Shulgin and doses

[raven3davis]

As many of you know it seems that Shulgin and his "crew" were normally very careful with their doses and never really ventured into the heavy doses of most tryptamines and phenethylamines. Has Shulgin really seen the beauty of all his chemicals? Shulgin created all the chemicals and what an amazing thing that was to do, but do you al believe he should have taken higher doses of some substances? SWIM knows that not all the reports in his books are his but for instance the highest dose of DOC in PIHKAL is 2.4mg. Shulgin was definitely safe with some drugs, but not others.

Check out this exerpt from TIHKAL. The drug involved was 5-meo-dmt and one can only guess the dose.

(with an unknown but large amount, smoked) I observed the subject pass very quickly into an almost coma-like state. Within seconds his face became purple and his breathing stopped. I pounded his chest, and breathed for him, and he seemed to emerge in consciousness, with the comment, "This is absolute ecstasy." He stopped breathing a second time, and both heart massage and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation was provided. Again, he recovered and managed to maintain a continuing consciousness and achieve a partial recovery. In the awake condition he was increasingly lucid, but on closing his eyes he became possessed with, what he called, "The energy of terror." He could not sleep, as upon closing his eyes he felt threatened in a way he could not tolerate. Three days later, medical intervention with antipsychotic medication was provided, which allowed the recovery of an acceptable behavior pattern in a few more days.

Now what SWIM wants to know is why would Shulgin be so conservative with some doses and completely irrational with others? It seems like who ever smoked that 5-meo-dmt was pretty close to death. Although 5-meo-dmt hasnt caused any deaths in swims knowledge, it is completely possible. Why would he pack a bowl of a unknown but large amount? He never even took 4mg of DOC. Someone in the book also took a large amount of DPT freebase which was unmeasured. It seems safer to do with DPT than with 5-meo-dmt but still seems a bit irresponsible.

WHY? Maybe this was just an isolated case but for the life of SWIM, SWIM cannot figure out why Shulgin would have done something that irresponsible. It seems like 30mg would have been quite enough to employ the full effects. Who even knows how much a large but unmeasured dose it?