DOSE: T+ 0:00	1 g	oral	Ginger
T+ 0:15	0.5 g	oral	Ginger
T+ 0:30	575 mg	oral	Mescaline	(capsule)

Background:
My mindset going into this trip was quite positive. A little residual stress from a busy work week was there, but in general I was in a good place in life and with my loved ones.

The Trip:
I pushed on the gas pedal trying to hurry up as I entered into national forest land running behind my anticipated schedule for the day. A capsule of 575 milligrams of Mescaline Citrate that I extracted from a Trichocereus Bridgesii in my garden rested in my pocket (equivalent to 334 mg HCl).

After turning onto a forest road I continued to ascend higher in elevation, avoiding the potholes and fallen tree branches. Further down the road, the path became impassible as much of it was buried under spring snow that still had not melted off. I parked my vehicle, grabbed my camping pack, and began to hike through a snow covered side trail. I pulled the mescaline capsule out of my pocket and gazed at the crystals inside while saying my intentions out loud. “Exploration, growth, good times, and renewal.” I swallowed the mescaline at 9:45am.

The plan was to camp solo, deep in the forest, far from any developed sites where I wouldn’t see another soul. I had brought enough water to last me the two days and food for one day. There were a number of places I had scoped out that seemed like they would be great to see on mescaline. A large open alpine meadow was the closest on my list, followed by a few lakes carved into the granite slabs of the area.

Lugging my camping gear up the steep hills caused my heart rate to be continuously elevated for the first hour after ingestion of the mescaline. I’m convinced this sped up absorption and the come up. The last time I took mescaline it took three hours until I felt like I was peaking. This time, one hour after ingestion I felt like I may start peaking soon. I arrived at the high elevation meadow and debated if I should continue hiking to a lake. My mind was unsure, alternating back and fourth, “no it’s coming on quick you need to set up a home base … yeah but camping by a lake would be great, just keep going… no no no maybe not”.

Suddenly I realized that if a simple decision on whether or not I should hike another mile was causing me this much uncertainty, that was a good sign that it’s time to set up camp at the meadow. The mescaline come up is restless for me, an adrenaline like building sensation that needs to play itself out. Once I arrive at the peak it’s smooth sailing.

I began assembling my tent and sleeping area. The effects really started to ramp up. By the time I was finishing up the tent I was having open eye and closed visuals and there was a lightness in my steps, like the earth’s gravity had been turned down.

Going into the experience I had this idea that I would hike and see things. It became clear to me that this time, mescaline would not be about “going and seeing” but rather “sitting and contemplating.” As I walked through my campsite, I came across a boulder that looked like nature and the elements had perfectly chiseled it into the form of a chair for me. It even had sun rays comically illuminating it through the pine trees as if to say “here is your chair.” I alternated between different chairs of granite and my padded sleeping mat as the peak arrived.

A quote during this peak period from my notes on trip is:

“The stillness is unbelievable. I feel full of life but not in the way that expression is typically said. It’s impossible to explain. I am full of “livingness”. You can’t put this into words yet at the same time it’s so simple.”

I sat on the forested perimeter of the meadow in complete silence. A dense meditative stillness permeated me and my environment, while at the same time I experienced myself full of feeling of “spirituality” for lack of a better word. There was an unmistakeable profundity in me that felt mystical in some way, although I didn’t know why it fit that description. I was not receiving any revelations, I was not losing my sense of self, It did not feel like any conscious external agent was visiting me, nothing of that nature. Despite that, there was a perceived component of spirituality. I felt like some sort power source was radiating in and out of me that felt important and bigger than myself. It felt like I was a tuning fork that had been moved closer to its resonant frequency and began oscillating because of it. Reflecting back on it now, I would say it reminds me of a state I imagine experienced meditators can reach (although also accompanied with the adrenergic effects of mescaline, its tactile and thermal qualities). During this time I didn’t want music. Music would just be a distraction. It would clash too much with the stillness, with my connection. It seemed too stimulating. It would pull me out of the dream. All I wanted to do was enjoy the stillness of the meadow, be in the moment, simply observe and perceive this state that had been thrust upon me.

As the peak of the experience moved through me I thought of how pointless it was to take notes about it, how futile a trip report would be in communicating the sensations to others. Despite that, I did type noteworthy thoughts into my phone occasionally. Each time, the letters morphed and moved on the screen shifting and breathing. The colors on the device also changed tint and hue between the flowing form changes. The contrast of me using this high tech device in the silence of a mountain meadow amongst the birds was slightly jarring and I preferred not to use it if possible. The predictive text feature on my phone would suggest words that it thought I was typing. They would appear on the screen seemingly out of the ether while shapeshifting due to the mescaline. The overall effect made it seem like a strange alien device of incredible capabilities.

The croaks of frogs and calls of birds were my soundtrack while I entered into and out of sedative states accompanied by warm rolling waves and pulses of euphoria. At this dose, the euphoria wasn’t forcefully positive and ecstatic like it is with MDMA, but it was strong, warm, and even hypnotic at times. It made me laugh to myself as I thought about the unusual situation and place I was in. I could see this euphoria being amazing at higher doses. I would lean into its grip and let the waves overcome me as I closed my eyes. There, I was greeted by visuals that filled my mental space. Aldous Huxley described mescaline visuals as animated stained glass shapes illuminated from light coming through the eyelids. This is exactly spot on. They consisted of flowing and transforming angular patterns, and at times were symmetrical while at other times not. They looked a bit like feathers sliding over each other, or like light refracted through flowing water causing it to dance about.

My headspace throughout the entirety of the experience was very clear. I felt like my thoughts were pretty level headed despite me undoubtedly being in a very psychedelic state. There was none of the confusion or paranoia and anxiety that can often occur with mushrooms and cannabis. At this dose, insights were available to me but I had to take an active role in searching for them. I was much more in the driver seat. This is a stark contrast to mushrooms for me, where at times I have felt like the revelations come so quickly that it’s like trying to catch falling leaves in a windstorm. The moment you reach for one, three more fly by.

As I sat and contemplated in the meadow many topics came to my mind. One of them was my own mortality. With 35 revolutions around the sun, I’ve been noticing the early signs of aging a bit more over the last year. I thought about how silly it is to try and hang onto youth. The circle of life is that someone gives you life, you grow old, and you give someone else life. You pass on what you know and you give back what you have, then you leave. When I look around today I see a lot more people focused on stopping the growing old part instead of focusing on the giving back part. There’s less people having kids and less people helping out the children that are already here. A symptom of larger more general shift in the western world toward “me and mine” instead of “us.” A trend shows up again in the destruction of our environment.

Another thought that came to my mind was the importance of developing some sort of practice in my daily life to express gratitude to whatever it is that brought me to be, that something that is bigger than me or anything else. I don’t have to understand the specifics or adhere to any silly set of religious rules to express gratitude, to try and find that inner moral compass that helps me be person that I am satisfied with. I thought about how this practice could be a way to bond with my wife, something we could do together. I’m a very agnostic evidence based person who doesn’t adhere to any religion, but psychedelics tend to bring out the thirst for the sacred in me while simultaneously meeting that need as well.

Just like the last time I did mescaline, many of my insights were practical, and tangible. They were human and community centric. I have read that Indigenous and mestizo practitioners in the Andes refer to San Pedro as Abuelo (Grandfather). I can understand that analogy. Mescaline at times can be like a chat with a wise grandfather whose role is to show you what’s important but tends not to punish you the way a parent has to.

At 4.5 hours after ingestion I thought I noticed the beginnings of a very slow comedown but wasn’t sure. By 5 hours after ingestion I was certain I was on the return flight. It seems my elevated heart rate due to the hiking sped up the start of the trip by about an hour or two which also lead to the comedown starting about an hour or two earlier. The comedown was enjoyable and quite long. I had a lovely 4 hours where I enjoyed music, looked at photos on my phone and watched the ducks and birds of the meadow. There was a definite change to my perception of music. The drum beat of Devendra Banhart’s “Bad Girl” struck me as something beautiful and creative. I had never realized how cool it was and yet so simple. This is the second time in a row that I have tripped on mescaline and felt an attraction towards “less is more” type of music. Music that feels open and is not overly saturated with stimulation. The songs of Hermanos Gutierrez for example always are welcome during a mescaline trip for me. Another highlight when listening to music was the passion and conviction of John Denver’s cover of Let it be, the beauty of the lyrics.

I looked at pictures of my kids while I enjoyed the remaining hours of sunshine lying on a granite rock eating snacks I had packed. I felt my heart brimming with love for them. I felt lucky and happy to be their dad. I also felt an appreciation just to alive at all, to be this manifestation of the universe at this point in time, a part of the mystery of it all. I decided I really needed to set aside some time to plan some trips with loved ones - camping trips with my boys, a beach vacation with my wife, another camping trip with my dad, another with my brother, another with my best friend, something special for my mom. Life is short. I need to make these things happen more often and not let work get in the way. I built a fire as the last rays of sunlight disappeared from the evening, along with the last traces of the mescaline. The rest of the night was spent in my sleeping bag.

Final thoughts:
One thing that was crucial to optimizing my enjoyment of this trip was that I took 1 gram of ginger root 30 minutes before dosing and another 0.5 grams of ginger root 15 minutes prior to dosing. I can’t recommend this enough. I had absolutely zero nausea the entire time and even was able to eat a good amount of food (fresh fruit was absolutely delicious and actually enhanced by the mescaline).

Overall this was a fantastic experience. Mescaline really is a high quality psychedelic with a lot of versatility if you’re able to weigh out and know your dose. My previous lower dose experience with mescaline felt like a natural mild version MDMA but with a headspace that is more honest, more real and mildly psychedelic. This dose on the other was completely different. The peak unlocked a new side of mescaline that I had not seen. It was at times sedating, trancelike, and hypnotic. It was certainly more psychedelic. The euphoria was stronger as well as the visuals, and most interestingly, it had the unmistakable feeling of being “spiritual” in some way. This experience wasn’t something to “figure out” it was simply something to experience and sit with.

Could it be that my subconscious was prepped to feel religiosity because I’m aware that this molecule is used in the religious practice of indigenous people? It’s possible. Is it also possible that the reason at least two indigenous cultures, independent from each other, on two different continents created reIigions in involving this molecule, is because there is something intrinsically “spiritual or profound” in the sensations it can provoke? I would say so.

I am excited to explore mescaline more at higher doses to see how deep the psychedelia can get and how blissful the euphoria can become. Both markedly increased with this increase in dose. I would also like to experience mescaline together with a friend or my brother.

Just like the last time I did mescaline, in the days following the experience I tried to integrate the experience into my daily life. I visited my mom the next weekend and took her out to lunch. I am planning camping trips and vacations with loved ones for this spring and summer. I feel like if you take integration seriously and feel good about your actions in the time leading up to your next trip, psychedelics tend to reward you with a good experience.

Growing the cactus and learning to extract the compound has been an excellent addition to my life. The plants are beautiful, and it’s one of the few psychedelics that with only a little bit of effort that any laymen can do, can be dosed very precisely.

“I understood that our entire universe is contained in the mind and the spirit. We may choose not to find access to it, we may even deny its existence, but it is indeed there inside us, and there are chemicals that can catalyze its availability - Alexander Shulgin”

Exp Year: 2025	ExpID: 118932
Gender: Not Specified
Age at time of experience: 35
Published: Aug 4, 2025	Views: Not Supported
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Mescaline (36), Cacti - T. bridgesii (448) : General (1), Combinations (3), Nature / Outdoors (23), Personal Preparation (45), Glowing Experiences (4), Public Space (Museum, Park, etc) (53)