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Algebraic Abstraction
2C-B
Citation:   philomath. "Algebraic Abstraction: An Experience with 2C-B (exp27066)". Erowid.org. Sep 23, 2003. erowid.org/exp/27066

 
DOSE:
11 mg oral 2C-B (powder / crystals)
BODY WEIGHT: 135 lb
On a Saturday evening in the early fall, some of my friends called me up and asked if I wanted to go out to a psytrance party in the forest a few hours north of where we live, and since I hadn't been out dancing in a few months, I figured I might as well go along for the ride. After a couple hours of driving, and then an extremely bumpy and rickety last mile or two, we got to a nice little clearing with a few dozen people and a dj playing.

They offered me some 2CB, which surprised me a bit, but I figured I might as well take them up on it, since I've generally been a big fan of hallucinogens, and since one of them offered to split a 25 mg dose with me, I figured I'd be fine despite being in an unfamiliar place very far from home. We just put the powder in a bottle of water I was drinking, and then I drank half and gave the rest to my friend. This was about 12:15.

Since I knew I was taking a small dose, I spent the next little while alternately dancing and wandering around in the nearby trees, trying to pay attention if anything was happening. After about half an hour, I smoked a bit of weed with my friends, but not too much, because I wanted to see what the 2CB was like by itself. Around 1 am I had a slightly uncomfortable feeling, but not much else, and I started asking my friends if I should take a bit more, but they seemed to be tripping already, and suggested that I wait at least fifteen or twenty more minutes to make sure it wasn't just coming on slow. After a bit more attempted dancing and wandering, during which I could tell that something was going on (but I didn't want that feeling to last the rest of the night), I smoked again at about 1:15, hoping to bring the effects on that way.

I stepped into the woods again, and was about to walk back and ask my friend for some more, when all of a sudden the ground felt a bit tilted and I had a visual effect where some of the plants seemed like they were right in front of my face, instead of about six feet away. It was somewhat reminiscent of some effects I'd had with shrooms, but it was the last real sensory effect of the evening.

Some time a bit later I started dancing with more abandon, and started thinking about some abstract mathematical questions that had been suggested in a lecture I went to the previous Wednesday. (I'm a math graduate student, so I often start thinking about stuff like that when my body is occupied dancing and I'm not talking to anyone or particularly listening to the music.) I started by visualizing one-dimensional loops on a two-dimensional surface of a sphere, and then started trying to think about two-dimensional loops on the three-dimensional surface of a sphere, and actually had a moment where I managed to get a decent visualization of a four-dimensional structure. At about 2 I noticed just how actively I was dancing, and yet thinking about such intense math at the same time, neither of which I probably would have been in the mood to do without the drug, since I was a bit out of shape on both.

Over the next several hours (until about 5 or so), I continued alternately dancing (when I started getting cold) and wandering around (when I started getting tired) and thinking about even more abstract mathematical structures (mainly thinking about categories, groups, rings, and ways of fitting them into completely unified talk of mathematics in general). At that point I really wished I had other graduate students with me to discuss these things, or at least pencil and paper to write them down, but fortunately I've been able to remember my thoughts, and they all seemed pretty clear, so I'll ask my friends about them over the next several days. It definitely helped me with this sort of very abstract thought, or at least got me more focused on it (I sometimes had to repeat something a few times in my head before I got the entire statement clear to myself, but I was able to pursue definitions and theorems that I had only thought about briefly before. When I'm fairly high or drunk, it's almost impossible to sustain a stream of thought like this, and on other hallucinogens I've tried, I can't even be trusted to be getting the correct names or definitions of even basic concepts. Perhaps the lower dosage kept my mind clear, while getting me to an abstract plane of thought.)

At about 5, I was getting a bit more tired, and was spending a bit more time sitting down, and dancing less intensely, but still thinking about math. I figured I might as well try focusing on other abstract thoughts to see how well that worked. I was able to consider some arguments from my metaphysics class fairly intensely, though not for quite as long, probably because it's not as central in my thoughts. I also started wandering around, looking to see if there were any guys I wanted to hit on (since I started getting horny again later in the evening, like I had been earlier in the week), but rather than actually do anything, I was content to just imagine what I would say to someone to hit on them, and what their reaction might be, and what both I and he might be looking for, and how that would affect what we had to say. So all my thoughts were definitely directed in a more abstract direction - even the non-academic ones. However, when I would talk to someone, I would feel a lot more normal, and I don't think I conveyed to them just how much I was thinking about weird abstract things.

By about 7 am, the effects were just about totally gone (at that point it was hard to separate general sleepiness from some amount of drug effect), but the music and the party were still going, so I stayed a while longer before finally getting back in the car and doing the huge drive back home.

In general (as you can tell) this drug made me think abstract thoughts, and I feel that it worked great with my studies in math. On other drugs I've had some realizations that stuck with me afterwards, but those were about personal facts, or the way I see the world. With the 2CB, I had quite academic realizations, as well as a couple thoughts that were more of the shroom type, though there wasn't the sort of total world-dislocation that gave me those thoughts on shrooms.

As I mentioned earlier, there wasn't really much of the visual or other sensory effects I've associated with shrooms, and to some extent acid and foxy. The extent of it was the moment at the beginning that I already mentioned, plus occasionally walking around, seeing someone coming in the opposite direction, and thinking there was a mirror of some sort (despite being in the middle of the forest).

It's definitely something I want to try again, at this dosage, and it's made me consider if something similar to this might happen if I tried other hallucinogens at low dosages as well.

Exp Year: 2003ExpID: 27066
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Sep 23, 2003Views: 18,468
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2C-B (52) : First Times (2), Glowing Experiences (4), General (1), Rave / Dance Event (18)

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