Diary of a Trip

solotus @ 2009-09-09T03:06:00

2009-09-09T02:06:39Z

It was a night of feminine moustaches, penguins, turtles, poi, wet-suits, MDMA and some light bar visitation followed by (slightly) copious amounts of weed, beer and vodka at the house.
It was also a night of accidentally fly-kicking my shoe onto the roof of a shop and having to scale it to get it back.

And bread wars.

And some pics from my phone

solotus @ 2009-09-09T03:06:00

2009-09-09T02:06:20Z

Building near our Hostel

Guy doing sit-ups in the park lol

John & Paul like pumping

Damn stylish

Paul dared him to do it

Awwwwwk!

View from hostel window

Top of the steps near the hostel

Playing pool in the hostel

Hallway in the hostel

Hostel

Apparently this was a big underground cycling thing

In the hostel canteen (yeah the place had these blue lights everywhere)

Paul looking shocked to be in first class (which we then got thrown out of.... twice)

Changing trains at Nauen

Jellyfish teepee

Neighbouring tent

Near the river on the walk into Putlitz

Chill-Out Tent which we were camping pretty much right beside

Pathway leading to the Chill-Out Tent

Open-Mind Floor

Trying to photograph teeth under UV light... doesn't really work tbh

Paul was the first to fade

Yummy shroomies

Main Floor

Free bong! Though it tasted horrendous, crazy Germans with their weed/baccy mix bongs

Sky through the giant red shades

Outside Berlin airport

Bug bites and rucksack strap bruise

Paul & Jav's flat in Glasgow

Random poster in the flat

I'll hopefully get round to writing a text update soon.

solotus @ 2009-09-09T03:04:00

2009-09-09T02:05:18Z

Evil Mushroom

Elaine

Calm Before The Storm

Mark looking fecked with me in the background lol

John & Gerry

Punks at a Psytrance gig, gotta love Belfast

Brendy does the door

Chris

My glowstick gradually turned from orange to yellow to green..

James

Look at us laugh

Aislinn

Kieran

Tommy

Joe Masterson

Decky

Rik and his ~~Lover~~ iPhone

Mark rounds up the night!

Unfortunately Mike didn't seem to take any pics of the after party. Basically the entire bar came back to the house haha. Good craic.

Photos courtesy of Michael O'Neill

solotus @ 2009-02-20T21:35:00

2009-02-20T21:35:34Z

Shpongle Live Hallowe'en Update

2009-02-11T02:09:46Z

Shpongle was disappointing.

Firstly, they had sniffer dogs at the door. Obviously with having two bags of weed and a pipe on me, I got barked at. The security guard asked me to give them what I had on me, but I was smarter than that. I said I had nothing. So I was taken to a back room to be searched by a woman, and told that if they found anything drugs related I'd have to leave. I said ok.

She told me to empty my pockets, looked through my bag, and frisked me. After she found nothing she said I could go. Seems those bra things I rarely wear DO have a purpose after all ;)

I knew they wouldn't find it, but I mean, I probably could have had it in 3 other places that she didn't check very well or at all.

So.. I went to the gig expecting a fairly intimate and awesome live show, with a much larger than normal band doing their thing and all the focus being on them and the music. It was the first fully live show in nearly a decade, after all.

Instead I experienced a crushing, overheated crowd, and most of the band members were hidden away in the corners of the stage (except for Simon of course......he was center stage) to make room for the group of extremely glittery and feathered "exotic" dancers, that repeatedly kept coming out, doing their seemingly non-choreographed slut dance, and then running backstage for maybe 3 minutes before running back out again, shaking their boobs to a cheering crowd of drooling guys....

It wasn't very fun. At all.

I left the crowd the first time they came onstage, because well I was being crushed, couldn't see very well past tall people anyway, and the feathered stupidness only obstructed my view even more. I tried to get back into the groove twice, but every time they just ran out again.. I mean, they had a topless male dancer at the start, but at least he was actually doing a dance that was interesting to watch because it wasn't just randomly running around gyrating and wiggling his naughty bits.. He looked like he should have had 8 arms, put it that way.

Anyway, fuck it. Maybe I overreacted but we left that place early. The show was simply ruined for me, I wasn't enjoying myself, so I had to get out of there and find somewhere to smoke a pipe.

The course of events of always goes so strangely. We found a mostly deserted street next to a canal, and smoked a few pipes. There was an incident of weed spillage, and me changing my shoes that kept us there for too long, then two guys walked up to us and said they were the police.

They had seen Paul smoking the pipe, and asked him what he had in his hand. We were just totally honest with them (well except for telling them we didn't have anything else on us), and they were actually pretty nice guys.. I even got my pipe back lol. They did give Paul a fucking "cannabis warning" though..

The afterparty was much more enjoyable when we finally got inside.. X-Dream were fucking amazing.

As for the remainder of Liverpool and Wales, I also had good and bad times. Liverpool had much more going on, and people staying up later.. but it was also a bit ...meh. It's just so hard to believe that so-called "lad culture", and even just plain old sexism actually exist after properly experiencing it for myself. I mean I've experienced some, or seen it happening to others.. this was just different. I mean most of the people I met were nice to talk to.. but man, at other times I felt like such a fucking alien just for being female. I not just when I space out during their football talk or when they played Pro Evolution.... (I seriously used to love football, but it just fucking bores me now... so I doubt that has much to do with me having a vagina)

Fabio is one of my best friends, but he can be so fucking naive and sexist without even realising it. I honestly am beyond not understanding why he says some of the stuff he says, including stuff he says to me or about me personally. Things like, "I could never bring a chick into my room, it's so messy"... I'm like "oh it's ok, I don't care" and he says "I don't mean you, just any other female. You're Aimée!"

:|

Also "have you ever seen women's football? They look like men" and just a whole load of other crap.

I hate reading over this and feeling like it sounds really ...extreme or like I'm overreacting. I don't know how I seem to anyone else, or what my stance on sexism seems to be. I don't hate men and I don't hate sex, or even sexual openness to an extent, which so many people assume. I could go on for a long time trying to explain my opinion and views of this, but I won't. I do however consider myself to be very open minded about it, even though I haven't been in the past. I just fucking hate men who treat women like they aren't humans, treat them like they are only there for men's gratification, or who think that all women think the same, act the same, do the same things. And vice versa, when women do it too. I've personally just experienced it with men far more often. It cuts even deeper when it's my own friends that are perpetuating the sexist mindset just by making such vague and ignorant comments. And what makes that even worse is I WANT to say something, so much, but most of the time I don't for fear of hurting the friendship.

Meh.

What else? Eh, long bus journeys are fucking awful.

to the hill once more..

2009-02-11T02:08:02Z

Cave Hill on Acid

2008-08-27T19:56:40Z

Mood

tired

As we enter..

Napoleon's Nose

Toke Break

Joe's not so good at climbing on acid..

Getting closer..

Lovely Belfast..

Paul climbs into the cave.... and can't get back down for ages

Looking through these on my camera was fucking hilarious...

...when Joe's head popped out (must animate this)

We reach the peak!

Found this

Belfast Castle Gardens

Joe steals some herbs..

Joe's wonderful self-photographing skills..

Rolling a joint in my back garden/bike storage thingy

Also, some videos..

Joe accidentally took this... the sound was so fucking hilarious while tripping

Acid (LSD) C20H25N3O

2007-05-29T00:15:05Z

Mood

contemplative
&wee bit sad

So I hadn't tried acid again since the last entry I wrote on this journal about my first trip. Partially due to not being able to obtain any, and also because I was afraid I would have another bad trip. Even though I kind of realised the bad trip was due to my surroundings last time.

Last Friday was the Twisted Records label party. It was a pretty outstanding show and I got to see a few of my favourite artists, including Ott, Younger Brother, ZubZub, Shpongle and Eat Static. Near the beginning of the night a guy approached me and asked if I wanted some "TCB" or something similar. I asked what it was and he said "man-made mescaline". I was interested. I asked Joe if he wanted some and if he could pay for it with the money he owed me because I couldn't find my cash at that point. Well he ended up getting us two tabs of acid each instead, which the guy had also made himself. I wasn't complaining.

I took the first one a few hours before Shpongle in the hope it would be all I'd need and would be tripping by the time Simon was on stage. I definitely felt something but it wasn't exactly tripping. During the Shpongle set I dropped the second tab. In the next few hours I started to feel it a lot more strongly. I wasn't really getting any kind of visual distortions or hallucinations but in my mind, I felt like I was tripping. It was quite enjoyable, though I got the fear a few times very slightly.

After the gig, which ended at 6am, we sat in a skatepark and smoked a few pipes, then walked around Brixton in search of somewhere to get breakfast. It's not a good idea to take acid and then walk around Brixton. Not a good idea at all. The homeless were incredibly intimidating and wouldn't stop bothering us for money even after we gave them some. My friend Joe was also on acid and 4 pills of ecstacy. Needless to say - we were frightened.

As we walked around the dingy streets and marketplace that was just opening, I got a sense of what these areas were like. Dead animal carcusses at butcher's stalls were not a pretty site or smell at 7 in the morning. Men trying to sell us weed in such an open way were obviously just trying to rip us off. Everyone seemed to be out to get something from us. They would have stabbed us just to take our change they were that desperate.

We couldn't get change for our tube tickets for ages but then we finally got out of Brixton. But the whole city seemed to have a strange atmosphere about it. This was not a good town for psychedelic drugs. Everywhere around us were the constant sounds of the hustle and bustle of people, roadworks and traffic. This place seemed to be nothing but the heart of capitalism and terrifying greed. The high street shops sickened me. Along with their meat markets they had the other kind of meat market... Loaded has their very own shop and we also walked past a place selling fur coats, hilariously named "Noble Furs"...

We went to Hyde park for a while to chill out. It was amazing to see all the trees and greenery in that state of mind. So much more comforting than huge city streets and constant busyness. We smoked a few pipes there and just chilled out. It was rather enjoyable. Then my friends wanted to go for a walk. Walking through the park was nice. I felt... just good. We saw loads of squirrels running around. They weren't afraid of us, they came so close. I've never really seen a squirrel before. I still didn't seem to be getting my visual changes or hallucinations but the grass and the leaves seemed to be ...bright. Then I entertained the idea that perhaps they didn't really look any brighter at all, I was just appreciating them on a whole new level.

At this point my feet had started to hurt, I think it's because my boots are a size too big for me and my feet slide around in them too much, causing blisters. I ended up with blisters all over my feet and every step was pure agony. This was really not good on acid..

Eventually I felt like all the negative energy, hurt and pain that was left forever marked on the streets of London was being channelled through the pain in my feet as I walked. I could sense all the pollution in the air and it was like I was breathing in all the horrible energy. Consuming it and letting it flow through all of me. It didn't feel nice. I couldn't understand why or how anyone could live in this place, then contemplated how it perhaps suits some people and what that says about us as a species. It really made me thankful for what I have and glad that that kind of place was not one I'd want to stick around too long. The only way I could get comfortable was to lie down in a park under a tree and fall asleep.

I really wish I had brought a notebook along with me as I hate trying to recall all the thoughts and feelings I had at the time, and I hate trying to recreate all the profound conclusions I came to. I'll know better for next time though. And I'm certain there will indeed be a next time. I enjoyed what that acid got me tapped into, and I definitely would like to try it again somewhere closer to home.

more~

Ayahuasca (DMT) C12H16N2

2007-04-15T10:52:51Z

I bought my Ayahuasca pack from www.azarius.net. It contained 30g of Psychotria Viridis (Chacruna) and 30g of Banisteriopsis Caapi, and it cost €20.

PREPARATION

I started by tearing and crushing the leaves in a big-ish bowl. It sort of hurt my hands after a while, and my pestle and mortar didn't seem to really help until the pieces were a lot smaller.

When they were broken into what I considered small enough pieces, I filled a saucepan with about 500 ml of bottled water and added the juice of one lemon. I added the plant material, gave it a good stir, brought it to the boil then turned the heat down a few notches so that it was still continuously boiling, but not too vigorously.

The instructions said to boil it for a couple of hours, but someone on the azarius.net forum told me to boil it for one hour. So I decided to go for 1.5 hours per boiling.
Well, I checked on it after around one hour and thought, "hmm maybe I should finish it now" but then decided to just leave it for about 10-15 minutes more. Well when I came back to check on it the water had COMPLETELY evaporated and I got not even one drip from the plant material.

For my second boiling I used a little bit extra bottled water, around 1 litre, the juice of half a lemon and little bit of vinegar. Boiled for around one hour. I continued like this for 5 boilings in total, straining the plant material and collecting the brown water each time in the bowl I started with.
The water I poured onto the plant material started to become much clearer on the 4th and 5th boilings.

I then mixed all my brown water and put it back in the saucepan, brought it to the boil and let it evaporate to approximately 1/4 of the original amount (which was around 1 litre).

And now it's sitting in a large mug with a small chopping board over it keeping the steam in, cooling slowly, waiting to go into the fridge overnight for when I drink it tomorrow! More to follow...

EFFECTS

So I drank my Ayahuasca on Friday night (I'm writing this on Tuesday) in my bedroom, with my boyfriend as my sober person. I hadn't eaten anything for well over 12 hours. It was possibly one of the most difficult and disgusting things I have ever had to drink. It tasted extremely bitter, and I had to keep stirring it before I took a drink because there were lots of little brown grainy bits at the bottom, which gave it a horrible texture and made it more difficult to swallow. I sweetened it with a little bit of honey, but it was still incredibly bitter.

It took me an hour or more to drink, because the instructions that came with the pack said not to drink it all at once if it is your first time, as your body then has to adjust to the full amount in one go, and can make nausea worse. It also took me so long because I almost gagged every time I drank some, and had to wait a little while before taking more as I didn't want to throw it up before I had even finished it.

I think I started to feel weird about 45 minutes to 1 hour after I started drinking. I couldn't drink the last little amount because of how disgusted I was, and also because the grainy bits were a lot more concentrated at the bottom, and I knew it would make me vomit if I tried. I don't know if this made the hit or the effects any less strong, but of course that's possible. I think maybe I should have boiled it down to a slightly smaller amount, to make it faster and easier to drink.

The first visual changes I experienced were quite similar to that of mushrooms. I started to see a green-ish tinge to things, then slowly but surely things in my room became distorted and were moving slightly. I lay down and closed my eyes, and saw some pretty great closed-eye visuals. Kaleidoscopic patterns and shapes were all over the place. Facing the light bulb in my room seemed to make them stand out more clearly.

My thoughts also started to get more and more crazy, and mixed up. If you've tripped before, you'll understand how hard it is to describe. If not... well, basically I was just thinking in a more intense mindset. When I thought of my troubles, I did become worried, but then I just kind of thought, "not now.. don't think of this now, enjoy this trip."

I was talking to my boyfriend and sometimes I felt a little bit freaked out because he was sober and he was joking around with me like we always do to each other, but I started to take the things he said more seriously and kept telling him to stop. I remember at one point I looked at him and his face seemed orange, with Indian-style patterns adorning it. He looked like some kind of Aztec statue of a god, or at least that's what came to my mind at the time.

After a while I started to forget I was even tripping, and didn't freak out anymore. Then I would remember, but it was better and I didn't feel scared or freaked out about it. Listening to psychedelic trance and ambient music was VERY pleasant, but it didn't seem to have any effect on my visuals the way mushrooms can.

Soon, maybe an hour or so after I started feeling the first effects, I sat up and said, "I need to throw up!!!!!" and gagged over a basin, but didn't vomit. Then I started to feel the need to go to the toilet, which made me kind of freak out because I'd read that diarrhea was possible, but nausea and vomiting were more common. My mum was taking a bath at the time, so I couldn't go to the bathroom to do the business. This made me REALLY get scared. I was asking my boyfriend what the hell was I going to do, and he suggested just going in the basin. I was thinking "I can't go to the bathroom because my mum will know I'm tripping, but I can't do it in this basin because it'll be so embarrassing!! But I NEED to go, and what if I take a shit in this basin, and then need to puke?? It'll be so horrible puking into a shit-filled basin! But what if I'm puking in the basin and then shit myself at the same time??"

My boyfriend was just telling me to go in the basin, and laughing, which made me very paranoid and I even started to cry slightly, but I actually think my eyes were just watering a lot more than tears of sadness. So I basically felt like I was going to explode out of every orifice if I didn't do SOMETHING and fast. So.... the feeling of needing to excrete being the dominant feeling, I just had to squat over the basin, and excrete. It's hilarious thinking back on it, but at the time I was really freaking out, my boyfriend was laughing and I was yelling "stop laughing at meeee!!"

After I cleaned myself up.... I lay back down on the bed and felt SO much better. Before the purge, I felt like my mind was in a moment of absolutely pure insanity. But afterwards, everything calmed down and I could enjoy myself again. I started to get cold shivers, so I got under my blankets and immediately the shivers stopped. I felt incredibly happy and comfortable, was able to joke and talk to my boyfriend, but my visuals seemed to be decreasing. It was only around 2 or 2.5 hours since I felt the first effects, and the instructions that came with the pack stated that it would last approximately 4 hours. They continued to decrease, but I still felt good.

This was basically the end of it all. I think I probably made the brew weaker by accidentally boiling away all the water at the beginning, and also maybe because I left a little bit of the brew at the bottom of the mug.

From this experience I think I can safely say that I will NOT be trying Ayahuasca again, unless I'm with an experienced shaman, or just someone with many years of experience, who would know exactly what amount of plant and vine should be used for my body weight and my previous experiences etc. I just really didn't enjoy drinking the brew at all, and it's not something I'd like to endure again any time soon.

The trip wasn't exactly what I expected (even though I don't usually go into trips expecting anything, as from past experience I've learned that trips usually give you what you DON'T expect), as in, I didn't go into an entirely different world, meet any of the "entities" I've read about, have any spiritual epiphanies, or really get any intense open-eye visuals. Of course this could all be down to preparation and dosage.

I would definitely try smoking extracted DMT though, and I'd recommend trying Ayahuasca only to people who have had psychedelic experiences before, but don't go into it expecting it to be as fun as mushrooms or acid can be. It's a serious drug, and you need to do a lot of research on it before trying it.

Morning Glory seeds (LSA) d-lysergic acid amide

2007-04-15T10:50:34Z

Mood

hungry

This won't be a long entry, due to the fact I didn't get much of an effect.

I bought some Morning Glory seeds from azarius.net and also bought some Druid's Fantasy capsules for my boyfriend (without realising the capsules were made of gelatin... eugh). Last Sunday we decided to try them out.
My friend Joe also bought some seeds from the same site and took about 200 on Thursday night, he told me he felt a bit sick and got a nice little effect but nothing too crazy.

Well, I counted out 250 seeds. I didn't want to go too crazy by taking more, as it was my first try and I didn't want to get too sick. I chewed about the first 150, but the taste of them almost made me vomit so I just swallowed the rest wwith water. I had thought about soaking them in water for a few hours and then filtering the water and drinking it (as I've read online) but I was too lazy and we just wanted to try them right there and then. My boyfriend took 3 of his capsules.

After about 1.5-2 hours I thought my stomach felt a little bit bad, but nothing unbearable and nothing I couldn't take my mind off by watching TV. Doyle said he was starting to feel "dreamy" after only about 40 minutes or so. He also said his stomach felt a little bit like it was in his throat, and he burped a few times and got a nasty taste.

My mild nausea passed after about 40 minutes to an hour. My boyfriend took another 2 capsules around this time. After this we continued to watch movies, talk, and wait. I felt no effects. Doyle's effects seemed to only stay in the "dreamy" state, although he did say he felt quite different, kind of like the way acid makes you feel. A few hours later he took one more capsule and I took 2 that Joe had given me when he bought them in Germany a few weeks ago.

Doyle felt slightly nauseous for a few hours after my nausea passed, but then he was fine.

A few hours before we went to bed, my vision seemed to go a bit weird. When the lights were off I didn't really notice it, but when they were turned on, and sometimes when my eyes were closed, it seemed that the edges of my vision was "flashy" for lack of a better description. Kind of wavey. It wasn't that strong however.

We concluded that they were a waste of money, although it was still good to have experimented. I still have about 500 seeds left, so I plan to try extracting the LSA instead. I will update on this as it happens.

Psilocybin Mushrooms C12H17N2O4P

2007-04-15T10:49:43Z

When I was in Amsterdam last Christmas we took some mushrooms on the last night. We bought 20g of Mexicans because we had never tripped before (well except my bad acid trip). We went to our hostel room because we didn't want to be totally tripping out in public (even though I'm sure people are used to foreigners tripping out in public).

Well we started eating them around 7pm I think, just ripped bits off and swallowed them with water. At first I was actually chewing them but the taste was just too strong so I had to just swallow them.

Before I had even eaten half I started to feel extremely giggly and was yawning a lot. I was laughing very hard at the most stupid things.. and had no idea why I was yawning so much when I didn't really feel that tired. Joe and Fabio kept telling me to finish them, and I eventually did. But I had already started to see the room turn a green tinge before I was finished.

Now, when we were buying them, we noticed that my friend Joe's box was different to Fabio's and mine. The mushrooms looked smaller, cleaner, and as though there were more in it. We just assumed they were fresher and there were only more of them because they were smaller.
Well after we finished eating them we had a closer look at his box. The woman in the shop had given him 35 grams instead of 20! He asked for 20, and paid €10 the same as us, but for some reason she gave him more!
Pretty stupid idea to check the box AFTER eating them all lol. But it amused us. Joe started to slightly freak out at this point, certain that he was going to be a lot more fucked up than the rest of us.

For some reason, Fabio didn't trip. He kept saying "something's not right down here" but he said he never hallucinated.

At this point I was feeling wonderful, so we decided to go out to a coffeeshop. We went to The Dolphins and sat downstairs in the room with all the beautiful paintings on the walls.

Mood

hungry

Obviously the theme of this place was under the sea, so the walls were also painted blue and had a watery look painted over them. This was moving a LOT. I couldn't believe it was moving SO much. I had to keep asking Fabio if he could see it, because I was sure it had to be some crazy projector or something. He said "well I know what you mean, if you look at it for long enough it looks like it's moving."
And I said, "but is it ACTUALLY moving?" and he said it wans't. So I knew I was fucked.

Joe was pretty fucked at this point too, and he kept playing with his hair and making it defy gravity. Which I found absolutely fucking hilarious. I kept laughing but wasn't sure if anyone knew why I was laughing. This only amused me further. I was trying to stifle my laughter, but this only made me laugh harder. I thought everyone in the coffeeshop was looking at me. They probably were lol.

After a while we went back to the hostel. I lay in bed listening to my iPod for a while, and the music and things I saw with my eyes closed was absolutely stunning.

Being an artist, I sometimes get flashes in my "mind's eye" of colour schemes, or art ideas, or parts of things to add to my art if I am at that time engrossed with working on a piece. Well this was like that, only times a thousand. I wish i could remember even a small fraction of what I saw, but due to being completely stoned, and the fact it was almost 6 months ago, I sadly cannot.

I recommend mushrooms to anyone. That was my first real experience with them (I had them once before, dried and in tea. They are not supposed to go above a certain temperature so I think that's why I didn't trip. I once also ate about 30 Liberty Caps that used to grow in a field near my school but they didn't do much to me) and it was very enjoyable. I prefer it to LSD any day.

Ecstacy (MDMA) C11H15NO2

2007-04-15T10:46:20Z

Mood

tired

It's been a hell of a long time since I updated.. That's mainly due to a lack of drugs.

Well I thought I would just update about my last Ecstacy experience.

I was at this illegal rave in the middle of nowhere, in a barn/warehouse type thing with no doors. I had bought tickets to it thinknig it would be mainly psychedelic trance music with a bit of house and breaks. Well, there wasn't much psy stuff, and there were quite a few "chavs". But most of them seemed okay, not your average asshole chav.

My friend Joe and I had bought a bottle of vodka between us for the night, and I also had a little bit of hash. Well when we got there this guy asked if we wanted to buy any Es, so we said yes. We bought 3, and both took just 1 to start of with. We danced for a little while before it hit us. Well when it DID hit us, something just didn't feel right. It's the feeling I've gotten the few previous times I took it. Like a terrible anxiety. Yes there was that "happy" feeling, but when I thought about that feeling, and knew that it was just the drug, I got this horrible feeling in my stomach. I knew it wasn't real, that it would be over very soon, and that it was just ...wrong.

I didn't want to dance for the entire night. I just sat on the floor against a wall, sometimes talking crap to strangers. And I was SO cold.

There's just something about Ecstacy that I really dislike now. It got boring a lot faster than most other drugs. I doubt I will be taking it again any time soon.

Relocation

2007-04-15T10:21:33Z

Mood

irritated

I've decided to move this journal to lj because greatestjournal is really kind of boring, unpopular and seemingly full of insulting bastards. I'll probably make this friends only when I get a few people added too.

I'll try putting all the original dates on the entries as I repost them (ugh).