Teatime: Less is More

I'm a big fan of epic doses. Before Erowid was around I had no reliable way of knowing what a typical dose was, and in my vanished youth I tended to err on the side of intensity. Indeed, I hesitate even to report on some of my more ridiculous escapades because someone somewhere just might be stupid enough to try to imitate my folly. I've been lucky. Some of my tippy-top most memorable (if not exactly best remembered), most meaningful and most transformative experiences have occurred at dosages that rightly ought to have left me gibbering in a puddle of my own drool. My best friend Seuss Dean and I egg each other on at times, and Ever Higher has long been one of our battle cries. We've shared some doozies, to be sure. The night he took ten dried grams of mushrooms still stands as one of my most profound trips ever, and I was just the sober sitter.

That said, I think low dose experiences are underrated. If your goal has always been to get as bleeped up as possible, you've probably been blowing right past some of your favorite substance's more subtle offerings. Back when I was a little raver kid I remember always being irritated at dealers for selling such weak ecstasy pills and doses that I had to take two or three of whatever it was to really get off. I figured it was just their way of moving more product. Now something that's perhaps finally beginning to resemble mature wisdom tells me that one weaker hit was actually kind of ideal for that sort of environment. (Assuming that I planned on taking any drugs at all.) Yeah, I know, there is a weird half-ass liminal high that's just uncomfortable, but I'm talking about aiming for the state just beyond that, where it first starts to become what it actually is.