The Darkest Experience of My Life
Mescaline & 4-AcO-DMT
by Sam
Citation:   Sam. "The Darkest Experience of My Life: An Experience with Mescaline & 4-AcO-DMT (exp112636)". Erowid.org. Dec 10, 2018. erowid.org/exp/112636

 
DOSE:
T+ 0:00
500 mg oral Mescaline  
  T+ 6:00 20 mg oral 4-AcO-DMT (capsule)
BODY WEIGHT: 92 kg
I wanted to share this with my fellow psychonauts, in the interests of safety of fellow explorers, to promote caution when mixing psychedelics.

This experience took place earlier in the summer, in a very comfortable setting, in my bedroom and garden one summer afternoon and evening. I was sharing this experience with my then new girlfriend, who is a clinical psychologist who works with psilocybin in a therapeutic content, and someone I spare a very special bond with. This would be our first powerful psychedelic experience together.

Given that we both had a day to spare and the weather was fantastic, we decided to have a trip together. She has a fondness for San Pedro, I've had a gram of synthetic mescaline hcl for a while now so we split that between us. This was nice, and quite gentle, perhaps it had degraded in the time that I've had it, it wasn't as powerful as I was expecting. It was very pleasant though, and we were certainly both quite altered, but not really tripping per se. Senses were definitely heightened, and we were enjoying lounging around listening to music and chatting. I hear some of our hens and ducks outside kicking off, and had a feeling something was off, so went outside, to find one of the hen's chicks was missing. I have a chat with my friend and neighbour about this, and just as we are discussing this, we hear the sound of a distressed bird, while our dogs are in the bushes nearby. I go into the bush and find the missing chick with its foot caught in a bin liner wrapped around the stem of a bush...due to the luck of being in the right place at the right time, I was able to find it and free it.

Six or so hours in, after the chick incident, we head outside to lie in the sun by the pond. My girlfriend suggests we maybe smoke a joint, which sounds like a fine idea to me, but I suggest we have a capsule of 4-AcO-DMT instead, so as to hopefully vamp up the psychedelia a bit. I was hoping for and expecting a bit of an expansion of what we already had going on. My lady was down with this plan, so I went to measure out two capsules (in no way what I considered excessive amounts, but weighing out powerful psychedelics while on mescaline I don't think was wise).

I head back outside capsules in hand to enjoy what I thought would be a beautiful summer's evening in a stunning spot in nature. We swallow our capsules and bask in the evening sun taking in all the sights, sounds and scents of nature around us. Around 15-20 mins late, I knew we were in for a wild ride, as powerful geometric patterns were forming with open eyes against the backdrop of blue sky. This concerned me a bit, as I felt at that point the capsules should really have only just dissolved, and yet I was already coming up, hard. I hadn't counted on or desired this, but the setting at least was close to optimal. Things escalate, rapidly. I hear this electrical/mechanical thrumming or whirring, it sounded very real, like it was coming from outside of myself. A minute late, my gf asked whether I could hear this mechanical whirring. We were rapidly entering a very powerful psychedelic experience. The headspace for me had a very "pushy" feel, that was unpleasant and very in my face, and there was a dark, chaotic tint to it. Behind closed eyes, I found myself in a very similar realm or space to a strong vaped DMT experience...only this was only getting stronger with time.

I started to vocalise/throat sing, and this started to sculpt and shape the patterns I saw, and gave me some small feeling of being able to navigate the chaos to some degree, which was helpful. My gf was having a really hard time. She's had previous issues on ayahuasca, mushrooms and holotropic breathwork where she really struggles with breathing, and she feels this is linked to birth trauma re-surfacing (she subsequently learned that her birth was a very traumatic one). She was worried about her breathing, so I did my best to comfort and reassure her, and I embraced her and started throat singing again, as much as for my own reassurance as hers, and it seemed to help her too. Sometime later she moved past this phase, and the sun started to go down, and it was getting cold. There was a slight let up in intensity, but we were both still deep in it. We headed indoors to get cosy and listen to some music.

I was still in a deep state. Music was not the guiding helpful force it sometimes definitely can be in these states. I was lying in the fetal position in bed, hyperventilating. The dark pushy edge to the experience was still very much present and unrelenting, and this combo felt like it was hard on my body and mind. I was dark now, and around 9 or so hours after taking the mescaline, and 3 or so hours since taking the 4-AcO-DMT. I was doing my best to ride out this experience, and without warning, something changed suddenly. My mental state became saturated with a very tangible feeling of darkness, impending doom, despair and hopelessness. I felt weak, and lying there felt like something between a decaying old corpse, or an aborted human fetus. It felt like I was in the shadow of death. It really felt like I was poisoned, and in a great deal of danger. I've never ever had such an experience before. This feeling of dying was nothing to do with an ego-loss type of dying, and it was worrying to be feeling such horrific things at such a late stage of an experience. It felt like my blood pressure was very high. I sat up on the edge of the bed, feeling very tangible feelings of doom. I just tried to stay in the present, to just be in the moment, and take each moment as it came. I was getting painful twinges in my heart, and some weird electric twinges in my brain. Heart attack or seizure really seemed imminent...it was like my system was being worked to the very point of collapse, and it felt like death could occur at any moment.

I kept these feelings to myself for a while, until my gf clocked on to something being wrong.
I kept these feelings to myself for a while, until my gf clocked on to something being wrong.
She did her best to reassure me, making the valid point that we had both ingested the same quantities of substances, and she was fine, if a little ruffled after her previous gruelling experience. In her view, I was suffering from a panic attack, which may very well have been the case, and perhaps the psychedelic head space amplified this. To me though, it did not feel like a bad trip, it was scary in that unlike other gnarly experiences with psychedelics I've had, it really felt like it was my physical self that was in danger, that my system was poisoned.

This went on for some time...it was truly the darkest, most terrifying, most gruelling experience of my life. I'm a well-travelled psychonaut and my feathers are not easily ruffled, but this was really scary. To me, it genuinely felt like a physical poisoning that was being made mentally manifest by the psychedelic experience. I recall another rather harrowing mixing mescaline as it happens (but falling well short of this experience, at least for me personally), this time with LSD...this was not a winning combination for any of our party on that occasion. There was a dark tint to the experience...physically, it felt hard on one's system (like blood pressure was elevated), mentally it was like being caught in the midst of two powerful psychic tides. My dear sister had a MUCH worse than either myself or my friend on that occasion. She was on the SSRI citalopram at the time (a very foolish oversight on my part...she has used with psilocybin and LSD alone previously to no bad effect). I think she may have experienced serotonin syndrome, and she got very hot...I could see the steam pouring off her. I went to get a glass of water and came back to the room in haste following a commotion, to find my sister trying to jump out of the window, as she was under the impression she was on fire and burning up and she needed to get people's attention. So in this case, it was like the mental experience of her trip was manifesting as the feeling of being on fire, when she seemed to be suffering from hyperthermia.

At some point, things started to drop off in intensity much to my relief, but after a great deal of mental and physical anguish and torture. That night, as I tried to sleep, I kept drifting back into that state of darkness and mental anguish and heart twinges...I took a valium to help get me off to sleep. I awoke with no side effects other than some substantial residual humbling.

I wanted to share this as a warning to fellow psychonauts, to be cautious when mixing different psychedelics. Certainly I will take much more care with future explorations. Stay safe y'all.

Exp Year: 2018ExpID: 112636
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: 33
Published: Dec 10, 2018Views: 5,726
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
Mescaline (36), 4-AcO-DMT (387) : Difficult Experiences (5), Combinations (3), Small Group (2-9) (17)

COPYRIGHTS: All reports copyright Erowid.
No AI Training use allowed without written permission.
TERMS OF USE: By accessing this page, you agree not to download, analyze, distill, reuse, digest, or feed into any AI-type system the report data without first contacting Erowid Center and receiving written permission.

Experience Reports are the writings and opinions of the authors who submit them. Some of the activities described are dangerous and/or illegal and none are recommended by Erowid Center.


Experience Vaults Index Full List of Substances Search Submit Report User Settings About Main Psychoactive Vaults