DOSE:

10 mg

oral

2C-P

(pill / tablet)

BODY WEIGHT:

150 lb

I had received some pills of 10mg 2C-P from a friend as a gift. I told my friend James and we set Tuesday July 13 as the day we would do it, planning to meet at my apartment around 12p.

I wake up around 11a, make and eat some scrambled eggs. I listen to a recent interview with Sean Lennon as I wait for James to arrive. It's raining out though during the experience the rain stops and it's just hot and humid but not uncomfortably so.

James arrives around 12:45p and we eat a bit of leftover Chinese food. I'm feeling tired, like I've gotten just a little bit under the amount of sleep that I need. James tells me about a documentary he saw the day before about how the Mayans viewed time non-linearly. It's kind of a joke, I'm skeptical how 'experts' can say that this is how these ancient people saw the world. I counter with the joke, 'Want to watch TV?'


1:19p - Dose, 10mg 2C-P. Listening to Kalpataru Tree - Priceless 2008 mix.

T+1:00 - No sign of coming up. Occasionally I'll think I'm coming up but then it won't happen. I take a bit of a nap. Listening to Jiang Wen-Ye piano works.

T+2:00 - We're making some music to pass the time while we wait to come up. We decide to meditate on a single note and play with this for 10 minutes. At the end of this session we've both come up. James makes a comment about how he'd like to take better care of his body; exfoliating, eating properly, stretching.

There's some music I want to listen to so I look it up on Youtube. First, 'Aphex Twin - Nannou', then James plays me the song he made from espresso machine sounds, then I put on the Youtube video for 'Cornelius - Like a Rolling Stone'. The main sound in this song sparks an investigation to figure out the sound because it sounds so familiar. We decide that it's a plastic bottle being dropped onto a surface, the sound that comes out of the opening of the bottle. We record sounds like this, sounds of metal bowls with water in them, the sound of a wooden spoon being swatted through the air. In retrospect this is probably the main 'peak' of the drug, it's very hard to keep from giggling.

We come up with some good ideas for projects which I note for the future on the whiteboard. One is a crafts table that sells crafts made out of money (origami from dollar bills, for example) priced 'as marked'. We also talk about branding things as they are. For example bottled water branded as 'Life Source'.

We stand outside on the balcony a bit. There are some visuals that can be made by staring. Things moving in the periphery leave trails. I stare at the trees from the balcony moving slowly in the wind. The colors run, like in that Chairlift music video. I decide I want to record these small movements, trees swaying gently in the wind, water, fire. But I don't have the proper camera to capture this.

I ask James if there's somewhere I can go and only see trees/non-urban in my entire visual field. We think about it, decide probably not, but decide to go out for a walk anyway.

We walk north, towards Greenpoint. We're having a great time talking, looking at all the little art and run-downness that accumulates on Brooklyn buildings, hanging from our arms on construction scaffolding. James is hungry so we start looking for some vegetable or fruit that can be eaten in this state. I end up finding some perfect white peaches which we eat as we walk. They're super juicy and ripe. James makes jokes about how he needs to read up on Buddhism and find deeper meaning in life, which is funny because eating this peach is so where it's at.

We get a bit lost. We listen in on passerby's cellphone conversations. We make it to McCaren Park which we decide is not a very good park. We walk back towards home, pass the fair. I tell James that I'd love to go to a really good record shop, so we hop on the subway (perfect timing) and get off at 1st Ave in Manhattan. Closed eyes on the subway, hanging from the handlebars, is a nice experience.

James is disoriented in Manhattan so I lead him to Avenue A which has less hustle and bustle. We walk down town.

I had told James earlier about the exercise called 'The Small Dance' I had done in my last dance class. You stand still, close your eyes, and try to relax every muscle that you don't need to use to stand up. After a minute or so focusing on this, bring your awareness to the tiny movements you're making to constantly right yourself, to stay balanced in this unstable equilibrium. Start playing with these movements, make them bigger, see how far you can shift your body weight before you need to correct your balance. In a sense relax this entire control system the same way you relaxed your muscles. Begin stepping to correct yourself, swing your arms to lean farther. Eventually you will be doing a dance that is entirely controlled at the very tip of the unstable equilibrium. You're in essence constantly falling.

I then surprisingly lucidly explained the Interplanetary Transport Network, a very similar metaphor. Picture the earth in orbit around the sun. There's some point in between the earth and the sun where you can have a satellite whose gravitational attraction to the sun and attraction to the earth balance each other out so that the satellite is locked in a synchronous orbit with the sun-earth orbit. But this is a very unstable equilibrium, just a minor push in any direction and the satellite will spiral into a chaotic path. Now between any two large bodies, there exist these fixed nodes of unstable equilibrium. And if you time your small push just right, you can push out of one node, spiral chaotically for a long time, then end up at another node. You can use this to travel the entire universe, albeit very slowly, for theoretically zero energy. Strategies like this are actually used by deep space probes.

We've made it down to 5th street. I help a very confused person walk the correct direction towards 14th st. We walk west on 5th Street until we find Good Records. We walk in and the proprietor says he's about to close in 10 minutes (this marks the time as 7 or 8p, T+6:00). He plays us some fantastic psychedelic funk music as we browse through the record covers and smell the vinyl. It was totally worth coming here for 10 minutes. For reference, here is the mix:
http://soundcloud.com/tomdelay/galactic-convertible-music

We wander Manhattan a bit after we leave the store. We end up at the new Cooper Union building. I find that the non-90-degree surfaces provide for some excellent leaning. There's also one part that one can sort of shimmy up and lie down at 45 degrees while supporting the feet on another angled column. If you're at the building I recommend experimenting with placing your body on it, it's an urban hammock.

James has to go to the bathroom but I don't like the idea of buying anything, which is usually how one goes to the bathroom in NYC, kind of absurd. We walk around the Cooper Union building, then up and down St. Marks looking for the Cornelius - Sensurround DVD (every DVD store is closed), then back to the subway. On the subway I mention how I could eat something so we get off at Bedford Ave and go to Wild Ginger since it's vegan and I'm in the mood for something super healthy. We sit in back. It's very romantic which cracks us up. James gets a giant avocado soymilkshake and I get a mango avocado mountain yam tartare with wasabi ginger sauce or something, it's the longest name on the menu. We get the food and I'm able to eat it once I remove it from the sauce (which is too salty for me). James drinks his giant milkshake no problem. I use the bathroom but am unable to pee.

We walk back. Hear a bunch of people setting off their leftover fireworks. We discuss James' new idea, Everyfeel. It's essentially just a branding with no product. At the same time it's not a parody of advertising, it just uses the vocabulary of advertising. We discuss how we can put this project together. James knows a lot of models and stylists. I tell him we should nail down the photography, then figure out how to spread the imagery.

When we get home my roommates are back (from a long vacation). We talk about a couple things, tell them about our day. They go to bed. I eventually turn off the lights and lie on the floor for a while which is the best way for me to relax my back. We go through some music on James' computer, eventually settling on some early 80s dark goth new wave. We talk about how we wish we knew guitar and bass players who could get really deep into these repetitive, trance-like atmospheres. A theme for the day seems to be that everyone in NYC is too impatient, there's so much energy in the scene but it can't sit still long enough to channel into something substantial.

We take the music to the roof where we dance around and look at the skyline for about two hours.

James describes a performance/happening he has in mind: music like this, dark repetitive new wave, played in a very large dark warehouse. In the middle of the warehouse is a car with its headlights on. Strewn around the warehouse are people in a trance, doing repetitive dance moves. An audience would enter this performance and feel like they're inside a music video.

James has to go home because his girlfriend is now home and he didn't predict that the trip would last this long. He collects his stuff and leaves.

I take a shower. I lie in bed for a bit with my star lamp on. I decide that I want to hear some intense delay bending synth action so I go out into the living room, turn off the lights, and make that happen. I even decide to record a little bit, normally I wouldn't even bother trying to figure out the cables while tripping but I'm able to do it. I find that doing technical work on this drug is unpleasant but that I can do it.

I decide I'm ready to come down, so eat some granola and yogurt.

I go back to bed. Hang out with my cat for a bit. I sort of try to sleep but am also moving constantly in my bed, almost dancing. I drift in and out of consciousness, see that it's 5am (T+16:00!) and I'm still not fully down. I eventually sleep for a while and get up around noon, feeling pretty refreshed.

I go out and get everything for a bagel and cream cheese and smoked salmon so that I can come down once and for all and replenish my calorie stores.


I found this trip to be very comfortable, though quite long. It definitely requires patience and an entire day. The metaphor of the 'small dance' stuck with me strongly throughout. I felt that this trip was a way for me to go off into areas of thinking that I normally wouldn't consider to be part of the balance of the equilibrium of my mind. By relaxing and working with the 2C-P I was able to go to these areas comfortably knowing that I'd be able to restore my balance.

I'm excited to implement some of the ideas I had on this trip. The money-folding crafts table will be simple and fun, a way to remind people about all the non-monetary value transfer during a transaction. Some of the insights I had about music and performance pieces I'd like to pursue were very helpful. The idea that I want to summon the feeling of constantly falling, but not in a fall-then-thud sort of way, just constant falling like in the Interplanetary Transport Network. The musical idea of the sound of air, how it provides a resonant cushion that is secure (unlike the sound of water). I hope James continues to pursue Everyfeel.


James' Thoughts:
very slow rise above base line - approx 2.5 hours.
body felt warm, anxious to move around.
periodic muscle spasms, tension in lower back, and shivers up spine very common.
inability to discern directions.
reading and texting ok.
concern for health and diet was a priority.
peak lasted for 11 hours.
had trouble sleeping after - lots of tossing and turning, tension in temporal lobes.

overall, 2cp was very pleasant. cleared out a lot of negativity, and heightened the enjoyment everyday experiences.

Exp Year: 2010	ExpID: 86383
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 25
Published: Mar 21, 2020	Views: 923
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