DOSE:

1200 mg

oral

DXM

(extract)

BODY WEIGHT:

79 kg

About a month ago, a friend of mine (call him X) and I decided to try DXM again. We had tried it twice previously, once sharing a 200ml bottle of Resilar (Finnish cough-suppressant with 3mg/ml of DXM, and lots of sorbitol), subsequently having vicious diarrhea (sorbitol induced) for an hour after which we felt giddy, drunk and happy.

The second time we had used an extraction method to avoid the diarrhea, but that time something had gone wrong with the extraction. How I know this, is because X found the taste of the extract too horrible to consume, and hence I drank his share also, a total of what should've been over 1000mg, but a trip, which never got above 2nd plateau. So I guess it could be said that I was a newbie to this, and X even more than I.

Nevertheless, we decided that we will both have 2 bottles worth each. I had suggested 1½ bottles, thinking that 2 would be too much considering our lack of experience with drugs in general (having only tried cannabis a few times, cocaine and ecstasy once, as well as alcohol frequently), and especially with our inexperience with DXM, which I now know to be an extremely potent chemical.

Anyway... we acquired the bottles of the substance from various pharmacies so as not to arouse suspicion. This time we also thought it would be wise to replace citric acid with ascorbic acid (vitamin C) to make the taste less heinous. We had, from the previous extraction, still plenty of NaOH. All that was needed was the solvent, which was to be lighter fluid. So we bought some, simple. We then purchased some cheap freezer bottles in which to shake up the nasty mess during the procedure.

Having all the necessary materials, we headed to X's apartment, where he lived/s with his girlfriend, call her Y. Y does not approve of any kind of substance use, so we had to be quick with the extraction, as she was supposed to be coming home that evening at about 6 pm. The time now was about 2 pm. We were expecting to have the extraction done, ourselves dosed up and on the way down by the time she came home... Oh, how foolish we were!

On with the extraction. In to the freezer bottles went 2 200ml bottles of the stuff each, along with the NaOH. This concoction we stirred/shaked until we were satisfied that the NaOH had dissolved in. Enter the lighter fluid, about 100 ml of it. Vigorous shaking ensued, during which we discovered that the corks on the bottles were rather poorly constructed, as some of the slimy, warm, brown mess seeped through onto our hands.

After sufficient mixing, we each poured the contents into zip-lock bags for the first separation. Whilst waiting for the separation, we prepared the 'acid water', in other words a glass of water into which a 1000mg vitamin C pill was dissolved. The product of the separation was mixed thoroughly with this 'acid water' by means of vigorous shaking once more. Once done, a second separation using the baggies.

After this, we boiled the product for a few minutes to get rid of the remnants of the lighter fluid, then threw in some ice-cubes to cool it down. And we had the finished product, a glassful of orange opaque liquid containing approximately 1200mg of DXM along with some vitamin C, and possessing a truly nasty flavour.

By now the time had somehow reached 4:30 pm. I had realised that there was no way we'd be done with the whole experience by the time Y came home. I informed X about this, and he said he had noted that some time ago, but was still ready to go for it, regardless of the probable negative feedback to be received later. So we proceeded to drink the evilly bitter liquid, or at least try to. While not being as bad as last time, it still was extremely unpleasant. So, being the brilliant master chefs we are, we decided to try to kill the flavour with sugar. Bad idea! The sugar just made the stuff taste a LOT worse. Nevertheless, we managed to consume the stuff within about half an hour.

A brief word about mindset. Myself, I was excited and really looking forward to this despite my somewhat disappointing (whilst still somewhat entertaining) previous experience. I cannot really say how X was feeling, but I'd assume he was excited too. Both were quite positive, even with the stuff tasting unimaginably bad, and had no real reservations about what we were about to go through. Oh yeah, and I had an empty stomach.

T+0:30: By the time I had finished the drink, which was about half an hour after starting the process of sneaking it past my tongue (via means of large gulps and combating nausea), I started feeling it. It began similarly to the previous experiences, a giddy, intoxicated feeling somewhat alike to alcohol. With X, for some reason, drugs take longer to kick in, so he was still sober. He decided to go wash up to destroy the evidence of what we had done. Meanwhile, I relaxed myself and lay down on his couch.

T+0:45: X had finished his washing up, and now we had to get rid of the remaining physical evidence i.e. the empty bottles of syrup, the freezer bottles (purchased solely for this purpose) and the empty can of lighter fluid. X did not want to leave them in his rubbish bin for Y to discover, so we both headed downstairs to dispose of them. Getting up off the couch, I noticed that I was well on my way now, the intoxicating feeling had multiplied. I thought to myself, 'feels like being extremely drunk without the negative effects'.

T+0:50: We got downstairs to the dumpsters when I suddenly became nauseous. I proceeded to empty the contents of my stomach into the snow (it was mid-winter). I found the contents of my puke strange, as it was bright orange with no chunkyness. I after this said to X, that 'I'm never doing this again, I feel like shit'. However, 2 minutes later, back in the elevator, I declared 'I feel MUCH better now, ignore my previous statement, this is pretty good after all!' And I really did, it was the polar opposite of the nausea. However, soon after I got the notorious itch. My head started to itch like mad, and I started to scratch accordingly. The itching felt awful, but the scratching was absolute bliss. I did this for a while until it passed, after which I had really messed up hair, not that I cared at the time.

T+1:00: I'm on the couch at this stage, whilst X, still sober, is on the computer chatting to somebody. At this stage, my memory begins to suffer somewhat, so what follows may not be chronological. Whilst X is on the computer, I'm laying on the couch feeling quite bizarre. I at some stage said to X, that 'I feel like a rectangle', but unfortunately cannot recall exactly how that felt. Suddenly, I noticed that my face felt hot. Red hot. Like molten magma hot. I told X about this, and he looked at me and was astonished by my faces redness. One of the last rational thoughts that I had, before coming down many hours later, popped into my head at this stage: I was afraid that the blood pressure in my head would cause a hemorrhage, which never of course happened.

I began to feel nauseous again, and informed this to X, who went a got a wooden (!) basket. He said its just a precaution, however, I felt that I was going to be sick again in a minute so he got a real bucket. As he was returning from the bathroom, I slipped past him to pray to the porcelain goddess for a few seconds. Having nothing in my stomach, the heaving was quite unpleasant, but thankfully it passed very quickly. I checked myself in the mirror. Looked totally fucked up. Hair was all messed up, face was indistinguishable from an overgrown tomato and pupils were huge. Back to the couch!

T+1:10: I begin to totally lose myself in the environment. I recall saying to X: 'This is too intense, I don't wanna do this again'. I could barely discern that X was still on the computer. Apparently, he at this stage started feeling it also. He later told me that he had written a note to Y, stating what we had done, and asking her not to ruin our 'trips' through bad vibes. During the whole time we had had music on in the background, however, I cannot remember at anytime focusing on it really. It just was there, and it became an integral part of the setting, even though I for the most part ignored it. I noticed that my connections to the outside world were becoming severed at a rapid pace. I said some random things to X, cannot remember what exactly, but I can remember that I spoke extremely carefully and slowly, one word at a time. It took extreme concentration to be able to say anything coherent.

T+1:20: X at some stage left the computer, possibly because he became unable to work with it, and went into his bedroom to lie down. I somehow took note of this happening, and called for him 'X, come back, I need you. It doesn't feel right without you'. I'm not sure why I said this, but thinking back on it, I'm almost certain it was because I had spent the entire day with him until this point, and his departure (to a whole 4 metres away, out of sight) was a large change in setting, and I was unfamiliar with such a situation at that time. I now notice the music, mainly because it sounds so overpoweringly intense that I could not focus on anything else.

T+1:30: Y comes home. I'm still connected enough with the outside world to take notice of this, and even call out to her, saying 'Hi'. For some odd reason my own voice sounded extremely loud, and I hoped I hadn't blown my cover (as I didn't know that X had written her a note, and that I needed not pretend to be sober; completely impossible at the time, although I wasn't actually doing anything, just lying on the couch with my eyes open sometimes, and closed at others). Y fairly quickly proceeds to turn off the music, and only then did I realise what a large part of the setting it had been. Without it, it seemed as if there was no sound at all, and that I had suddenly become deaf.

What follows next is almost impossible to remember at all, I'm quite sure I reached the peak at about this time. No point in giving any T+ times for now. Reality just left, totally out the window, for a while.

I remember being inside a kind of tunnel or mine. A fleshy, living tissue mine shaft. I had no body, I was just a free-floating conscious entity. I was not alone in this mine. There was somebody else, a similar conscious entity. I felt as though this was just another day such as any other, and that I was going to work, and the other entity was a workmate. I believe we said something to each. Something irrelevant and mundane, just as two co-workers might say to each other. (I later interpreted this as a visual trip into my brain. I was a neuron, and so was the other entity, just going about our work blissfully unaware that the rest of the brain was messed up due to DXM.)

I felt dead. Not the kind of 'Oh my God, I'm dying, this is the end!' -dead, but just dead. A thought came into my mind, which possibly saved my sanity and calmness at that point; I remembered that many people had felt dead from taking this much of this, so I just thought 'well, its normal, nothing to be frightened about'. However, at that time I could not remember what I had taken, why I had taken it, with whom, where and when I had taken it. Yet, I just KNEW that this is chemically induced and that it would pass. (I believe these two experiences took place on the 4th plateau. I wasn't there very long, maybe half an hour, maybe an hour. Time passed very quickly due to having such poor short term memory. And of course, I wasn't thinking this at the time. The above was reality during that time.)

Sometime, X showed up in the doorway to his room. He was having a terrible time. He asked me 'Why did we do this?', and I could not answer. He then said 'This is the worst experience of my life'. I was thinking something along the lines of 'Oh it's not THAT bad...'. I didn't say anything though. At this time I noticed that if I closed my eyes, I would have a brand new world in front of me. I was gradually beginning to see again, and realise that I actually am part of the real world. However, I did not know who I was or where or why. But I knew that I WAS, and that was much more than a short time ago. I began to check out these strange visuals I could make by simply closing my eyelids. Each time I opened my eyes and re-closed them, the visual changed. I remember seeing brownish-red mosaik patterns, extremely intricate and complicated. It took a few seconds for one to materialise after closing my eyes.

Upon opening them again, I would return to the 'real' world, wherever that was. I did not know. I noticed myself looking at my feet occasionally, seeing as I was layed out on the couch, and they happened to be in my line of sight. However, I looked at them without recognition; I did not realise they were MY feet. They just were there, as if they were a part of the couch and not part of me.

T+3:00: I managed to see the time on the wall clock. 8:30 pm. I had come down enough to again understand who I was, where I was and what I had just gone through. Severe double vision, I simply could not manipulate the lenses in my eyes. Also, my vision was shaking, very rapidly from side to side. This shaking did not really impair my vision, for whatever strange reason, but it was definitely there. It was mostly toward the left and right edges of my vision, shaking maybe 10 times a second from side to side, with an amplitude of many centimetres. Distracting, but not disabling. My brain had some difficulty following my eyes, so turning my head would cause a delay between seeing something and recognising it. I also had a really fascinating, although annoying auditory hallucination. Imagine a sound being played through a poorly constructed tin-can speaker, with an echo. A metallic 'schreeching' kind of sound. Now, insert the echo IN FRONT OF the sound. For example, if somebody were to have said 'hello', I would have heard it as *SCHRIIEEEECHHHHhhhhhhello*. I heard the same thing before any sound. It's as if my brain added the schreech to the sound after hearing it but before processing it. Really quite hard to explain.

After a short time, the bizarre auditory hallucinations ended, and I got up off the couch and wandered to X's room. He was laying on the bed, looking totally out of it and somewhat freaked out. He noticed I came into the room, as we exchanged glances and a few words. He said he felt like he was going insane, that the DXM was systematically destroying his brain. I wasn't paying much attention. I was too busy trying to remember what had just happened to me. I felt like going home. I had a rather strong body element to the feeling at this stage. It was a presence. Normally, a person does not pay attention to how the body feels. Only once ill or drunk or high does one concentrate on the actual feeling of the body. I was feeling all of my body at once. It wasn't pleasant or unpleasant, it just was how it was. I could not ignore the sensation of my body. I quickly evaluated how I walked, and determined my skills to be sufficient, so I left.

T+4:00: I arrive home, after a 4km walk from X's place. The walk was strange, I had the feeling everybody was looking at me. Thankfully, there weren't many people around, and even those that were, I totally ignored. 'Let them think whatever they want to', I thought to myself. Upon coming home, I immediately went to the fridge, took a sip of orange juice (I was extremely hungry), but immediately retired to my bed, fearing that my parents would notice the completely messed up state I was in.

T+5:00: Hungry as hell, but paranoid of parents. A poor state to be in, especially with the body load not fading at all. I tried to sleep.

T+6:00: No sleep. Body load too strong for comfort. Vision still messed up. Even in a totally dark room, things seem not right. Some closed-eye visuals, although very mild, and they took concentration to achieve. The 'blobs' one sees normally with the eyes closed were doing things. Although I could only see the silhouettes, I could see what they were doing at times. At one stage some fat person got up off a couch. At another, two bears were wrestling.

T+6:30: 12 am, no sleep. Tired, but could not sleep.

T+10:30: Still awake. The 'blob' show had ended some time ago. Mental note was made at this stage, that the uncooperativeness of sleep is the most unpleasant side-effect from the drug, far surpassing the moments of nausea and the itching.

T+13:30: 7 am, parents woke up to go to work. I was feeling tired as anything, but still too wired to sleep. I was just anticipating them leaving so I could go to the fridge to eat something. It had been over 20 hours since I last ate.

Eventually, they did leave, I did go eat, and finally fell asleep. I can't remember when I awoke that afternoon, but when I did I was feeling okay. I had the feeling that I had definitely done some chemical the day before, but I couldn't really call it a hangover, as there were no unpleasant feelings.

Now, after a month, the trip seems like a distant memory, something done a long time ago and all the unpleasant portions of it have faded. All that is left is a strange curiosity toward the bizarre world I was in for a while. I doubt X will try another DXM trip, at least not with that strong a dose, but I do know that I will. Someday. There is a lot I cannot remember about the experience, mostly focused on the peak. I’m sure there was a lot of other stuff going through my head also than just what I have written here. This is the reason I want to go there again. To discover more of what awaits me beyond my own physical consciousness. It was a true expedition into the mind. X said to me, that I could not have made it to the 4th plateau because I ejected a large portion of the concoction into the snow, but I am almost certain that I did go there albeit briefly.

DXM is by far the most intense psychoactive I have tried.

Exp Year: 2004	ExpID: 31195
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jun 16, 2007	Views: 23,270
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DXM (22) : Small Group (2-9) (17), General (1)