DOSE:

85 mg

oral

5-MAPB

BODY WEIGHT:

56 kg

Mixed Experience, Strange Hallucinogen

For context, I’d never used an entactogen before 5-MAPB. The acquisition of 5-MAPB came partially from both a desire for something to fill the role of MDMA and an inability to acquire MDMA itself. I’d read about different entactogen RCs online and 5-MAPB seemed the most promising. Based on my research, I expected it would be like a sedating version of MDMA, perhaps with more MDA style hallucinations, and with a longer duration and less crash. The reports I’d read varied a lot in dosage, and many people seemed to be dosing with the assumption that it was 50% to 100% more potent than MDMA, and then having underwhelming experiences. The most positive experiences I found were mostly for 100mg or more.

I don’t weigh a lot, and I have a very high tolerance to psychedelics and a slightly higher than average tolerance to stimulants such as D-amphetamine or D-methylphenidate. I decided 85mg, or 1.5mg/kg, would be a safe dose. I planned the experience around the Johns Hopkins MDMA therapy manual. In the therapy sessions, they fast since dinner the night before and dose early in the day. I planned to do that, but there was a miscommunication between me and my sitters, and my dose was delayed a few hours. When I did dose I was feeling very hungry.

I noticed alerts at 10 minutes. At 15 I noticed a sudden onset of mild tingling sensations. I also noticed my neck had become slightly tight. The come up continued gradually for a while. I felt heavy and sedated, but also jittery, and there was notable nausea. It was a lot like my experience coming up on mescaline. 40 minutes in I became cold and my skin went slightly numb in an anaesthetic way. The nausea became more severe, and at approximately 45 minutes, I vomited. Vomiting lacked a lot of the normal unpleasantness. It came on extremely fast from there. I began to notice strong spatial distortions that reminded me of animated 3D models of 4D cubes. My senses of direction and depth became very skewed. I felt strong dizziness and lightheadedness, which I found extremely uncomfortable. It reminded me a lot of the first half of a DXM experience, including the almost-but-not-quite-drunk feeling. I almost fell attempting to leave the bathroom, and when I reached out to grab hold of something it was far closer than I thought. I decide to stay in the bathroom at this point, accepting that this might not be a one-puke drug. I engaged in casual conversation with my sitter while vomiting again. I noted that a lot of neuroticism I normally feel is absent. I decided to change my shirt because it had become damp with sweat from vomiting, and the feeling of being cold was fairly intense. While changing my shirt in front of my sitters, there was a near-total lack of discomfort or embarrassment. I vomit a third time.

At an hour and 15 minutes, patterns began forming on surfaces. I partially expected this because I had read a lot of reports where people were surprised when the drug was as visual as it was, but it still excited me to see it. The patterning was unlike that of a psychedelic. There was no symmetry, and no images or rigid, geometric shapes. Instead, it was like moving shadows, flowing like smoke or water. The whole room had the same green-purple haze I see on all psychedelics. I vomited a fourth time, and noted how comfortable I am vomiting, a phenomenon I usually hear of associated with opioids.

At an hour and a half I peak, and the effects transition a lot. The headspace takes on a calm, warm character. Most of the intense dizziness, lightheadedness, and nausea were gone. The headspace was unique to me, unlike either a psychedelic or amphetamine stimulant, the entactogen’s closest relatives. It was, however, definitely a hallucinogen, and certainly had some similarity to a psychedelic. It’s strange to say, but my closest comparison has to be the first half of a DXM trip. I had trouble walking straight and was definitely a little inebriated. The peak continued for an hour and a half, coming in waves of mild stimulation to strong, stoning, drunken sedation. During the peak, a lot of my insecurities were much weaker, and I found myself more aware of other people’s emotional states. It felt natural and not forced. Despite all this, the effect was a bit weaker than I’d hoped and I don’t think I took quite enough for the full “rolling” experience. Nothing about it was especially profound or awe-inspiring.

At 2 hours and 15 minutes, it started getting weaker. The comedown was long and very gradual. It was quite pleasant, and even though it was far less intense than the peak, there was still a warm openness for several hours.

The body load was minimal, with few muscle spasms and no bruxism. Psychedelics usually aggravate my chronic back pain, but this did not. At the 12 hour point, I was mostly down and had little trouble sleeping that night. Other than waking up and vomiting about 5 hours later, there were very few crash symptoms until the following morning.

The crash lasted about 3 days, and the symptoms were different each day. The day after the experience I had the strongest physical and cognitive symptoms. It felt qualitatively like a mix between sleep deprivation, being hungover, and an amphetamine crash, and was quantitatively about as severe as a medium-strength alcohol hangover. There was a pervading mental fog and lack of motivation or ability to focus. My body was sore and I was very fatigued. There was also a bit of gastrointestinal distress. I definitely felt more on edge than typical, but overall my mood was good, and the symptoms were mainly physical and cognitive. Kratom was very effective at treating these symptoms. On the second day, I was physically and cognitively much better, but emotionally fragile, with an acute sensitivity to the environment and a tendency toward strong sadness. On the third day, all that remained was some fatigue.

The experience was overall very mixed and not as profound as I’d liked, but I plan to take it again at a higher dose. The headspace was novel and hallucinogenic in a way most similar to DXM, which was such a surprise but also had similarities to psychedelics. A strong body load with a lot of muscle tension was expected, and I was surprised when there was so little muscle tension, but so much nausea and dizziness. Afterward, I looked into MDMA and vomiting and found a lot of people saying that MDMA made them vomit if they took it on an empty stomach, and I'm very sensitive to nausea as it is. Concerning the dose, I suspect the notion that this compound is as much as double the potency of MDMA is untrue, and it may only be slightly more potent, similar to MDA.

Exp Year: 2020	ExpID: 115165
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 27
Published: Feb 8, 2021	Views: 3,348
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5-MAPB (624) : Hangover / Days After (46), First Times (2), Small Group (2-9) (17)