Use the Shulgin rating scale

[izmar]

Everyone who's been under the influence of a psychedelic knows how difficult it is to convey your experience, even to the most experienced psychonaut. Perhaps we should make it common sense to use Alexander Shulgin's rating scale, a description of which can be found here:

http://www.mdma.net/alexander-shulgin/shulginscale.html

In my humble opinion this system (i.e. using +1, +2, +3 or +4 to describe the intensity) has a lot of advantages in any discussion involving psychedelics or even other types of psychoactive compounds.

 

[Guest]

Why do I have the impression that this pool is a BIT subjective ?

 

[Brewmaster]

Screw that. I like to express the intensity of my trips through interpretive dance. videos to follow......

 

[HeartCore]

Screw that. I like to express the intensity of my trips through interpretive dance. videos to follow......

 

[DevXavier]

Even with the Shulgin scale it is perfectly impossible to get a trip on a paper. The scale is only a tool to make it slightly less impossible.

 

[Guest]

Well, the fact is that I think this scale in not very well made, There are too many "lower" stages described, but only 2 "upper" stages... Lots of thing are missing before it could be used...

 

[tryptonaut]

The problem with the scale is in my opinion that you tend to call a strong trip a "plus 4" until you encounter a stronger one
You can never know how extreme a trip can get unless you had a more extreme one...

 

[kcar181]

The problem with the scale is in my opinion that you tend to call a strong trip a "plus 4" until you encounter a stronger one
You can never know how extreme a trip can get unless you had a more extreme one...

You know I've never thought of it that way but you absolutely right.

Screw that. I like to express the intensity of my trips through interpretive dance. Smile videos to follow......

Lmao

 

[Jakobien]

The problem with the scale is in my opinion that you tend to call a strong trip a "plus 4" until you encounter a stronger one
You can never know how extreme a trip can get unless you had a more extreme one...

Exactly, only the reals profs may be able to estimate the intensity in this kind of way...and then, who is a real prof, when are you experienced enough to consider yourself one??

And then there is still the diversity of psychedelics: different effects - different levels of intensity.

 

[tryptonaut]

There are too many "lower" stages described, but only 2 "upper" stages... Lots of thing are missing before it could be used...

I think the two lower stages are ok, but the stage +3 should have at least four sub-stages. In my opinion most trips range in +3, I think I had a +4 at least once but +4 is by definition very rare. Just look at the definition: "A rare and precious transcendental state (...)'divine transformation and 'state of Samadhi' (...) not necessarily repeatable with a subsequent ingestion of that same drug"

So, 95% of the trips we are having are +3 (lower wouldn't be a real trip and higher is almost impossible). That scale really doesn't help much, does it?

 

[HeartCore]

The way I read this scale, I have had a number of 4+ experiences already on high doses of mushrooms.

 

[Guest]

Maybe the +4 is rare 'cause very little people have the courage to actually take a high enough dose to experience this.

But I think from the description that you can pretty much tell what kind of trip you had. I mean +3 experiences can still be heavy, but still not be a +4.
I think +4 is the stage where you go deeper into the rabbit whole and are more in you subconsciousness and going to other dimensions then tripping your ass off in the "normal" reality

But I deffinately agree that those first three stages, can be really weak and +4 suddenly is absolute bliss.
I've had situations with mushrooms and acid, where I was still fully conscious of my surroundings, but couldn't deny the stuff was fully at work and I was tripping quite hard. Still it was a +3...

Maybe with the Psychedelic Information Theory we can form a new rating scale, 'cause I've read the part of the Metabolic Tripping Curve in Detail and this deffinately has a really good description of the stages you encounter and I think this is a much better understanding of how heavy a trip was (if you've been to the peak or just the plateau) then the Shulgin ratingscale...

I actually have the idea that everytime I'm at +1 or +2 I'm not having a good time 'cause I'm somewhere in between worlds and for me that's a bad place to be.

And the reason why I didn't react to the poll is the answers are clearly based on 1 opinion and I don't think Shulgin's rating scale will do anything for humankind, maybe just give a kind of ratingscale for trippers.
I think you can only use the ratingscale to tell when you had a +4.
I had 2 +4's on DMT, that's for shure
Went pretty far on LSD and Shrooms (not as far as HC though...), but still haven't had a +4 on those...

 

[Siq]

.. ok, so now I'm merely really curiouos about the video-report

And this is a story that is totally irrelevant but found on the same site, it's a very nice thesis about Extacy, Honesty and Futuristic Human Evolution:
http://www.mdma.net/ecstasy-honesty.html

 

[tryptonaut]

I've had situations with mushrooms and acid, where I was still fully conscious of my surroundings, but couldn't deny the stuff was fully at work and I was tripping quite hard. Still it was a +3...

So there we already got a major misunderstanding bewtwween +3 and +4. My understanding was that no matter how hard I was tripping, unless I didn't get a direct revelation from god I was still having a +3. For me, when I was on 5g peganum harmala and 6g cubensis, I thought I was still on a +3 because god didn't appear himself - on the other side it was my most extreme trip ever. I had a similar extreme trip on 10g cubensis and it seemed like 4+ because it was more spiritual. But what trip would I want to call more extreme in retrospect? The 10g cubensis was horror at first and bliss in the end, the other one was kind of joyful horror for more than 6 hours... They were not comparable, and from the point of ego-dissolution the 10g cubnensis was stronger, but from the point of total strangeness the p.h. trip wins the race...

 

[Brewmaster]

I thought I was still on a +3 because god didn't appear himself

What if you didn't believe in God? Could you still have a +4 trip? Now we're getting deep....

I liked the picture of mister Burns as an alien better under your name

 

[tryptonaut]

I liked the picture of mister Burns as an alien better under your name

Oh, now that hurts... Do I really seem to be Mr. Burns?

I just needed some change here and the picture of Mr. Burns didn't seem to represent me anymore since he's a very very selfish, rich, old man - nothing that I am (it was funny when I got this avatar but now I need to change it!)
The Tassali Shroom Shaman is a picture that impressed me the first time I saw it and I really want to have it as an avatar...please? I know it looks frightening at first, but please look at it closely and you'll find it much less frigtening than Mr. Burns

 

[Guest]

I think a lot of us can agree, that the Shulgin scale isn't enough to fully describe the intensity of a trip...

 

[Kwarkfanaat]

I think a lot of us can agree, that the Shulgin scale isn't enough to fully describe the intensity of a trip...

Yea.. agree! Just write nice tripreports. I think you can't make a scale for tripping.. you'll be missing too many aspects of the experience.

 

[HeartCore]

I thought I was still on a +3 because god didn't appear himself

What if you didn't believe in God? Could you still have a +4 trip? Now we're getting deep....

I liked the picture of mister Burns as an alien better under your name

Carlos Casteneda under influence of SOMETHING: I am face to face with GOD, *breaks out in tears and falls on his knees, praying.'

Don Juan: O man get a hold of yourself, you are mistaken the template of humans for God.

Illustrating Brewmasters point: you need a solid definition of what God is before you can actually integrate it into some scale

 

[izmar]

I think there can be various scales for various purposes. I think the Shulgin scale works extremely well for people who have taken many different psychedelics in multiple sets, settings and doses, especially for the purpose of concise discussion.
I agree it removes part of the romance of conveying your experience, however. Perhaps it is more suitable for scientific research than anything else.