Microdosing At Work: The Psychedelic Breeze | part 1

Continued in The Psychedelic Breeze - part 2

One thing you may have noticed, keen reader, is reference here and there to the ’Psychedelic Breeze’. This mystical sounding force is really just another name for the early onset effects of acid. I like to imagine these effects as a colourful psychedelic wind that can sweep in like an undercurrent, gradually changing your reality ever so slightly - for better or worse.

IN THE BEGINNING

When I first started microdosing there were four of us. We were just four friends who wanted to try microdosing psychedelics and see what it was all about. If we had found mushrooms, we would have microdosed mushrooms. But we found acid tabs. We knew you couldn't get addicted to acid and that was good enough for us. So off we went.

We were four guys in their mid thirties that would microdose in the morning and then go off in different directions to very different careers.

There was me (the architect), a corporate finance guy, a plumber and a marketing guy.

We would link up our Dose Days so we were all on the same schedule and then go off to our respective professional lives checking in with each other throughout the day on a message group. We were like psychedelic Power Rangers, except we didn't join forces to make some super special creature to save the planet... We were just high at work.

The psychedelic breeze was born in this environment and I have had a relationship with it ever since. Whether the breeze comes in as a friend or a foe is dependent partly on our old friends SET and SETTING of course, but the dosage is the main factor here. If it is ever too high - it will let you know.

WHAT IS THE PSYCHEDELIC BREEZE?

The 'psychedelic breeze’ is basically describing the very first signs that you are leaving the realm of sub-perceptibility and are on the way to a full blown acid trip. Because of this it is never more prevalent than at around 10am on Dose Day, roughly 3hrs after the morning dose. This is when any effects are at their strongest. If the mix is dialled in correctly there shouldn't be a problem, the breeze can be a gentle welcoming thing existing only on the edge of your awareness.

But if it is a fresh batch that was only mixed that morning, sometimes the exact strength is as yet unknown. This is where the breeze can kick up into a storm. In the beginning when we were only just learning to navigate this new microdosing thing, the storms happened regularly.

To get a better understanding of this phenomenon, it is key to understand some of the very early signs of the effects of acid as a drug. These include:

Colours: Colours starting to change in hue just a little bit. Reds may feel a bit warmer or greens have a touch more depth to them. Things somehow look just a little bit ‘more 3D’ than they usually do.
Sounds: Ears starting to pick out individual sounds that may not have been noticeable previously. I'm not talking about super hearing, but I often find I zero in on sounds like distant bird noises or a conversation going on across the street… Or music, don't get me started on the music.
Nature: You might find yourself staring at plants and trees noticing more and more detail the longer you look. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but I have found that my fascination with plants and nature has a direct relationship with how high I am.
Movement: Things that don't generally move start to sway and breathe ever so slightly. We are not talking full blown hallucinations of bookshelves walking out the door. But smaller movements.. A wiggle, or a jiggle that might catch in the corner of the eye as inanimate objects start to vibrate to life.

If I am MACRO-dosing, these are exciting signs as they indicate the onset of the drug and the acid trip is approaching. The slow shift of reality from one normal to another can be a really interesting experience. But not when you are at work. Never when you are at work.

This is the Psychedelic Breeze, and in my book can be equal parts exciting and terrifying (depending on what you are doing). The psychedelic breeze is both friend and foe, but never both at the same time.

THE WIND PICKING UP

Every now and then, at around 10am on Dose Day, a message would come through. One of the guys was “in trouble” and they would report that it was “starting to get a bit windy”.

It doesn't get windy in an office building. Unless of course, you have slightly too much psychedelics running through your system on a Tuesday morning. Papers may have started to move slightly in the corner of the eye, or the office plants have begun to sway and dance just enough to make you look twice.

More than once I have felt the breeze pick up as the lighting and colour start to shift and everything in the room somehow seems more vibrant. This is a sure fire sign that you are leaving the realm of sub-perceptible. This can be fine, and even fun if you don't have anything important to do. But if you are required to be doing something serious.. With serious people in suits.. In corporate finance for instance. It can be unsettling.

THE EYE OF THE STORM

One of the guys - let's call him Fred the marketing guy. One Dose Day morning Fred found himself in a 10am meeting where some over enthusiastic young ad guys were pitching some rather abstract ideas on how to create hype around a flavoured milk brand.

As the psychedelic breeze entered the meeting room and Fred recognised the colour shift and the tingle of wind on his neck, his eyes darted right and he started to get nervous. Due to a fresh microdose batch of uncertain quantity earlier that morning; the Psychedelic Breeze had arrived in force and he was in trouble.

The ideas progressively got weirder as the ad guys went down their list trying to find increasingly more abstract ways to create hype around milk. Eventually, they started talking about a possible competition where they would encase the milk in a block of ice and let people try and break it out.

Milk.. Inside Ice?... Is this real?..

He looked intensely at the carton of milk on the table as it started to jiggle. Then at the ad guy who met his eyes with an overly eager smile. Fred was slipping and needed a life raft.

“No that won't work, they will use power tools to get it out” declared Fred’s boss.

Power tools?... No this is too weird. Fred’s eyes snapped towards his boss, sweat starting to appear. His boss met Fred’s eyes and smiling he gestured for Fred to weigh in on the discussion.

This was too much for poor old Fred to handle. He stood up, excused himself louder than necessary from the meeting, and walked out the door - wind in his hair.

On another occasion Danny, the finance guy, was in a meeting with his superiors, and was asked to pull something up on a spreadsheet he had been working on. Danny works on spreadsheets every day, he is really good at them. But on this day he was feeling the pressure of the meeting, and fighting back a larger than usual dose that left him stressed and fumbling with the computer.

He had forgotten how to create a simple equation and add up a column. He was clicking aimlessly, gritting his teeth unable to remember simple commands in what now seemed a foreign landscape of never ending cells with strange martian characters dancing in their little boxes. The others in the room watched on as his efforts were projected on the big screen for all to see.

Luckily, a colleague stepped in and the brief pressure relief was enough to give his brain enough time to catch up and remember how to work the computer. One big deep breath and he had escaped. The gaze of the room fell to someone else as the meeting continued. Wide eyed, he closed the computer and moved for the door - you have to pick your battles - and the spreadsheet had won this day.

GETTING BACK ON TRACK

If we remember back to our ‘Guide to Microdosing Acid’, the success of a trip, large or small, is dependent on the balance of DOSE, SET and SETTING. If the psychedelic breeze has kicked up in force like it did for poor Fred or Danny it is because this holy trinity has been tipped out of balance.

In Fred’s case it was started by a DOSE that was too high, but then compounded by a SETTING that was not conducive to being on acid.

This in turn impacted negatively on his mindset (SET) leaving him with no choice but to leave with the hope that a different SETTING would bring things back to equilibrium.

Understanding how these factors work together has been critical for me in managing Dose Day. It is less of an issue these days as I tend to have smaller doses, and am generally more accustomed and comfortable with the effects of acid. However, knowing how to flip the tide if things are getting stormy is essential.

If a DOSE is too high you can't change that. It is then up to SET and SETTING to work a bit harder to bring everything back into balance. For me, a high dose is not conducive to anything that is really technical involving computers. Or anything confrontational that could see high levels of anger or stress.

If I find myself with an out of balance trinity due to a high dose, the first thing I try to do is get outside. This change of SETTING is sometimes all I need to shift my mindset to something calmer and more grounded.

Stay tuned for next time where we look at my favourite past-time of how “riding the Psychedelic Breeze’. This is how I flip the tide on Dose Day if things are a bit too much in the office environment and how I turn a potentially difficult day into something special.

…To be continued…

Stay Safe