DOSE: T+ 0:00	525 mg	oral	Pharms - Pregabalin	(capsule)
T+ 1:00	1/4 bowl	smoked	Cannabis
T+ 1:15	1/4 bowl	smoked	Cannabis
T+ 12:00		oral	Pharms - Alprazolam	(pill / tablet)

BODY WEIGHT:

60 kg

The Strange Psychedelia of Pregabalin

Myself and my housemate set aside a night to determine if Pregabalin, could have psychedelic potential. The setting was an outdoor backroom, with television and all the regular comforts, and we have a close relationship, are experienced psychonauts, and were in a healthy mindset.

It’s worth noting that I ordinarily suffer from Vertigo (medical condition of dizziness), which is a notable side-effect of Pregabalin, and had been concerned with this going in, but to my delight experienced no major episode of vertigo the following day (DO NOT take this to mean Pregabalin does not have the potential to induce vertigo generally- my friend, who does not suffer from it, experienced mild vertigo for two days following).

Time Dropped: 8:45pm
T: +00:00
We took the capsules at once, by ourselves, and played a game (“Rocket League”) to distract ourselves while we came up. My friend took his on an empty stomach, whereas I ate with it. I took longer to feel effects than he did, and he seemed to experience more visuals in general, though whether food is the cause or some other physiological quality I’m not sure.

T: +01:00
At this stage I can feel a mild body high, and feel slightly disoriented- in a similar sense to the mild disorientation you get on the come-up of an LSD/psilocybin experience, where you feel as though something is off but couldn’t put your finger on what the particular sensation of ‘offness’ is. At this stage we each smoke a ¼ bowl of indica cannabis; a lovely decision, it fits nicely with the current sensations and rounds off the ‘offness’.

T: +01:15
We smoke a second ¼ bowl, still playing Rocket League as nothing else too major is happening. At this stage the effects become more noticeable- I feel much higher than what the amount smoked should’ve resulted in. It’s a nice body high, with a heavy head and ‘sinking into couch’ sensation. I still feel mentally competent though- my body feels heavy, and my head feels stoned, yet my thinking is still more or less competent.

T: +01:30
Things have intensified rapidly. In the space of 5 minutes the body high goes straight from mild to so intense that we can barely play the game; it’s as if the physical energy of moving my hands on the controller is too much. Feeling utterly incapable of anything else, we put on Pond (a psychedelic rock band) to listen to, and lie in the darkness. My thinking is very abstract, jumping and flowing from thought to thought; I can control the thoughts if I want, but if I don’t actively try to then thoughts unravel of their own accord. My imagination is in a similar space, and the thoughts and imagined pictures now have blended into a life of their own, creating an opiate/psychedelic mental scenery. I have control over the general themes though, and in actively imagining something I can alter the scene-flow . It still feels in my ‘mind’, in my imagination, though- and not actual visuals as such.

T: +01:40
We get up and turn the lights back on. My friend says he is experiencing visual hallucinations similar to 3g psilocybin (I couldn’t say the same for myself yet). I feel incredibly high though, and am finding it difficult to balance or coordinate myself. My body is very heavy, but I still feel energetic in some strange internal way- but my body is far too heavy to actually get up and be energetic.

T: +01:45
A fight is simmering a few houses away from us, with about 20 young people shouting aggressively and shoving each-other. We’re separated from them by a small storm-drain runoff though, and watch on- it’s more entertaining than frightening. I’m incredibly off balance, and need help to stand properly in our hidden vantage point. As we’re standing there I notice closed-eye visuals (fuzzy, mildly colorful) forming. We head inside again.

T: +02:35
Back lying down with music, and with a dim light-fitting cycling through the colours of the rainbow. The experience feels incredibly narcotic, like a state of pleasant, blissful intoxication. I feel euphoric, in-control, and sure of myself. It feels lovely to have both the emotional/mental security of an opiate style high, and the visual and mental qualities of a psychedelic experience with closed eyes. The lines between imagination and actual visual are much more blurred now, and the scenes continue to unravel. The geometric structure, dimension, texture, colour and general form of my imagination is a shifting sea of images. There’s no real sense of the visions being ‘out-there’; it still feels like the visuals are predominantly in this crazy lucid imagination space.

T: +03:00
The effects are at their most intense now. I feel incredibly high still; I’m euphoric and giggly, and feel a level of comfort not too dissimilar to Endone. We’re now both incredibly off-balanced, but neither of us are nauseated, so there’s no major issue. It’s very hard to physically do anything, but there’s very little need to do anything, as lying down is so damn enjoyable. Time seems to have passed slowly this entire time- not LSD levels of “oh, I forgot that time is a thing that exists” sort of slow, but more to the kind one might find on cannabis edibles. I’m now getting more pronounced closed-eye visuals, and my imagination (and now, to some degree my actual visual hallucinations- it’s tricky to tell with the lines this blurred) is coming up with things I could never, ever think of sober. The most memorable ‘scene’ was of an alien ship flying through a crystalline cavern, which then changed art style and dimension (this stylistic change happens every few seconds, for each new scene, through the whole night), into an angelic girl with wings, flying up to a giant ruby. She touches the side, and a panel of the ruby opens; my vision/uncontrolled imagination flies forward to find the panel has opened into a mechanical instrument, and ‘going inside’ there is some strange house with items that I couldn’t recognise at the time and can’t remember now. These scenes continue to shift, melt, and fly by. It’s like an imaginative world being constructed on my own behalf- I can’t necessarily choose what the scenery is, but I can choose where to go in it. It’s a paradoxical dreamlike mental experience where I both had next to no control over the imagery, and more control than I’d ever had from another psychedelic. At some stage, we fall asleep in this setting. I would say we were feeling peak effects at 3 hours, and had we not fallen asleep at the 6 hour mark could’ve probably continued for another 3 or so hours yet.

The Day After
We both wake feeling slightly disoriented and off-balance still. For me the feeling passes after an hour or so, though for my friend is spans across this day and the following. By the night of this day after I feel pretty horrible though- my body feels ‘unhealthy’ in some nondescript way, and I feel quite depressed, and so we both take half a Xanax to get through til bed. The next day after this I feel relatively ok, and by the third day after feel completely fine. I didn’t leave the experience with any particularly profound insights, although that’s not to say they aren’t there to be had (in fact I’m almost certain they are there to be had)- as I went into the experience purely to determine the qualities of the drug, this likely may have drawn my focus away from my self and any interesting philosophical areas.

Exp Year: 2017	ExpID: 110999
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 21
Published: Jun 3, 2021	Views: 3,733
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
Pharms - Pregabalin (418) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Hangover / Days After (46), First Times (2)