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Worth Its Weight in Fun
Diphenhydramine
Citation:   TeKtonik. "Worth Its Weight in Fun: An Experience with Diphenhydramine (exp28612)". Erowid.org. Oct 23, 2007. erowid.org/exp/28612

 
DOSE:
300 mg oral Diphenhydramine (powder / crystals)
BODY WEIGHT: 165 lb
I've done quite a few different drugs in my life, but being in college kinda constricted the cash flow. In effect, I've become very interested in recreational OTC drug use. I'd already done the DXM thing, and I was sick of it, so I decided to try benadryl, despite the bad experiences that I read about on the web.

So I went down to the store and bought a 24 pack of benadryl capsules, which contain 25mg of Diphenhydramine apiece. I went up to my girlfriends room and waited until she went asleep. I'm an insomniac so I figured that if nothing happened on the pills, at least they should make me drowsy enough to sleep, since Diphenhydramine is also in OTC sleeping pills. I broke 12 capsules into a 12oz cup of koolaid, then 1 more to make up for whatever I lost in breaking them, for a total of 13 pills. I figured that if I mixed the powder from the capsules with a liquid, it wouldn't take so long for the 'trip' to set in. I took one big gulp of the koolaid to test, and it wasn't as bad as I expected. The taste reminded me of some medicine I had for whooping cough once though, so I grabbed a mountain dew to chase it down, then proceeded to finish off the cup in about 4 gulps.

I went and started chatting online with a girl from the school I was at, and told her that I would let her know if anything big happened. About 40 minutes later, I was still talking to her. Bored, I looked absentmindedly at my feet, and I saw some change lying on the ground. Instinctly I reached down for a dime, and to my surprise, the change slid away from my hand! I did a double take, and saw it move a little further. I blinked twice trying to make sense of what I was seeing, and the change didn't move again. I found this quite amusing, and told my friend what had happened. After that, I began to see movement out of the corner of my eye, and when I would look, there would be nothing there. This kind of scared me at first, since I was the lone awake person in the dark room, but I was easily able to tell myself that it was just the drug taking effect, so the fear quickly left.

About that time, I decided to go to take a leak. The men's room was up a floor from where I was, so I had to go up a flight of stairs. I was walking as if I were in slow motion, not because I felt 'drugged' but just because it felt like the thing to do, much like how I felt with the 'robo-shuffle' on dxm. I opened the door to the stairwell, and started up the stairs. I heard the door slam shut behind me. Then I heard it slam again. Then again. I heard the same door slam 3 times. I thought about it, chuckled to myself, then started up the stairs again. Right before I got to the bathroom, I could hear music playing down the hall, which I thought was odd for 4am. I kept walking to the bathroom, but I stopped just outside the door.

The music I heard was coming from the water fountain! I examined, and sure enough, a faint tune was coming from the insides of the bubbler. I pushed the lever in, and the music kept playing. After 3 presses, the music stopped, and I took a drink. I then proceeded to the bathroom, did my business, and walked back to the room without incident. I was excitedly telling my friend about what had just happened when I heard the computer make a fart sound, as if it were mocking me. I stopped typing and laughed to myself. There were a few other auditory effects, as well. I'd often hear a sound like someone was going to start talking, then I'd look to see who it was and realize that my girlfriend and her roommate were still asleep.

I was enjoying the trip immensely, when I decided to go to the bathroom again. Apparently this stuff makes me have to pee. Up to that point, I hadn't really felt any kind of buzz or high or anything, although my typing had notably slowed down, and there were a few instances that I had to stop for a few seconds to try and remember what it was I had been typing. But when I stood up to go this time, it felt like some one was trying to pull me back down, like there was a tremedous weight on my body. It was just like the internet stories said: someone had turned up the gravity. I had a little more trouble walking a straight line this time, but balance wasn't overly difficult.

I sat down at the computer yet again, and my friend said she was going to sleep. It was now 4:30am. So there I sat, ready to take on the halucinations alone. I figure my trip was peaking at that point, but it still wasn't overwhelming. I saw little, sqiggly black lines on the wall that were pulsating like arteries would. I looked at the refrigerator and it appeared to expand and contract, as if it were breathing. I kept thinking that I saw my girlfriend's roommate move, but when I looked, she hadn't. I could see her feet hanging off the end of her bed, and it appeared that she was shivering. I stared intently for a moment, and the shivering got more intense. I could tell it wasn't real, though, because it looked very 'robotic' like her whole body was vibrating, rather than having actual muscle spasms. This continued on for awhile, but I decided I had had enough and got into bed.

This was the only unpleasant part of my experience. I had taken benadryl before, for non-recreational reasons, an it had made me incredibly drowsy. This time I wasn't tired in the least, but I think it had something to do with the adreniline from seeing OEV for the first time. As I lay there, I began to feel like I needed to stretch certain muscles. It is hard to explain, but I would get a very uncomfortable feeling in various muscles in my body that would go away if I stretched out. But as soon as I would stretch a particular muscle, one or two more would feel like they needed to stretch. This was very annoying and caused me to toss and turn constantly.

Then I made the mistake of thinking to myself 'Well at least I didn’t get 'the itch''. As soon as I thought this, my head started to itch. If I itched my head, my leg would itch, if I itched my leg, my arm would itch, and so on. If I stopped thinking about it, the itch would stop, but my mind would just keep coming back to it. Eventually, I drifted off into a semi-sleep. It was like when you're laying in your bed, just about to go to sleep, and something in a dream you're having makes you 'jump'. I kept snapping in and out of these dreams, none that were particulary special, for quite awhile. The last time I remember looking at the clock was 6:00am, and I had taken the benadryl at about 3. I didn't awaken until 12 hours later. I didn't feel any after effects or hangover really, just that kinda slight 'head tiredness' I get if I smoke like 4 bowls before sleeping.

All in all, I enjoyed my experience quite a bit. I didn't have any extreme halucinations, but the ones I did see were interesting enough because they seem so real. The fact that you don't feel overly high or intoxicated only adds to the realism of the halucinations. I'm definately gonna try it again sometime, with a slightly larger dose.

Exp Year: 2003ExpID: 28612
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Oct 23, 2007Views: 24,732
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Diphenhydramine (109) : General (1), First Times (2), Alone (16)

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