DOSE:

15 mg

oral

2C-I

(powder / crystals)

BODY WEIGHT:

145 lb

After a rather boring weekend spent procrastinating then finally working on my schoolwork, I decided this Monday was a good time to spice up my life with a second journey accompanied by the first of the divine phenethylamines to come my way: 2C-I. My first trip on this was an approximated 5-10mg. I took that small of a dose so that I could get a small glimpse of the chemical’s power without being overwhelmed by anything. I think it’s a good way to start out with any psychedelic, especially a research chemical, because you never know how your body is going to react. For some people that could’ve been an intense experience, for me it was just a hint of what was to come this time.

I ate approximated 15-20mg, didn’t even use a method like with graph paper, just lifted something like that amount out of my bag of 100mg with a razor, and swallowed it. This was at about 1:15 PM. I had class from 2 to 5. Last time I was in my Monday lecture I was amazed at how colorful everyone looked. 2C-I makes everything cool to look at, especially detailed, colorful, and/or moving things, so I figured school would be a good environment for visuals. I can always hold my cool in front of people who need to think I’m sober, so that wasn’t a concern.

My schedule for this trip was well-timed, partially by planning and partially by luck. I would smoke, as I usually do, on my way to class, which would ease the come-up and the transition into tripping mode. Then when classes ended I would be just about peaking, the perfect time to go smoke bongloads. With this in mind I went to the computer lab to print out the paper that was due today, then made a stop at work to drop off the key and visit my boss, who is also my friend. He was to be the only person aware of the chemical active in my body that day other than myself. When I told him I had just eaten 2C-I and was on my way to class, he got a huge shiteating grin on his face that made me think he was reminded of his acid days (he used to trip almost every day). I was tickled that he got so much pleasure out of what some would consider my crazy misadventure, and I am confidant that the good vibes I picked up from him in that meeting stayed with me throughout the trip. We made plans to trip on 2C-I together this weekend, and with that I was off.

I stopped off at my usual place, took a quick gravity hit, put on my discman, and continued on my way to class. The lucidity and heightened awareness I always get from cannabis made me more aware of the racing energy of the rising phenethylamine inside my body. It was in the same category as the feeling of rushing anticipation I get on the mushroom come-up, but quite distinctly different. The 2C-I also, as psychedelics always do for me, had a synergistic effect with the music enhancement of the cannabis, making Mobb Deep - Shook Ones Pt. 2 very enjoyable to listen to on my way to class.

First lecture, humanities. My time spent here was characterized by what was perhaps overanxiousness on my part for the trip to begin. Every few minutes my view of the room would warp for half a second until I realized what was happening and looked closer, then it would stop. I now realize how closely linked the strength of one's will to see visuals and the strength of the visuals one sees are, but that was a revelation that came to me at a later point of this trip, which I will describe. At this point I was unaware that there was a mental effort I could put forth to effectively create more visuals for myself, so I was not focusing in the proper way. Nonetheless I was very nervously excited, in a good way, and the lecture was over almost before I knew it.

My next class was a much better environment for the trip: a laid back discussion-oriented class with only about 10 students, who along with the teacher sit at one large table. Students were making presentations to the class on this paper we had to write. Fortunately I wasn't presenting that day, although I didn't know that in advance and I could very well have been forced to make a speech to the class on 2C-I. I felt I could have done it, but it was still a relief when he didn't call my name. This meant I had an excuse to visually study, and thus trip out to, each of 5 people while they were making their presentations. I studied their faces, and their bodies through their clothes wherever possible. The 2C-I greatly magnified my normal appreciation bordering on awe for the human body, and I felt a great sense of unity and love with/for each presenter in turn. The chemical also granted me some insights on the mannerisms of my teacher which struck me as hilarious at the time. Hard to describe exactly, just the way he moves and speaks makes me think he used to be a gigantic pothead.

The last thing worth mentioning that I noticed during this class was greatly increased ease with socializing. The pre-class chit-chat with which I am usually a bored unparticipant actually had me talking with a variety of my classmates and greatly enjoying it. I felt like the 'wavelength' of a conversation with somebody was almost something I could visualize, or 'tactilize' (not a word, but think of it as being for the sense of touch what 'visualize' is for the sense of sight) inside my mind, and each different person I made exchanges with formed a different 'wave' I could ride on. I've never felt so much appreciation or satisfaction from the exchange of pleasantries. I definitely need to try doing 2C-I at a social gathering to explore this aspect of it more deeply.

I decided during the course of that class to skip my next one, not a big deal because I haven't missed any of it this semester. I did this because I hate that class and knew I'd be bored or unhappy during it, and that would be a huge waste of my trip. I know this hasn't really been a typical trip report so far, and some readers might have been bored by my great attention to detail compared to my not-so-great depth of trip effects. All that ends now, as my trip has finally gained some momentum and things start to happen.

As soon as I stepped outside the building I had one of the most beautiful experiences of my life, which I will struggle to relate here but for which words cannot begin to suffice. I've never done any phenethylamines other than 2C-I, but in many of the mescaline trip reports I've read, people have reported soaking up energy from the sun in the same way a cactus might, which makes sense because mescaline is found in cacti. As a phenethylamine, 2C-I is chemically similar to mescaline, and I believe the experience I had upon exiting the building may be related to this mescaline sun-energy phenomenon.

What actually happened was, I felt the sun on my face. I was struck by the heat and light energy of this star of ours like a punch in the face, only instead of a fist made of flesh it was a fist made of all the loving motherly life energy in the sun condensed to a form that my mind could comprehend. A fist made of concentrated pure bliss, ecstasy, love, and good intentions. I walked down the sidewalk with my head tilted slightly to the left, facing the sun directly. Every cell in my body was turning towards that beacon of light in the sky like a flower, drinking up the loving heat energy like a bone-dry sponge suddenly put under a faucet. I felt like the beams of light coming down to me from the sun were almost a tangible, physical entity, a pillar of physically manifested love for life in front of me, rubbing itself all over me like a lover. I wanted to wrap my arms around it and press it close, but I didn't even have to because the sun was enveloping me in its love without me doing anything but accepting it. That was the first thing that came to mind when I began struggling for a way to put what was happening to me into words: the sun was making love to me.

Another thing worth mentioning about that sun phenomenon, is the visuals were directly related to the amount of sunlight I was receiving. I spent that whole walk looking directly into the sun, I could feel that hurting my eyes, could feel the water streaming down my face, but I didn't care at all. I almost told myself I would be willing to be blind forever if only I could continue to absorb the love and life from the sun. Anyway, whenever I looked at it, whether my eyes were open or closed, I had visuals of breathtaking beauty and detail. This makes sense to me, since light is what allows us to see anything in the first place, the more light there is the more I am going to be able to see of 2C-I's visual beauty.

At this point I came near my dorm and made the first of two unwise decisions. I thought I could go back to my dorm, drop off some stuff and pick up some other stuff, then go smoke again, then find some place in view of the sun with a bench of some such and resume soaking up the sun's love. Unfortunately I was not able to again experience the love of the sun directly during this trip. So I chose to leave the sun's direct light and go into my dorm. The love energy I gleaned from the sun stayed with me, though, lighting me up with energy, destroying any possible self-consciousness, making me feel content and loving for all things. I have no doubt this residual sun-love had an effect on what happened next, which was extraordinarily unexpected.

When I got back to my dorm, my straight-edge Christian roommate was there, listening to Christian music as usual. My religious history is, I was an agnostic until about the age of 10, at which point I became an atheist, which I remained until about two months ago, when I decided the holy spirits that reside in sacred chemicals are close enough to gods for me to consider myself a shamanist instead of an atheist. I have despised monotheism my entire life, as it fundamentally chafes with the way I view the world. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, I love having religious debates with people of any belief system--as long as they are open-minded and trying to have a discussion rather than preach their immovable beliefs.

This is what I did with my roommate immediately after receiving my blessing from the sun. I was so full of life energy that it was overflowing; I wished she wasn't straight edge so I could share with her the incredible beauty of what I had just experienced. That wasn't meant to be, however the kindly spirit of the 2C-I managed to grant me my wish in a different way: I couldn't share with her what actually happened, but I could share, on some level, the spirituality of it. We got on the topic because she was complaining about not having received a package, and since I was also awaiting a package that hasn't arrived, I told her that. She asked me what it was I was expecting, and I said 'It's this legal herb called Salvia Divinorum, that, well I know this goes against what you believe, but I believe that if you smoke it you get to see the realm of the gods.' From there I somehow decided to confess to her my entire shamanic belief system, something I've never done to anyone who wasn't cool with drugs (I kept calling myself an atheist, something I will never do again).

From there we had a very enjoyable discussion about religion and the ways in which our belief systems were supported. Of course we couldn't exactly find common ground since Christianity is pretty much designed to completely go against the worship of nature, but I realized that her search for the truth of the universe through her paternalistic god is guided by exactly the same natural impulse that my search for the truth of the universe through sacred chemicals is. I also began to respect her spirituality a lot more because I realized that she was not completely sure of her beliefs, as I previously thought she was. She actually does put some effort into questioning them and plumbing them for veracity.

I was full of newfound appreciation for my roommate, as well as gladness that I had been able to create a peaceful, balanced coexistence in our room, as opposed to the clash of energies refusing to synergize that usually rules our 3-person dorm (the other roommate was out at the time). Unfortunately I wasn't able to languish in my accomplishment, as I was hastening to smoke then find the sun again, and when I eventually did return to the room the energy of it was in a completely different state. It's interesting to note that during my whole time in the room I had absolutely no visuals, although my thinking during the conversation was unmistakably tripped out. I think this was because with 2C-I I generally need to focus or concentrate in order to bring out the visuals, and my attention was being completely devoted to my conversation with my roommate.

Smoking brought out the effects of the 2C-I and made me better able to perceive and appreciate them, as it always does with psychedelics for me. I was feeling the music (Grateful Dead - Nightfall of Diamonds disc 1), but perhaps not as much as I could have been. I'm thinking electronic music will be better for my next 2C-I influenced smoking session. After my first gravity hit I was struck with the idea that switching back and forth between having my attention devoted to smoking and having my attention devoted to perceiving my surroundings was too disorienting, and I needed to stop looking around as I usually do after every hit and just focus on getting as high as possible. The music was all the outside stimulus I needed.

Psychedelics always inspire me to smoke far more than I usually do in a session, and I think I passed the 5 gravity hit mark long before I ran out of nuggets. It was the last of the bag, but I knew I was in a good place at that point THC-wise and I could always buy more tomorrow. When I looked up and surveyed my surroundings I had the hilariously bizarre idea that the stunted bushes near me looked like they came from some alien world. I took this as a good sign that I had sufficient THC in my system for enjoyable tripping, and exited onto the street.

At this point my mission was to find the sun and lie in it. It was still out so I had a good chance. Unfortunately I didn't have the foresight to take into account which way was east and which was west, so I actually walked in the direction away from the sun. I didn't care though, because this was the second best part of my trip (the sun part being the best). I was experiencing the same thing that happened to me my first time ever eating mushrooms: I could not stop laughing. This is my absolute favorite thing to happen to me, on any drug or sober. At first it was just little bits of absurdity that came to me in waves making me laugh perhaps a little, nothing noticeable. Then the more I tried to stop myself from laughing, the bigger the flood of laughter became, until I was walking down the street in complete hysterics. The feeling of being reminded of my first mushroom trip was very powerful at this point. My walking and laughing lasted continually for at least 15 minutes in which I walked in one direction down a main street, with nearly every person I passed staring at me due to my unexplained laughter. I met their eyes each time and made it clear I didn't care what people thought of my laughing.

Eventually I calmed down enough to take stock of my surroundings, and realized I was completely neglecting my search for the sun. I turned around and started walking towards where it would set, but I was too late to catch any direct sunlight. I continued my walk, planning at this point to go back to my dorm and use my computer. I had a very cool visual effect on my way back: one of the huge dormitories of my urban campus was completely bright red. I at first thought this could've been an effect of the 2C-I, but when I looked at the building to the east of it and saw only the top half of that was red, I realized the setting sun was causing this effect. I allowed myself to stare at the gigantic red building, I was almost mesmerized by it. I began to think of the nature of buildings, these huge man-made mountains, all full of people but made of dead concrete themselves. The vivid redness of the building, plus my own belief that making such things is a wasteful endeavor, combined in a tripped out way that had a powerful effect on my mind.

I usually see trees and plants as these wonderful upthrusts of nature, springing out of the ground to give life (by breathing out oxygen) to the animals of this planet. But this huge, red, dead thing did so such work to support life, and yet foolish humans do work to eliminate trees and expand cities. I was struck by the vast, almost incomprehensible arrogance that some people have, to think we don't need the 'upthrusts' that nature gives us, trees, but that we can do better with these hulking ugly metal things. The red building became a symbol of the all-encompassing phallic arrogance with which some men destroy nature and build gigantic monuments to non-life, like this red one. Like a big fat demon cock blighting the land around it, destroying our connection with mother earth, separating us from our true natural environment. If you can't tell, I hate cities and plan to leave this one as soon as possible.

I was tripping out on that for a long time, even after I left the red building behind. I didn't realize it at the time but perhaps the sun making that building red was a sort of farewell from it, an expression of regret that we didn't get to resume our connection from earlier. When I got back to my dorm I decided to watch David Lynch's 'Rabbits.' It was a well-made piece of visual art, and it creeped me out somewhat, but I wasn't psychedelically attuned to it the way I was to a lot of earlier happenings. I think, for me at least, 2C-I is not a good drug to watch movies or TV shows on. Things in the real world are a lot more exciting. I watched the whole thing anyway, just so I could know for sure what it was like, then I browsed some websites for a little while, finding nothing that arrested my attention.

I decided to leave the world of my computer and return to the real one. After another smoking session, I returned to my dorm to find both of my roommates there, causing the room's energy to be a bit too chaotic for my current tastes. I needed to go somewhere I could consolidate my own energy and just be alone for a while. This turned out to be a very good impulse I was glad I followed. I went to one of the study rooms on my floor, and after sitting for a while just breathing deeply I decided to turn off the lights.

I sat there in pitch black with my body in a comfortable position, breathing deeply and focusing my thoughts, meditating if you will. As time passed I began to be rewarded with closed-eye visuals. I saw psychedelic patterns morphing into each other, standard stuff. As time passed and my effort grew more focused I began to get visuals more profound, more deep, more detailed. They are impossible to describe in any meaningful way, but they moved away from just the typical watching patterns unfold, transforming from one shape to the next, all with tiny beams of every different color unfolding over everything brilliantly. This is a close third in favorite moments of this trip, after my moment of uncontrollable laughter and my commune with Mother Sun.

After this I made a huge mistake. I neglected something I learned from my research, that greasy food and 2C-I do not mix, and went out and bought a pizza. Numerous reports I've read mention that 2C-I HATES greasy food, and if you combine the two you are asking for trouble. I wasn't dumb enough to remember that and ignore it, but I failed to recollect it. I was full of enough positive energy from my all-around awesome pre-greasy pizza part of the trip, so nothing awful happened, but I got a terrible headache and felt like I was close to passing out. I smoked again and went to bed.

All in all it was a deeply moving experience, very possibly the best trip of my life. 2C-I is a very wonderful chemical if you let it be, and I feel like I learned a lot from this trip that will help me commune with it better in the future.

Exp Year: 2004	ExpID: 31233
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jul 22, 2004	Views: 31,399
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2C-I (172) : Various (28), Nature / Outdoors (23), Glowing Experiences (4)