DOSE:

60 mg

oral

2C-N

(powder / crystals)

BODY WEIGHT:

170 lb

Subtle Grace, Gentle Power
First 2C-N Trial, at 60mg, Oral



About a week ago, I was very fortunate to receive a gift in the mail from the drug fairies' chemistry division. Inside a most thoughtful card, I found a little over a gram of DET HCL, and 350mg of 2C-N nitrate (a salt which is 9% less potent than the HCL salt reported everywhere else). The 2C-N is a beautiful bright yellow powder. The image I saw of it from when it was fresh from the lab looked flakey, like 2C-E and 2C-P, but by the time it got to me, it was a pretty homogenous yellow powder, quite striking in its appearance. I have never seen another pure compound with a color as bright and attractive as this. From the moment I got it, I began planning out my trials , and have been excited to get a chance to try something that has so little written about it. Yet what little is written ranges from "nothing special" to a +4 experience on the Shulgin scale. I decided my first dose was going to be 60mg taken orally (after 1mg as an allergy test, which yielded no reaction whatsoever), which is lower than any other dose I have heard of (equivalent to about ~54mg of the HCL salt). I was nervous about various mentions of extreme gastric disturbances and alarming bodyload, though I needn't have been, at least at this dose.

If you don't care about the details of my trip and my life that I am about to explain as a backdrop to the story, you can skip down to the Conclusions section at the bottom for a summary. During the trip, I took brief notes with time stamps on my phone, and I sat down to write this report based off those notes later that day and part of the next day.

The Backdrop

I almost decided not to take it today. My day started out badly, I have been really struggling with my girlfriend due to her near-constant depression and anxiety for years and years, and her being unwilling to put the work in through therapy to get better. She has tried a few times but never makes it past three sessions and then claims the therapist is an asshole, for bringing up painful memories. She says that therapy doesn't work for her and that there is no hope for her ever getting better. So what ends up happening is that I drain myself trying to help her feel better, but it never really gets better, so I am just drained. The pandemic and her extreme fears of it have really brought it to a head, along with my own troubles being able to make myself happy. The result is that for months now, I have been on the edge of breaking up with her. I don't want to, but I don't know what else to do. I love her, and she doesn't really have anyone else but me, and I don't want to abandon her. As a result of this situation, I have been feeling endlessly annoyed with her and a lot of the time I just wish she would leave me alone. It's getting harder and harder to pretend I am not feeling that way, and she feels that, but the way she deals with it is to double down on trying to get me to engage with her, and she is always asking me if I still like her, and it makes me feel unspeakably annoyed. It makes for a lot of tension at home, and I am getting pretty exhausted. In fact this has been my biggest failure of my whole life in being able to be there for someone I care about, though it is precisely because I have been there for so long that I am having this problem.

The past few days, she has been breaking down and full-on sobbing a lot, and I have not been handling it very well. This morning, she broke down and we had some serious discussions where I told her how I am feeling, and she told me the things I am doing that are bothering her, which include, besides the evident emotional disconnect, my increased messiness (a messy environment causes her anxiety, whereas for me it is not something that bothers me, and is something I get worse and worse at when I am not feeling good in life) and inability to summon energy to complete various in-progress house repair/maintenance projects.

We went to brunch afterwards and got some tacos at one of our favorite places, but the mood was tense and both of us felt emotionally drained and brittle. Before leaving the house, I weighed out 60mg of the 2C-N and put it in a foil packet, in case I felt like the timing was right to take it for the hike we went on after lunch, as I had been planning to take it today for most of the week. So, about an hour after eating to satisfaction but not to the point of being too full, I found myself at the trailhead of a nice trail we've been on many times, considering whether to take 2C-N. I told my girlfriend about it, and she was not too thrilled, she was worried that I would not be able to handle it due to the emotional state we were in, and that I would make things worse, which gave her anxiety. Additionally, I was a bit hesitant, due to the mention of gastrointestinal disturbances and some alarming bodyload symptoms in the few available reports. So with these potential issues weighing on me, we started on the hike, and then about 15 minutes into it, I to myself "you only live once", and stopped to take my dose, as she walked on ahead so as not to see me take it.

The Trip

2:40pm (T+0:00) - I pour the small pile of bright yellow powder onto my tongue, swish it around, and swallow it with some water. The taste is similar to other 2C-Xs and phenethylamines in general, bitter and distinctly complex. There is an extra, lingering foulness that sticks around for a good 5 or 10 minute s, to the point that I am involuntarily making faces of disgust, which is unusual as typically I am not much bothered by the taste of pure phenethylamines. It has a worse taste than most, but not as bad as some, it just sticks around.

2:47pm (T+0:07) - Definite first alerts. A warm feeling begins to suffuse my body and mind, similar to other 2C-Xs, but with less of an edgy/wild feeling than I would expect to feel from any of the others. It almost feels more similar to allylescaline, though at this early stage, it is hard to really make comparisons. My heart rate seems to increase, but it's hard to say for sure, as we are hiking uphill, so my heart rate is increased anyway. My mood has rapidly begun to become more positive.

3:00pm (T+0:20) - It has gotten a good bit stronger. There is a rushy feeling in my head, and a feeling of excitement is building. A feeling of adventure is growing inside me, and my mood has gone from somewhat negative to decidedly positive. I find myself with a smile on my face, and words are filling my head, where before I felt quiet and withdrawn. I want to share the thoughts and feelings inside me. Colors are brightening and becoming more saturated, but there is no hint of movement or any sort of proper visuals. Since I am hiking, I don't have the time or presence of mind to close my eyes and see if anything develops with my eyes closed. I am making little quips and saying silly things, and my mood appears to be infectious, as my girlfriend is now smiling too, and we're chatting back and forth. I feel a slight twinge of stomach unease, but it is nothing beyond what I would feel from any 2C-X, which is to say, it is merely a faint turning feeling in my stomach, and nothing alarming or concerning. I am liking this so far, but I know it has not fully developed yet. Still, it is coming up remarkably quickly. So far it is a very clean feeling; other than the faint stomach unease, there is no unpleasantness to this whatsoever, it is purely a friendly, welcoming feeling in both body and mind.

3:20pm (T+0:40) - I begin to get a sudden rush of memories of my ex, specifically, memories of the horrors I had to put up with that she subjected me to, the emotional and physical abuse. I begin to vocalize these memories to my girlfriend. Most of it she has heard before, but I am walking down memory lane and story after story spills out of me, and a number of stories come up that she has not heard, whether because I never brought it up, or I hadn't remembered in a long time. I talk about how she would force me to agree with her assessments of me before any fight would be over, that I was a sociopath, that I was a piece of shit, that I was abusing her by defending myself, even as she abused me. How she would isolate me from my friends and family, how I had Stockholm Syndrome and defended her to our loved ones, to myself, and even to her. These memories do not feel threatening or unpleasant; instead, I am viewing them objectively, without malice towards my ex, and without pain. My girlfriend is somewhat quiet at first, but as I progress along my memory's track, she begins to relate those experiences with what she had to put up with from her dad. We realize just how similar her experience was to mine, and how her dad had the exact same playbook, almost eerily so, until we realize that it is the standard abuser's playbook.

We confide in each other and find camaraderie in surviving the abuse of a narcissist. We talk about how, in fact, both of them experienced the same pain in their childhoods and were damaged themselves, and we reflect on how and why it is that some people, like them, can experience these horrors and somehow become all twisted up inside to become the thing they hate and inflict that pain on the people closest to them, while others, like us, instead turn that pain inward on ourselves, but become resolved to never, in a million years, treat anyone the way we were treated. We talk about what it might be in someone that causes this extreme difference in how ones' personality develops and changes as a result of experiencing abuse, and whether it is an inherent aspect of a person's inborn personality, or something else. We talk about how much of a person's personality is hardwired into them, versus how much is the result of their early experiences. During this time, I silently give thanks that in my case, I had a great childhood and loving parents, and experienced abuse from someone starting only when I was 18 and had already largely developed my personality. My girlfriend, on the other hand, experienced this abuse from her earliest memories, from her father. I reflect sadly on what a difference that makes in being able to shake it off. I had the benefit of a well adjusted and loving childhood, so I had a baseline of self-worth and self-esteem that I was able to fall back on, while she was never able to develop that.

Typically, when this sort of conversation comes up and my girlfriend talks about her experiences as a child, there is a lot of pain and anxiety that comes up for her, and she is unable to share much, and it kicks up lingering feelings of depression and anxiety in her. But, as the flow of conversation shifts more and more towards her recollections, I realize that she seems to be experiencing a similar state as I am, because she is sharing openly and without distress. I don't say anything about it yet, but I am wondering at whether she is experiencing a contact high from me, or if she is just inspired by my openness. But typically, when I share stories like this about myself, she will listen and comment but not share much about herself, and if she does, it leads to bad feelings and I soon regret trying to draw her into sharing, because she becomes sad and upset. But today she feels like it is very positive, and I can see that it is unburdening her and lightening her load. At one point she comments to me that she can't usually talk about this stuff but that it feels really good to talk about right now and that she feels really good to have shared.

The flow of conversation continues as we hike uphill and past some interesting landmarks. I feel like I could talk forever, and the sharing feels very good, cathartic and productive. After a while, I shift to some guilt I feel that weighs on me subconsciously, and sometimes consciously, involving two instances where close friends died of overdoses, suspected to be on purpose but I will never know for sure. In both cases, these friends tried to reach out to me to talk only hours before they died, and I was too wrapped up in my own issues to make the time to engage with them, thinking I could get back to them tomorrow. One of those friends was morninggloryseed, who wrote the report that was my main inspiration for always having wanted to try this compound. I hadn't realized how much these events were still bothering me. My girlfriend is empathetic and she is a great sounding board. I also talk about my ibogaine experience and how it was, and what it did for me, and what it meant to me.

4:00pm (T+1:20) - This may be the peak, though it is hard to say, because of the lack of any really overt psychedelic calling cards. Colors are beautifully saturated but there remains nothing else in the way of perceptual changes. The feeling in my body is glowing, and I have plenty of energy, yet do not feel stimulated. In many ways it reminds me of mescaline, in fact I would say it reminds me of mescaline more than anything else. The primary effect is a profound yet still subtle emotional opening and desire to communicate. This is no MDMA-like forced feeling of love, but an expansive, gentle self-love and an outwardly-facing good will. Even towards my ex and my girlfriend's dad, our abusers, I do not feel hatred or anger, and even feel some amount of compassion for them, as I see the self-hatred that they both experience, even though that self-hatred manifests in a profoundly destructive way towards the people they love, and it is a very bad thing they have done in treating us the way they did. I am able to see that it is not that they didn't love us... it is that they hate themselves and for whatever reason, that manifests, in them, in a very unfortunate and abhorrent way. Even my girlfriend is able to admit this about her dad, and expresses this to me, which surprises both of us. Normally she feels rage towards her dad and can't even refer to him casually without putting venom in her voice.

Besides the emotional opening effects, I notice that I am seemingly inexhaustible in terms of physical energy , though again, I do not feel overly stimulated. In this way, too, it reminds me very much of mescaline. The hike is almost entirely uphill, sometimes quite steeply so. My heart rate is up, and I feel some burning in my legs and glutes and ankles, but it does not seem to cause me any discomfort, nor do I have any desire to stop and rest, which is quite unusual, especially lately, as I haven't been exercising properly and am rather out of shape. I feel like a train climbing inexorably up to the peak we have decided we are going to make it to before turning around. And in fact, my girlfriend notices the same thing, and at some point, she mentions to me how unusual that is. She asks me "you took that stuff, right?" When I confirm that I did, she tells me she thinks she is feeling it too, and is that weird? I tell her that I have a history of giving pretty strong contact highs and that I think she is experiencing that phenomenon. I tell her about the report in the 2C-I entry on PIHKAL about a contact high, and I tell her about a couple of my most striking stories of giving people contact highs. She thinks that's amazing, and says she is glad I took it after all, because she feels lighter and better than she has in a long while. I am filled with a feeling of love and tenderness towards her, which has been lacking for too long. We stop for a second and embrace, and kiss, and look into each others' eyes, and the love I see there as she tells me she adores me is beyond words to describe.

4:10pm (T+1:30) - We have reached the summit, called Rich Knob. We feel a wild sense of elation and let out whoops. We have managed to hike 3.5 miles almost straight uphill, in just an hour and a half. We finally stop and rest for a short bit, and drink some water, and engage in some lighthearted conversation about a beautiful small scene we see, with a trickle of a stream, discussing how it is clearly a fairy park. Then my brother texts me, it's my dad's birthday (he passed away a couple of years ago after a long battle with ALS, and I didn't realize it was his birthday today), and my family is all gathered together to go through a giant bin full of photos from the early days of my parents' relationship all the way through the time just before my dad got sick, in order to be able to share them with each other and remember all of the good times we've had. My family lives 750 miles away from me, and so they want to do a video call so they can include us in the photo search and hang out with us for a bit. I considered doing it up here on the mountain top, since I have decent reception, but the wind is quite chilly when we stop moving, so we decide to make it partway down the mountain and call them then. The prospect of talking to my family on video, even unexpected like this, does not give me anxiety like it would with most psychedelics, including any of the other 2C-Xs, even 2C-C, which is quite lacking in anxiety and is even pro-social in many ways.

4:30pm (T+1:50) - The flowing conversation continues on the way down the mountain. I stop to take stock shortly before we call my family, I am decidedly past the peak now, but am still feeling very nice, comfortable, and talkative. Both of our states of mind have relaxed into a less pointedly therapeutic space, but still reflective and thoughtful. The body feeling is exceedingly comfortable, in fact I am very surprised by how much so, due to the worrisome bodyload expressed in PIHKAL and the extreme gastrointestinal issues in morninggloryseed's report. There is absolutely nothing worrisome, or difficult, or unpleasant going on with my body, and instead there is a warm and lightly pleasurable glow. I notice a high level of connection to my movements, and I feel very at-home in my body, and capable. This is another way in which this compound reminds me of mescaline. As we hike along, we spontaneously begin running, without discussing it. The trail is quite uneven with rocks and tree roots and steep inclines, and we run faster and faster, keeping our eyes on the ground and effortlessly choosing our steps so as to safely pass over the terrain. This is the sort of thing I would do normally or on a psychedelic, if the fancy struck me, but my girlfriend would not normally move so recklessly (though it does not feel reckless). She again comments on how she feels high and is glad I took this stuff.

Conversationally, the words are still flowing freely, and I feel quite eloquent and capable with my speech and delivery, and find myself phrasing my statements in fun and unique ways that amuse me greatly. I think if I were at home instead of hiking, and was by myself, I would probably enjoy writing a great deal.

5:30pm (T+2:50) - We just got done doing the video call with my family, which we began shortly after my last time entry. There was no difficulty there, though neither was it enhanced in any way. I felt a bit disconnected from them, probably because it was a video call on a small phone screen, and the reception was only just good enough... the picture was usually fuzzy and it cut out a few times, and the audio even got a bit poor in quality sometimes. We had some good laughs at some funny pictures they found of me as a teenager, wearing my Hot Topic shirts. I enjoyed telling them that I in fact do still have two of those shirts and one of them is my favorite shirt, that I wear at shows and music festivals (it's a silk button down shirt with dragons embroidered on it, it's the shit).

During the call, the wind picked up and we started to get quite chilly between that and the lack of movement, which is part of why we got off the call after under an hour instead of going for longer. As I take stock of where I am at, I realize that, although there is still a warm glow remaining (both physically and mentally/emotionally), I think I am mostly down, though given the rather subtle nature of the effects, it is hard to say for sure. This fits the timeline I expected, but I am still very surprised to find that at 3 hours, it has pretty much left the building. Very few psychedelic compounds are actually so quick to run through the entirety of their effects. I find myself wishing this stuff lasted longer, but at the same time, it's nice to know that not only will I have no difficulty sleeping or relaxing later, I will likely even be able to drive us home by the time we get back to the car.

6:30pm (T+3:50) - We have reached the car. I am definitely totally down now, though my mood retains a reflection of the experience of the last few hours. I'll be driving us home.

The rest of the evening was spent relaxing at home and cooking dinner for us. I hung out with my girlfriend and we chatted about light topics, and enjoyed each others' company. I also spent a little time beginning to write this report and posting on Bluelight a bit about this and other things. I was able to sleep without any sort of difficulties whatsoever, in fact I was forcing myself to stay awake through sleepiness for the last half hour or so that I was awake. Best of all, though, is that I retained the feeling of closeness with my girlfriend. We talked a bit about therapy, I was hoping to get her to agree to try again, but I didn't want to push her after such a productive and nice day. I noticed myself not being annoyed by small things that have been annoying me recently, and when it was time to go to sleep, I went to sleep with her without any issue. Lately I have been sleeping in my bedroom in my own bed most of the time, because I enjoy spending the time by myself reading a book at the end of the day. This makes her feel like I want to get away from her and don't want to snuggle with her, which is usually these days, sadly, true. But tonight I enjoyed holding her and falling asleep. And the next morning, we had some good exchanges before she went off to work.

Conclusions

I was very pleasantly surprised by 2C-N. I expected a rather rough experience with some surface-level psychedelia and probably nausea and possibly diarrhea, and possibly a jaunt down memory lane. What I got was a subtle yet profoundly powerful emotional cleansing and an at least temporary reprieve of the issues between me and my girlfriend (or if not a reprieve, a softening in any case), as the result of an emotionally bonding experience we shared through opening up to each other. Even more surprising was the undeniable contact high that she experienced. In talking with her, and in remembering my impressions at the time, she seemed to have roughly the same experience I did, minus the brightening of colors and body high, but including the unusual amount of physical endurance. It was striking to her and she treasures the experience as well, and says that she has not felt so unburdened in quite some time. For my part, I have not felt so open and emotionally connected with her in a long while, and because the closeness we experienced was not the result of a drug (not directly at least), but rather was the result of the conversations we had, the feeling of closeness has remained, and it was sorely needed.

The drug was very quick to start coming on, with the effects beginning at 7 minutes and climbing rapidly from there, and reached a peak by around 40-60 minutes in, probably. The effects were so light and subtle in many ways that there was not a definite peak, but it started dropping off around 2 hours in, and was nearly gone by 3 hours after taking it. The nature of the effects reminded more of mescaline than anything else, both physically and emotionally, but it was less present in the body than mescaline as well as less psychedelic. At this dose anyway, the mental effects were almost all emotional, with a fantastic emotional opening and desire to communicate, and a strong delving into painful memories in a therapeutic and loving way. It is quite possible that some of that was due to the place we are both at, our emotional issues are very much on our minds and we had had a confrontation about them earlier in the day. But it also felt like such was the nature of the effects of 2C-N. It was not forceful about it, but I definitely felt guided, or primed, towards remembering painful memories, and reflecting on them.

Physically, there was a very pleasant body high, which also reminded me of mescaline, but as I mentioned, less powerful. I felt warm and secure, and confident in my movements and muscle control. I, as well as my girlfriend, also experienced an unusual level of physical endurance, which is another way it reminds me of mescaline. On mescaline, I get a feeling that I could run forever without getting tired. It almost seems to change the way I move, with long, easy strides that feel effortless. I experienced this with 2C-N, the whole first half of the hike, we were going uphill almost without a break, and we didn't even briefly stop to rest a single time, and although we were huffing and puffing at the top, after the steepest final leg up, we did not feel particularly tired or have any need to rest, beyond a few minutes to enjoy the view and drink some water. As far as nausea or gastric disturbances, neither were there any of those. I had a brief twinge of fluttery stomach, but it disappeared quickly without developing any further and could very well have just been due to anticipation/nervousness.

Overall, I was very pleasantly surprised by 2C-N. I could see it having great utility for use in therapy, as it brought painful memories forward to be lovingly and nonconfrontationally and eagerly analyzed, not only in me, but in my girlfriend (through an undeniable contact high, no less), who is normally extremely resistant to confronting her painful memories of childhood. And it was able to do this without any distracting psychedelic effects such as visuals or mental confusion, or anxiety, or even distracting euphoria (there was a very positive mood but it was not euphoria). It was very sober-minded and clear-headed.

All in all, I am now greatly looking forward to my next dose, which will be much higher, at 130mg, which is equivalent to about 119mg of the HCL, right around the dosage level reported in PIHKAL. I then plan to dose it at 65mg rectally, with the expectation that it will be about twice as potent rectally as orally, with possible differences in the nature of the effects (and I will be able to directly compare to the prior 130mg dose which by my estimation should be about equipotent), and then the remaining 90-95mg I plan to take rectally for my last dose. It will be a shame if it is not twice as potent rectally, as I only have this little bit to work with and that would mean I won't get to try it at greater than 130mg oral equivalent. But I have no reason to think that it won't behave similarly to the other 2C-Xs in that regard. Plus, there are no reports of non-oral doses made by anyone yet.

I look forward to reporting on this lovely substance further!

Exp Year: 2022	ExpID: 116262
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 38
Published: Apr 5, 2022	Views: 1,568
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2C-N (317) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Therapeutic Intent or Outcome (49), Relationships (44), Nature / Outdoors (23), Glowing Experiences (4), First Times (2)