DOSE:

2

oral

Cannabis - High THC

(edible / food)

BODY WEIGHT:

180 lb

I Overdosed on THC

"I thought I died." You'll see this sentiment in a lot of trip reports, but I never truly appreciated what that meant. Can you really get so high that you think you're dying? Today, I've learned that you absolutely can. In fact, after this experience, I'm convinced that THC could potentially induce health effects at too high a dose. I'm lucky I didn't take any more than I did.

As I'm writing this, it has been about 18 hours since I swallowed two gummy edibles. What I would experience next would become one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. If you take anything away from this trip report, let it be this: Edibles will seriously fuck you up if you're not careful.

It was 11:50 at night as I was driving back home from a club. I have a preference for dosing at 12:00 since it's easier to keep track of how much time has passed. At 1 o'clock I will know that one hour has passed, and at 2 o'clock I'll know that two hours have passed, and so on.

I got home, made myself comfortable and ate two THC gummies at 12:00 midnight on the dot. The package reads "THC 5.20mg per serving", and I have a particularly low tolerance to weed since I don't smoke it or use it often.

I decided to spend the next twenty minutes installing new strings on my guitar, alone in my room. I was mentally preparing for the high I was about to experience, and I felt no perceptual changes other than feeling a bit heavy. For some reason, I was watching a Tim Farris video on one of my cell phones and on my other cell phone I was watching a tuning video to help me tune my guitar.

As a full disclosure, I have taken edibles many times before, and I'm well aware of the paranoia that may occur. That's why I thought I'd be able to handle a higher dose.

A was almost done installing the strings, when Tim Farris and the guest he was interviewing decided to start talking about their experience with hiring and firing employees. Because I was high, some of their normally-spoken sentences sounded like sarcastic jokes. I made the incorrect extrapolation that many of their remarks were back-handed references to former employees. In my stoned state, I was projecting malice and humor into Tim Farris and his host's words when they were just having a normal conversation.

As the minutes passed on, I'd begin to hallucinate. I was hearing a lot of guitar strumming, and it would become difficult to discern whether the strumming noise was coming from the guitar I was holding in my hands, or the tuning tutorial playing on my second phone. I looked at the time on one of my phones. Dear God, it was only 12:46 and I was already having minor hallucinations. It hadn't even been an hour.

With a newfound sense of fear, I resolved to get as comfortable as possible. As I got into bed and turned on my TV, a worry began to consume me. "Can a high dose of THC induce seizures?" I thought. I don't have a history with seizures, but considering how incredibly fast I was becoming stoned, having a seizure seemed like a plausible outcome.

I got in my bed, tried to get comfortable, and turned on Netflix to watch Peaky Blinders. It was the first episode of the second season, and everything in the show felt like a dream. In fact, it scarcely felt like I was watching a coherent show at all. It felt more like I was watching a reel of deleted scenes, being played in random chronological order. I didn't understand what was happening on the show, but the show was still comforting to have on. It was becoming more and more difficult to identify which character was which. I started to get all of their faces confused.

One character made some kind of monologue in the show, talking about fear and anger, and it almost felt like the character was addressing me personally. It was like the character was telling me that I can either feel fear or anger for the rest of the night-- or the rest of my life.

I tried to get comfortable again. Hours were passing. I experienced hours and hours of a confused, intoxicated stupor. But something was bothering me, how could one episode of Peaky Blinders be several hours long? I looked at one of my phones in horror. It was only 1:19. It had only been an hour and 19 minutes since I had dosed, and I was only getting higher.

I remembered the protocol I had given myself if I ever experienced a bad trip: Get water. I did my best to lumber out of my bed. I walked to my bathroom as the TV show continued, and drank water from the sink. I dare not turn the lights on the bathroom, or else I might have a glimpse at the stupid, careless person in the mirror. Moving my body in any capacity was an enormous challenge, but I managed to turn all the lights off except for the TV and got back into bed.

In this incredibly paranoid state, the thought of being randomly called on the phone by a family member terrified me. This was something that I always worried would happen during a drug experience, so I turned off my personal phone. I would use the other phone, which was still on, to check the time.

1:20. God. Only one minute had passed. One minute. It felt like a damn hour. I was hyper-fixating on the body high. I felt incredibly heavy, like I weighed 800 pounds. I could not find a comfortable position for my arms. Words randomly escaped my mouth for some reason. I spent an eternity trying to get myself in a more comfortable position where I'd still be able to see the TV. Oh God, what if I had taken so much THC that I'll have a seizure? Has that ever happened before? Is that even possible? I thought about this for what seemed like several hours. After falling unconscious and waking back up, I took another look at my phone. It was still 1:20.

Fuck. This was going to last forever.

I experienced phases of fear that came in waves. As my body sunk deeper into my bed, the idea that this is how I would die seemed more and more plausible. Then, I'd seemingly break out of this thought loop for a brief moment and look around my room. "Nope, I'm still alive" I thought. I put my head back down and lost consciousness with my eyes open. The images on the TV screen became my reality, and I was trapped there for what seemed like several more hours. "This is it, I'm dying" I thought. But again, I had a moment of clarity once I realized that I'm still alive. I fumbled around in my covers to find my phone. I found my phone and looked at the time. It was 1:21.

There were times that I began to shudder for no reason, and I thought I was seizing. I kept looking back up at a nail in my wall, fearing that it would become a terrible looking arachnid. It never did, thank God, but closing my eyes induced some visual hallucinations, mainly insectoid geometry in a black void. Weirdly, I wasn't as afraid of these hallucinations as I was afraid of the thought that I had permanently fucked up my brain on drugs. "One thing is for sure" I thought as I lay in my bed "things will never be the same." And then I lost consciousness again.

The texture on my ceiling wiggled and warped as I began to wake up. Or, maybe I hadn't lost consciousness at all. Maybe I just went brain-dead for a few hours. I looked at my phone again and it was still only 1:21.

FUCK.

Every single minute was worth an hour. 1:21. 1:22. 1:23. I spent a lifetime worrying about numerous different things as the minutes passed on. My only hope was that I would peak at some point. "I just have to wait until 3:00. That is when I'll start coming down" I thought to myself. But I looked at my phone again, and it was still only 1:21.

My body made some kind of physiological response to being high, and I was again worried that I had had a seizure. I was worried that the TV was too loud and my roommates would get mad. I was worried that I would go insane and start screaming. I was worried about a lot of shit. And then it was 1:22.

I folded my arms behind my head and leaned my head on my arms. It felt like I was trapped in a box, and my arms were the box. I experienced extreme tunnel-vision. I kept thinking that I had made the worst mistake of my life.

I tried to masturbate to take my mind off the fear, which didn't really work. I wasn't even touching my skin, I was touching my groin with my underwear still on. But touching myself through my underwear still felt a bit good. So I remained in this purgatory where I would suffer an eternity of terrible thoughts and fears, and the only way to subdue the fear was to remember that I had the ability to feel some pleasure. After masturbating for some time, I'd get so confused about everything that I would forget what I was even doing, and that's when the fear consumed me again. So I would switch between being afraid of everything and touching myself. I would switch between these two modes for several eternities.

I kept thinking that I didn't have control over my mind, and I was afraid I would disturb my roommates if I made a single noise. I kept worrying that I would forget how to use my voice and accidentally scream, therefore upsetting my roommates. Now it was 1:24.

Did I forget how to breathe? I blew air out of my mouth. Then I remembered that I had to suck air back into my mouth. Okay, I guess I'm still breathing. Should I be able to feel my heart beat? Oh God, I can't feel my heart beat. I can't feel my heartbeat! I'm dead. I've overdosed on THC and I'm dead. I checked my phone and it was 1:26.

I could continue to describe myself looking at my phone after an eternity, only to realize a minute had passed, but I think you get the point. Every minute or two, I'd check my phone to see the time. And every time I did that, I was struck with indescribable terror that only a two minutes or less had passed. My body randomly shook during the night. I am not sure if it was a normal bodily function like shivering or if I was actually having a seizure, but my fear of having a seizure may have just been paranoia.

I must have had a few open-eye hallucinations, but they were strangely understated. Some character in the Peaky Blinders was wearing eyeglasses, and it looked like they were wearing two eyeglasses one on top of the other. Another hallucination I had involved the edge of my blanket bleeding or melting into the walls. I think I had numerous minor hallucinations like this.

My only relief came when I realized that it was almost 3:00. Almost three hours had passed and I was still alive. Thank fucking God. Not only was it almost 3:00, but I think I had peaked. So since I had peaked, everything was about to get better. Holy fucking shit, I was struck with a wave of relief. I'm actually coming down. I survived. But even though I was feeling better, I intensely worried that I might not be the same again, or that once I sober up I'll have permanent brain damage, or that I will have permanently reduced mental faculties.

Somehow, I managed to fall asleep. Real sleep, that is, not these unconscious states of confusion. I actually managed to get some rest, and when I came back to the waking world, I could see sunlight through my window. I was still insanely high, but I tried to count to ten. I successfully counted to ten, so I decided that I didn't have extreme brain damage after all. I shut my eyes again and rested for a few more hours.

Even as I write this about 20 hours since taking the dose, I'm still pretty high, but at least I'm able to type on my computer. A part of me still worries that I might have done some sort of damage to myself, or that I may have lingering trauma from this experience, but at present I feel more or less okay.

The thing that worries me the most is what I would have experienced had I randomly decided to eat three gummies instead of two. What a careless thing I had done. I hope there is an upper limit to how high on THC you can feel, and I hope that I reached it last night. Maybe if I had eaten three or more gummies, I would have had mostly the same experience as I did last night, and the intensity would have some kind of upper limit. That's what I HOPE at least. I fear that someone who does a higher dose than what I had done may become comatose. I'll never take marijuana edibles lightly again.

I mean, I only took about 10mg of THC according to the package, and I hear about people taking up to 100mg of THC! The thought of taking such a dose inspires great fear in me. I'm incredibly happy to be back in the normal world.

Exp Year: 2023	ExpID: 117116
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 28
Published: Aug 1, 2025	Views: Not Supported
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