Naive “Molecules”
This chocolate is marketed as "mood boosting", "bioactive", "uplifting and nootropic". So this time I'll be doing tasting notes not only on my experience of eating the chocolate, but also on how it impacts me psychologically and physiologically.
It doesn't have a suggested dose or serving size. I plan to just eat the entire bar (which is 57g/2oz).
10:35AM
Before eating the chocolate, I'll start with a description of my current state, for comparison. This morning I have eaten a small meal and done some yoga. I feel light and a little bit fiery. It seems that my mind has been attempting to plan my day; I've been imagining possible activities and weighing their merits, but I haven't settled on much. There's a sensation in the core and front of my body that reminds me of heat, motion, power, and jumping. I feel joyful about it, and I'm inclined to call it "wellbeing". The quality of my thoughts feels "scattered" and "on the surface of things". Something in my eyes and head feels a little heavy and sleepy; I'm slightly restless, and simultaneously averse to leaving my chair.
10:40AM
Now for the physical tasting.
Nose: Something in this reminds me of venison stew. A red wine scent, and button mushrooms. There's a tiny bit of sweetness.
Mouth: Really bitter right away. Something very oddly cooling on my tongue. It's disgusting and I'm having trouble getting beyond that. Spicy. So much spice. Almost no sweetness. Something sickening, dizzying, masquerading as sweetness. I feel like I'm being tortured. Tortured how? With a poisonous gas that coats my skin, my nasal passages, and my lungs in something caustic. I feel almost panicked, eating this.
Reflections: Abominable. An affront to the Epicurean arts. I despise it. If I'm going to eat this whole bar for the purported nootropic benefits, I'll have to stop paying attention to it and down it like a shot of cheap vodka. What an extraordinarily unpleasant experience.
11:05AM
Valiantly, I've finished the bar. I have a slight headache and I sort of feel like I need some aftercare. I'll check back in about 20 minutes.
11:35AM
I'm a little later than intended (it's actually been 30 minutes) 'cause I was absorbed in reading. I don't think I've fully recovered from the emotional assault perpetrated by the flavor of that chocolate bar. But let's do another description of overall state.
I feel a bit physically cold; unsurprising, as I've been sitting in the path of an air conditioner. My thoughts no longer feel "scattered" or "on the surface". I spent the intervening time reading and thinking about an article on the replication of automaticity studies.
I was pretty deeply engaged with it, and there's still an aftertaste of probing curiosity. I keep turning the article over and over in my head, looking for new ways to see it, mining it for further implications: "Where do my intuitions about priming effects come from? Can I predict when an automaticity study will or won't replicate? How should I relate to my own strong skepticism when I run into a wall of apparent counter evidence for one of my pet theories?”
I'm still a little "physically restless", but that only became clear to me when I checked for it. I've apparently been ignoring it. The idea of running up a mountain appeals to me.
What, if anything, has happened to the "feeling of wellbeing" I described earlier? Most of it is still present, but there have been some changes. About a third of the energy is in my arms now, rather than in my torso. I no longer feel "joyous"; I instead feel "focused and interrogative", as though the lightness and fire has found an outlet, and now flows toward an objective rather than bouncing in place.
Overall, I feel less straightforwardly happy; but I feel more comfortable, curious, focused, and productive.
Conclusions
I do not, of course, know whether the chocolate has had anything to do with the change, except for the "less happy" part; I'm pretty confident the experience of chewing and swallowing the bar hashed my natural buzz, and left me a little disgruntled. It is truly the most disgusting chocolate I have ever eaten. I also don’t know whether any effects it may have had differ from those of eating two ounces of an arbitrary dark chocolate. But I'm sufficiently curious about whether this chocolate causes "focus" that I'm seriously considering repeating the experiment, despite having thought earlier "I'm so glad I never have to do this again."
