let's go back in the time machine... to ancient India...

Taken from my old blog on Friendster (lol gila ancient!):

Every single psy-trance headz know and realize the fact that this particular sub-genre of dance music is heavily related with drugs. Hell, I do realize this too, ever since I first fell in love with it. People say that psy-trance is LSD, and LSD is psy-trance. Heck, what did they know about it?

For me, I didn’t approve the idea of psy-trance is drug music. Hell, I know psy-trancers all over the world took LSD in the middle of a Full Moon party [I didn't], but isn’t the music more enjoyable without lysergic acid diethylamide? A lot of people thought that "Oh, if I take acid I’ll slip into a trip so that my senses will be more sensitive and I’ll experience the true beauty of psy-trance". Yeah yeah… wait till you experience bad trip.

Let me tell you something, you don’t necessarily need acid to experience real trance-like effects. Oh, and hell, I’m not only talking about the psy-trance community and acid alone, I’m talking about the whole dance music community, bet you take acid or E or GHB or crack or whatever. If you really wanna enjoy the music even more, all you got to do is listen it with your ears and your heart. That one always work, for me. If you still can’t feel it, try listening it with the aid of some multi-sense tools (that’s a geeky double talk for visuals). That’s why God created VJs — to help you enjoy the music without drugs of course. Psy-trance lovers can always enjoy the music by listening it by headphones, and sit in front of psychedelic visuals on TV/ computer/ LCD projector/ plasma screens [the bigger the better]. Hard to find such visuals? Winamp AVS will help you, for sure. Or just drag the Kurst VJs into your home [or you can always go to ALT*CTRL, a visual festival in UK. Or similar events...]

Well actually, you can get a lot of benefits if you ditch drugs. I don’t wanna say it in an old mama way, but anyways. First of all, of course, you won’t experience bad trip. And the risk of being OD’ed to death. And then, you can always save your money to buy Final Scratch if you’re a vinyl hardcore fan, or even upgrade your TT to SL1210MK5G [or if you prefer, SLDZ1210]. Then again, you don’t have to be a fugitive by running away from policemen. And best of all, there will be no such RAVE act in the USA. Oh, you might even end up being Paul van Dyk and be the No.1 DJ in the world, even being the next German president or something. Remember, PvD don’t take drugs.

Well, I don’t wanna nag more here. If you still can’t leave those acid/E/GHB/ice crack/such and such, just take this simple step. Take 20 Panadols and wash them down with Coke. You’ll definitely fell into a massive trancelike state…. with slim chance of recovery, that is. Oh never mind, you can always resume your trip in heaven. Hell, maybe.

I can't believe I wrote this when I was 13. Seven years later and I'm preaching the entheogenic properties of LSD already! Hahaha. Well, you can still say I'm an anti-drugs person (lol that's kinda hard to believe isn't it), but psychedelics have at least some benefits to mankind so yeah. Just don't take drugs for the sake of drugging yourself, if you know what I mean. You still have DMT in your brain. Use that.

Don't let Hofmann cry in his grave, he wrote LSD: My Problem Child already

Alice

Pseudoephedrine I Have Known And Hated (PIHKAH)

I have found the culprit behind my inability to have lucid dreams.

This guy here.

Apparently, because I was so obsessed with [medicinal] drugs to the point of daring to prescribe myself random medications, I bought a tab of Allerpid (loratadine 5mg + pseudoephedrine sulphate 120 mg) without consulting a doctor beforehand. Without even Googling 'if I ask for decongestant from a pharmacist what kind of drug will she give me and what will the drug do to my body' first. I just went to my favourite pharmacy, asked the lovely pharmacist for a tab of oral nasal decongestant for my rhinitis, was presented with two options (Claritin-D and Allerpid) and opted for Allerpid because it's cheaper (cough cough). And then I just sort of take em whenever I liked (dosage says one tablet bd, I took one tablet every itching days). Of course I checked MIMS, but they didn't give me any alarming information, save for one DI with antacids (not of my uttermost concern since I don't take antacids - cimetidine is not an antacid isn't it?), and somnolence as its adverse reaction. What I failed to realize is the fact that pseudoephedrine is a phenethylamine, belonging to the same class of chemicals as amphetamines (shoot I should've realized about that earlier) and also in the same group as MDMA, 2C-B and mescaline. Mescaline FGS.

Picture is for decorative purposes only

Nah, of course taking an innocent pseudoephedrine tablet won't give you peyote-like effects, or ecstasy-like effects either. But one should bear in mind that apart from being a potent decongestant, pseudoephedrine is also a potent stimulant. Although your regular OTC nasal decongestant drugs (like my dear Allerpid here) come in the form of antihistamine + pseudoephedrine combination, the mildly sedating properties of antihistamine do not cancel out the stimulating properties of pseudoephedrine (that's why Claritin-D is labelled as 'Non-Drowsy' FGS!). Thus, side effects ranging from headache to restlessness to nausea (akin to that of a caffeine overdose) are not uncommon. In rare cases, nervousness, irritability, disturbed sleep and palpitations/ increased heartbeat can also rise up. Unfortunately, these 'rare cases' are the ones that I've been experiencing for several days already.

I didn't really know what triggered this, but a few nights back I kept waking up in the middle of the night, around 3 a.m. or so, with my heart beating extra fast and me feeling extremely restless. I tried to get back to sleep (with renewed hope because Stephen LaBerge said you can get lucid dreams easier if you take a nap after waking up in the middle of the night or something) but after almost 30 minutes of tossing and turning, I was all but sleepy. The next day, I felt an overwhelming sense of irritation, and almost screamed at my mom who woke me up for my kuih frying obligations. Heartbeat was probably 120 bpm, and not only did I feel irritable and edgy, I also felt some sort of general malaise. I wanted to fall down and pass out, but I couldn't even if I try. It was as if I had just swallowed three packets of extra strong coffee. And I hadn't even touched a drop of coffee for 3 weeks already.

So here, I would like to hypothesize that my history of caffeine abuse has caused the rare side effects of pseudoephedrine to manifest themselves. You know I love making up twisted hypotheses like that.

Eh wait, this is getting way beyond our scope. So what has this got to do with lucid dreaming, you may ask. You see, as mentioned earlier, pseudoephedrine is a stimulant under the amphetamine chemical class, and apart from being used to relieve nasal congestion, it is also used as a wakefulness-promoting agent. That simply means less tendency to fall asleep, and when that happens, you tend to have less REM sleep. When you do not have much REM sleep, dreaming would occur lest often, which also means less lucid dreaming. No seriously guys, I have looked this up; stimulants like amphetamines and their relatives do suppress REM sleep (Shneerson 2000). And it's tried and tested also; I only had around two non-vivid dreams each night for the past few nights (I usually have 4 or more extra-vivid dreams per night). No wonder I found it more difficult to recall my dreams these days (please check out my dream journal). Haish.

For the time being, I think I'll just stick to good ol' REM sleep-promoting cetirizine, since I don't have any obligations which require me to stay awake for long periods in the morning (goreng kuih is meh - I just need to put on my headphones and treat my groggy self with 1200 Micrograms of Hallucinogen and I'm good). I'll probably need those pseudoephedrine tablets for my new academic session later this month though. Ah hey, I made it sound as if I'm planning to launch into some full-blown pharmaceutical abuse. Hahaha. Gosh, must go see MD. I think I also have palpitations.

You know the moral of the story already. Don't self-medicate.

Alice

p/s: yes, title is a rip-off from Phenethylamines i Have Known And Loved (PiHKAL). Sorry Shura/Alice!

i *cough cough* love older guys

I guess since I am already over 18 I won't be regarded as a lolita (as in Nabokov) by thinking so? XD

Aw come on, who doesn't love handsome older guys? They are, after all, more mature than your peers, have greater insight on life, probably more caring, etc etc... Considering that the average guy's mental capacity is 2 years younger than his actual age (while us girls' mental capacity is 2 years older than our actual age... statement not supported by any statistical facts, just a sweeping statement XP), dating someone your age would mean dating a person who's 4 years younger mentally than you! And that simply means more drama, more immaturity, more "ala hunny bunny bucuk-bucuk, b nak kiss cikit takkan tak boleh, majowk kang". Things would be even worse if you decided to date someone younger than you. So as a safety precaution, I would go for older guys okeh thank you.

Guys like this:

the great Simon Posford, a.k.a. Hallucinogen, a.k.a. Younger Brother, a.k.a. one half of epic psybient duo Shpongle (okayyyyy he's not that old, but damnnnn he sure is gorgeous!)

Shpongle. No, Simon bukan yang sebelah kanan. Itu Raja Ram Rothfield. Yes dia sangat quirky, I love him, but not as much as I love Simon :P

Next one would be:

You know I am obsessed with this guy for months already. The father of lucid dreaming, Dr. Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D. He's a genius (he developed various techniques for lucid dreaming), a man well versed in the matters of consciousness. And he's a funny man as well :D

(side note: I love guys in academia. I wanna marry one someday. Perhaps my mentor, or my lecturer, or the director of the pharmaceutical company where I will be working at, or the Dean of Pharmacy at Otago)

Another gorgeous older guy:

Neil Gaiman! Okay fine, he's married, his daughter is almost as old as I am, I know I know, but he's sweeeeeet! And he's such a dear father, I tell you. Go check out his journal.

And here's some other guys I fancy:

Gary Oldman. Well cough cough, I gotta be frank, he's only gorgeous in Dracula XPPPPP

Gerard Butler. Hey, don't ask me why I chose this picture :P

And last but not least:

Everybody loves the immortal Keanu! Neeeoooo! *bunyi panggil kucing Leana*

If you have to ask, yes, I took drugs today

Alice

i take drugs

I was introduced to binaural beats from my eagerness to induce lucid dreaming and astral projection. A bit skeptical at first, but since the science behind the whole thing is logical, I thought it won't hurt to give it a try.

(unfortunately, I can't seem to be able to lucid dream or astral project with the help of them binaural beats. Without them, however, I managed to partially move out of my physical body. Awesomeness.)

Anyhoo, last week, my friend on fb introduced me to this binaural beats software called I-Doser. Apparently, you can get all sorts of binaural beat 'doses' from this program, ones that can allegedly induce feelings of euphoria, hallucinations, intoxication, alertness, near-death experiences, things like that. It's the digital equivalent to taking drugs (or antidepressants, or caffeine, or aphrodisiacs, or whatever), sans the side effects.

(Legal DMT in my computer? YES PLEASE!!)

Of course I was interested. I am a Goa trancer, after all, and all Goa trancers will involve in hallucinogenics in one way or another (mine would be the natural DMT mentioned in my previous posts), so it's only natural for me to try the digital version of hallucinogens on I-Doser.

So I tried several doses, and here's the result:

Lucid Dream: As mentioned above, no lucid dreams with aids

AstralQH: Same as Lucid Dream. I am too Goa to astral project with aids lol

Ecstasy: It worked :D (hey, don't blame me, I'm curious :P)

Memory+: Not that I can feel the effects straight away anyway, so I dunno

Brain+: Didn't finish the dose, but even if I do I guess I'll have to say "Refer to Memory+"

TripQH: Nothing. Nada. Disappointed.

LSD: Didn't finish the dose because I was 'too scared'. First timer lol.

Anti-Sad: Played the dose, listened to it, fell asleep after 90%. Woke up, felt a sudden rush of despair, and cried uncontrollably for half an hour. Hebat punya opposite effect.

(didn't try DMT yet because I have plenty in my brain)

The verdict? I can safely conclude that I-Doser should be renamed as I-Placebo. I'm going to prove myself wrong by blind-testing Gates of Hades on some of my friends here, but for the time being I'll just stick to my placebo doses. And try full Peyote dose after this, perhaps.

(maybe you will be as awesome as this!)