Hi, I’m pretty new here. I hope it’s not rude to post something like this without having posted more on other people’s things, i just don't have access to the full forum and haven't had much to add to the conversation on other's posts. I fully intend to participate more on other's stuff, but recent events caused me to write something of my own that may be of interest, and also advice is appreciated.

So I ate some caapi extract and mushrooms a week ago because I'm desperate for healing. The bottom line problem for me mentally is that I have an obsessive compulsive need to hurt myself. I just got off heroin and meth (iv) a year ago, after my SO died horribly of an overdose. I have thick scars from cutting running up and down my thigh and have spent hours searching every inch of my body for a vein to shoot up in such that I could feel the icy meth leaking out the many holes downstream. 6 months ago I stopped drinking, binging/purging and starving, and taking drugs other than cannabis and started going to AA meetings. I started working out and doing yoga like a maniac. I literally couldn't slow down 5-6 days a week 1-3 hours a day. I was getting drawn back into masochism breaking down my body and bending it in ways i shouldn't have been. Three weeks ago, I heard my meniscus tear and I still continued to practice until I was having trouble walking. This, in addition to tendonitis in both hip flexors and chronic neck/back pain.

I was anxious before dosing despite meditating earlier in the day, but drank the caapi extract (1.1 grams of 30x extract) anyway and sat outside in the dwindling light to reflect on how I had been lying to myself for months that my interest in exercise was purely positive. I feel downright embarrassed and ashamed that my preoccupation with physical prowess is literally breaking my body.

As the caapi came on I found some peace about my yoga now being about stillness rather than movement as a necessity to recover. I had the insight that the root cause of my injury was a toxic combination of inflated ego and self loathing, and resolved to counter these unwholesome desires somehow. After achieving this insight, a pleasant rooting warmth slowed my heart rate and breathing. I concentrated on my breath and the remnants of dusk light for a few minutes before I went inside and ate 2 grams of shrooms, about 15-25 minutes after drinking the potion. The caapi itself had a visual/very trippy effect, which I absolutely loved. I find that dose of caapi/a similar dose of rue to be trippy on their own but with none of the edginess I typically feel when I dose tryptamines. I felt the caapi mixing with some spicy food and milk I’d eaten earlier though which was unpleasant--lesson learned.

The whole process of loin girding, meditation, and weighing the doses took several hours. There is a sense of ritualistic hourglass like restriction/constriction of consciousness when I do this or similar routines to prepare for a trip a strong trip. The mind is honed on an object and the body kept as silent and as still as possible before the tryptamine lifts me into sublime expansion.

But not this time. I’ve never had shrooms just sit in my stomach and not digest and I’ve eaten them many times. I tend to have an empty or almost empty stomach and it still works within 30-90 minutes. I think it was because I didn’t properly chew these, basically swallowed them whole cause they were small. I went inside and meditated for another 30-60 minutes and little happened, at which point my ability to meditate evaporated, and I felt agitation rising. This manifests for me aches in the body, lip/tongue chewing, obsessive picking and scratching and an inability to be still. It was mild this time and I always find a way to get through it. In fact, I’ve come to see this agitation as an essential skill building routine that the shroom/caapi/rue spirit puts me through regardless of dose. The past few times I’ve tripped the beginning of the trip was characterized by somewhat intense agitation (this coming from someone who has had multiple psychotic breaks on meth featuring giant undead bug invasions), which had to be overcome through concentration, patience, and straight-up willpower before the shrooms gave me my dose of bliss for the evening. This is a kind of psychological work out that prepares me for an active and engaged lifestyle. I have a theory that my trips would become lackluster if I didn't restrict my life to be engaging because it was the shrooms in the first place that guided me to make these changes.

Anyway, 4 hours after dosing I ate a banana and the shrooms hit pretty mildly, beginning to really digest. The next few hours in bed listening to Nils Frahm’s neoclassical piano music were pleasurable enough even though the caapi had mostly worn off.

I think I knew the whole time that the shrooms were not digesting, but i have this internal fear/intimidation about the vulnerable states this can put me in. I remember also wasting 10-14 grams of shrooms a few months ago making bunk shroom tea because of obvious mistakes in extraction. My subconscious was undercutting my conscious decision to undertake a very intense trip.

I am hoping that this internal resistance has some wisdom to it rather than pure cowardice. The root of my physical pain is also over-eagerness and ego which led to my decision not to take spice this evening as well. As someone with a history of addiction and craving in addition to egoistic ambition, it is too easy for me to justify pushing the envelope with everything in my life, but I don't want to use shrooms or spice or caapi as a "drug." It's a life saving medicine. I am learning that it is the way I approach the substance that makes it beneficial.

Committing to the medicine as something I return to periodically throughout my life and with patience rather than with overwrought zeal and frequency was an important step. However, I am now planning trips on Sunday/Monday for caapi/dmt (1 g 30x extract/15-30mg spice) and caapi/psilocybin (2-3 grams caapi extract, 3 grams shrooms) respectively because it may be my last opportunity to trip for quite some time because I'm starting graduate school in 2.5 weeks. I plan to meditate before and pray to the shroom/dmt/caapi and frankly beg for the healing my mind is in need of. I’m curious if anyone has input on whether or not I should just go for it and take the spice and how to know when a friend is ready for the spice? any input on dosing is also welcome.

I just got a little wax vaporizer attachment for a vape pen I hope will work well for the experience. I was thinking of dosing us 20-35 mg to get a strong experience (if the vape works). I’m taking 1 gram of caapi 30x extract and a friend has 2.5 grams of rue. It’s just not an easy decision whether or not I am ready for spice this time around, especially after all the traumatic experiences and addictions over the past few years. I did spice in my teens and had really positive experiences but hadn’t done it in years until a few small trips a couple of months ago with rue and just freebase, but no breakthrough experiences. I found myself thinking about other things honestly during those trips, which means I definitely didn’t take enough. I would be more inclined to wait and take it at a later time if that wouldn't require me to break the law to transport said chemicals to school. IMO better to take or toss into the wind so to speak.

Any thoughts/questions welcome. I am going to start recording and posting thoughts written after my trips to keep a record of my exploration if there's interest. If you have input on whether that sounds useful to the community or how I could make it moreso please comment! I know this is long but i truly aimed to make it easy to read and to include little to no fluff.

Hang in there brother - it sounds like in terms of the realisations you've already had you're moving in the right direction.

Thanks for the confirmation. I ended up just doing the caapi and shrooms and dmt, but not all together. I did the spice with a friend. i can't remember a thing from the peak, but the afterglow was heavenly. I ate 4 grams of mushrooms and 2.3 grams of caapi 30x extract. the effects were pretty mild due to not great shrooms, but towards the end of the trip i started sublingually taking the caapi starting at 50 mg of 30x extract and building up till i'd taken .3. It was truly breathtaking how quickly and profoundly the caapi lifted me up into this maternal, somewhat visionary and nurturing embrace.

Hi!=) You must write or read often cause you write well.

"I had the insight that the root cause of my injury was a toxic combination of inflated ego and self loathing"

When I made a change for a better life I also noticed these two vices as the root problem. Any kind of self loathing, desire to hurt myself, or ego, is so far gone now, that the person I used to be seems like it was someone else. At the same time I recognize that that was actually me, only that it was me full of illusions. Drop the illusions and the authentic self remains. Drop all the guilt, shame, desire, ambition, violence, anxiety, the stress and problems...drop it all and what remains is pure, unshackled, free.

Of course you meditate so much you must know this already =)

I think you are ready when you are free...when you have peace, a clear concience, and are living the good life (as greek philosophers would say, which means living with virtue.) At which point one should be fufilled in life and happy and thus ready to inquire into the nature of reality. In my oppinion this would make one fairly pure of heart and it is my oppinion that purity of heart will keep you safe in hyperspace always, even when the molecule fails you and sends you to the most disgusting dimension. This sounds very oriental or fancy, but in technical terms purity of heart also means temperance. Temperance is a practical necessity. Which reminds me of a quote:

"If the bad people knew what good business it is to be good, they would be good even if just for business"

Then again, all that I said above is just an oppinion really, and I imagine that there are a thousand ways to walk the path towards a good relationship with hyperspace. It can be aproached from all and any sides. There is no one way...

But there is a way, and that way is...

Anywho, I would recommend smoking changa!

Glad to hear about your recent dmt experience =) im glad you got to feel the heavenlyness of the afterglow!!! yay!! thats what its all about.

For your trip reports just make a thread for each report, title them with something you saw, felt, heard on the trip, and as a subtitle maybe add "first dmt trip, second dmt trip, etc" This way you can idenrify them by title easy if you ever want to read a specific one.

aya's maternal embrace ftw!!

Hey there,

Thank you for the compliment and the encouragement, i have spent a while reading and writing and also took care to write this post. The thing about virtue has always come up for me with shrooms in particular. Wanting to be better to my roommate and my cat and my family. Call my grandmother, recycle, study, choose a decent career etc. If i don't do these things i typically will waste a shroom trip thinking about mostly those things. I am actually backing off now for awhile because I got what I wanted out of the last two trips which was some relief from depression and a deep churning--a solid step further in my knowledge and experience with these things. One day i will definitely try changa. Time and resources are limited for now.

I am starting to feel a similar way to you but there is always the inner nihilist vying for control. I just began meditating and got sober 6 months ago i have a lot to learn and progress. I too have found that it is as easy as being willing to let go of those emotions or at least wait them out, but still struggle if it has been a few months since i've had a decent sized dose.

It is perhaps easy to lose sight of the importance of temperance with these substances when they feel so wholesome. On the other hand, i'd like to think most who dabble in such things for long enough develop enough fear/love/respect to practice temperance.