The Heroic Dose of Cannabis

In a previous post, I said I recommended moderate dosage for cannabis, but that was really more of a daily recommendation. I also recommend occasionally doing what Terence McKenna referred to as a “heroic dose.”

You get as high as you possibly can and sit alone in a pitch dark room—preferably in silence, or with music—then open your eyes. It will be completely dark, yet you will see things. It’s so trippy. Or, sometimes I just close my eyes. If I try to meditate, my mind goes to another place.

It depends each time what those “things” are or what that “place” is. Sometimes I’ll have flashes of memory from throughout my life, remembering things from decades ago that I’d totally forgotten about and never even thought of since. Yet the image/memory is so vivid. Each flash lasts just a second or two, but I have dozens of them in rapid succession, memory after memory, from my entire life.

Other times, I’ll have visions of colorful animated worlds. Featuring images from video games and cartoons I’ve played and watched in the past. Carl Sagan speculated that this may be because it's easier for the brain to reproduce animated images than images from the real world. But again, they will be images from cartoons I watched in my childhood that I have no conscious memory of anymore.

The highest I've ever been was after taking a heavy dose of edibles. I stared at myself in the mirror and eventually, I realized the person looking back at me wasn’t me. Meaning, this body I am now in isn’t really “me.” I am an eternal consciousness currently inhabiting this body. Sort of like reincarnation—or a computer simulation.

I felt like I was actually a consciousness from another dimension who was temporarily inhabiting this body on Earth. Where was I before this? Where will I go after? I didn’t know. The memories were not carried over. But I had this convinced feeling that there was some higher plane of reality in the universe. And honestly, it was kind of scary—like I was discovering something I wasn't supposed to.

I know this sounds insane, and I don’t necessarily even believe it myself. Would psychedelics make me think I am in a simulation if I had no knowledge of computers, virtual reality, extra dimensions, and the simulation theory? I've written before about how cannabis makes me more creative. Does a heroic dose make me too creative? Is my brain simply taking the science fictional ideas in my subconscious and playing tricks on me? I don’t know. Possibly. But when I was super high on edible cannabis, I believed it to be true.

The only time I get any kind of hangover effect from cannabis is after these heroic doses, which is why I don’t recommend doing it often—nor did McKenna. He recommended once a week.

A low dose of cannabis is like, oh, this feels nice... I have better focus and enhanced senses, perception, and feeling. A high dose of cannabis is like, whoa… It’s a straight shot to reality: the realization that reality isn’t real. (Or so you think.)

Those megadoses are fun and fascinating—occasionally. Definitely not something I could handle every day. But that’s just me. Perhaps you're more heroic.