DOSE: T+ 0:00	100 mg	oral	MDMA	(powder / crystals)
T+ 1:30		oral	MDMA	(powder / crystals)
T+ 2:30		oral	MDMA	(powder / crystals)
T+ 3:00		smoked	Cannabis

BODY WEIGHT:

60 kg

This is a collective experience, narrated from my viewpoint. This story will probably not increase the amount of currently available information on the effects of MDMA or cannabis – although it might be of some relevance when it comes to describing their combined use. Either way, we thought it’d be a good idea to write it down, for whoever is up for reading it, and mainly for ourselves.

We met at college in 2012, a bunch of then 20-year-olds studying science, and we have been great friends ever since. Although this particular experience brought 7 of us together (C, D, M, MD, O P and me, S), the group used to be larger. During our long years of friendship, we shared a lot of stuff: binge studying days and nights, parties, holiday trips, and obviously, a curiosity for experimenting with psychoactive substances. Some had previous experience, and others, like myself, had our first encounters with psychedelics within this group, which definitely had a great impact in our lives. We mainly get together to take these substances in houses or out in nature so that we are comfortable, free to talk and able to explore and share.

Logically, at first, our psychedelic meetings took place more often. As time went by, some of us changed colleges and/or began working, and arranging them became increasingly more difficult. We had our last encounter in early 2020, just before the pandemic started, and after that, strict lockdowns and COVID itself kept us apart for a pretty long while.

During the first lockdowns, we started to get together a collective playlist for our next special meeting, which we hoped would take place before 2020 was over. This was not the case, and it was not until July 2022 that we could finally set the date, after C unsuccessfully tried to get his hands on some LSD and ended up buying 1 gram of crystalline MDMA instead. At this point, the playlist was over 16 hours long.

The week before the event was filled with preparation and collective anticipation. We arranged to get a sufficient amount of glowsticks, candy of different sorts and colorful lighting. We also knew that we would smoke a fair amount of weed, since that is what we always do when the effect of the MDMA starts to wear off. MD took care of getting rolling papers and filters, and while he was at it, he saw a golden rolling paper on display for sale, meant to roll a golden joint. It was pricey, yes, but not as much as we thought it could be, especially considering the rampant inflation which we lived with every day – it might even be considered a thoughtful investment. It would definitely be a special occasion, so he bought it. All week long we joked about how far we’d got, being able to afford a joint rolled in gold. ‘You will all be tempted by the golden toke’, I warned the rest of the group in a prophetic manner, when some of them remained skeptical of making such an unnecessary expense.

Friday finally arrived. C, D, P, MD and I got together at D’s house, which is big but cozy. We had dinner, and started getting everything ready for the occasion, putting in a lot of dedication, like we always do. We got a mattress and some pillows on the floor, and arranged a few blankets and sleeping bags over them as well. We set up some lights in the main room and in an adjacent chamber, and we put all our candy and glowsticks on display. C divided the gram in 10 approximately even fractions (but we did not use a scale), and from that he put together some parachutes. And we rolled a lot of joints. We needed to have our neuroprotective weed ready for later, and we knew we probably wouldn’t be able to roll the joints later on. In a collective production we assembled 12 joints. Meanwhile, MD had the time of his life rolling the golden joint. It looked so pretty that we all took pictures with it – we were quite sure we would not have the possibility to roll one like that again. We agreed that it would be the first joint to be smoked when the comedown began. None of us had previously smoked that day.

Around midnight O and M arrived, and the team was then complete. At this time, I felt very tired and couldn’t stop yawning, since it had been a long day. M had brought 3 grams of psilocybe cubensis mushrooms grown by MD, and immediately ate them – she did not want to take crystals. The rest of us ate our MDMA: D directly swallowed them after sticking them on her finger, and the rest of us parachuted our doses. O and I had about 100 mg, while C (who had also eaten some mushrooms beforehand), D, MD and P had 150 mg. We put the playlist on, in shuffle mode.

During the first 30 minutes we did not feel anything special, although I did notice that I was not tired anymore, but very active and eager to dance when the climax arrived. For a while we entertained ourselves with the glowsticks, making up intricate structures and spinning them around until they went flying over our heads. We danced a little, but apart from being particularly distracted by the brightly colored glowsticks and feeling some alternating warm and cold chills, none of us reported any further effects. M said that she thought the mushrooms might be useless after all, since they had been harvested over a year ago.

Only five minutes after this claim, M was completely overwhelmed by the powers of psilocin. She had to lay down and get under a blanket. She said she felt like she had taken Ayahuasca – which had also happened to me when I tried out this same batch of mushrooms as soon as they were harvested ("expexp115432 - Testing A Home-Grown Psychedelic: An Experience with Mushrooms). She proceeded to scream and sigh loudly and copiously: her trip had taken its own direction, away from the rest of us. This went on for a couple of hours.

(T: +1:30): An hour later we were still feeling no effects from the MDMA. We decided to redose, and for this, each of us dampened a lollipop (or finger) with saliva and placed it inside the little bag that contained the remainder of the crystals. The taste was bitter, as usual, although not as much as in previous occasions. We drank plenty of water and ate candy to get rid of the taste.

M asked to change the music to a mellow psytrance set, and the rest of us tried to help the substance by getting up to dance and moving glowsticks around. However, none of us felt any changes. At this point, we started having doubts about the quality of the crystals. We considered that maybe we had had too much for dinner, although this made no sense since D had only eaten an apple and was not feeling high either. The stimulating effect was undeniable since none of us felt sleepy anymore, nevertheless, none of us were clenching our jaws or jittering. At this point, O decided to have some mushrooms as well.

(T: +2:30): Still feeling nothing else, we went for a final redose. For this, we used the remainder of the initial gram, and also a little that was left from a previous batch. We noticed that the older crystals were definitely a lot more bitter. Did we indeed get low purity MDMA this time? Both batches were purchased from the same supplier, although none of them were tested.

We switched the music back to our playlist, this time curated by me, and kept talking and snacking on candy. Still nothing.

Finally, C declared himself disappointed with his purchase, as he was expecting more from such a reunion. On the other hand, O announced that the mushrooms were doing their job and that he was immersed in fractal visions.

(T: +3:00): In a climate of general disappointment, we assumed we were not getting anything out of the MDMA, so we decided it was finally time to light up the golden joint. So, we all sat in a circle on the mattress and some chairs, covered in blankets. We switched the lighting to a yellow hue, so that we could appreciate the golden shine in all its glory. It was a really beautiful joint. King size, well packed, perfectly rolled in a conical style. As our unbreakable tacit law demanded, MD (who had rolled it) proceeded to light it up and hit it first. The burning tip appeared incandescent in the semidarkness, bright orange with golden spots. He passed it on to me. The joint felt extremely light in my hands, and the metallic paper had a unique texture. We kept on passing it along, carefully collecting the ashes, so that we could appreciate the resulting gold bits in it afterwards.

And so, in this particular act, everything changed. It was immediate and collective: right after the first smoking round, the MDMA became present in all of us at the same time. ‘That certainly kept us waiting!’, exclaimed C, and suddenly all the entactogen and psychedelic effects we had been longing for showed up, massaging and confusing all our minds simultaneously. We were astonished, we could not believe the synergy that we had just experienced from the weed. We decided on the spot that we had witnessed some sort of drug miracle, a kind of transubstantiation enabled by the Golden Toke. The prophecy had been fulfilled: the situation was so special and mystical, that we instantly knew that we had hit a milestone in our shared history. The golden joint was consumed completely without going out even once: it burned just perfectly. I even had to refrain from the last round, since I feared going too far away too quickly.

From that moment on, time became distorted and seemed to go faster, as it usually happens under the influence of MDMA. We were amazed. We listened to our music, singing and dancing on the spot. We played and discussed particular songs that had at some point been relevant among our group. We laughed until we cried, we were really into it. We talked a lot – at least I know I did. I felt I couldn’t stop talking, commenting and remembering things. I felt an incomparable bond to those surrounding me and needed to express it – but also, I kind of feared that if I stopped talking, the thin thread that kept me hanging on to reality might break. M said that she could not understand how we were able to talk so much. Although her trip on mushrooms was definitely different from ours, from this point they became more alike. She had also stopped grunting and sighing.

We talked intimately, and we realized that we had known each other for exactly ten years. We had been sharing all kinds of adventures for ten years! It seemed absolutely logical that honoring such anniversary with a joint made of gold would open the doors to a psychedelic experience that had been long awaited – for years, and also for hours.

The combination of MDMA and cannabis repeatedly came to my attention. Many times, my boyfriend MD and I had experienced a notorious and sudden change in the perceived effects when smoking during the comedown, and we had read other reports that highlighted this as well – even some in which smoking turned good trips into bad ones. We decided that the combined effect was for us somewhat LSD-like, since the psychedelic effect seemed particularly enhanced, and this also held true this time. But it was the first time that we experienced this after the MDMA alone had absolutely NO effects on us. We discussed this during the experience, and the seven of us arrived to the same conclusion as we always do: if we had to pick only one psychoactive substance – and I’m sorry to let Shulgin down with this one - it would definitely be pot .

Throughout the high, we did not experience jaw clenching or any physical discomfort. However – and luckily – the tactile effects were absolutely there. We caressed each other for a long while, and ended up forming a human ball in the middle of the mattress, massaging and being massaged at the same time like we were all the same person. Beautiful! MD and I also made out for a while, and it felt amazing, just like the first time we tried on MDMA.

(T: +8:00): As I previously commented, our perception of time was messed up, and somehow five hours went by very quickly. I could not really pin down on what we did exactly apart from what I already described: we just hung out and took advantage of the amazing entactogenic effect, while enjoying the music. Incredible and unexpected. Finally, at about 8 am and clearly coming down, we again turned to our so-called neuroprotective joints (note: I have no idea where MD got it from, but he is convinced that smoking after MDMA helps protect neurons). We laid down all together on the mattress and tried to rest, while the sun reappeared through the window, showing us the overcast, rainy day outside.

I could barely rest as I had to get up to pee multiple times – a symptom I have always experienced after consuming MDMA. This was the worst part of the whole experience, since no headache or discomfort of any kind was present the following day. Quite the contrary, everything took place under a strong, beautiful afterglow atmosphere. This feeling and the integration of psychedelic experiences the following day are probably what I most enjoy. I firmly believe that bad comedowns can be avoided by extending the meetings well after the effects are over. These things take time to process, and time should be spared.

At about 11 am, D, C and I went out to get some food from a French bakery nearby. The day was cold and rainy, suggesting us to stay inside and keep each other company. The breakfast was simply amazing, we all enjoyed each bite like we hadn’t eaten in months. We rested a little more, talked and kept smoking. Most of the joints we had rolled the night before were still there – we had not anticipated being completely blown away by the Golden Joint. So, each of us took one home as a souvenir. Not only that: I took the remaining gold paper from the joint (which was covering the filter) and cut it in seven pieces. I placed each of them in an Eppendorf tube (C, D, O and I are chemists, and D had plenty of them at her place) and handed them out. MD and I also kept the special gold-streaked ashes. We went home, and the rest of the weekend went by peacefully, between storms and clouds.

Our reunion had indeed been long awaited, but its memory would definitely stay with us much longer. Never underestimate the power of a golden toke among golden friends.

Exp Year: 2022	ExpID: 116565
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: 30
Published: Aug 11, 2022	Views: 1,221
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
MDMA (3), Cannabis (1) : Glowing Experiences (4), Relationships (44), Personal Preparation (45), Combinations (3), Small Group (2-9) (17)