DOSE: T+ 0:00	100 ug	sublingual	ALD-52	(blotter / tab)
T+ 0:00	400 mg	oral	Metaxalone	(pill / tablet)
T+ 4:00		oral	Caffeine	(liquid)

BODY WEIGHT:

150 lb

I've never tripped at night because the darkness makes me anxious, so I drop take my tab of ALD-52 at 9:00 am after my wife walks out the door into the 20-degrees-Fahrenheit (-6 degrees C) weather. Because of some issues with muscle spasms of late, I take the dose with a half pill (400 mg) of metaxalone, a muscle relaxant that I was recently prescribed. I know it can cause drowsiness, but this was not a side effect I'd yet experienced, and I already know that ALD-52 gives me jaw tension. So, into my mouth it went. I'd had some highly aggravating experiences with muscle pain with psychedelics before, and I didn't want that to bother me this time.

T+0h20m: My pupils are already wonky--oscillating at this point slowly between highly dilated and undilated--which I note in a mirror, but I have no visual distubances as yet. I'm concerned that I have taken too much, as the previous time I took this much it ended up being painfully intense, an experience I may write about later. I had slept poorly the night before, so I cuddle up with a blanket in a poofy chair and listen to music with headphones: at this point, mostly Chopin nocturnes. It's deathly cold, even inside, as my central heating struggles to warm my apartment enough.

T+1h10m: The visuals start creeping in: my popcorn ceiling starts to slowly flow, my carpet begins slightly twisting and breathing, and my mind feels altered. I cry easily at music, then switch to being mildly giddy, and back again.

T+1h30m: Much of the same as above, only slightly more intense. Though I still feel very drowsy and freezing cold, I start feeling agitated and bored by the music and my chair. I hear a package get dropped at the door; I wait five minutes, then get up to get it. For imagery, I'm a fairly skinny biological male wearing thin purple sweatpants and a woman's long-sleeve T-shirt--I'm male-to-female transgender, though I haven't really done anything about that yet--and I just openly open my front door, barely even cognizant of the fact that my neighbors could see me in that clothing, and take the package inside. Apparently, I'm tripping really hard, and just hadn't noticed. Also, I note as I close the door, it's really fucking cold.

T+2h30m: I wander around some in my apartment, putting on a sweatshirt and bulkier sweatpants due to the cold. I'm becoming more and more disoriented. Time is starting to move in waves. It slows down, then suddenly returns to normal, and then the cycle repeats, more and more intense with every passing minute. I look at my face in the mirror again, and see that it is heavily textured and breathing, glistening with what I can only describe as electricity, and all of the reds in my face are highly pronounced. I move to the living room to taunt my Betta fish, who is a very grumpy little fellow, with my finger, and he gets quite angry with me. I find this to be deeply amusing. His tank was nice and warm at 82 degrees Fahrenheit, a point of deep-seated jealousy for me at the time.

T+3h0m: I collapse, exhausted, into bed in my dark room. I look around on Reddit, mostly on trans subreddits and feel a sense of community with them as fellow human beings. This is nice, as it's not a feeling I have much of any experience with. My sense of time is extremely dilated at this point, and while it feels as though I do this for an hour, a glance at my clock shows that I'm only on my phone for 15 minutes.

T+3h15m: I realize belatedly that I'm peaking, and hard. I put back on some music--Beach House, this time--and close my eyes, as I'm still extremely tired. I use my phone's built-in speaker instead of headphones. The next 15-to-20 minutes are what I can only describe as a freezing fever dream... As I'm curled up in my bed under multiple blankets, still desperately cold, I feel as though the music is overtaking my mind. Every note is starting to generate imagery in my mind, though I more perceive than see it. Nonetheless, the shapes are strangely discernable to me. I'm curled up in the fetal position in my bed, and in my mind's eye I see fractalized shapes, them also in the fetal position, with lines extending from them like the edges of the Mandelbrot-set fractal, curling off into infinity to the left and flowing quickly to the pulse of the music. At moments, I lose touch with the fact that I am a human being with a sense of personal identity as I sense these fetal fractals and listen to the music. I don't remember breathing; I don't remember anything about my past. It's beautiful, yet deeply unsettling.

Principally, the only thing I remember throughout the experience and never lose touch of is that it's really fucking cold.

T+3h30m: I stumble out of bed and toward my kitchen, gasping for air as I remember that breathing is a thing that I do. I still perceive fractals to the music playing out of my phone, but as I'm standing now, they've changed. Two Mandelbrot-set fractal-women are marching on the far-left and far-right of my mental vision, oscillating and jiggling in a very peculiar way that I cannot now articulate, leading what seems to be an army that I can barely 'see' behind them. I see the two fractal-women as the heralds of an army, though I don't know what to make of that.

T+4h0m: The mental imagery has mostly faded by now, and I now that I'm starting to enter the come-down phase. I'm sure that I can see the typical psychedelic visuals, but I'm so tired and for some reason uncaring (when generally I love them). I make coffee in an Aeropress, a hilarious adventure that took far too long. Miraculously, I didn't spill anything, which I took to be an achievement. It smells amazing, but I don't remember what it even tasted like. Time is still moving in waves, but the waves are getting faster and faster now, rather than slower and slower. Every 20 minutes is still an eternity, but each 20-minute period passes slightly fast than the last.

T+5h0m: Feeling a bit more spiffy, I get on my computer and impulsively go to tripsit.me, and then notice that they have a chat room for people actively on substances. The chatroom gives me a name that I find amusing, which heightens my mood further. This is the happiest I've ever felt on a psychedelic, as the previous three times I've done them I've been very moody, anxious, and sad. This state of happiness does not last long as I type into the chatroom. I mentioned offhand that whenever I take a psychedelic I always wonder why I did so during the trip, but then a few days later I'm always excited to do them again, and some guy messages me saying, 'Oh, it sounds like you're addicted!'

I raise my eyebrows at this, and get rather agitated. Lysergamides and indeed most (if not all) psychedelics are considered to be non-habit-forming, and even if they were, why would you tell that to someone who is actively tripping? It's like encouraging a bad thought loop. I tell him the former bit only. He responds by saying something to the effect of, 'Oh yeah, not addictive? That goes against my experience after I took every last tab I had.' I tell him that telling me I'm addicted to a psychedelic goes against all of modern neuroscience. What a dick. My mood goes sour, but I play a few games of online chess (somehow, as the pieces were wiggling around everywhere) and win a couple (somehow) and my good mood somewhat returns.

T+6h30m: I'm well coming down now. I can feel bits of my body a bit more clearly, including my anus, which pleases me. I go to the bathroom and manage to poop a little, which feels exceedingly strange. I look at dumb memes on Reddit and laugh a bit, then take a shower. The hot water feels wonderful considering how fucking cold it is. While I have somewhat hairy legs that have historically disgusted me, under the influence of the psychedelic I find myself accepting the body hair without disgust, which I take to be a positive affirmation of my self as I am, even though I want to transition.

T+8h0m: I make a pizza and take another 400 mg of Metaxalone to offset any muscles. I masturbate, which is very difficult to do as I keep losing concentration, but manage an orgasm after 20 minutes. I get the pizza out of the oven and have a couple of slices, then immediately start feeling a sense of deep malaise. I feel disastrously tired...so much so that I'm very scared of not waking up. The visuals are mostly gone, but some of the psychedelic headspace remains, and I'm still very suggestive in this state. This panic slowly subsides after 45 minutes and I'm able to force myself off the couch and walk around some, though I feel like I'm moving through quicksand.

T+9h30m: I drink some juice and my wife gets home from work--Thank God, I think. We talk and I start feeling better, though wisps of panic and anxiety still float past me. The entire day has felt extremely surreal, and talking to her about it only makes it seem more so. I struggle to remember, not that you'd think that considering how long this story is.

T+12h0m: I feel almost entirely sober now, finally, though I'm still struggling with anxiety. My wife spoons me in bed, partially for emotional comfort and partially for warmth, considering how it's really fucking cold, and I slowly drift off to sleep, though it feels like I need to pee. I sleep through the night for 9 hours.

The next day: I'm struggling to believe that anything yesterday even actually happened. It feels desperately surreal to me that psychedelics are even substances that truly exist and give experiences like what I experienced--my ego can't believe that it can be so thoroughly disintegrated, it seems. Nonetheless, I feel calmer than I have felt in a long time, and desperately happy to be sober and in the moment. The previous three times I took psychedelics, they all taught me something about myself, including devastating revelations such as being transgender.

This time felt much more gentle and bright, as if to say that I no longer need that darkness, that I can be happy while sober, and that I don't need a drug to help with my anxiety or depression, that I can live my life without at least the need for psychedelics to show me the way.

And, also, that I need to move south.

Exp Year: 2017	ExpID: 111434
Gender: Not Specified
Age at time of experience: 26
Published: Jan 7, 2018	Views: 4,667
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ALD-52 (748), Metaxalone (653) : General (1), Music Discussion (22), Alone (16)