Hello dear friends!
Please, call me Harlequin.
I have been blessed by curiosity since very young, and so here I am.
I probably should have done this years ago, for my own benefit, but its alright. Better late than never.
I really dig 60's and 70's, 90's, 00's rock/heavy rock/doom/sludge/grunge groups, and I play string instruments as well.
I am a great art fan in general.

Its a real pleasure to be here among all of you right now.
Thank you all very much for the existence of the Nexus.


Harlequin

Harlequin,

Welcome to the Nexus. Really like your name.

Curiosity measures well here

Have you tried many psychedelics yet? Done DMT? Extracted your own? If so how was it?

If you have not yet done so I encourage you to set some real time aside to take a big look around here because this place is all about feeding curiosity.

Again, a warm welcome to you.

Hello Pandora! It's very nice to meet you!
I like your name as well!

Thanks a lot.

I believe I am very well versed in the world of psychedelics, started out probably like many over here did too, getting to meet the dear Cannabis plant, then hunting/growing mushrooms, then I started to grow and collect cacti and other plants as well (the cactus bug bit me the first time I first saw a Lopho IRL), but I never came around eating any Lophos, they're simply too cute for that, and there are plenty quality Trichocereus species to choose from, these are nowadays usually availiable in most countries.

Have also done extractions with a lot of success, but unfortunately DCM has become unavailiable, which doesn't helps me much, but I believe I can use some warm xylene or hexane for cold precipitation techniques, not sure about its solubility in warm Hexane, but its very low at room temp.

Broke through on my very first attempt.
It was scary. It was exactly like I thought dying would be like.
And I only had time enough to think "What have you done man? So now you're going to be found dead in your own bedroom, thats pathetic!", the colors and visions have blinded me, so I lay down by reflex on my bed, just in order to enjoy one of the most impressive experiences ever. I have been bodyless for a little while. At some point, I was around the fringes of the universe.
I have totally lost track of the time. Some 15 minutes had passed, and I am back.
The wood grains glow in all colors of the rainbow around me, and my house looks pretty damn different, the mirror looks rather like a window, not a mirror!
So, I wasn't dead after all, at last! Woof!
And this has been very consistent, have done countless travels, and it never loses the magic.

But the greatest time of all was perhaps, when I vaped MAOI extract, then DMT.
It was a much more subtle experience than I would have anticipated, and lasted about as much as Ayahuasca, so it was much better to work with for the breaking of the 15 min barrier.

When I first took Ayahuasca, it was a whole different world.
My experience with Ayahuasca has opened perhaps even more paths than the one with pure DMT.
Or at least, I value very much the adding of a MAOI to the mix. It smoothes things out, and also does the cleaning.
I had great vistas and 'mirations'.

So, I do have a few flight hours under my wing, yes.
I believe I tried and grew most major entheogens, including Yopo trees and such.
Unfortunately, I had an accident, and people who took care of my plants have mostly drowned my plants instead, so I lost a few very dear plants which I am looking to grow again in the future.
I cannot live without a Caapi plant, and I really miss my Salvias (divinorum) so bad, even though I would very, very rarely use Sally.

Wow. It was a lot more than I originally intended, but I guess this is more of an essay than my first post.

How did you get into Entheogens, Pandora?

It was a joke, when I said 'this is more of an essay', lol, nobody never gets my jokes, but thats ok.

I am sorry for the brief description of something very, very complex, what happens actually goes somehow beyond my full comprehension, and its a first experience, which somehow might have gotten some 'memory noise' from having happened some 20 years ago.

Anyways, it was very, scary at first, then I got the hang of it, and when I let it go, things kinda flowed much more harmoniouly.

But the takeoff IS rough. Its not like a gracious airplane slowly climbing from the runway, its totally the rocket ride kind of experience, if it means anything to you, of course.

Nowadays we have more and more (and more) videos, and less and less text, I believe people (of course this is a generalization) are getting dumber over time.

Nowadays people don't read books on how to do something, they just see a stupid guy doing something on youtube, probably with no regards to safety, mostly with no scientific background, or embasement, I am a books person.

I have a LOT of books. Old, new, termited books, valuable books I won't throw away because of a few little holes. It becomes even more charming actually. And my books contain lots of leaves and excicatae, most of which are incomplete (can anyone help me out with my pretty dried plant samples? I have no practice on framing the stuff, but I'm good at arranging/drying the samples).

I have a background in Pharmacy, so I have some knowledge I would love to share for the benefit of the community and its individuals.

And by the way, Pandora, your avatar is quite awesome.
I wish I had some more graphic art qualities so I could have a neat avatar myself, I see a lot of cool avatars in the Nexus, I see people really have a taste for art in here.

BTW, I love the ever changing art on top of the screen.

Dear Harlequin,

Thanks so much for sharing your background and reports.

"I am sorry for the brief description of something very, very complex, what happens actually goes somehow beyond my full comprehension, and its a first experience, which somehow might have gotten some 'memory noise' from having happened some 20 years ago."

No need to apologise to us! Folks here understand more from what you cannot say than any other community you're likely to find.

Great to have a fellow musician and music lover here. I wonder what the % of "music lovers" is in this community compared to the norm? I find it pretty difficult to relate to folks that DON'T love music. Terence McKenna once called the psychedelic experience "a freebie from nature", and I feel the same about music.

I recently finished Mark Lanegan's autobiography called "Sing Backwards and Weep". It's really worth a read, though pretty harrowing. If you're not familiar with Mark Lanegan, he was a singer (dead now sadly) for the band The Screaming Trees in the 90s, and also worked with Queens of the Stone Age and many others. He has an incredible baritone voice a-la Tom Waits/Leonard Cohen, and was very close with Kurt Cobain and Layne Staley (a big part of the autobiography), having emerged from the Seattle grunge scene. He struggled with addiction all his life, and probably should have died a lot younger (he only left us last year). I definitely recommend it if you're into music. Especially the audiobook version where the author narrates.

Thanks again for sharing and welcome.