DOSE:

17 mg

oral

4-HO-MET

(capsule)

BODY WEIGHT:

85 kg

Experience: 10 years of “party drugs” (mainly MDMA & GBL). I have taken psylocybin once (in the best set and setting ever - with friends, at a private lake, on holidays and it turned out to be very fun).

After two months of confinement, two friends of mine and I figured that we needed to go for a journey – even if it was only in our own mind. We managed to get 4-Ho-MET from a reliable source. I had done some reading to prepare for the session, and had watched the documentary « Good Trip » - which is very fun and informative – and the wonderfully psychedelic “Midnight Gospel”.

What I liked with 4-HO-MET more particularly, is that it was supposed to be more visual than mental. And short-acting. What made me a little nervous, on the other hand, is that the intensity of the reaction did not always seem to be on par with the dosage.

We had decided to do the session in my apartment, as it was advised that we be somewhere where no one would try to interact with us. The living room has weird succulent plants, huge windows and a nice view on greenery and on a quiet street. So I thought we’d have a bit of both worlds. Just to be sure, I had skipped lunch to avoid nausea, but my friends didn’t, and nausea did not turn out to be an issue.

The dosage had been described as “strong, but manageable” by our source… which did not bathe me in confidence, to be honest. But I figured I could always open the capsule, and take some of it out. When we started the session however, the mood was so joyful and relaxed, the weather was gorgeous, the birds were chirping, and I was sure that we’d have an amazing time, so I just swallowed the whole capsule with the 17mg in it. It was 4pm.

4:15pm: My friends are hit very quickly. One of them asks us if we are seeing the same crazy visuals and shortly thereafter seems completely awestruck – mouth and eyes wide open. My other friend seems very tense and goes to sit on the couch. We immediately stop communicating, and even though I’m trying to let go I’m really not sure I want to get where my friends are.

4:23: All shapes start undulating, the plants breathing, all patterns seem to be moving like some field in the wind. It could have been beautiful, but at this stage I was too nervous to enjoy it. I begin to wonder if we couldn’t organize a trip sitter before it’s too late. I ask my friend, but he doesn’t understand me anymore. I give up quickly on the thought of sending a text message – it’s totally unrealistic: I don’t know how to use a phone anymore anyway.

4:40 – 5:30: It’s super intense for all of us, and none of us looks like he’s enjoying this. And time passes by sooo slowly. I want to put on the nice playlist that I have prepared, but that’s out of reach right now. Surprisingly, I do manage to make us some coffee (well, to be precise, I manage to hit the button of the Nespresso machine, and that only with great difficulty). The cup of espresso that I hand to my friends immediately lands on the carpet (“I had no knowledge of what one does with a cup of coffee” he would tell me afterwards). I’m trying to clean the mess up, but the stain is shape-shifting on the carpet and I have to give that up, too. I’m clearly not enjoying this and I’m thinking that if nothing changes, I should just pop the benzo that we had prepared just in case things turn nasty. That way, I’d be able to be my friends’ trip sitter. But I decide to wait as I had read that things soften up after the two-hour mark, and didn’t want to miss out on the good stuff. I decide to go take a shower, which felt neither good nor bad. I look in the mirror while I dry myself up – I look slightly distorted, but nothing too extravagant. I’m a bit disappointed. To think that I had read that this drug makes you “feel like a super hero”! Not so much frankly.

6:24: The feeling is clearly overwhelming, but it comes in waves. So I regularly have a few seconds of lucidity, which allows me to check on the time, and –finally - change the music. La Chica is playing and it feels like the right music. My friends have started to speak again, but only a few – very confused - words. I focus my attention on the music. I hear every single note, the inflexion and vibrations of the voices, and every single instrument very distinctively. I finally allow myself to stop trying to control the situation. Of course, this is exactly what I needed to do all along, but it’s easier said than done and the anxiety was just too overwhelming. I close my eyes and have dream-like thoughts of weird purple, sexually undulating female shapes.

7pm – 7:30pm: I’m on my bed and I've closed my eyes. I start experiencing additional spatial dimensions and different realities. I think about my best friend, but he seems to live several unreachable worlds away. The fact that I notice that another song comes on reassures me, as it means that time is actually moving forward. I think about the concepts of control, protection and paternity. My friends join me and we cuddle and we try to talk a little, mainly incoherent gibberish, but we “totally get” what the other is trying to say (LOL).

7:30 – 8:30 pm: I join my friends back in the living room and I’m able to change the music to the French electronic band Air (still not the playlist I was looking for, but it had the advantage of being right at the letter “A”, and I wasn’t sure I would able to reach the other letters of the alphabet). In any event, it seemed like the right choice. My friends and I are laying on the carpet, the breeze coming from outside is actually a goddess who’s whispering some magic words onto my skin, at a perfect temperature. Touching the hands of my friends and smelling their cologne is comforting. As I open my eyes, the leaves on the trees moving in the wind look like friendly gremlins. My friend, who comes from a Central European country and was raised under a communist regime, sees the small Stalin Russian doll that I brought back from a trip to Moscow winking at him. I notice that the guys and girls from an old B-52s record cover have been dancing this mess around all along.

9pm: The comedown is as quick as the come-up. We’re hungry and decide to eat, while starting to digest and talk about the last few hours. It seems like the three of us had very different experiences: all super intense, but very visual and cartoon-like for one friend, super deep and frightening but interesting for the other. And for me, after a difficult anxious start that lasted about two hours, it was a mix of visual, mental, but first and foremost a very pleasant musical experience.

Would I do 4-HO-MET again? Why not? But this time, I’d take about 10 mg. Preferably with a trip sitter. Outside. And with a playlist that is on BEFORE it hits me.

Exp Year: 2020	ExpID: 114468
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 40
Published: Jun 12, 2020	Views: 1,109
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4-HO-MET (436) : Difficult Experiences (5), Music Discussion (22), First Times (2), Small Group (2-9) (17)