DOSE: T+ 0:00	20 mg	oral	2C-T-2	(liquid)
T+ 0:11	2 hits	smoked	Cannabis
T+ 0:00	9.0 g	oral	Kratom	(tea)
T+ 0:00			Pharms - Ibuprofen

BODY WEIGHT:

145 lb

The other day I had another encounter with an ally of mine, 2C-T-2. Expecting another positive and invigorating experience, I instead received a rude awakening, and discovered the dual nature of this chemical. Let me tell you the tale of my psychoanalytical self-abuse.

It was a Saturday like any other. Things had been going well lately, except that I was feeling a bit in a rut of routine. What better way to shock myself out of it than to have a beautiful psychedelic voyage through my subconsciousness?

This day, my girlfriend was going to be out from about 11:00am to 5:00pm, which was a perfect amount of time. Here are the notes I took during the experience. As it turns out, I was in for a ride. All notes are copied verbatim, with no changes made.

10:20am - Ingested 20mg 2C-T-2 in liquid.

11:00 - Some alerts

11:06 - Body temperature fluctuating widely. Uncomfortable.

11:20 - Dry heaving. Strangely, the first three times I did this drug, I didn't even come close to throwing up, but the last two times, I've heaved violently, last time for a straight 45 minutes or so.

11:31 - About to take a nice toke of some MJ. It did indeed cure the nausea, but is launching my mind into an intense voyage

1:12 - Sometimes the line between pleasure and pain is a thin one.

At first after the chemical fully came up and began affecting me, I was enjoying myself immensely. After taking my two vaporizer hits, I laid back on some pillows and closed my eyes. Immediately, the music attained that mystical, intense quality that these kind of drugs bring on, causing my mouth to drop open in awe at its majesty. Before long, however, the body high that I love, which causes my body to feel like it's spinning, twisting, and morphing with the music, began to get a little more intense than I had bargained for. The first song on my 'Variety Meditation Music' CD is one of my favorites, a beautiful, celestial-sounding song called 'Something very Pure' by Mystical Sun. As always, this song inspired feelings of great awe and majesty in me. However, the next song was a bit of a dark one, and it intensified my feelings. My body began to dissolve and pixelate, spinning wildly out of control to the extent that I began to feel overwhelmed with psychedelic energy. A voice in my head sneered 'So you've done this to yourself again, huh? You can't handle this.'

At this point, I distinctly felt myself changing, splitting into two distinct conscious entities. 'I' retained my normal sense of self, while another part of me, I guess you could say my sense of social shame, became as if it were another, separate entity from myself, no longer in my control. You know how, especially under the effects of psychedelics, a certain level of social anxiety takes places, where you might feel as if you have to answer to those around for your actions and/or thoughts? I guess because of the intensity of the experience and the negativity emanating from the music, I was unable to maintain control of this side of me. I suddenly began to feel as if I had a bad trip companion with me, and any of us who have been in such a situation know how badly that can go. This is, in fact, the reason that I now primarily trip alone; I generally am unable to control the occurrence of these thoughts when I'm with another person.

The bad vibes became palpable, and even after the dark song was over, subsequent songs suddenly attained an air of menace and negativity. As I flew through complex, indefinable closed-eye landscapes of spinning color, I entered into a frightening thought loop where my 'evil' side would taunt and punish me for my foolishness in thinking I could find escapism in a psychedelic drug. It (or rather I) would make me feel like I was an absolute piece of scum, and I would lay there through each song, what little pleasure I found in careening through a psychedelic landscape being squashed by the desire to have the social trauma with myself be over. After each song ended, I'd open my eyes, and the experience would brighten a bit, feeling more manageable, and I was able to think to myself that it was all in my head and I could control it; after all, it was me that was hurting myself. Then the next song would start, and that voice would say, full of scorn, 'But you took this drug to have an experience, didn't you? Then why open your eyes and waste it, you idiot?' Then the cycle would begin anew with slight variations due to the change in music, as I lay there thinking of how I should take advantage of this musical journey.

The experience continued through ten songs, or my first CD in the 'Variety meditation Music' series that I put together. Usually I go through all three, and by that time, my experience has reached the lower plateau and is nearing its end. However, this time, I decided I had had enough abuse and I turned off the music and got up. The peak was over, and the experience was more manageable, but far from over and far from being pleasant. My eyes felt like they were bugging out of my head, and I immediately thought of kratom. The voice inside of my head began sneering at me, saying 'How could you let yourself get re-addicted to that stuff,' which I have in fact done. The fact that now the voice seemed to be a part of me again with my eyes open actually made it worse. I felt an immense sense of shame, because I told myself I wouldn't let that happen again. Nevertheless, kratom would do the trick for helping me to get back to normal, so I went downstairs and made some, skipping the long extraction process by just boiling the water and pouring it over powdered kratom and waiting for it to cool enough to drink. I got back upstairs, and at that point wrote the last entry in my trip notes above.

After a few minutes, I drank up the bitter, addictive liquid and turned on an episode of 'Family Guy' to help me back to normality and give my mind a distraction. To my dismay, the normally hilarious and well-timed show became a stage on which the characters were akwardly performing. All of my own current insecurities were being played out by each character. Every joke seemed obvious and forced, and I could see the characters' own feelings of embarassment and insecurity. Despite this, it was better than having my ego dissolve into a cynical self-abuser, so I continued to watch. Fortunately, after the first episode, the kratom kicked in with unusual force, and I regained myself enough that I was again amused and in rather good spirits, especially considering what I had been through.

I went through episode after episode, each becoming better and better, until about 3:00, when I went downstairs to make myself a little more kratom to try to come down more, as my girlfriend would be getting back in an hour or two. As I began making it, however, suddenly she walked in the door early. For a minute I panicked, because I was still tripping and felt rather akward trying to interact with her sobriety, but that feeling was overwhelmed by my desire to have a grounding force and a person I love with me. I tried my best, and I think succeeded admirably in keeping my bad vibe from affecting her, while simultaneously catching on to her vibe, which was one of relief at being home and unadulterated happiness at seeing me. In this way, I was able to overcome my feelings of worthlessness and re-enter everyday concensus reality. Rarely have I been so glad to get back. You know, that's the funny part of psychedelics. Even when I have a bad experience, it generally accomplishes what I desire, at least temporarily. I had wanted to blast myself out of a rut, and I did. Let me tell you, I'm happy to be sober and going back to work for a week!

My girlfriend and I drank our kratom (as she enjoys it as well, from time to time). Though my experience ended at least neutral if not slightly positive, I quickly got a massive, pounding headache as I came the rest of the way down, despite the kratom, and I took a rather copious amount of ibuprofen to help it. It helped, but the headache did not completely fade until the next day. That next day, I woke up feeling very under the weather, almost like having a minor cold, and I was in poor spirits. This feeling got better as I had some caffeine and woke up a little, but it continued lightly for the entire day.

I learned three main lessons from this experience. One, I need to break through my kratom addiction once again, and absolutely avoid re-entering it. Two, I realized the true effect of 2C-T-2: it allows me to experience my ego as several distinct entities, which allows for a great deal of psychodynamic work to be done, if used in the correct context. Finally, I realized that, even when tripping alone, I may not necessarily be safe from my own social phobias. With that, my 2C-T-2 experimentation days are over, and I will only be using it again if there comes a time when I find that kind of work to be necessary. This chemical had its uses for me in the past, and it directly helped me to lift my depression a couple of months ago. However, for now, I've explored it enough, and its usefulness has come to an end. I know in my heart what I need - an affirmation of the impermanent nature of life, and the eternal nature of existence. This I would best accomplish with either psilocybin or DMT, but will probably choose the former, and this will occur in about 3 weeks when I have the chance. I must prepare. The tryptamine is the most useful for mystical rebirth. The next time I want a little psychedelic escape, however, I'd do best to consider 2C-I, and leave 2C-T-2 for some unknown time in the future when real psychological work needs to be done.

Exp Year: 2005	ExpID: 48559
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Dec 23, 2005	Views: 17,708
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