DOSE:

150 - 2000 mg

oral

Diphenhydramine

(pill / tablet)

BODY WEIGHT:

150 lb

Seven Years of Overall Experience

This is my first experience(s) report, so please bear with me.

Since 2007 I have used and 'tripped' on diphenhydramine (Benadryl, Unisom, Sominex, generic allergy medicine) about 8 times a year.

I've gotten very good at taking it, and I'd like to share what I've learned in my experiences in a broader sense than a traditional trip report.

The type of diphenhydramine I normally take is in pill form. Both the blue gel caps or the pink pills. I stay away from the liquid formulations because whatever dye they use tends to cause the skin to break out in hives - which I've never fully understood because with 200+ mg of antihistamines, you shouldn't be breaking out in anything. I should note that the dye in the pink pills can also give me (a minor) case of hives.

The blue 50mg gel caps are advantageous because it requires less swallowing and less water bloating to get to a tripping dosage.

A normal dose for me is 125-250mg.
Strong is around 250 - 350mg.
Anything above 550mg is pretty hard for me to deal with, and becomes more difficult with higher dosages.
My maximum trip dosage was 2000mg.

Things I have learned in 7 years:

- A quiet room at home is the best setting for me to trip with diph. It's less stressful because I can't function in the outside world.

- At 90 minutes physical effects are noticeable, less if fasting on an empty stomach.

- Something happens in my intestines. Usually first, a major increase in sit-down bathroom trips is required. A package of baby wipes comes in handy. Afterwards whatever doesn't, can cause constipation for days. For a day after a trip I eat plain instant oatmeal and that solves the problem. Craving junk food happens, but any normal food just causes issues.

-Increased urination. Supposedly a decrease is supposed to happen, but I have always had to go much more often. It is also much more difficult to relax the muscles to pee, with difficulty increasing with dosage. Trying to force it to get started leads me to nearly fainting - probably due to blood pressure. So I try to be careful if standing up in the bathroom.

- My body basically stops sweating, the little that does will smell very strongly. I find myself constantly switching between wearing blankets and taking everything off. At times I've measured body temperature at over 101F degrees.

- After measuring blood pressure and pulse with a meter, I found both raise and stay at warning levels every single trip. My pulse has made it to 200+ and as time goes on, I have more and more issues with heart arrythmias and nearly passing out. It wasn't always like that, and seems to be getting worse. As a reason to stop using, possible heart failure is #1.

- Dry mouth and swallow reflex gets screwy. It's not really noticeable unless I try and eat or swallow something. Even water can present a scary challenge because I feel like I can't swallow correctly. I find swallowing 'hard' and following through, like trying to swallow a very thick liquid, works just fine.

- Absently clenching jaw very tightly at strong doses. Solved with a properly fitted sports mouthguard, $2.50 at the store.

- Absently shrugging shoulders tightly. I haven't found a good solution to this. I can force them down to relax but unconsciously they just snap back up into place.

- Vision and eye changes. Hard to see items in clear focus. At stronger doses, I start seeing double and very blurry. The well-documented 'spiders' made of dancing lines might show up, and at first they freaked me out, but over time I have found these are not hallucinations but are actually white blood cells, eye floaters and other odd eye-related issues. If I'm in an extremely well-lit and very bright room with very bright lights, I can clearly see the cells, and lines and such, moving around in a non-scary way. I have also found, separate from the dancing spiders, that any specks of dirt, marks, or holes in the wall or floor are very hard to focus on visually, and do LOOK LIKE 'insects'. I keep a bright flashlight handy, and can instantly reveal them to be harmless. Without the light, it's easier to stayed freaked out.

- Sound changes. Loud or unexpected noises are scary as all hell. My asshole cat knocking something over, or a delivery man knocking on the door will seem like the apocalypse. Music tends to have more emotional weight and it sounds different, sometimes with a very slow-motion effect. It's a really weird experience to hear things in perfect slow motion, but watch the time clock tick away normally on a song. Effects increase with dosage.

- Television shows and movies. Everything seems boring and I can't remember anything from one second to another. I went through half a season of M*A*S*H and had no idea what the hell was going on. On the other hand, in a very detached way it is kind of an interesting challenge trying to follow along.

- Touch and feel. Any drops of liquid or metal touching my skin feels shockingly ice cold. Head hair long enough to run fingers through and pull on feels amazing on the scalp and a scalp massage is addicting. Masturbating with porn is something that is mind-blowing. As a male it's hard to get an erection, but once I get one it will be the hardest erection in my life. I've found the key to orgasm is complete and utter relaxation of all muscles and consistency of stroke because it takes a while. Not hurrying, tightening up or activating any muscles, at all. Subjectively, orgasms seem to last forever with any fluids come out extremely slow, thick and pleasurable. My girlfriend dosing at 125mg had to use a vibrator, but the effects were pretty much the same. Better than any I've ever helped her with.

- If I abuse it everyday, I've noticed it'll give an anti-depressant effect inside of a week. Much quicker than regular anti-depressants.

- Memory loss, mental confusion, scattered thoughts, loss of physical coordination. I've no solutions but to wait them out.

- Difficulty and 'forgetting' to breathe. It's worse at stronger doses. Respiration reflex gets weak, 'forgetting' to automatically breathe. I can become very conscious of my breathing, and the only option is to focus entirely on my breathing, in and out. In and out. When this happens to me, it can ruin half of the trip.

- If I speaking out loud my voice comes out very soft and very strange sounding, but that's okay because I'm doing enough talking for 3 people inside my head.

- Hallucinations and delirium. I have tripped a half a dozen times at levels that cause real full-blown hallucinations. 600mg+ for me are the lowest levels and include talking with and having conversations with voices inside my head. At this point it's still the inner-voice... just with another voice or voices responding to each other. At low levels, I can still become lucid at some points and realize that it is happening, but I can't control it, and end up fading off and continuing. As dosages increases, the chatter picks up considerably. Usually things are not spoken out loud.

At high doses, 900mg+ I sometimes start to speak out loud, random words and sounds and half-thoughts. I also 'see/hallucinate' people and things as if they were right next to me and I can't tell that they aren't real.
They just 'are there'.
It's hard to explain.
Whenever I have hallucinated 'someone' 99% of the time I've never looked straight at them to 'see' them. On the contrary, whenever I have looked straight on at someone who should be there, I get shocked when they aren't.

For me, I 'see/hallucinate' things peripherally to my left or right. The mind is filling in the blanks for what isn't actually there, and if I can catch myself doing it, it's really quite interesting. For example, if I am sitting in a chair, I might be 'seeing' and having a conversation with someone next to me, yet I am actually physically staring at a wall, and not speaking out loud at all. The magic is happening entirely in the mind. Yet to my senses, they are there, next to me. The human brain is really a fascinating thing.

- The 2000MG trip.
[Erowid Note: Driving while intoxicated, tripping, or extremely sleep deprived is dangerous and irresponsible because it endangers other people. Don't do it!] It is extremely important to hide one's keys or get a trip-sitter before tripping hard on deliriants.

The day I took 2000mg of diphenhydramine was a wake-up call. In separate instances inside the house, I hallucinated and conversed with my brother, my uncle, and my landlord. This was also the only time I ever looked straight on at a hallucination (human shadows moved across the bedroom wall). After that, I hallucinated my girlfriend, and 'we' decided to go for a drive to the graveyard for a walk. Walking to the car was extremely difficult. It was hard to walk in a straight line and I was also extremely paranoid. Driving was extremely hazardous. Moving in a straight line was nearly impossible due to double, blurry vision, awful reflexes, and sights and sound that were in slow motion. Someone could have been injured or killed. The entire 5 minute drive I 'saw' and conversed with my hallucinated girlfriend in the passenger seat. Peripherally, to my right side, I 'knew' she was there. I could 'see' a picture in my mind of her sitting in the seat. Upon arriving at the graveyard 'we' walked around for a while. Eventually I returned to the car, waiting for the 'girlfriend' to finish up and come back. Eventually I looked at the empty passenger seat, and then out the window at the empty cemetery, and with a feeling like getting kicked in the stomach a shocking lucidity snapped me back to reality. Everything I thought had happened in the last 3 hours didn't happen at all. Fake, conjured up, imagined.

That cold sinking-feeling, shocking experience is nothing that can be put into words. I don't know if the amount in my bloodstream fell below a certain level, or the shock reset my brain, but I drove home seemingly perfectly fine and lucid, though still in amazement and shock.

In conclusion:
After a few days I start to feel normal. However normalizing seems to take longer every time, even with long breaks in between trips.

My 2 cents:

For the addicts: Diphenhydramine is a super high maintenance drug with all sorts of baggage attached. For people who just want to get high and feel different or feel good for a while, there are better options starting at the very bottom with weed/marijuana which you only need to open a window for.

For the psychonauts: Mess with it long enough, and it might give you a strange insight into how the brain and physical body works in a few different ways, and maybe a new understanding of people with delirium/dementia and other psychological problems.

Unfortunately most of the physical effects are tremendously negative (anti-cholinergic) effects. Half of any trip will be spent dealing with these, and while it helps to have a routine and be familiar with them, you can't stop the high blood pressure or your heart from beating out of control with tachycardia for hours on end at 130 to 200+ beats per minute. When tripping I now get fairly bad arrythmias so I'm guessing it may have damaged some valves or enlarged some areas of the heart. Not good.

The big issues for people who are struggling with addiction to Diphenhydramine, is availability and price. It's very cheap (even the $1 dollar store has bottles) and it's marketed everywhere under many names for many reasons (seasonal, pet and food allergies, sleep aids, motion sickness, mild sedative). If you're addicted, get help. If you don't want to get help, transfer your addiction to a less dangerous substance. Just my 2 cents.

Exp Year: 2007-2014	ExpID: 102793
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 29
Published: Aug 29, 2025	Views: Not Supported
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
Diphenhydramine (109) : Health Problems (27), Hangover / Days After (46), Retrospective / Summary (11), Various (28)