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A Glimpse Into Insanity
Dimenhydrinate & Coffee
Citation:   Tyson. "A Glimpse Into Insanity: An Experience with Dimenhydrinate & Coffee (exp45267)". Erowid.org. Dec 17, 2008. erowid.org/exp/45267

 
DOSE:
T+ 0:00
400 mg oral Dimenhydrinate (pill / tablet)
  T+ 0:00 2 cups oral Coffee (liquid)
  T+ 1:15 200 mg oral Dimenhydrinate (pill / tablet)
  T+ 0:00 500 mg oral Dimenhydrinate (pill / tablet)
  T+ 4:15 100 mg oral Dimenhydrinate (pill / tablet)
BODY WEIGHT: 154 lb
Last weekend my family left me alone at home for a weekend. I slept in and missed half an hour of work at McDick's, and since I'm such a lazy bastard, I called in and faked that I was sick and hadn't called because I was busy throwing up, having diarrhea, etc. Anyways, after that and breakfast, I continued researching dimenhydrinate (Gravol). A friend of mine had done it and said he hallucinated for a few days, and I figured that sounded interesting so I started searching for information, and had already bought a box of 30 50mg tablets.

After an hour and a half more of research, I decided to take 8 tablets. I'd taken Gravol before for nausea, so I knew I wasn't allergic. I took the 8 at about 2:15, then drank a couple of cups of coffee because some people report feelings of extreme drowsiness. In about 20 minutes or so, I started feeling really lightheaded, and like I was much taller than I normally am. After only a couple of minutes of that, I felt this odd warmth wash over me, and it felt kind of like wetting the bed, just all over the body. It was a rather revolting feeling, and I felt this odd prickling at the back of my neck. I felt a little bit like I was nauseous, but it wasn't in my stomach, only in my throat.

The mental buzz increased, and I started feeling very drunk, though only physically, and everything seemed kind of vague. Mentally, I only felt spaced out, though I was able to carry on perfectly normal conversations with my friends via the internet. At about 3:30, I still wasn't hallucinating at all, so I took 4 more pills. I went down into the basement because I felt uncomfortably warm, and I played Serious Sam for a while. I actually managed to beat the game.

Note: I'm not so sure of the timeline of the trip, although I (think) I remember everything I did and saw, and I know for a fact that the last dose I had was 2 pills at 6:30, and that I took 24 pills total, in 2's and 4's, with either an hour or a half hour in between, varying depending on how strongly I was feeling the effects.

I started noticing hallucinations, although they were more like simple visual distortions, while I was reading the new Harry Potter book. Here is where the time distortion comes into play - I can't remember if I read the book before, after, or during the time I was playing Serious Sam. I think it was after, but I'm not sure. In any case, I started seeing little swirls in the text of the book, like those screensavers with the spiral moving around the screen, or kind of like looking through curved glass. It made it hard to read, so I gave up for a while. I also started feeling paranoia. I was extremely worried that I would start seeing very frightening things. So, of course, I did. I raised an arm to watch the shadow of it on the wall, to see if they were doing anything. I was shocked to see two shadows, but then I realised there were two lights making shadows, so I calmed down until one of them started moving independently of the other shadow and of my arm. It was terrifying, so I turned my back on it and played Serious Sam some more. I guess I was switching between reading and playing video games. I was, however, worried that the shadow would try to choke me. I also heard a female voice say my name, right behind me. I ignored it. After beating the game, I went upstairs.

When I went back upstairs, I got back on the computer and started having fairly normal conversations with my friends. At some point, I was hearing noises (rustling, thumps, and crunching noises) coming from the kitchen, so I went over to check it out. Standing in the entrance to the kitchen, I was transfixed by the sight of a bag of Lays potato chips hanging in a shopping bag from a shelf support. One of the handles of the bag slipped off the shelf support, and the bag of chips started smiling at me, and I swear it wanted to kill me. It looked crazy. It started pulling the bag down, stretching the handle that was still hooked onto the shelf support, as if it had suddenly become extremely heavy. The chips started rotating a little bit, and tilted to the side. The shopping bag started tearing, but I was paralyzed by fear. I kind of snapped to my senses, and, telling myself it wasn't real, I left the kitchen and went back to the computer. I avoided the kitchen completely for the rest of the day.

On the computer, I continued my MSN conversations. Okay, I just checked my message history. I remember talking quite normally to two of my friends specifically, for an extended period of time, but my message history says I didn't talk to one of them at all, and that I talked to the other from 8:41 PM until 9:08 PM, and I thought I'd talked to him to a lot, and earlier in the day as well. Anyways, it certainly wasn't a normal conversation, either. Here's a partial transcript, completely unedited (Note: my friends and I often say random nonsensical things to each other, but at the time I thought I was being completely normal in this conversation. Oh, and (H)and (U) are emoticons in msn):

Mark: yo, dawg!
Tyson (me, obviously): aluha!
m: what's cookin?
t: lol
t: nothing at al (h)
t: i'll probably supper tomorron nigt
m: werrrrd!
m: (HH)
t: actually, to be completely honest, i might not vomit
m: haha i don't understand
t: well, that is smelly, rolling sunglass where i actually darking for the !guy
m: makes sense
[Mark then sent me a song]
t: oh way!
t: no*
t: my ocmputer i so slow
m: (U)

And that's it. Near-complete nonsense, and I thought I was making perfect sense. I had another conversation with another friend that I didn't even remember until he told me about it. It was from 8:40 to 12:25 and was much more involved.

Some choice parts of the conversation (they were mostly irrelevant to the actual things my friend were talking about)

rob: how many did you take?
tyson: of 50 mg pillz? 12, i think [i'd actually taken 24]
t: not allat once tho
r: ah ok
t: over the course of a few hours
r: oh
t: i mean days or weeks or whateer
----
[rob asked about the price of renting in my city, and this was my response]
and yea, both apartments and houses aren't all that bad as faw as food goes in most of our motels, but there as some shoddy ones
----
[here i was trying to convince him that i wasn't really feeling it, and then I started telling him various things about people]
t: i havent had much effect from this gy
r: ?
t: thought he's less awkward this one guy that always goes into the credit union and my mom always really awkward
r: hahahah what the hell are you talking about ahahahahahaha
t: oh, you remeber that big huge dude that canned himself with a water bottle
t: well, he built a castle
r: hahahahaha
r: why did he build a castle?
t: cause he could
t: i dont really remember
t: oh man
r: im so confused
----

As you can see, I was truly messed up, and I thought I was being perfectly normal. At one point, I started hearing people talking to me through my computer speakers, and I tried to talk back, but they wouldn't answer me. I also kept seeing my girlfriend doing things, like reading or sewing, or just walking by, but whenever I tried to talk to her, she stopped existing. Also, my cat came into the computer room and started meowing, but her head was down and she didn't move at all aside from her mouth, and her meows were exactly the same and in quick succession, and they kept getting louder. I pushed her away, and she stopped existing.

And that's all I can really remember. For the week after, I kept seeing little flickers in the corners of my eyes, and my mind played tricks on me more than normal, but there wasn't anything serious. I can't remember going to bed that night, and I can't remember the day after at all.

Overall, I have to say that while I was tripping I didn't enjoy it at all. I was rather frightened, and the physical feeling was unpleasant. However, it did leave me with some rather humorous memories. I can't say that it is a fun or recreational drug, but I must say that it is amazing as an exploration of the human mind. I probably won't do it again, and if I do, it would probably only be if I had a sober sitter and someone else doing it with me, and only after half a year or maybe more. It is terribly unsuitable for having fun. The only way it is good is as an exploration, a break from reality, a glimpse into insanity.

Exp Year: 2005ExpID: 45267
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Dec 17, 2008Views: 8,878
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Dimenhydrinate (17) : General (1), Alone (16)

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