Richard’s sounds were loud, seemingly random, constantly changing, moving up and down in pitch and in modulation. My brain interpreted them as a symbol for life and all the complexity it contains and the constant continuing and change of the sound as the inevitable attachments we form to life by being alive

Come up

• I ended the experience quite confused. I realised that this new ontology that suddenly took over my mind was perhaps not real. I felt that perhaps it was a metaphor for ego death. I felt confused about what the ego wanted (what was I attached to): whether I was attached to living or to dying (as a form of achievement of letting go of everything).
• Afterwards the experience felt confusingly pleasant. In some sense I felt liberated from the fear/attachment from death but also a little bittersweet about having somehow missed to experience what there could have been beyond it.