DOSE:	1	oral	Cannabis	(edible / food)
	25 mg	insufflated	2C-I	(powder / crystals)

BODY WEIGHT:

170 lb

I think for this trip report to be fully understood, a little background info on myself is necessary. If you don’t wish to read, feel free to skip to the text after the broken line.

I grew up thinking drugs were bad. I had a terrible experience that I associated with cigarettes at a young age, which manifested in a fear of nicotine. I took this aversion and applied it to all illicit substances. I didn’t start consuming alcohol until I was 18, and thought I’d never smoke the EVIL marijuana.

Ha.

My freshman year of college, I had the privilege of living and learning with several tribes of American Indians. I was allowed to participate in a traditional sweat lodge, and was given a spirit name by a medicine man. This experience, to date, has been one of the most profound and meaningful events of my life. Not only did it cure me of my intense, almost allergic phobia of nicotine (though I still refuse to smoke cigarettes out of respect for tobacco as a plant), it taught me one simple truth: mind altering plants were put on this earth as teachers to mankind.


This, in turn, prompted me to try cannabis some six months later, after I had done my own research and come to my own conclusions. It took me a little to fully grasp what an important teacher, and friend, marijuana was. Once I did, though, I realized the potential uses of this wonderful plant. Not only that, but I realized how much I wanted to try other substances.

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Skip to a little over a year later. Junior year of college. I’ll be leaving on a journey across the country soon, and after that, I’ll be out of the country. I’ve been preoccupied with this whirlwind of experiences heading my way.


I’ve also been itching to experience my first trip. I’ve had several profound experiences with cannabis, the most recent alerting me that I had been overusing it. I had caught a cold, so decided to call it quits on the smoking for a brief period of time.


My friend, L, had shown interest in hanging out that night. I still had a bit of a cold, so I told him I didn’t want to smoke. I asked if he could find some shrooms, knowing that he had the necessary connections. I’ve read tripping with just a stuffy nose isn’t terrible, and can sometimes help relieve the symptoms.


Our babysitter told me that it’d probably be good to get a little high for a shroom trip, seeing as you can get nauseous. Still not wanting to smoke, I make myself a small firecracker. I eat this approx. 45 minutes before we trip to ensure that it’ll hit right as I initiate.


Now, my policy is to research every single substance I put into my body. Read trip reports so I know what to expect, look up the chemistry involved, double check short and long term side effects, and basically be as comfortable as humanly possible before administering any sort of substance. So when he told me he couldn’t find shrooms, but instead found 2c-i, I had a momentary lapse of judgement. I knew that this would be the last chance before I leave the country to trip. I had done a little bit of research on 2c-i, and for some reason that sufficed for what had been, up to that point, my moral code of drugs.

Mistake 1: L picked up seven “doses” of 2c-i. His dealer had told him, “One is ok, two is a good time, and three puts you into space.” Seeing as I had a cold, I decided I would do one “dose” and L would do two, leaving four doses for our friends who had pitched in. The mistake being we didn’t actually know how much this dealer had defined as one dose.

Mistake 2: L had done 2c-i three times before. One time, he had snorted it, and the other, he had eaten it. Another time he had tried to snort it, but blew his nose and apparently didn’t have anything happen. He told me that the snorting was, and I quote, “kinda shitty, but worth it.” The mistake being that he had never measured out his own snorted dose, or described just how shitty “kinda shitty” really was. You see, L is a tank. I am not.

Mistake 3: We didn’t have a scale accurate in mg, so we just threw the entire thing on a scale and subtracted the bag, just to see how much we had. Seeing as I had never done research on the drug past skimming a wiki page, and L had never measured out his own dose, we were content with the fact that it appeared we had .175 grams of material. We didn’t even bother to figure out what that equated to in 7 doses. Not an intelligent thing to do.

Mistake 3.5: Seeing as we didn’t have a good scale, we eyeballed out doses out. I was incredibly critical through this process, but even so... [Erowid Note: Two samples of powder (even of the same chemical) with equivalent volumes won't necessarily weigh the same. For this reason, eyeballing is an inaccurate and potentially dangerous method of measuring, particularly for substances that are active in very small amounts. See this article on The Importance of Measured Doses.]

My other friend, G, was our babysitter. He had experience with plenty of drugs, including hallucinogens, but had never snorted 2c-i, though he had heard what happens when people do. I trusted his judgement, and in retrospect, I’m incredibly glad it was him babysitting us. We were at my apartment, and it was quite a comfortable atmosphere. I was excited, and not really too nervous. I definitely didn’t think anything bad would happen.

So now we have our lines laid out. L looks down at his (keep in mind he’s doing a double “dose”) and has a nervous laugh. I ask him what’s up, and he replies (not wanting to freak me out) that he doesn’t think he’s ever done “quite this much” before. In L speak, that means it was a lot more than he had ever even thought about snorting. Maintaining his composure, though, he leans down and takes his line. There’s a pause, I look at his calm face slowly contort into a half amused, half miserable expression. He mutters something about how lovely it was, and goes into the bathroom to start coughing, gagging, and making some other lovely noises that are pretty impossible to describe.

And now I was a little nervous. Determined to follow through with the night’s plan, I snorted the powder and took the proverbial dive into the world of hallucinogens. It turned out to be more of a belly flop.

Even though I’m sure common sense should scream this loud enough, I am telling you right now: Do not insufflate 2c-i, or really anything, when you have a headcold. Ever. Don’t do it.

10:33 pm

t-00:00- If you’ve ever been splashed by hot oil, that’s what it felt like at first. I almost believed that I had just snorted acid and my nose was dissolving. And that was the first ten seconds. By 30 seconds, my nose had closed completely on the side which had taken the hit. We’re talking 100% blocked. When I wiped it with a tissue (I had been advised not to blow my nose, lest the whole experience be for nothing), it come away with trace amounts of blood. Wonderful, I thought sarcastically. I called out to L with a hoarse voice that my nose was bleeding, and he responded with confusion. Even better.

t-00:05- Five minutes in, the pain still hadn’t subsided for me. L said straight up that this was the worst it had ever hurt for him. This frightened me, and I started to wonder if this random white powder I had gotten was safe. I decided it was important to remain cool. Then I looked in the mirror. The entire right side of my face was swelling up. It got a little bit harder to remain cool. I finally blew my nose, and it didn’t help at all. If anything, it agitated my already raw sinuses to the point of tears. I gagged, and almost threw up. I took off my glasses and retreated to the couch. G was sitting calmly, watching us both carefully.

t-00:07- I ask G to put on some classical music. Not knowing much about classical music, he puts on a deep, dramatic and ominous set. Unknowingly to me, the trip had already started, and the music frightened me to death. I shouted out something to the tune of, “DIFFERENT FUCKING CLASSICAL MUSIC” and told myself that as long as L is ok, I knew I was fine.

t-00:08- L calmly gets up off the couch, walks to the bathroom, and starts vomiting. This is just after G had put on what may have been a version of Mozart’s Requiem. I’m not 100% sure, but I remember the music was almost like a beautiful agony. Something that I’d find emotional in a normal state of mind, maybe even uplifting. However, in my mind, it had become the tragic soundtrack to my life crashing down around me. If you’ve ever seen Requiem for a Dream, my life had become the ending montage.

t-00:09- I tell G I am not digging the classical music. He asks what I want, and I respond in an annoyed, frightened tone, “something simple and happy.” I don’t remember many details of this point, only that at some time in the next four minutes I look over at him and state that 911 was not off the table for me that night. G, knowing that I was going to be fine, calmly said it wouldn’t be necessary. On second thought, he looked over to me and said genuinely, “but ok, I hear you.” I relax a little. At some point, I find my way into my bed, which is a bunk bed. The black bottom of the bunk over me makes me feel like I’m in a capsule. This illusion is supported by the blankets I curled up in. I was safe at this point. I close my eyes as G puts on a trance-ish version of Adagio for Strings. In my mind, I am trying to find my center. I’ve dealt with being too high before by meditating my way through it, and start to do the same with this. I can feel the firecracker kicking in, and I thank it for the friendship and companionship it gives me. The familiar feeling of the high held my hand through the difficult entry, and to this day I cannot express how grateful I am that marijuana was there to help me.

My heart beat becomes the music. I can still feel that my face and respiratory tract are miserable, but it’s bearable now. I’ve accepted that I’m ok at this point, and that I’m likely not going to die from this, which let me surrender myself to the experience.

Then I hear L from the bathroom simply say, “shiiiiit.” I quickly come back to the room and tell G to go check on L in the bathroom. He gets up, walks to the door, and asks if he’s ok. L responds, “I’m fine. Just trippin’ balls, but I’m fine” and goes back to what he was doing. I found out later that he was staring at his vomit, seeing it forming back into food within the toilet bowl.

Content that he’s also going to survive the night just fine, I focus back on trying to get my trip on the right track. My heart beat once again synchronizes with the music, and within my mind I am taken to some sort of an amusement park. It was in black space, but I was flying around huge, brightly colored twisting structures that resembled the tracks to roller coasters. I realized that the feeling my body was going through felt incredibly familiar, though I had trouble placing what exactly that feeling was. I am still uneasy with the trip, and I can feel the 2c-i trying to push further into my consciousness. As much as I want a profound realization about depression, friends, etc., I realize that I need to “grow up” within this state of mind before I do any deep soul searching. I have the realization that, under the influence of cannabis, I am an adult to the drug. However, I have much to learn about the state of tripping before I turn my focus to the serious side of things.

At this point I opened my eyes, and L is sitting on the couch. I ask him if he’s doing ok, still thinking that he was going through the panic and pain that I was. He responds enthusiastically that he’s doing great. At this point, which I think was anywhere between 30 and 40 minutes into the experience, I get my first real positive vibe. Content, I take a sip of water and find it refreshing, albeit hard to swallow, and go back into my mind.

I realize that the familiarity I’m feeling is that of when I was still in my infancy. My bed has become my crib (though I’m still very aware of where I am), L has become my best friend from childhood, and bizarrely, G is my father.

I decide that it’s time to have a little fun, seeing as I’m allowed to be a child again. I focus my vision on the wall above L’s head. I am nearly blind without my glasses on, but I can still make out the profiles of several drawings L had done at my place when we had been smoking together several weeks earlier. I had chosen to tape them onto my wall, and now, with the edges curling, it appeared as if they were wiggling like hanging pieces of jelly on the wall. I giggle a little. I giggle even more when I look down at L and realize how ridiculous he looks, in the awkward position on the couch, mouth open in a grin I can barely make out, and with his hand in the air playing a piano that doesn’t exist.

I decide to try out a tripping cliche, and pull my hand from under the blanket, and simply watch it as I slowly pull my fingers into a fist, and then spread them wide out again. It’s a fabulous act, and I realize just how complicated the human body is, and how incredible it is that we, as physical beings, exist in such a harsh environment with such fragile and precise mechanics.

Over the course of the next two hours or so, I slowly “grow up,” both metaphorically and almost in a physical sense. 2c-i cycles me through my entire life, giving me familiar replays from every segment of my short existence. I finally am able to leave my bed around my teenage years, and catch up with myself around 2:00am. At this point, I am capable of walking around the room, but am still physically drained from my rough entry.

L suggest we go for a walk, but I tell him I don’t think it’d be a good idea. G had to go take care of something for a brief time, but at that point I was stable minded enough that it was ok, and I enjoyed the personal time spent with L. When G returned, he brought friend A, who found my glasses finally. I put them on, look at G, and realize there are 4 different colored G’s floating around the original one. This is a little too much, and I slowly take the glasses off and enjoy my natural vision, which includes light checker patterns floating on the walls, but with warping holes occasionally appearing and flowing across the room. I discover I can create these wormholes by moving my hands over them. I look at L, and find his face to be incredibly exaggerated, to the point where he looked like a caricature of himself. G, after being assured by L and I that we’re quite set, leaves for the night. L and I settle in.

Around 4:00, I am finally able to put my glasses back on. I am feeling drained, but still stimulated by the drug. L and I set up a playlist intended to last for the next five hours. With the music taken care of, we have fun just talking about life, drugs, and what we’re experiencing. Around 5:00, we decide that it’s time to simply get comfortable, and enjoy the comedown.

t-08:49- I remember regaining the concept of time at 7:12, because that was the first time since I started the trip that I looked at my watch and was able to deter what the numbers actually meant. This was blurry, though, as I was falling asleep. If I remember, I was feeling a little bit of the psychoactive effects, but at this point the trip was mostly over. 


L and I woke up feeling pretty ok around 1:00pm that day. Well, L woke up feeling pretty ok. I woke up to what had gone from a simple head cold to terrible head cold, an illness I would not be able to rid myself of for the next two and a half weeks.

Overall, the experience was a positive one. Even though we made many, MANY idiotic mistakes, we were lucky enough to end up with, what I believe, is the best case scenario for all of said missteps. I learned the hard way to never take any substance lightly, and to always do my research beforehand.

I guess if anyone actually took the time to read this entire entry, the only other advice I can give you is to use common sense. If something feel wrong, double check, triple check, and then have failsafes in place if things go wrong.

2C-I was for me a wonderful substance that works best off of subtlety and introspection, without overwhelming sensory feedback. I did not feel complete disconnect from reality.

After the fact, we realized how ridiculous the doses we had taken were. I had snorted 25mg, and L had taken on a mind numbing 50mg.

Exp Year: 2011	ExpID: 95385
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 21
Published: Oct 30, 2012	Views: 3,657
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2C-I (172), Cannabis (1) : Music Discussion (22), Difficult Experiences (5), First Times (2), General (1), Therapeutic Intent or Outcome (49), Small Group (2-9) (17)