DOSE: T+ 0:00	1 tablet	oral	MDMA
T+ 5:00	1 tablet	oral	MDMA
T+ 9:00	20 mg	oral	Pharms - Fluoxetine	(pill / tablet)

BODY WEIGHT:

170 lb

Choosing the “best day of my life” was never an easy decision… until now. I tried ecstasy for the first time, and it was the most incredible experience ever.

Background:

Originally, there were five of us planning to participate. Let’s give pseudonyms for easy storytelling. My name is Red (male, straight). My housemate’s name is CC (female, lesbian), and her girlfriend’s name is Lavender (female, bi). Our ex-housemate is Violet (female, straight), and the fifth person is named Jill. CC, Lavender, and Jill are fairly experienced users. Violet has used ecstasy once before, and this was my first time. At the last minute, Jill had to cancel, which was a little distressing. She was certainly the least essential group member, but Violet and I did not want to get ditched by the happy couple and have to spend the whole night by ourselves. In addition, there had been some antagonistic tension in the air surrounding CC, Lavender, and me during the previous week. At the time, it seemed as though CC thought I was trying to steal her girlfriend. This was a little insulting, especially since she is one of my best friends. Admittedly, I did have a little crush on Lavender, but I have similar crushes on many of my friends. Such feelings do not really lead to active pursuit; they are simply general feelings of closeness and attraction. Also, I was really cranky. I had been tapering down my Prozac for a week so that I would get the full effect. Finally, I was a little worried about possible long-term neurotoxic effects. Put all of these things together, and I was not all that enthusiastic about having my first experience. However, the other three were so excited that I couldn’t bear to let them down. I suppose I could call it peer pressure, but not really; these are my closest friends, and they would never pressure me into doing something that I really did not want to do.

Expectations:

My friends have given me reports of their experiences, but I have also witnessed people on ecstasy. Just going from my own personal observations, the main effect of ecstasy seemed to be hypersensitivity, particularly of tactile sensations. I assumed that this led to hypersexuality, which was supported by the observation that people seemed to go into a free love kissing/rubbing/topless orgy state. Also, positive emotions seemed to be heightened, particularly those directed at loved ones. I had read about the therapeutic effects, including increased empathy and increased ability to communicate one’s thoughts and feelings, but I had not really witnessed these firsthand.

Dosing and Buildup:

CC and Lavender each took one tab at about 8:00PM. Violet and I waited for them to get their alone time out of their systems, and we each took a tab at 9:00PM. I am not sure about the exact weight of our doses, but the results from our test kit did say that the tabs were pure MDMA. Violet and I read The Onion for a while (and laughed more than usual) while we waited for the others to finish up. Violet started to feel it well before I did. When it comes to psychoactive drugs, her body works some magic that allows her to get high first and come down last. (She was still feeling her *single dose* 12-14 hours later.) She started calling family members and telling them how much she loved them. I am very jealous that she was able to do this; I cannot talk to my family about drug use, which I assume is the norm. She talked rapidly without stopping for long periods of time; it seemed like she was having a lot of trouble articulating her racing thoughts. While I waited for it to kick in, I snuggled with my cat. As time went on, I felt more and more reluctant to get up from hugging him. In fact, by the time that everybody was ready to convene in the same room, they had to literally drag me away.

1st Dose:

CC had set up a nice environment in her room. The flickering candlelight was a very nice touch. The four of us have joint iTunes playlists on CC’s computer, and that was on in the background. We all laid on each other and hugged a lot. As time went on, I could feel my general emotional tone getting stronger and stronger. The feelings of love that I had for the people around me, as well as for my other friends and family, became overwhelming. I began to cry just from the sheer volume of emotion. I missed everyone that I had ever been friends with, and I wished all of them could be there to share the experience with me. Eventually, I calmed down a bit.

It is hard to remember the exact order of events, but I think the first thing that we did was resolve the conflicts. As it turns out, CC wasn’t really bothered by the crush; she just felt like I was starting to care more about Lavender than her. After reassurances and explanations, everybody felt better, and life was good. CC broke out some nice smelling massage oils and we made good use of those. There was a lot of massaging and rubbing going on; any tactile closeness felt really good. For me, senses did seem to be heightened a little, but I think the main driving force was simply the desire to be close to the others. There was a definite desire to take care of the others, which made it so that giving and receiving massages were equally rewarding, even though the massages felt really good.

Sometime later, we got up because they wanted to look in the mirror together. The three of them said that being on ecstasy made us all look extremely attractive/beautiful. I didn’t really see much of a change in myself, and perhaps only a slight improvement in the girls. However, it was fun having them fawn all over me (and themselves) while we watched ourselves in the candlelight. A little bit later, CC and Lavender wandered off, and Violet and I had a nice moment together. She was still talking long and fast, and trying to communicate her emotions towards me. I was starting to be able to do the same to her, though I was still less vocal than I would have liked to be at the time.

After a while, we all reunited on the couch. During the planning phase for last night, CC, Lavender, and Violet had decided that they should all feel each others’ boobs and compare. Which they did. And I was invited to judge as well. So that was pretty sweet. I have to say, however, that it was a surprisingly nonsexual experience. It was certainly enjoyable; the closeness combined with the aesthetic look and feel of the breasts was great. Still, I didn’t feel as though I needed to jump any of them. However, I would not be surprised to have a very different experience if this had happened with girls that I was interested in. The best way I have of describing the boob contest and the making out later in the evening was as a nonsexual orgy.

2nd Dose:

The passage of time was greatly increased by this drug. (The first time I looked at the clock, it was 4:00AM; I would have guessed something closer to 12:30AM.) I felt myself starting to come down after what I felt was much too little time. This was rather upsetting; I really didn’t want the experience to end. At about 2:00AM (this is a guess from CC the next morning), CC and Lavender each took 1/3 tab, and I took a whole one. CC told me that it was really common for first timers to want another whole dose, so it was important to keep extra around just in case. I certainly was very glad that it was there. Violet, by the way, was still riding high on her original dose, and would be even after our second doses had worn off.

During my second dose, my physiological responses were much more prominent. It felt so good to be hugging people, clenching my fists, and having my hands on certain objects (like shoulder blades), that it was almost a compulsion to do so. Around this time, we also decided that kissing each other might be fun. I got some good reviews; it was a nice ego boost. I thought it would be really weird to kiss CC and Violet; I am close friends with both of them, but not attracted to them at all. As it turned out, I enjoyed kissing them more than Lavender, who is the most attractive (no offense guys!). Some more time passed, and I continued to get an even stronger effect. While under the influence of my first dose, I was all about taking care of others and focusing on them; this time, I was more focused on myself. I wanted attention, I wanted people to be near me, I wanted my music on, and oh man, did I want to talk. I wasn’t being pushy about this; if people had objections, I would have yielded. However, contrasted with the first dose, the focus was very different.

As a male, I have never been particularly good at talking about myself. I’m not great at phone conversations, unless the girl wants to do pretty much all the talking. When people ask me to tell them something about myself or my life, I generally draw a blank. Suddenly, this was no longer the case. It was like my entire life story had been stored inside me under high pressure, and it was now shooting out of my mouth at speeds that I couldn’t even believe. My mouth couldn’t keep up with my racing thoughts. Story after story came out, and the music that I had put on was reminding me of still other points in my life that I could say something about.

In particular, I talked at great length about my ex-girlfriend. We dated for three years, and things ended traumatically, so most of my friends never heard much about her at all. Last night, though, I could talk about her, good times and bad, without feeling the pain that I normally did. I talked about how I had planned to propose to her, the treasure hunt I took her on for our anniversary, our breakup, what she looked like, all her little mannerisms, and everything that came to mind. It was really therapeutic; I hadn’t been able to talk about any of this for a really long time. I cried a lot when I was talking about her, but that too was quite therapeutic. I also talked a lot about my family; there was a lot of immodest bragging going on. At some point, CC and Lavender had wandered out into the hallway, so I was mainly talking to Violet when I went on my rant.

However, I later encountered CC out in the hall on the way to the bathroom and I started talking to her. I just wanted to tell her some of the best stories that I had told Violet, but I think I ended up telling her just as much, if not more. I wanted her to know everything about me, and it felt so good to talk about myself, probably for the first time in my life. Around this time (about 6:00AM) I took 20 mg of Prozac (everyone else each took 10 mg).

Comedown:

Near the end, I started to freak out a little bit. My stomach was hurting, and I didn’t know how to make it stop. Also, the constant contact and rubbing/moving went from feeling really good to really bad. I had to get away a little, and fortunately, everyone was accommodating. I can think of several reasons for the stomachache, and it is hard to tell which contributed the most. First, I had just taken 20 mg of Prozac after having gone off of it for about a week. Second, I had not really eaten much in the last 18 hours, but the thought of food made me very nauseated. I had really been exerting myself both physically and emotionally without a great deal of fuel. Third, I had been talking so fast that I probably swallowed a lot of air. It did indeed feel a little like gas.

Everything seemed to be moving too quickly; I hyperventilated, and I could feel my heartbeat. CC helped me slow my breathing down and get that under control. Then I tried to teach her to rub my back the way my dad used to when I was sick. She did pretty well, but it obviously was not the same. I missed my dad a lot (a persistent theme throughout the evening). I finally calmed down, and we all fell asleep around 7:00AM. I think that if my second dose had been half a tab, the intensity would have been a little less, but I also would not have had this trouble near the end.

Aftermath:

I woke up at 8:30AM and did not fall back asleep. I lay in bed with the three girls, and I sat up thinking until 10:00AM. I felt good, and I finally decided to get up and do something. I thought about breakfast briefly, then realized that food still sounded terrible. My muscles were a little sore, but I had expected much worse because of reports from friends. They all had sore jaws, but I did not. Actually, the only muscles that were really sore were the ones used to hug someone. I had an intense desire to tell the world about my experience, and so after calling a couple of friends, I started this report. It was difficult for me to form my words well, so I eventually just jotted down some notes and gave up. Finally, I went to my own bed and slept alone for about 6 hours.

The hangover from ecstasy was very long, probably about 3 days. If it was necessary for me to do something, I could do it, but I really did not want to do anything at all. I didn’t want to sit around, but I didn’t want to get up either, and I wasn’t tired. It wasn’t anything severe, but it wasn’t exactly fun either. A couple of weeks later, I still feel a little increase in my emotional attachment to people. Also, I saw my ex-girlfriend for the first time in a year and a half, and it felt great. A lot has changed in my life since I saw her last, so the positive result is not completely because of this experience, but I certainly think it helped.

Therapeutic Applications:

Right now, I am quite unhappy with our drug policy. I had read reports before, and after experiencing it myself, I am even more convinced that ecstasy is a therapeutic miracle drug. CC and I were able to instantly resolve our conflict. I was able to talk about my entire life, including painful things that had been buried for years. If I had been able to do a therapy session with ecstasy a few months after my awful breakup, it could have saved me years of pain. Also, I want so badly to be able to talk to my parents while on ecstasy. I have never been able to express emotions to them; it was never something our family did very well. I’ve never really been able to tell them how important they are, and it would be so, so easy to do that if I was on ecstasy. I think the social stigma is too much, though; it will probably never happen. Sigh.

Precautions:

We did our homework and tried our best to take as many precautions as possible so that we would not have any long term negative effects. The day before, we all took Vitamin C and multivitamins so that we would have antioxidants at work in our bodies. We tried to regulate the temperature carefully so that it was neither too hot nor too cold. We drank a great deal of Gatorade and Propel all night to keep from getting dehydrated, which led to an awful lot of time spent peeing. As we were starting to come down, we took some SSRI (Prozac) to block unwanted things from sneaking back into our axon terminals. Hopefully these were sufficient. Two weeks later, I do not feel any negative consequences that I could attribute to the ecstasy. To tell you the truth, even if it did cause some minor brain damage (which I don’t think it did), I would not want to undo it. There are certain things in life that I really need to experience even if there are some costs, and this is one of them.

Exp Year: 2004	ExpID: 39464
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jul 15, 2006	Views: 49,511
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
MDMA (3) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Relationships (44), Hangover / Days After (46), Glowing Experiences (4), First Times (2)