DOSE:

15 mg

oral

2C-B

(powder / crystals)

BODY WEIGHT:

160 lb

It was a Saturday in June. It was a bit hot out, and though the day was reserved for relaxation, the mood was slightly tense. I was at my friend M’s apartment, which is colorfully decorated with home-made artwork all over the walls, but a little messy, with stains and misplaced items on the rug. M is a guy in his 20s who is in training as a performer and works odd jobs to make additional cash. He had just gotten back from his afternoon classes and the two of us were relaxing together, smoking some pot and talking to each other while a TV played in the background. We are expecting another friend of ours, S, to get home soon and join us. S is in his 40s, and is a life-long rock and roller. He has played in several rock bands and worked with club owners and promoters. S has a particularly insatiable love for all kinds of psychoactive substances and, though he is neither an argumentative nor a violent person, he has a tendency to get himself into trouble. You could say S is a nice guy with very bad luck.

I was in the mood for an adventure, and knowing that all three of us were enthusiastic explorers, I had brought some samples to share with my friends. I had three fifteen milligram doses of 2C-B HBr in a small plastic sleeve, as well as a few 25 milligram capsules of the powerful tryptamine DMT. I had also brought a glass-bulb vaporizer. We would recreate with 2C-B and pot, and then if my friends felt up to it I would offer them the DMT later.

7:45 PM: M and I each swallow our gel capsules, amounting to 15 milligrams of 2C-B HBr powder for each of us. They go down with a shared glass of water.

7:50: S got home very shortly after we took the pills. The last 15 milligrams is laying out on a table. I had told him about 2C-B a couple of weeks previously, the last time we hung out. He knows what it is. I invite him into our experiment, and give him the last two pills. He swallows them.

7:55: I had brought a copy of PIHKAL with me. M and S had not yet seen the book and I thought they should be privy to the designer’s own words about his creation, 2C-B. They are fascinated to see for the first time the incredible diversity of substances outlined in the index to book 3, the short index of the phenethylamines.

8:05: No effects yet from the 2C-B. M is mixing music through his 8-track tascam machine, stealing beats from east coast rap albums and manipulating them into completely different kinds of music. I’m talking with S about people who I’ve had fights with in the past. We both have stories to share about people who seem great when you meet them, but simply aren’t what they pretend to be. I tell them about a friend who I used to trip with who ended up getting hooked on methamphetamines, becoming increasingly hostile towards all his friends, and finally stealing money from his friends, including me. Needless to say, our friendship ended bitterly. M and S have known a couple people as well who went off the deep end with addictive drugs and ended up fighting, stealing, and alienating themselves from their friends.

8;10: S remarks that he is starting to feel high from the 2C-B. I can feel it too, as a warm buzz starting in my stomach and slowly moving out into my arms and legs. There may be a bit of time dilation, but not yet any visuals. S is thinking about going out to a club later; there are some friends who are expecting him to stop by. He takes out his cel phone and calls one of them, letting them know it will be a couple of hours before he can head out.

8:15: I’m playing with a butterfly knife. It’s a training knife with a dull blade, so it can be flipped around with no risk of accidentally cutting oneself. It feels good to fling it through the air, feeling its weight rotating as I open and close it.

8:25: We’re all having a great time, but there’s not yet any visual effect from the 2C-B. M and S are telling me about adventures they had running around the city the last time that they tripped on mushrooms.

8:45: The visuals are just now setting in. Colors in the paintings on the wall warp, smudge, and unveil new colors. Vivid tones and wiggling movements liven up the room. Musical appreciation is excellent as we listen to a guitar-centric instrumental rock song which S is playing off of his iPod. The excellent guitar work can be experienced in tactile form easily by closing the eyes; we can visualize the raw form and feeling of the music. M is drawing a portrait onto a small canvas… he likes to make art during psychedelic experiences.

8:55: S comments that he enjoys the 2C-B, but doesn’t find it very strong. He feels like he could handle a lot more intensity. So it is at this time that I mention the DMT. I show him one of the capsules full of orange-colored freebase powder, and explain how DMT is a more compact and simplistic version of the chemicals in psilocybin mushrooms, basically psilocin stripped of its indole substitution… and thus made far more potent. S is intrigued.

9:00: I uncap a 25 milligram DMT capsule and dump the contents into the stem of a glass pipe. There is already some crystallized DMT at the bottom from the last time the pipe was used, which may provide more material than the measured 25 milligram dose I put in. I explain the process of smoking, how the flame needs to be held at a slight distance from the DMT powder until it vaporizes. We all sit down and prepare to each take turns inhaling a breath of smoke from the DMT pipe.

First I hand the pipe to M. He holds the flame underneath, making the orange powder pile melt into ooze and give off thick smoke, which is mostly white in color but tinged with yellow. He inhales a lungful, then I take the pipe away from him. After he exhales the magic smoke, I take the pipe from him and watch his slightly distressed eyes. As he slips away from me, I stroke my finger across his hand, just to let him know I am there.

M lays down on the ground in a state of shock, and I hand the pipe to S. S ignites the puddle again, and inhales a decently-sized hit of the resulting smoke. He sinks back into his chair. Finally I take the pipe, and the last inhalation of smoke is mine. I inhale, exhale, and feel nothing for about three seconds. Then… ZOOOOOOOM! A familiar feeling of cosmic propulsion. The desire not to move, to stay very still and motionless. The room twists into a tunnel, there is a sensation of soaring, and objects in the room began to warp beyond recognition. I am lost in the overwhelming and unique dimensions of DMT.

S comments that it reminds him of the first windowpane LSD blotters he ever tried: Strong, and very visual. The entire wall melts in front of his eyes. M thinks the visuals are like acid but much stronger. He notes extreme pixilation in his surroundings. While S loves it, M finds the DMT to be harsh and intense. He stays dead still, his heart pounding, not wanting anyone to talk to him. He feels like a massive force is pushing him down into the ground.

9:10: M feels a little bit nauseous after smoking his hit of DMT. He goes into his bedroom to lie down for a few minutes. It is doubtful that he will want anymore today. His head is still swimming.

9:20: The DMT has worn off, though it’s powerful effects are still fresh in our memory. We’re listening to music now, taking turns playing songs from all of our iPods. The menu screen for a Japanese surrealist movie is looping a strange animation on the television screen in the corner of the room, adding another layer of sound that blends into the background. My friends don’t know what to make of the DMT. But they all agree that it is very powerful. S feels like trying some more.

9:25: A second 25 milligram capsule of DMT is opened up and dumped into the pipe, filling it freshly anew with powder. I take the first hit this time, being careful not to inhale too much. After exhaling a half-lungful of smoke, I once again feel the effects, explaining them this time as they unfold:

“I love how I don’t feel anything at all for the first three seconds. Then all of a sudden…. WHOOSH!”

I push my hand through the air, simulating the feeling of motion, the feeling of getting picked up and flung out into space. I look down, and a stain in the carpet swirls and swirls in circles, throwing off spots of color that flicker like dozens of dying stars. All I can do is smile, to keep from crying out with emotion.

9:27: It’s still creeping through my brain, distorting my perspective of the room. After the first couple minutes, though, the intensity dies down, and it becomes quite possible to speak and communicate.

9:30: My trip has ended. I’m about to pass the pipe on to S. A majority of the powder that we loaded from the second capsule is still ready to be smoked… I only smoked a little bit of it. There should be at least 20 milligrams in there for S to consume.

9:33: S is playing rock and roll music. He wants that kind of atmosphere to back this most intense of hallucinogenic experiences. He takes the pipe, applies the flame, and begins to fill the glass bulb completely with thick smoke. Then he attaches his lips to the stem. Towards the end of his lengthy inhalation, he applies the flame too closely… rather than holding it carefully an inch or two away from the powder, he lets it touch the glass, torching the DMT in a desperate attempt to fully drain its essence. The DMT powder turns partially black, bubbles and stains the glass. I will correct his smoking technique later, but right now he is in charge, and about to be launched into the experience of a lifetime.

S lays back in his seat and I take the pipe from his hands. He is utterly shocked. Soon he begins coughing, shivering, shuddering and struggling to breath. M and I are worried; it almost looks as if he is dying. S coughs repeatedly, reacting to the thick, harsh smoke he gulped in from the DMT pipe. This soon progresses into spitting and foaming at the mouth. Yellow foam spills from his lips! It looks like his body is trying to expel the essence of the DMT, a purging process that doesn’t quite reach the point of full-on vomiting. We fear we may have given him too much.

For the first 30 seconds of his trip, S’s body was tightened up into a ball and he was unable to move. Then, with great effort, he raised his arms into the air. He could not move more than one finger at a time, as even minute movements required a tremendous physical effort from him. Yet as the rock song played on behind him … this insatiable monster curled his fingers into the shape of a guitar’s frame, and started playing air guitar! Despite the fact that we were worried he might have a heart attack…. he just raised his hands and played along with the rock and roll. His heart must be pounding but now we know he’s going to survive.

9:36: S is just starting to regain control. We’re eager to hear him describe what happened, and to get some confirmation that he is alright. S begins to speak, but he is not yet capable of articulating anything that is understandable. His speech consists of a mixture of insane laughter and random comments that sound confused yet oddly elated. It sounds something like this:

“Ha ha ha ha HAAAAAAAAAAA! Nice… what… WHAT THE HELL!… uuuuh….. HAHAHAHAHAHA! Haaaaahahaha HAAAAH!!!! Look at that… what the…. Yeah… I know! HA HA HA HA HA hahahahahahaaaaaaa! Nice! It’s so good. It’s always good. I KNOW it’s always good. … what happened? … What? …. Uh? HA!”

9:38: S has regained coherency. So I begin to ask him what the hell happened while he was in that deathlike state, glued to the seat of his chair.

“What just happened? What did you see?”

His only answer is: “It was the best. It was the best ever. Give me six more.”

I think he must be insane. Yet I can understand the incapability of a person to explain a trip of such preposterous magnitude. DMT is fairly inexplicable. I pressed him for details for ten more minutes, but he simply couldn’t explain it. All he could tell me is that it was ‘the best’, that he loved it and wanted more.

------------------------------------------

I stayed at their apartment until 12:00 that night. We watched a movie towards the tail-end of our trip, and the 2C-B kept us high right up until midnight, pleasing us with its slow, graceful decline. M got a mild headache as the 2C-B wore off, but that was his only side-effect and he found the 2C-B worthwhile in spite of the headache. Around 10:30 S finally left to meet his friends at a nearby rock club, taking the bus there and unfortunately getting stuck in traffic along the way. We got a call from S at 11:55. He had arrived at the club, and had just stepped outside for a cigarette. The street was melting in front of his eyes. He didn’t know whether to attribute it to the 2C-B or to DMT after-effects. But he once again reiterated that DMT was the best psychedelic he had ever tried, and thanked me in about sixteen different ways for giving it to him. I found it a little strange, that somebody would be so thankful for being given a near-death experience.

12:10: I’m about to head back home. The last interesting thing to happen with the night is that M loaned me a copy of the book Infinite Jest to take home with me and read. He explained in brief the plot synopsis to me, and it sounded endlessly entertaining. I would have an excellent time pouring through its thousand pages for the next few months.

I have made a commitment to always measuring my doses for every single drug that I use. I used to take unmeasured doses of vaporized drugs like DMT, cynically thinking that the smoking process is so inaccurate that measuring doses wouldn’t be worth the time. I always measure them now, as it reassures me to have some idea how much powder I am dealing with. But experiences like this one just go to show that DMT can have dramatic results at any dose. 25 milligrams is regarded as the low end of the vaporized dosage spectrum. Yet effectively smoked 25 milligram portions of DMT threw one adult into deep space, unreachable to his friends, deprived of any control over his body. Another adult found himself pushed down into the ground, nearly became nauseous, and described the feeling of the substance as “crushing”. And I, having taken it several times, am just starting to get the hang of this kind of interdimensional travel. One thing is clear: When a person smokes DMT, they truly must be ready for anything.

Exp Year: 2008	ExpID: 75344
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jan 19, 2009	Views: 16,930
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