DOSE: T+ 0:00	500 mg	oral	DXM	(liquid)
T+ 0:45	2 tablets	oral	Pharms - Ibuprofen	(pill / tablet)
T+ 1:00	1 tablet	oral	Diphenhydramine	(pill / tablet)
T+ 1:15	2.5 mg	insufflated	Oxycodone	(ground / crushed)
T+ 5:00	0.5 tablets	oral	Pharms - Clonazepam	(pill / tablet)
T+ 5:00	0.5 tablets	sublingual	Pharms - Clonazepam	(pill / tablet)

BODY WEIGHT:

130 lb

A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE

I'm not very experienced with psychedelics, but I've tried most of the popular ones once or twice. I have always had a deep curiosity about these substances, and I want to try everything at least once. When the subject of DXM came up recently in conversation, I was surprised to hear that some people consider it to be quite a serious drug for psychedelic experimentation. I had always thought of drinking cough syrup as something akin to sniffing glue, popular among desparate junior high school kids but dismissed by the discerning drug user.

So after reading the wonderfully informative FAQ, I decided that this was a drug I needed to try. Especially since I had never tried any dissociative anaesthetic such as PCP (too hard to find) or ketamine (used in my building but I have never had the courage to steal some). So I planned it for a Friday night when I knew I could sleep in and chill out the next day to ride out any lasting ill effects. Having observed the aneasthetic effects of ketamine on animals numerous times (albeit at much higher doses than human recreational ones) I guess I expected that I would end up sitting on the couch with my eyes closed feeling not quite alive for a few hours, and then fall asleep. Furthermore, I fully expected it to be “dysphoric” with me wondering when it would wear off. Boy was I wrong! Rather, I ended up having a very pleasant trip every bit as legitimately psyechedelic as LSD or psylocibin, albeit very different from those drugs.

I should mention that I used several other drugs in the course of that trip, in order to smooth out some of the rough edges, but since most of them were ordinary OTC drugs I don’t consider this to be “combination” trip.

The circumstances of the trip were quite ideal. I was home on a Friday night, and had had a pretty good week as far as work goes, so I didn’t have too much stress or worry preying on my mind. My wife was with me and graciously agreed to act as my “trip sitter,” as she takes a certain medication (an SSRI) that should not be mixed with DXM. However, we happened to have some percocets in the house, and those were ideally suited for her as a trip sitter, since she could get high too and not feel left out, but on a drug that mostly preserves her judgement and cognition.

9pm: Ingestion. Generic maximum strength Robitussin, 15 mg / teaspoon. I took about 5 ½ ounces, calibrated to get me on the edge of second and third plateau, according to the FAQ. I had just eaten dinner and had a full stomach, which probably helped me not feel too sick from it, but also probably slowed the absorption. Gulping down a whole glass of Robitussin wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be based on other reports. Not nearly as nauseating as some other things that I have drunk for the sake of getting high, such as opiate-water after a cold-water extraction. So, bombs away, and I went back to puttering around on my computer for a while waiting for something to happen. In a manner of minutes, I'm feeling a little weird, but I can't describe it any better than that. The sort of feeling that would make me think I'm getting sick if I didn't know that I had just taken drugs.

9:45: I’m starting to feel pretty lazy. Lying on the couch, feeling like “I could move my legs if I wanted too, but I really prefer not to.” Fortunately my wife is bringing me water and so forth. I feel like I’m getting a slight headache, so I finally get up and go take 2 ibuprofen. That does the trick, no more headache the rest of the night.

10pm: I’m starting to understand why they call it a “dissociative.” I’m still aware of my surroundings and fully attuned to sensory input, but yet I feel some sense of “detachment.” I said to my wife that I feel like the pilot of a Veritech fighter (anime geeks will understand that – it is a fighter jet that transforms into a robot, so that the pilot is sitting inside the cockpit in the head of the robot). Like I still feel like I inhabit my head, and my body is a robot that I could take the controls of, but right now I’m just kicking back in the cockpit.

Unfortunately, I soon start getting the itches. I’ve experienced that on opiates before, but this is quite a bit worse. Especially between my fingers and on the top of my head. I find myself scratching a lot, which is worrisome. My wife suggests I take a benadryl (anti-histamine), so I do. I am worried that it will make me sleepy, and I’d hate to fall asleep and miss out on the trip, so she also makes me an espresso. It was delicious I think, although I barely remember it. The benadryl works like a charm, and in 15 minutes the itching has completely stopped.

10:15ish: I am no longer feeling anaesthetized at all. Rather, I am somewhat stimulated, and I find myself up and about, dancing around to the electronic music that my wife has put on. Nonetheless, I guess there is still an element of “disconnect” in it – I described to my wife that I was dancing like a marionette. I literally felt like there were strings attached to my knees and shoulders pulling me around to dance to the music. Quite a strange feeling, but very enjoyable. I am feeling very happy and relaxed. At some point, a do a few lines of crushed percocet, so that may have contributed to the euphoria, but it was only a few lines of a pretty week 7.5 mg pill (maybe a third of that pill at most), so I’m sure it was only a small contribution. Nonetheless, a welcome one.

Since the espresso machine is out, my wife also makes me a decaf café au lait, which is incredibly delicious. I really have no desire to eat or drink anything else. I have been steadily drinking water the whole time (always a good idea when doing drugs – but don’t overdo it), but when I tried to have some grapefruit juice I couldn’t stand it – reminded me too much of the cough syrup!

10:30-11:30: I am entering the peak of the trip. I am definitely stimulated, but I’m sure the espresso helped with that. I am still a little dissociated I guess, in that I am pretty unconcerned with the things around me. I am having a pretty introspective time, rethinking many experiences of my life, but the whole time I am chatting animatedly with my wife. It is a nice bonding experience for us. I feel like she knows me inside and out, like my memories are her memories, since I have told here some of these stories many times, but I find myself actively searching through my memories for interesting details that I have not shared with her before. Most of these involve experiences with other women. We have always been totally open about discussing such things with each other, and I have enjoyed sharing with her the experiences that have contributed to making me what I am. It is a uniquely enjoyable experience for us to do this – I am tripping and going through my memories and sharing with her as much as I can. It is kind of like when you move to a new place, you go through your old stuff that has been sitting in boxes and you find things that you had forgotten all about, bringing on waves of nostalgia. I feel like I am doing that mentally, finding all kinds of interesting details from my past that I haven’t thought about in years, and “showing” it all to my wife.

Throughout all this, I am surprised that the feeling with all these memories is overwhelmingly positive. Often when I do drugs I have a period where I feel a bit down. Even if I am enjoying myself by listening to music, watching movies, thinking about scientific progress etc., I find myself in awe of the geniuses who created those things and feel like a loser for sitting around doing drugs. I don’t have any of those feelings now. I am feeling very satisfied with all the choices I have made in my life, where to live, what profession to pursue, whom to marry, and even including the decision to use drugs recreationally. I feel really close to my family and friends. I call my brother twice and leave humorous messages on his voice mail regarding the fact that I’m Stripping my balls off on COUGH SYRUP!”

On the physical side, I feel good. No headache, itching, heart racing, or anything like that. I do notice a profound case of double vision. I went outside to look at the moon and there were very clearly two of them. And when I tried to read something it was impossible unless I closed one eye.

In the course of all my mental spring cleaning, I become fixated on a song that I heard on the radio only once in my life, some sort of Broadway show tune whose title I do not know. Miraculously, my wife manages to find it on I-tunes and play it. I am ecstatic that we have found it, but honestly I am still quite dissociated and I am barely aware of the music. I can’t remember any of the details of the song the next day – but I can always listen to it again I suppose.

As is common for me when doing drugs, I become fixated on puns and find deep meaning in linguistic coincidences. I’ll spare you the details of the random connections between words that absolutely tickled my fancy at this time, but I will mention that I found some things funny enough to write down, and still find them amusing the next day.

11:30-1am: Upon finding out that it is only 11:30, I am flabbergasted – I feel like many more hours have past. I guess a distorted sense of time is a common feature of psychedelic drugs. Oddly though, after this, I become acutely aware of time. I often decide to guess what time it is after that, and I am usually correct within 5 minutes or so. At some point my brother calls me back and we have a great conversation about drug use, and he reminds me how lucky I am to have a spouse willing to sit with me and tolerate my drug-addled ramblings. Actually though, I am not just rambling nonsensically like I tend to do under the influence of mushrooms. As I said, this trip has been very much a trip down memory lane, and my wife has found it pretty interesting to get a deep look inside my mental closet.

In talking to my brother, I describe this night as a “turning point” in my life. Not that my life is changing, but rather that I am looking back on it so far and taking stock, as it is about to enter a new stage. I recently turned 30 and got married, moved in with my wife, moved to a new city, started a new job, and will probably start reproducing within a year or two, so it is a good time to have a deeply reflective experience like this.

Hallucinations: Nothing auditory, and nothing visual with eyes open, but I definitely do get some visuals when my eyes are closed. Not bright technicolor like LSD / mushrooms, rather subdued in color, grays and browns and beiges, but very interesting and variegated patterns. I describe these visuals as “sepia-toned,” like an old movie, which adds to the general sense of nostalgia that seems to be the theme of the whole trip.

1am: I am definitely over the peak. No longer feeling frankly tripping and dissociated, but still wired (maybe from the espresso) and profoundly euphoric. I am getting to the point now where I am wrapping up with the introspective memory trip and am ready for some external entertainment.

We have netflix, and they recently started offering movies for instant viewing on the internet for no additional charge, so I decide to give that a try. I order up the movie “Heavy Metal.” Unfortunately, the netflix instant viewing turns out not to work properly on our computer – the sound is there, but the video is faulty, coming out in a weird psychedelic color scheme. This is amusing, as I’m not sure that it’s not just me, especially since it’s an animated movie. Now the next day I’m not so amused to find that it won’t work, but at the time it was hilarious.

But my wife was not so amused by the awful psychedelic color scheme, so we decide to watch a video that we own – Star Wars. An excellent choice for a DXM movie I think. I can understand why the FAQ recommends “archetypal” movies that you are already familiar with, as I wasn’t really able to follow a complicated plot. Well they don’t get any more archetypal than Star Wars. The music is thrilling to me, especially the Imperial March. Watching Star Wars sets me off on a whole other kind of memory trip, as all along I’d been thinking about my individual history, the incidents that have happened in my life, but now I start thinking of myself as a member of a generation, and I am reflecting on the events that are burned into the memory of our generation – the Challenger blowing up, 9/11. I remember the scene in Return of the Jedi with Princess Leia in the metal bikini with the collar and chain, and how that scene fueled my masturbatory fantasies throughout adolescence, and I realize that this must be true for thousands of men my age. So that is the central event linking my individual life to my generation – Leia captive in the palace of Jabba the Hut. WOW!

After about an hour of Star Wars, I’ve had enough, and I want to sleep so the next day will not be a total loss. I’m not really tripping anymore, but I’m still totally wired. Here is where one more drug comes in handy, the benzodiazepine Klonipin. I take one half of a pill orally, and a little later I take the other half by dissolving it under my tongue so it will work better. I retire to bed with my wife, and enjoy a lengthy and awesome session of lovemaking, made all the better by all the bonding we have enjoyed tonight. Eventually we are both exhausted, and the Klonipin does its job, and I drift off to a great night of sleep.

11:30am the next day: I am woken up by my brother calling to check up on me. I am feeling a bit tired and hung over, but as soon as I get up and have a cup of coffee and breakfast, I feel absolutely fine, not hung over at all. I go for a long bike ride and feel good as new.

In summary, the whole experience was overwhelmingly positive. Not dysphoric at all, to my surprise. Of course, your mileage may vary, but I found DXM to be a very enjoyable drug. The nostalgia aspect of it was unexpected – I hadn’t seen other people report that. I may try again at a higher dose in a few weeks.

Exp Year: 2007	ExpID: 64269
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Apr 29, 2012	Views: 44,289
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