Subject: EXPERIENCE: Level Definition and Intro
From: [email-masked] (Graeme Carl)
Date: Tue, 9 Nov 1993 18:34:01 UTC
Newsgroups: alt.drugs

Greetings a.d'ers,

The Following Series of Posts relates my attempts at 
describing some of the more notable of my experiences with 
psychoactives. In just over seven years I have "tripped" around 60 
times. During this period I have been paying careful attention to the 
effects of various dosages and have come to the conclusion that the 
dosage-response curve for both Psilocybin (mushrooms) and LSD is 
non-linear. This non-linearity is different from person to person but 
the essential shape of the graph is consistent. The following ascii 
diagram is an attempt to portrey this information:

  5 I                                 ooooooooo
    I
  4 I                          ooooooo
L   I
E 3 I                   ooooooo
V   I
E 2 I            ooooooo
L   I
  1 I     ooooooo
    I
    Iooooo______________________________________
   0      2      3      5      13     20      
40
             D O S A G E   (in Fresh Mushrooms)

I have scaled the X-axis in mushrooms, since this is a known 
quantity, whereas attempting to scale it in terms of micro-grams of 
LSD would not be possible without accurately knowing the dosage 
contained in paper trips. (Yes I can hear many of you proclaiming that the
dosage uncertainty of mushrooms is much higher..... but read on!)
The essential shape of the graph is all I want to get across here,
since the actual dosage varies from person to person sometimes by
a factor of two.

Unfortunately the variation of LSD content in trips is very wide, but for
a while, there was quite a few consistently strong trips going around called
"Clear-Lights" (This was about 5 years ago) I would guess that two of these
would place most people near the realms of level 5. In terms of trips available
at the moment, I would guess that 4 or 5 would be necessary. All this is purely
subjective of course.

The mushrooms in question are:

****
Psilocybe Subaeruginosa (Victoria Australia)
CAP:             Up to 5 cm in diameter, 
                 conical when young but later 
                 convex and umbonate, edge 
                 inturned when young, smooth, a 
                 pallid biscuit brown when dry 
                 but darker when wet.
STEM:            To 10 cm long, rather slender 
                 but often a little swollen
                 at the base, somewhat mealy 
                 above, with a cobweb-like veil 
                 when young, which sometimes 
                 leaves a trace of a superior 
                 ring, but this is often 
                 lacking, whitish with grey stains 
                 and often blotched and 
                 greenish blue.
GILLS:           Adnate to adnexed, deep, 
                 close, pallid smoky brown 
                 becoming blackish.
SPORES:          Purplish brown in print, 
                 ellipsoidal, with a germ pore, 
                 10-15 x 5-9 um.
SMELL AND TASTE: None.
DISTRIBUTION:    Solitary or in groups on soil 
                 in forests. ACT, NSW, SA, 
                 Tas., Vic.

Gutzman and Watling (1978) suggested that this 
species consists of four very closely similar 
species, which differ in the characteristics of 
the cystidia on the gills. (See Gutzman G. and 
Watling, R. (1978) 'Studies in Australian 
Agarics and Boletes. I. Some species of 
Psilocybe', Notes from the Roy. Bot. Gard. 
Edinburgh 36, 199-210.)
****

On a personal note: They do have a faint but distinctive mushroom smell, and 
eating them raw really lets you know how bad they taste!

In order to further standardise the dosage for testing, large numbers 
of mushrooms were picked (300-600) at a time. These were then 
dried at a constant temp, crushed and mixed to ensure they were 
homogenous. This was done to avoid the sometimes vast differences 
in potency that exist between single mushrooms.

The following list is my attempt at explaining the various levels and 
how to recognise them. I felt that Shulgins "3 plusses" system was designed
more for measuring the general level of effect, rather than specifically
locating ones' consciousness on an accurate scale and hence I felt it
necessary to define the following:
Note that this is only an experimental "pigeon holing" of my own 60 or so
trips from 1986 to the present (October 1993)

Level 1:
	This level produces a mild 'stoning' effect, with some visual 
        enhancement (ie. brighter colours etc) Some short term memory 
        anomalies.
	Left/right brain communication changes causing music to 
        sound 'wider'
	["El cheapo" paper trips or 2 or 3 mushrooms]

Level 2:
	Bright colours, and visuals (ie. things start to move and breath)
	some 2 dimensional patterns become apparent upon shutting eyes.  
        Confused or reminiscent thoughts. Change of short term 
        memory leads to continual distractive thought patterns. Vast
        increase in creativity becomes apparent as the natural brain 
        filter is bypassed. (*)
	[3 - 5 mushies]

Level 3:
	Very obvious visuals, everything looking curved and/or warped patterns
	and kaleidoscopes seen on walls, faces etc. Some mild hallucinations
	such as rivers flowing in wood grained or 'mother of pearl' surfaces.
	Closed eye hallucinations become 3 dimensional. There is some confusing
	of the senses (ie. seeing sounds as colours etc.)
	Time distortions and `moments of eternity`.
	Movement at times becomes extremely difficult (too much effort required)
	[5 - 13 mushies]

Level 4:
	Strong hallucinations, ie objects morphing into other objects. 
        Destruction or multiple splitting of the ego. 
        (Things start talking to you, or you find that you are feeling 
        contradictory things simultaneously) Some loss of reality.
        Time becomes meaningless. Out of body experiences and esp type 
        phenomena.  Blending of the senses.
	[13 - 20 mushies]

Level 5:
	Total loss of visual connection with reality. The senses cease to 
        function in the normal way. Total loss of ego. 
        Merging with space, other objects or the universe.
	The loss of reality becomes so severe that it defies explanation. 
        The earlier levels are relatively easy to explain in terms of 
        measureable changes in perception and thought patterns. 
        This level is different in that the actual universe within which
        things are normally perceived, ceases to exist!
	Satori enlightenment (and other such labels) (**).
	[20 - 40 mushies]

Notes to the above:

*       In order for the human entity to survive, it must learn from an early
        age how to shut out (or filter) the masses of information reaching the
        brain. This process of selective filtering allows us to become centred
        on a single thought. (Imagine being completely aware of all the signals
        coming into your body at the one moment, imagine being aware of every
        square inch of your skin and how it felt. Imagine being eternally 
        aware of your tounge in your mouth, that itch on the end of your nose
        or the sound of the airconditioning hissing softly in the background.
        I believe that tripping brings back those awareness that have been shut
        out ever since we were three.

        Have you ever noticed children walking into a shopping mall? If you
        notice next time, they appear to be tripping, staring wide eyed at all
        the amazing colours, walking along looking up at the ceiling and
        and watching themselves in the mirrored surface. As childred age, they
        gradually learn to shut out the onslaught of information, they no
        longer seem to notice the world as their younger siblings do! By the
        time adulthood is reached, these sensations are even lost to memory.
        Perhaps this explains why so many first time trippers, seem to feel
        a strange sense of familiarity, a feeling that the trip reality is
        somehow more real than their straight reality.....

**      Satori enlightenment, instant Zen, Nirvana etc etc. You may find many
        of these Eastern terms used in conjunction with Ergo derivative drugs.
        In my (humble) opinion, true Zen enlightenment is reached only when
        the ego has been completely overcome, only when the 'ox' has been 
        tracked, tamed and ridden back to town. This, unfortunately cannot be
        achieved in the altered reality of the tripping universe.
        The 'flashes' of Satori which may be experienced by the fortunate 
        whilst tripping, are perceived as momentary periods of absolute peace 
        and calm, periods where for a short time, the ego is so diffused, 
        that the mind is no longer enslaved by many of the passions that
        normally arise.

        I dont believe that true enlightenment can be attained by the use of
        drugs, but I do believe that exposure to such experiences can be very
        valuable indeed, and may provide the encouragement for further study
        that otherwise may not have been attainable.

I have spent the majority of my trips at levels 3 & 4 and have now 
achieved level 5 twice! The first instance was mostly spent in level 
4, but I had a few flashover experiences, where I jumped 
momentarily up to level 5 then down again. This state occurred with 
a dosage equivalent to 20 large fresh mushrooms (It was actually 40 dried 
mushrooms which has about the same potency)

Two days ago  I consumed the equivalent of  30 fresh mushrooms 
(60 dried or about 12 grams of dessicated mushroom) This dosage caused 
me to spend about 3 hours of real time (years and years of subjective 
time) inside level 5.

In the following series of posts I will attempt to relate some of my 
experiences to you and classify them in terms of the Levels I have defined.
I have attempted to be as objective as possible, hence the reason for the
somewhat "clinical" style of the first two documents. 

Those of you wishing to "jump to the good bits" should read the post on
LEVEL 5 or 'Journey out of the Universe'

Please comment on the above theories. I will be interested to hear your
opinions and criticisms.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this series.....

Read on:

Graeme.

+=======================================================================+
| The Past is but Memories,!    Graeme Carl <[email-masked]>     |
| The Future but Dreams.   !     Victoria Australia Earth (mostly)      |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
To find out more about the anon service, send mail to [email-masked].
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Message-ID: <[email-masked]>
Newsgroups: alt.drugs
From: [email-masked] (Graeme Carl)
Date: Tue,  9 Nov 1993 19:22:28 UTC
Subject: EXPERIENCE: Level 2-3

The following story could be classified as existing near the boundary 
of level 2 and level 3 since the majority of the experience exists in 
level 2 but there are a few flashovers into level 3.

The style of writing was reflective of my science course at the time.
Please excuse me referring to myself as "The Subject" but it made for
a good laugh. <-;

                "Mushies in the Evening"

12/06/89 A Study of the effects of a Psilocybin induced state. 
 
10/06/89 Late Saturday Evening 
	1:40am consumption 
	2:10am still no obvious effects noticed, although some 
tightening of the skin about back of the head could be felt.
   	2:25am At this stage the subject was quite positive of a change 
in his perception of reality, walking felt different, although there 
seemed to be only a minimum impairment of ability. There was some 
degree of change to the sense of balance. A very significant 
reduction in the concentration span was observed. The brain seemed 
to be constantly distracted by an influx of new sensations. Each time 
the mind was distracted by something, the subjective time spent 
observing the new event was small, since the mind would very 
quickly become absorbed in some new and completely different 
event. 
	Walking around attained a new quality. It seemed that the way 
the balance information was used, was entirely new, although still 
able to function effectively. Some time was spent just walking 
around in a circle to experience the new feel to walking.
	Sitting in the living room, looking through the bar/servery to 
the kitchen, a wall hanging could be observed to be moving relative 
to the servery window. After placing a bottle on the edge of the pool 
table, The plain curtains on the wall billowed continuously out 
towards the table. 
	The patterns on the curtains covering the main windows, 
appeared to move up and down in waves, relative to the curtains. The 
cushioned chairs appeared to breath slowly in and out. The rate and 
timing of this breathing was independent to that of the subjects. 
	Viewing the faces of other people in the room, the subject 
observed red and green glowing lines crossing their faces 
horizontally but following the contours of the face. One of the other 
participants in the room was wearing glasses, the rims of which 
glowed intensely red as though they were red hot, and the subject felt 
he observed fire in the persons mouth. 
	When the subject tried to drink, he found that his arm and the 
cup felt much lighter than they ought to be and he kept lifting the 
cup too high to place in his mouth. It was as if something kept 
pulling the cup up too high so that it reached the subjects nose 
instead of his mouth. This was intensely humorous, making the act 
even more difficult to perform whilst laughing. 
	The subject noticed that his arms feeling very light and 
seeming to have a life of their own, when told to reach for 
something, they reached out at a great speed with no additional effort 
needed on the subjects part. This continually surprised the subject 
causing him to repeatedly pull his arm back. 
	In one of the back rooms there was a pillow which had a 
pattern of black dots on a white background. When viewed it seemed 
as though all the dots were swimming about relative to each other on 
the pillow. When a hand was placed in front of the pillow in the field 
of vision, the pillow's pattern could be faintly seen on the back of the 
hand as if the spots on the pillow had leached through the hand. 
	The wall paper in the bathroom was a complex pattern of many 
colours, to the subject it seems as though the overall colour changed 
from red to deep purple and through orange and green. The subject 
also saw the white part of the pattern as being a glowing red colour, 
similar to the shade viewed on the faces of other people. 
	When viewing the pool table again the subject could see sparks 
emanating from the points of the ball pockets and arcing down to the 
floor.   When one of the cues was picked up and held behind the 
head so that it was out of view, the surface of the cue felt as though it 
formed part of a hoop. Running the fingers along the cue produced 
the feeling of a curved surface of radius one meter.
	When one of the other participants picked up a cue, it appeared 
to the subject that the person had picked up only one end of the cue, 
the rest of the cue followed slowly, such that the cue moved from an 
'S' shaped stick slowly back to a straight line. 
	During the session, there was a portable CD player playing 
music. The subject reported an extra quality of liveness to it and an 
increased spatial quality to it. Just purely listening to the music gave 
the subject far more enjoyment than usual, the sound seemingly 
flowing through him such that it could be felt. The subject also 
observed that the music could be seen emanating from the speakers 
as a sort of brownish flow of powder, although the subject seemed 
puzzled by the fact that the powder flowed out of the speakers as two 
parallel streams rather than in the direction that the speakers were 
facing. (The speakers were positioned such that they pointed along 
the sides of an equilateral triangle. One particular track which is 
about one and a half to two minutes in duration seemed as though it 
lasted about twenty minutes of subjective time.
	When venturing outside for the first time, the subject became 
fascinated by the stars and stood staring at the sky for some time, the 
subject noticed some extra stars which winked in and out of 
existence, although this was not what was so interesting. The 
transfixing part of the experience was the strange indescribable 
feeling associated with viewing the sky and the surrounding horizon. 
(The subject felt that he was unable to further define his experience 
at this point)
	When viewing the lights of a distant town, it appeared, to the 
subject, as if the lights were joined together by blue lines. 	 The 
subject found great pleasure in exerting himself by briefly running as 
fast as he was able, he commented that his body did not seem to 
respond as it normally would, since there was no obvious quickening 
of the breath or perspiration after the exertion. 
	Every object viewed seemed new and strange, each having new 
and unique properties, for example the texture of a stick absorbed the 
subjects full attention for a few seconds, briefly interrupting his plan 
to walk down some stairs. 
	The subject attempted to do some writing and found that the act 
of writing was very different, almost as if someone else was moving 
the pen. The writing was fast and untidy. Some of the things written 
were: 
	"I am writing this to prove I can whilst the table moves beneath 
the letters." 
	"I don't know why I wrote this" 
At the suggestion of another participant he wrote: 
	"I don't want to write <expletive>, so I wont! <EXPLETIVE>!" 
Some patterns were drawn, with an explanatory message added next 
to one which read: 
	"The underlying pattern of the universe. If you look closely 
enough at anything, you will eventually see this pattern." 
The pattern consisted of three rows of circles, each row offset such 
that each of the circles of the next row touched two circles in the 
previous row. The subject saw this pattern in everything, it was most 
clearly visible with the eyes open and with a dim light present in the 
room. 
	On the servery table where the writing had taken place, there 
was also a serving tray with a mother of pearl base. To the subject, 
the surface of this base appeared to flow like a slow liquid. 
	Whenever the subject closed his eyes, he was presented with a 
dazzling array of colours and patterns. Most of the patterns were of a 
repetitive nature, resembling mandalas. The predominant colours 
were red and green and the predominant patterns were formed from 
circles and octagons. Some of the patterns consisted purely of lines, 
in some of the patterns, the lines consisted of square chains (all chain 
links had curved corners) Some of the patterns were three 
dimensional, consisting of the same basic pattern, but forming peaks 
and valleys. All of these patterns had the components continually 
moving relative to each other and the two colours swapping slowly 
between adjacent components. 
	When listening to the music with the eyes closed, the patterns 
and shapes moved in time with the music, and new sounds in the 
music brought forth new shapes and objects in the images 
experienced. 
	When going outside for the second time the 'underlying pattern 
of the universe' could be clearly seen as green lines on the surface of 
some small red pieces of metal. The subject decided to walk into the 
darkest part of the yard in order to test his sense of fear. This attempt 
was defeated by a sudden distraction. A piece of rope was tied 
between a tree and the fence at eye level, the subject then proceeded 
to experience the sensations associated with placing the rope 
between his teeth and tasting it and supporting his weight with it. He 
was convinced at one stage that there was a piece of dew on the rope 
which "stayed together" when placed in his mouth, such that he was 
able to move it around with his tongue. This entire experience was of 
such an intensely sensual nature, that the subjects awareness was 
confined totally to an act of raw sensation.
	4:30 Approximate end of significant effects. 
sleep was attempted and eventually achieved after watching closed 
eye images for around half an hour. 
 
11/06/89 Sunday Morning 
	10:30am Awakened, to find all effects gone, except for a slight 
image of  the recurrent pattern on the retina. The subject reported 
that an attempt at a recurrence of the effects using self-hypnosis was 
met with only a very limited success, a slight increase of the visual 
perception of the pattern was achieved with relative ease, although 
further effects could not be achieved at that point in time.
 
13/06/89 Tuesday Evening 
	11:00pm Whilst in a lightly hypnotised state and listening to a 
track from the CD which had been playing on the 10th a strong 
'flashback' occurred. The subject experienced the same feeling of 
strangeness, and was able to observe the furniture in his room 
breathing. The curtains were his main object of study, since they 
appeared to be moving in waves, as though there were a wind 
blowing them, the curtains seemed to be moving a total of ten to 
fifteen centimetres from their natural position with a period of 
around four seconds. The total effect of the movements experienced, 
seemed greater in intensity to those noticed on the 10th, although 
during the 'flashback' there was almost no detectable light patterns. 
Standing up and moving around produced the same, although 
somewhat less intense, feeling of strangeness. There was also a 
marked decrease in the concentration span and memory, with the 
subject forgetting why he had decided to get up and walk to the other 
side of the table.
The effect latest around five to ten minutes.
 
14/06/89 Wednesday evening 
	11:30pm The flashback sensation re-occurred with the subject 
able to mentally force some of the visual experiences. The subject 
noted that the main difference between the drug induced images and 
the normal 'dream like' images is that the drug induced images seem 
to originate in the eye rather than in the mind and that the patterns 
were more line and circle oriented and glowed with a light of their 
own, in contrast to visions and images produced previously using 
meditation techniques, which appeared as though illuminated by an 
external source. 
 
The Long Term Effects Observed: 
	The learned response: It was observed that the brain learned to 
attain some degree of these effects at any time and that these effects 
could be accessed via methods normally taken to access functions 
beyond conscious control. This fact appears to explain the 
occurrence of uncontrollable "flashbacks" in the average person. 
	With further research into attaining these flashbacks, it was 
found that a certain degree of effortless duration to the effects could 
be achieved. When manipulating the mind in a particular manner, it 
was found that all the usual symptoms appeared, but that the sudden 
ceasing of these symptoms was not attainable. This may be 
explained by the possibility of the brain learning to produce 
chemicals mimicking the effects of the drug, or by the brain 
chemistry altering in a manner which would normally take the drug 
to induce. This effect was strongly observed when the subject was 
once again placed in the presence of other participants consuming 
hallucinogens. The subject found that for a minimal effort, he could 
achieve the same effect as previously attained with the drug, but 
without consuming anything. This second incidence was reported by 
the subject as being more intense than the original consumption. 
Interestingly during this second incidence the subject noted several 
new phenomenon which he later observed under the influence of 
pure LSD. These being mood shifts associated with changing music. 
Also the visual effects were not as noticeable, with the 'underlying 
pattern of the universe' being almost totally absent. This was offset 
by a series of intense colour and spatial distortions exactly the same 
as those covered in the partner to this document (LEVEL 3). 
	In all three episodes the subject noted that during the 
experience, he felt very relaxed, and in fact under LSD his pulse 
gave a reading of 60 with normal blood pressure. 

Graeme.

+=======================================================================+
| The Past is but Memories,!    Graeme Carl <[email-masked]>     |
| The Future but Dreams.   !     Victoria Australia Earth (mostly)      |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
To find out more about the anon service, send mail to [email-masked].
Due to the double-blind, any mail replies to this message will be anonymized,
and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned.
Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to [email-masked].

=============================================================================

Message-ID: <[email-masked]>
Newsgroups: alt.drugs
From: [email-masked] (Graeme Carl)
Date: Tue,  9 Nov 1993 20:02:09 UTC
Subject: EXPERIENCE: Level 3-4

The following account could be classified as a Level 3 trip with a
few flashovers into level 4:

                  "LSD in the Afternoon"

A study of the effects of the intake of one "Window Pane". 
22/07/89 13:30:00 Intake. 
	The Subject was one of eight people, all taking LSD at the 
same time. The dosage took the form of a small red slice of gelatine 
called a "window pane". This was dissolved on the tongue. The 
subject noticed a slight but unrecognisable taste. 
	After approximately six minutes the subject claimed to be able 
to observe some small effect, although none of the other participants 
noticed anything for around twenty to about thirty-five minutes. 
	The initial effects took the form of slight apparent movements 
in stationary or fixed objects such as curtains flowing  and benches 
and walls breathing. 
	The subject then proceeded to ring a friend and get him to 
come over at around three O'Clock to drive some of the participants 
around in his car. 
	The intervening time was spent observing and communicating 
with the other participants. 
	At three O'Clock the friend arrived and the subject went with 
him on a twenty minute drive. During the journey, the subject 
noticed a severe perceptual distortion of time, space, velocity and 
acceleration. To the subject it appeared as though the car decelerated 
impossibly slow at traffic lights. The speed of the vehicle did not 
seem to be as fast as it actually was and the subject felt that cars 
turning into the street were coming close to crashing into him. This 
feeling did not involve any portion of fear. In fact the exact opposite 
was true. The subject felt that a crash would be a most interesting 
experience, although he did not wish it upon himself. 
	Once the car stopped at the lights the subject began to feel a 
little uneasy, and kept telling the traffic lights to hurry up and 
change. The subject was quite talkative and spoke readily to his 
friend about how great the 'trip' was and how amazing everything 
was. After some time the subject became uneasy about being on his 
own with someone who was not tripping, and repeatedly  asked the 
driver if they were nearly back yet. The subject lost all ability to 
determine his whereabouts. He recognised landmarks but could not 
place where they were in his mind and would not have been able to 
navigate his way. Once back at the house the subject was greatly 
relieved and suddenly felt that he wanted his friend to leave. He 
worried for a bit about how to tell him that he wanted him to go and 
would have used a simple statement like "Can you go now!" but 
found that he could transfer his wishes easier just by saying goodbye 
and waiting for his friend to leave before returning into the house. 
This worked and the friend drove off, without any hard feelings. 
	Throughout the experience, the subject noted that colours were 
far more vivid than usual, the difference between colour brightness 
being greatly expanded. Also noted was the apparent increase in the 
difference between colours. Reds becoming more different to 
yellows than they usually were and so on. 
	Once again entering the house, the subject mingled with the 
other participants. 
	To the outside observer, the participants seemed to be 
constantly distracted and amazed by things which normally would be 
boring and uninteresting, seemingly finding something in these 
objects hidden from the perception of the onlooker. It is interesting 
to note that the 'extra' details and qualities perceived by the 
participants were constant from one person to another, ie. they all 
saw precisely the same extra details and occurrences simultaneously, 
even those consuming the drug at a different starting time to the 
others. 
	At this stage the subject moved into the bathroom, noting on 
the way that the wall in the hallway was distinctly curved, bulging in 
the middle out into the hall. Once in the bathroom the  subject gazed 
at his own reflection in the mirror, noting to himself how ordinary it 
seemed, whilst still watching, he then gazed into his own eyes and 
felt a curious sinking feeling. The subject had previously been 
warned about looking into ones own eyes in the mirror by one of the 
other participants, so was hesitant to pursue this activity further. At 
this stage the subject was just on the verge of leaving the mirror 
when he noticed a curious change in the appearance of his skin. It 
seemed to go a greyish colour and to assume a mottled appearance. 
Shaking his head and blinking to get a clearer view, the subject then 
proceeded to observe himself age with incredible rapidity. The 
reflection grew old before his eyes, the hair became long, wispy and 
grey, the beard turned a whitish grey colour and increased in length 
to around three feet long. The skin on the face became incredibly 
aged and full of very deep wrinkles. The eyes lost their brightness 
and became sunken sallow pits, the pupils shrinking from their 
previously dilated condition, to small beady  pinpoints. Looking 
away from the mirror for a couple of seconds and then back again 
restored the normal appearance. 
	Moving into the kitchen, the subject looked at the clock on the 
wall, it appeared to have every aspect twisted and distorted, for 
example, the time seemed ludicrous and the subject had to ask every 
one to see if the clock told the correct time or if it had stopped or not, 
secondly the second hand seemed to take around three minutes to 
traverse one second as marked on the face of the clock, and thirdly 
the clock itself seemed to protrude about half a foot from the wall. 
(compared to an inch or so as it should have) Afterwards the subject 
claimed that time had no meaning. It not only stopped but ceased to 
exist, things still happened but inside no frame of time reference. It 
was quite possible to think about some object for what seemed like 
an eternity whilst watching it suspended in mid air as it dropped to 
the floor. It became possible to observe a stop start motion of an 
object under the influence of gravity. 
	At this stage the subject was given a piece of candle to walk 
around with, many of the other participants felt that they needed 
some object to carry around with them during the experience and 
they naturally assumed that the subject would as well. The candle 
seemed very odd and had an almost fluid plasticity about it. At one 
stage the candle seemed to blob down such that the ends came 
almost together and the middle bulged out  and sat upon the hand as 
if the candle were actually a rubber balloon filled with water. The 
surface of the candle felt positively slick and it felt quite strange to 
manipulate the candle in the hand. It was almost as if the hand 
belonged to someone else or that some one else was moving it for 
the subject by remote control.
	The subject was then offered a piece of sausage which had been 
cooked and he was surprised that there was actually some possibility 
that a question of eating the sausage could arise. 
	The sausage felt very strange in the mouth, there was a distinct 
distance to the whole affair, as though the mouth and sensations 
actually belonged to someone else. One of the other participants, 
watching on felt sure that the subject had been inadvertently eating 
the candle rather than the sausage and told him so. This rather 
disturbed the subject since he was not completely sure that he had 
not been. At this point an independent non participant was brought in 
to adjudicate the situation, and it was decided that the subject had 
not been eating the candle after all and it was in fact just the 
imagination of the other participant. 
	One of the other sensations noticed by the subject was the fact 
that the mouth and face felt very odd. The part of the cheeks where 
they meet the cheek bone seemed continuously numb and the teeth 
felt distant and as if they belonged to someone else. The subject also 
reported that he felt that his mouth was physically lower down and 
distant from his eyes.
	The subject felt that things seemed to be more real than normal, 
since he could see more detail and further into any object viewed. 
	Most of the participants had moved into the kitchen and were 
engaged in tasting and smelling things. The subject noted that smells 
did not seem distorted but only much more acute. Drinking water 
was quite an experience and the subject spent some time indulging in 
the sensual experience of swallowing, feeling the way the water 
caressed his throat. The water itself tasted strange, as if it had many 
other undiscernible tastes mixed in with it. The most striking thing 
about it was the way it flowed in the mouth and down the throat and 
the way the water felt as it was run over the hands. The subject then 
tried drinking some straight cordial, this, he claimed, tasted like a 
fine wine. 
	During the experience there was a complete change in the way 
sounds were heard. The ear seemed to hear sounds impossibly 
compressed, with the loud sounds and the soft sounds being heard 
with equal volume simultaneously. At one stage the subject was 
listening to the music from the CD player inside a separate closed 
room and noting how perfectly the treble was coming through the 
wall, as if the wall was totally transparent to the sound. Also there 
was a distinct loss in the ability to distinguish sound directionality, 
this was most likely partially due to the compression of the sound 
volumes. The compression itself was not absolute, there was still 
loud and soft sounds, and the subject noted that his hearing gradually 
seemed to adjust to the new mode  of perception such that sound 
directionality slowly became apparent again, though this did not 
reach its former level. 
	The loss of the meaning of time meant that the subject had no 
reference plane in which to place the results of his decisions. Before 
initialising the change of state, the subject had decided to attempt 
two things whilst in the state, these being to attempt at some stage to 
mentally reverse the effects of the drug and try to force his 
perception back to normal, and the other being to attempt to enter a 
state of meditation. This decision was all very well when 
experiencing the understanding and knowledge of the concept of 
time. The loss of time meant that the subject understood that he had 
wanted to attempt these two things but he had no way of deciding 
when he should do them. This caused him some worry and he 
contemplated at one stage the idea of deciding an exact time in 
which he would attempt them, but then thought the better of this idea 
since he realised that he would be forever coming out and checking 
the clock on the wall to see if the time had arrived yet. The attempt 
eventually occurred when the opportunity for seclusion arose, the 
subject proceeded to an empty room and lay on the bed and was 
immediately presented with an amazingly vivid array of 
kaleidoscopic colours and shapes he quickly sunk into a deeper state 
although found that self hypnosis was almost impossible to achieve. 
The subject continued to sink into a deeper state and found that this 
meditation had the effect of narrowing the consciousness and 
allowing a more concentrated train of thought to arise. At this stage 
the subject noted that his mind had split  into a considerable number 
of parts (possibly around twenty pieces) all of these parts being 
almost identical. Whenever the body did something it was only some 
of these parts which did the initiation of the action, whilst all of the 
other parts looked on and observed, occasionally placing comments 
into the field of thought. The subject found that he could not reverse 
the effects of the drug although he could synchronise his mind to a 
stage where he could easily hold a train of normal thought. This 
effect was held by the subject for approximately fifteen minutes until 
discussion with one of the other participants caused a lapse in 
concentration leading to a return of unsynchronised parallel thought. 
	Returning to the lounge room the subject proceeded to play 
some music which normally would have been heard to have a fast 
tempo, this music seemed incredibly slow to the subject, the distance 
between the beats seeming to take around four times as long as 
usual, and when the vocals came in the voice was distinctly slowed 
and slurred. The subject also felt that the pitch was lower than usual 
and he proceeded to sing along at the slow speed with one of the 
other participants in a mocking manner. The track being played 
quickly reverted back to what was being played before by general 
consensus. 
	One of the things occupying the subjects mind was the problem 
of whether or not he should be feeling hungry or not. The  subject 
reasoned that he should try to eat food at around the times he 
normally would, but he felt no desire of food intake whatsoever. 
Another basic function which was distorted was the ability to know 
when urination was required. The subject felt that he might need to 
urinate, but he was not sure. He eventually went to the toilet to find 
out and he discovered when he got there that he did need to go after 
all. The subject noted that thinking about the act made it impossible, 
in order to perform the act he had to think of something else and 
allow his subconscious to perform the actions as if it were an act 
normally excluded from conscious control. 
	The subject distantly heard someone talking about going to the 
local shop to buy some food and drink. Pricking up his ears, he 
instantly rushed out to give his order. After he and the three others 
had finished deciding what they wanted, they suddenly discovered 
that there was no-one to go to the shop except themselves. The four 
of them then proceeded to walk to the shop, since driving was 
completely out of the question in their given states. It seemed to take 
forever to get to the shops, with many pauses along the way to 
observe items of interest along the side of the road in peoples front 
gardens.
	Upon reaching the shops, the subject looked into one of the 
windows and observed that one of the shop owner's eyes had come 
loose from his head and was following his progress past the shop by 
sliding along the side of the proprietors head. This was viewed by 
the subject as intensely amusing, since the shop owner has badly 
turned eyes under normal circumstances 
	Entering the fish and chip shop was an experience in itself 
everything in the shop moved and shimmered and the subject found 
he had to restrain himself from staring at things and try to look as 
normal as possible. There was around five other people in the shop, 
and the participants had to keep putting off the shop owner with 
"we're still thinking" each time he asked for their order. It was very 
hard to decide what items should be purchased and what quantities to 
get. After the order was made the participants  were presented with a 
numbered ticket, and they found that they had to continually keep 
checking the ticket to make sure that their number was not being 
called. Two of the participants could not keep themselves from 
laughing and eventually had to leave the shop. To the subject it 
seemed that the shop owner felt that they were laughing at him 
because of his turned eye, although he seemed to be used to people 
laughing at him and accepted it with an air of persecuted defeat.
Back at the House: 
	One of the other participants was keen on attempting to swap 
bodies with the subject. The two sat opposed with joined hands and 
proceeded to stare into each others eyes. The subject noted that the 
others face became more and more defined, eventually assuming 
incredible detail. Also observed was the fact that the other persons 
head kept changing shape and the skin kept altering in hue. The 
other person was a nineteen year old girl with very light blue eyes 
and hair medium in length. The subject noted that he did not feel the 
sinking sensation as strongly as he had when looking into his own 
eyes or into one of the other male participants eyes. After a short 
time the subject seemed to loose  feeling and control over his 
shoulders and it seemed that when he tried to move them that the 
other persons shoulders moved. This did not surprise the subject at 
the time and he continued to stare into the eyes of the other person. 
At this stage there was a sudden shift in the colour of the 
surrounding room and the subject found himself staring into a third 
eye which had appeared in the exact centre of the girls forehead. 
This new eye was of a distinctly darker colour and did not possess 
the usual attributes associated with eyes, such as lashes and lids. The 
new eye seemed different from the rest of reality in that it was not 
clearly defined and seemed more deeply sunken in the head. Staring 
into this eye produced the sinking feeling ten time easier than staring 
into the normal eyes, and the subject forced himself to look away. 
Into his field of vision came several other of the participants, each 
having a dark spot in the centre of their foreheads. The subject was 
surprised and thought that he must have been going cross-eyed in 
order to be able to perceive this other eye. He then proceeded to test 
this theory by forcing himself to see another eye on the girls head. 
This induced eye was in the centre of the forehead and looked totally 
different to the darker eye. Also bits of the bridge of the nose 
distorted its appearance. The subject then noted that by going cross 
eyes he had forced himself to see two of the darker eyes as well. 
Breaking the hand contact with the girl the subject noted that the 
darker eye flashed out of perception. 
	At this stage it was early morning the following day and many 
of the participants were beginning to 'come down'. The subject 
seemed able to observe this in the other participants. He felt that 
there was some unique sense which allowed him to see glowing lines 
connecting all of the participants who were still included amongst 
those in the state. The subject sat opposite a VCR and TV which 
were currently displaying a computer generated kaleidoscopic image. 
Above the television was a large colour picture of a forest into 
which, the subject felt, a part of him went wandering. Shortly after, 
the tape reached the end and the images abruptly cut off. The subject 
felt that this left a piece of him cut off inside the picture. 
	Once of the other participants had brought a number of small 
tin bells of different sizes and tones. When these were rung, the 
subject noted that different coloured lights could be seen to emanate 
from the bells. 
	The last participant to consume the drug, decided that he had 
come down and was about to drive home. Interestingly enough this 
precise situation came up last time and resulted in the individual 
tripping while driving home and relating later that it  had felt like he 
was in a large spaceship flying over long white lines. The subject 
and two other individuals had decided to go to the local Seven 
Eleven store, all three feeling as though they were on the way down. 
Reaching the car it was decided that they could be dropped off at 
Seven Eleven. The car journey was absolutely fascinating. Riding in 
the car gave the participants the feeling that they were riding in a 
large, immensely strong and sturdy machine of incredible weight. 
The journey seemed abnormally smooth. 
	Reaching the shop the driver had decided that he was still 
tripping. (As expected) The shop was amazingly vibrant and vivid. 
At this stage the subject found that situations were far more 
manageable and he could safely sit inside his own perception of 
reality without anyone being the wiser. 
	The two men running the shop appeared incredibly grey and 
dreary and seemed to be less real than the shop itself.  After 
purchasing several items, the participants proceeded to hop back into 
the car. At this stage the driver was not so keen on going home and 
instead decided to go for a drive along the freeway. The further he 
drove the more intense his trip became but he assured all present that 
he was quite capable of driving and that driving was easy. The car 
reached speeds of up to 140 Km/h at which point the driver switched 
off the headlights and drove for a short distance with them off. The 
subject was busy observing the amazing colours and spatial quality 
of the sky and the lights in the distance and felt slightly concerned 
about the driver only somewhere in the back of his mind. 
	The subject noted that when the car left the freeway that the 
lane into which the car moved seemed to be about a quarter the 
width of the cars body. Also noted was a curious effect of blue 
lightning playing about the reflectors implanted in the road. 
	Upon returning to the house, the subject proceeded to lie 
between the two speakers in the lounge room and listen to some 
synthesised music. (Shadowfax) This had the effect of bringing the 
subject to full intensity where the complexity and clarity of the 
images observed with the eyes closed reached a maximum. At this 
stage the subject felt that a part of his conscious left his body once 
again, this time not entering a picture but rather to wander through 
the house observing the appearance of each of the rooms. The 
subject noted that his point of observation hovered somewhere near 
to the ceiling such that he looked down onto everything. In this state 
the colour intensification was at its maximum, whole rooms 
appearing to be an intense purple. Later on the subject had 
commented to another participant that he had been visiting purple 
rooms. The subject also noted that he heard the voices of the other 
participants strongly within the music, even though the others were 
in a closed room on the other side of the house. 
At the eighteenth hour into the trip, the subject decided that he 
should sleep, although he felt that he could happily continue 
'tripping' for another two hours at the least. 

Graeme Carl.

+=======================================================================+
| The Past is but Memories,!    Graeme Carl <[email-masked]>     |
| The Future but Dreams.   !     Victoria Australia Earth (mostly)      |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
To find out more about the anon service, send mail to [email-masked].
Due to the double-blind, any mail replies to this message will be anonymized,
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Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to [email-masked].

=============================================================================

Message-ID: <[email-masked]>
Newsgroups: alt.drugs
From: [email-masked] (Graeme Carl)
Date: Tue,  9 Nov 1993 19:54:54 UTC
Subject: EXPERIENCE: Level 4-5 (Read This!!)

Well, this is it, the last in this series of Posts. I hope you have
all enjoyed reading these. (I certainly have enjoyed writing them (
and experiencing them, for that matter))

The following trip was experienced by myself two days ago and can 
be classified as a Level 5 trip. I have decided to switch to "First 
Person Singular" in order to portrey some of my feelings and 
sensations. I don't believe that it is possible for me to remain 
objective about an experience which goes so far beyond the 
explainable. Any impressions portrayed by this document can only 
be dim shadows of the incredible alter-reality of the experience.

                 "Journey out of the Universe"

	Myself and five acquaintances decided it was time for another 
trip. All of us decided that we would exceed our usual amount and 
dare to move into the realms of the unknown. I had three times my 
usual dosage of dried mushrooms, the others increasing their doses 
by a factor of a half.
	The house was new to me and I purposefully decided not to 
explore it until things were really moving. It was an old 
weatherboard house and was mostly dark and cold. The living room 
was small but it had a crackling fire burning in the fire place which 
cast flickering shadows on the peeling paint walls. There was several 
candles burning on the mantle piece above the fire place and the six 
of use ceremoniously downed our dried mushies at "T minus 0 
minutes" (around 8:00 pm)
	I had brought my video player over and a "Trippatronics" tape 
which I had created by editing bits from hundreds of MTV video 
clips together along with exerts from various computer graphics 
documentaries. Sid put one of his CD's into the CD player in the 
adjoining room. It was something by "The Art Of Noise". I found 
myself seated in a large beanbag facing the fire, with the TV on my 
right at 90 degrees to my field of vision. I wasn't too interested in 
being able to see the screen since I had watched it countless times 
before whilst tripping.
	Someone looked at a clock and announced that it was 8:10 pm, 
I quickly calculated that things would be settling back to normal at 
around 1:00am in the morning.
	We all sat around, not saying much. The couple that owned the 
house were not that well known to me so I was a little concerned 
about tripping with them, but not too much.
	Ten minutes later at 8:20 I noticed something jump out from 
the TV screen and sail through the air towards Melony, she seemed 
not to notice. Ah Haaar. The trip begins. I usually notice the onset 
before everyone else so I wasn't too worried about seeing things this 
early.
	At this stage I decided that I needed to take a leak, so I got up 
to go in search of the toilet. The kitchen was to my right and from 
there I could glimpse the toilet door open through the adjoining 
laundry. I wandered through the laundry, feeling myself move into 
level 1. Once I was in the toilet I reached level 2. I closed my eyes 
for a second to check. First there was nothing, then a couple of 
seconds later the familiar two dimensional patterns appeared. 
Opening my eyes revealed that the toilet was already beginning to 
expand. The dimensions of the little room had suddenly doubled. I 
quickly relieved myself as I pondered the rapidity at which the trip 
was advancing.
	Back in the lounge I sat in the beanbag again.
	BANG! Things started getting really WEIRD!
	The fire became an animated city, Buildings and Cars could be 
clearly seen shimmering within the flames. Highways of tiny 
vehicles made their way along the grains of the logs. Several of 
participants began to "piss themselves laughing" at various things 
and I joined in, laughing so hard all else became invisible. I noticed 
that each time I laughed, the trip became more and more intense, 
although whilst laughing, I could perceive nothing. Sid and Mel 
were really getting into laughing. Mick and Carol, wandered out the 
back door of their house, conceivably to investigate the garden. Sid 
and Tim wandered to the lounge where the stereo was playing. Mel 
seemed still infected with hilarious laughing and giggling, she 
amused herself by watching some of the video. I was very quickly 
moving into deeper and deeper realms of strangeness. The beanbag 
vanished and became an incredibly comfortable wicker chair and I 
was just pondering how comfortable the headrest was when I realised 
that I had placed my hands behind my head and it was them 
supporting my head not the imaginary chair. At this stage I launched 
into uncontrollable shivering. "God it was cold" it seemed that the 
temperature had dropped by at least five degrees. I had to keep 
stopping myself from tensing my entire body against the cold. My 
jaw was chattering mercilessly and I wished that these amphetamine-
like effects did not occur with psychoactive drugs. Eventually they 
faded and vanished.
	I was deep into Level 4 at this stage, time had ceased to have 
any meaning. I watched holes open up and close in the floorboards. 
The room kept expanding and shrinking and the fire became a 
swirling blue vortex into which images from the TV were being 
sucked. I closed my eyes. And the image remained, it actually got 
clearer, so I opened my eyes again. No difference! I closed my eyes 
and held my hands in front of my face. I could see them lift up in 
front of me, but they were strangely warped and I could see the fire 
through them.
	Carol came back into the room and curled up into a ball in front 
of the fire. A few of the others wandered in and out of the room 
making various comments and then igniting more of the infectious 
laughter. I was busy laughing uproariously and observing the 
universe splinter and shatter with each cycle of the laughter. It 
seemed as though the energy released from the laughing caused my 
vision to fracture and fragment.
	I noticed that Carol was in a strange mood, she seemed almost 
angry and upset about all the laughing, she remained motionless and 
dark beside the fire. Mel broke into another fit of helpless laugher 
which gradually sounded stranger and stranger. Carol took this 
moment to exclaim aggressively to her "ARE YOU ALL RIGHT!!!" 
"ARE YOU QUITE RIGHT THERE!!!" This seemed to quieten Mel 
down a bit, but she seemed to draw in upon herself like a frightened 
rabbit.
	The music was weird and unrecognisable. Sid had only 
intended on letting the first two tracks play before the CD was 
changed, but no one had remembered to change it. Suddenly things 
started changing.
	Mel seemed to be getting into trouble. Her eyes had widened in 
fright and horror and she was making exclamations like "Oh no!, 
NO!" and starting to shout with horror. Something was wrong. 
Simultaneously my own universe jumped and flickered into new 
heights of weirdness. Things were morphing uncontrollably now. It 
became very difficult to work out what I was actually looking at. 
I kept thinking "Damn! my eyes have stopped working".
Mel became more and more disturbed. Something in me started to 
realise she was launching into a bad trip, and this something decided 
that the most obvious answer was to change the music. I stood up. Or 
I tried to. My legs leaped to the standing position, but they had 
become detached from the rest of my body which was still resting in 
the bean bag. I looked at my legs in surprise. I could clearly see the 
backs of my legs and the top of each of them ended in a stump. Slowly the 
rest of my body floated up and came to rest in its usual position. My 
legs did not seem to re-attach properly and as I walked out of the 
room, they seemed to be a couple of steps ahead of me. I found the 
door into the lounge room and moved into the darker room, I saw 
Tim seated by the stereo, at least I think it was Tim. The only way to 
describe what my eyes saw is to compare it to the scene in 
Lawnmower Man where one of the protagonists had broken up into 
tiny marble sized pieces which were buzzing around like flies and 
formed the approximate shape of the body. Tim's eyes were separate 
from his body and I could see air gaps around them and I could see 
the chair through him. The chair itself had broken up into pieces, 
some of which were protruding through Tim. The vision was too 
bizarre, so I looked away to increase my chances of coping.
	Mel had started screaming by this point, the screams got louder 
and more frequent, until it reached the stage where she was 
continually screaming her lungs out. It sounded like someone was 
"Axe Murdering" her. I listened for a moment to the screams and the sheer
horror contained within them. The fear and horror became real and tangible.
It solidified as a material object, some sort of mental snake which started
slithering towards the centre of my being. 
I shuddered and purposely distracted my line of thinking into the practical.
Part of me started to realise that the Police were going to be called.
Another part of me remembered that I was going to change the music. 
Finally I reached the point in space where the CD player was supposed to be, 
but when I looked in the direction I thought it existed, my eyes had started 
refusing to work again. The masses of swirling colours and shapes and 
perspectives that I saw was definitely not a CD player. 
With great concentration I managed to get the CD player to coalesce 
into a Level 4 image and I bent down toward it in order to change the 
CD. Halfway to the CD player the universe ceased to exist.....
	There remains almost no way in which I can describe what 
happened at this point other than to say that I had reached Level 5. 
Everything changed and became unrecognisable. When I say 
Everything, I do not just mean objects and people and self, but The 
Universe Itself became undone. There was no-longer anything in the 
ordinary sense. It was like being in an amazingly comfortable chair, 
but not existing at the same time. Vision, Smell, Hearing and Taste 
all became meaningless. They did not just disappear, but they ceased 
to have ever existed. Time melted into nothingness. I did not 
perceive time, but looking back later I can say that the subjective 
experience must have lasted literally years. There was no point of 
reference, I could no longer distinguish anything even slightly 
recognisable, although something somewhere could contemplate a 
great many somethings. It was not me. It was not anything like 
thought or perception. It was not anything which could be described. 
It is extremely difficult to even remember much about it but to say 
that it was so different to anything that it defies explanation!
	Woah, suddenly I was back, and I was still in the act of 
bending down towards the strange mess of colours I thought must be 
the CD player. I wondered who I was and why I was there. I struggled with
remembering, but I could not make sense of it. I had no idea about anything.
I knew I was tripping but that was about it. Whose house was I in? Who am I
tripping with. Did I drive here or did someone else. What was happening. I
really had no idea. This somehow disturbed me. But not too much. I recognised
a Tim-like entity swimming around in my vision and exclaimed to it,
"What's Happening?" and I meant it from the depths of my soul.
	Tim didn't seem to know either. The CD player pattern made itself
obvious again and I realised that I was changing the music. My hand was still
reaching for the CD player.  Another thought occurred to me.
"What do I do when I get there?" I could barely see the damn thing,
how am I going to operate it? At this point I turned to Tim for help.
"I need to change the Music", "Why?", Tim was enjoying it thoroughly and
had not yet noticed the trauma in the next room. I explained the situation 
to the weird looking floating creature somehow, and between the two of us 
It only took about "6" hours to manage to change it. The CD player 
was new to both of us. It seemed to have way too many light and 
numbers. The buttons had something marked on them, but we were  
beyond being able to read. We resorted to randomly pushing buttons 
until the required result was achieved.
	The new CD was some classical guitar (Vivaldi) But after a few 
minutes it became apparent that this was not going to help. Mel 
continued screaming at the top of her lungs.
	At this stage, her boyfriend Sid had found her and was trying to 
comfort her. I was convinced that another change to the music might 
help. I ended up changing the CD again, several eternities later, to 
"White Winds" by Andreas Vollenweider, this seemed to have the 
desired effect after a while. Mel seemed to be responding to Sid's 
efforts at bringing her back to stable grounds. She related afterwards 
that she had completely lost track of reality to such a degree that
she was afraid that she was going mad. All the normal anchors of reality
had vanished one by one until there was nothing recognisable left. She became
horrified that she was going to remain there forever. Sid told me later that
he was watching her face, and slowly the expression on it would change and
start to become distant, if he didn't immediately say something to her that
she could grip with her mind, then she would withdraw and start screaming. 
Once she had reached this point, no amount of talking or touching could get 
through to her.
	My trip was still getting stronger, part of me was still worried 
that the neighbours were going to call the police, and another part of 
me was completely unconcerned and was in fact enjoying itself 
immensely. By this stage my body had disappeared, I no longer had 
any sensation of comfort/discomfort my eyesight was beginning to 
malfunction again. I could no-longer see anything of meaning. One 
moment I would be looking at something, then it would dissolve into 
a mass of swirling colours. The rooms of the house were beginning 
to move around and merge with each other. I decided that I needed a 
glass of water, so some part of me got up and went to the kitchen, 
leaving the other part sitting up against an electric oil heater. Moving 
through the halls of the house was completely weird. Parts of the 
walls, arches and ceiling protruded down into the hallway and passed 
through my body as I walked along. At one stage I walked through a 
wall and felt it open up and then coalesce behind me. Once in the 
kitchen part of me filled a glass, then I split into two again, one 
staying in the kitchen, the other walking back to the first body. I was 
now in three places at once. One in the kitchen, one in the hall, 
holding the glass, and the other sitting with Tim in the lounge. From 
this point onwards I again moved into Level 5 for some 3 hours of 
real time (I think!)
	Tim said something to me and I raised my eyebrow, it detached 
and floated off behind my head, I went to look at it out of the corner 
of my eye, but the eye came away from my head and floated off 
towards the eyebrow. Weird. I flicked my tongue around inside my 
mouth, and my head seemed to detach itself above my jaw, my 
tongue flopped helplessly about on top of the throat and lower jaw 
like a fish out of water. My upper head continued floating upwards 
and slowly bobbed around so that I could look down my own throat. 
My body looked like the lower half of a decapitated buddha sitting in lotus 
position up against the heater.
	After a while I stood up next to the heater and drifted in and out 
of the universe. For most of the time I had no Idea that I was 
standing. Mel was still breaking out into fits of screaming 
occasionally and at times I was so completely out of reality that I had 
to ask Tim, "What's happening?" I had no idea who or where I was, 
only that something was happening, the details of which I was 
unsure! He seemed to be in a similar state and responded with a 
shrug which separated his body into about twenty more pieces.
	Level 5 became the dominant state, with momentary flashes of 
Level 4, where suddenly the Universe would flicker back into view 
for a moment and I would realise that I was standing up or sitting 
down or more importantly, that I existed.
	Slowly the flashes of Level 4 became longer and longer. Tim 
said to me that He thought things were getting more normal. I replied 
that I didn't think they were (I didn't want them to) Eventually I had 
to concede, but I told him that we wouldn't be back to normal until at 
least 1:00am, he then replied that it was in fact 1:10am. Whoah!!!
	Things gradually became more and more normal as I sank into 
the familiar morphy land of Level 4, then I dramatically dropped to 
Level 3. The drop was so sudden, that I exclaimed, "What happened? 
Something has changed!"
	The final stages of the trip were long and slow. Mel had found 
reality again, although she and Sid looked completely drained. To 
my trippy eyes they looked as if they had aged ninety years, their 
faces were long and drawn and Sid's face looked like something out 
of the trenches in Pink Floyd's "The Wall"
	Once we were down far enough, we drove home. The car 
journey, as usual, was interesting and I was glad it was the middle of 
the night and I didn't have to cope with any traffic.

CONCLUSION:
	I have noticed, that the various types of trips coincide with the 
levels I have described to a reasonably high degree. The jumps 
between these levels are usually distinct and obvious  and when I 
have consumed a dose which is close to the boundaries of one of the 
Level transition states, the resultant trip is not a gradual merging of 
the two states, but more like a ping-pong jumping between the two 
states. The "Flashover" point is quite obvious with a striking change 
in the observed reality.
	Most of the trips I have experienced have been clearly at one 
particular level and in one instance I consumed an amount of weak 
dried mushroom (just the stems) , the result of which was no 
noticeable effect. After a couple of hours had elapsed with no effect, 
I consumed a further amount (approximately 1/10th of the original 
dose) at which point I was propelled into Level 1. (ie I had consumed 
enough to cross the Level 0 - Level 1 boundary)
	To me this is proof of the existence of a threshold effect. It also 
coincides with a number of recipients of "weak" paper trips reporting 
that they did nothing, whist others having the same dose reported 
getting Level 1 or 2 phenomena. It would seem that for the former 
recipients that their jump to level one dose is somewhat higher than 
for the latter.
	On other occasions I have noticed that (for me) the difference 
between 1.6 and 2.0 grams of freshly dried mushrooms produces no 
discernible difference, but that 2.1 launches me into a Level 2 trip. In 
the first instance, the extra 0.4 grams was effectively wasted.

I hope this information is of interest. I have tried to remain as detached
as possible, and have consulted many FOAF's for their opinions on my "Level"
theories, most agree, but of course this type of evaluation can only be
subjective.

Graeme Carl.

+=======================================================================+
| The Past is but Memories,!    Graeme Carl <[email-masked]>     |
| The Future but Dreams.   !     Victoria Australia Earth (mostly)      |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
To find out more about the anon service, send mail to [email-masked].
Due to the double-blind, any mail replies to this message will be anonymized,
and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned.
Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to [email-masked].