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Should I Live as Thomas Aquinas or as Socrates?
2C-B & Alcohol
Citation:   Redleader. "Should I Live as Thomas Aquinas or as Socrates?: An Experience with 2C-B & Alcohol (exp72502)". Erowid.org. Sep 2, 2008. erowid.org/exp/72502

 
DOSE:
T+ 0:00
10 mg oral 2C-B (pill / tablet)
  T+ 2:10 20 mg oral 2C-B (pill / tablet)
  T+ 0:00   repeated oral Alcohol (liquid)
BODY WEIGHT: 59 kg
“I am no longer sure of anything. If I satiate my desires, I sin but I deliver myself from them; if I refuse to satisfy them, they infect the whole soul.” - Jean Paul Sartre

“Not what we have, but what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance.” - Epicurus

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This report documents my first breakthrough experience with 2c-b, which doubled as my first breakthrough with any of the 2c-x entactogen family of research chemicals. It chronicles the adventures that I and several friends experienced when we, both uncharacteristically and impulsively, found ourselves tripping on this compound while at a trance club. As per usual, I caution my readers that this is a personal experience of mine, and as psychoactive substances effect each and every one of us differently, my synopsis should be treated only as a reference, and surely never as a rubric.

Background:

I am a 23 year old male, weighing 59kg. I will not give a quantitative list of the experiences/experiments under my belt, but I will say that I have familiarity with a variety of psychoactive substances, both natural and synthetic, and I have gained the maturity required to handle intense psychedelic experiences as well as most. Recently, I have found myself using MDxx (and, subsequently less pure amphetamine derivatives, with which ecstasy pills are inevitably cut in my domestic) compounds and alcohol socially, and have had single sessions with LSD and opium within the past six weeks. I am not currently using cannabis or tobacco, and I have not romanced much of either for around nine months. My tolerances for phenethylamines* are all rather high, but contrastingly, most tryptamines hit me quite hard at comparatively low doses.

*I note that my experience with phenethylamines is far less-extensive than with tryptamines, being limited to Mdxx and DOM. Thus statements that I make about how phenethylamines affect me are likely to be naïve, considering my lack of deep exposure with the 2c-x family.

Aside from my weekend escapisms, though, I have been taking proper care of my physical body, with vitamins, good nutrition and exercise now being second-nature to my life. Mentally, my experiences over the past 6 months could easily be likened to the proverbial roller coaster. A combination of social difficulties, academic demands and recreational traveling has left me feeling exhausted and taxed. With that said, I am, by nature, bored easily by dormant periods in life, so recently I have been “battling on” with the fear of a life seemingly too static as my driving force.

Before I delve into the chronicles of my recent experience, I need to elaborate on my relationship with the 2c-x family. About 16 months ago, in a disciplined, safe and clinical fashion, I was able to sample 2c-b, 2c-i and 2c-t-7, though all samples were at proscribed “threshold doses.” Ignoring the latter two, what I got out of 2c-b (this was from a 10mg dose) was that it, at a lower dose level, was very similar in (both physical and perceptual) effects to MDxx, particularly pure MDA. I recall the physical reaction being almost identical to MDxx, with the only difference being a lack of empathy/love. Also, as expected, 2c-b delivered a much more direct sensual enhancement/distortion and had the characteristic “something big could be right around the bend” flare that is typical to low doses of the true psychedelics.

Specifications:

Substances: 4-bromo-2,5-dimethoxyphenethylamine (2c-b); alcohol

Presentation: pill form; liquid

Dosage: 2c-b @10mg at t+0:00, 20mg at t+2:10*; alcohol @ repeated

Shorthand: I use “MDxx” to reference any nonspecific compound of the 3,4-methylenedioxy cluster; I utilize Shulgin’s rating scale without explanation, as one is only a Goggle search away.

* This dosage is a “best guess,” gauged both on:

1) A comparison to my brief history with a known dosage of this substance.

2) The spectra of reactions of others also on this product, when compared to information available across the web.

If I were to suggest a margin of error, I’d say that I ingested no less than 25mg and no more than 35mg in totality, so (30 +/- 5)mg.

Experience:

Having recently arrived back in my resident country from a month of rewarding, yet intense backpacking, I had spent the previous two weeks resting, readjusting and strategizing for my upcoming future. It wasn’t that I felt that my life had reached a genuine crossroads by any means, but rather that I was somewhat begging for an overhaul of the certain elements of my psyche that control my motivations. I mean, was I now old enough to bootstrap new senses of self by rearranging my furniture? Would the purchase of a pet solve all of my problems? Should I subscribe to the local newspaper and habitually read it every morning on my patio?

Being a few months away from obtaining my Masters degree and becoming exposed to bigger and better pastures, truth be told I’ve become surprisingly apathetic in many ways. Well perhaps the apathy was not so much for my immediate life, but more directed toward the idea of having to make major life changes once again within the next year. Not yet do I feel as if I have exhausted this stage of my life, and I don’t know if I am ready to “grow up” to the next level this soon. It might, in the end, simply be that I am seeking greater comforts in the aging process itself, not necessarily wanting to be excited about what I could soon be doing in my life, but embracing change and progression instead of seeing them as threats to my mental-health.

I could liken my situation to that of driving an automobile down the highway. My life, despite being quite dynamic, still feels like it is on cruise-control. But cruise-control in a newer car, one of the systems that can be increased and decreased simply by pushing buttons. And I am driving in heavy traffic, frantically increasing and decreasing, but still not wanting to be bothered with the gas or the clutch. And this is what I need to change, I need to disengage the cruising and manually drive myself forward.

Thus, while I had been somewhat enjoying the added security and productivity of a life momentarily calmed down, my friends had little trouble interrupting my life just long enough to keep me out late into a Friday night. A well lit and flashy rest stop in my automobile analogy, why not stop and have a look around?

The plan was to go to a trance club that we often frequent, and little more than that. Implicitly in this invitation was also an invitation to bring whatever trippy stuff along that I could fit into my pockets, as whenever these friends and I get together, we do our bests to trip each other out (sober or not). So I set off for discount stores, filling my bags with glowsticks, squeezy balls, candy, etc. And the more I shopped, the more excited I got about the prospect of having a fun night with people I appreciate a lot and had not seen in over a month. And the more excited I got, the more I become open to the idea of enhancing my night with something beyond alcohol.

Shortly after arriving at the venue, I was informed that MDxx substances were not immediately locatable, and that if we wanted a big night, our only present option would be 2c-b. Interesting sure, anticipated, well something like this was bound to happen one night or another. I had not given much thought to research chemicals over the past year, both because I had not been socially exposed to them in a while and because most of my drug experiences recently have been opportunistic and not methodically planned.

However, a recent flooding of the local club scene with 2c-b pills (ironically, with propagated advertising as being anything but 2c-b) had me rereading entries for some of the 2c-x compounds. Encompassed within that reeducation was a refreshment of the dosage, effects and dangers of 2c-b. And surely enough, with a refreshment of knowledge comes a refreshment of curiosity. A curiosity that rivaled that of a dozen dead cats. A curiosity that has often been the first domino in the more fantastical episodes of my life. A curiosity that, after several days of consideration, put 2c-b near the top of my to-do list.

I appreciate my readers for understanding that I cannot share the details concerning the sociology of how the 2c-b was obtained or how I knew that it actually was bona fide 2c-b that I had. But within my surroundings, I recognized that my knowledge of what actually rested in my hand guaranteed me minority status. Based on word-of-mouth, I gathered that the pills contained around 10mg of 2c-b. So my plan was developed as taking one pill, waiting long enough for my body to get to know the dosage, and then deciding how much I wanted to top up, if I wanted to at all.

Introducing a brief cast-of-characters for the night, “A” is a friend of mine that I met clubbing a few months ago. A has a great heart and loves to have fun. Even more so, I admire A for his ability to live impulsively and appreciate things happening to him in his current moments. A goes into every experience with a carefree and positive mindset, and I respect his ability to both come up and come down on substances with seemingly little difficulty. “B” is a friend of A’s. B, though younger than me, infinitely impresses me with his experience and maturity, and he is a guy that I’d trust with my safety, my wallet, my mental health, and pretty much anything else.

A had been drinking heavily before he came out, and he planned to take 20mg of 2c-b along with one dose of high-quality liquid LSD (I am guessing around 200ug). B would be joining me in the 2c-b endeavor, taking 20mg when I took my first 10mg, but also dosing on around 80mg of (non-tested) MDMA concurrently. The three of us would also be drinking alcohol and water sporadically over the night. I note that all three of us have high tolerances for alcohol, so while present in our systems, nothing about the amount or types of drinks that we had would be anything influential or novel.

I also introduce “C” as a friend of B. I don’t know C very well, but she is very friendly and A and B have nothing but positive things to say about her.

The major thing initially holding me back from immediately ingesting was the fear of taking a strong psychedelic at a time in my life where it could easily turn disastrous. Going into this night, I had a lot on my mind, with several things only a trigger away from sending me into a negative psychological episode. Having collapsed before on both mushrooms and LSD, I know what a bad trip is like, and I want to believe that my maturity would curb my behaviour from ever letting me set myself up for such a shipwreck ever again. I was banking on what I’ve read about 2c-b’s (minimal) effects on emotions/mentality, though my own mind, separate from the drug, I feared could be equally as powerful/unpredictable. I was rolling the dice, sure, and I stood to lose more than money or respect. But why live without taking risks? I can rip myself to shreds soberly in comparable fashions, and I have before, so perhaps I was correct in raising the ante? I mean, 2c-b might actually do some good for me?

A, B, C and I spent a short amount of time talking about my recent travels. We all seemed to be in nonnegative states of mind, and keep passing back-and-forth glances of “Today is as good as any day, let’s go storm-chasing!” Because these people are all so positive and relaxed in whatever they do, I felt very comfortable letting a chemical let my guard down around them. I trusted them and I knew they trusted me.

“Want to get a drink?” asked B.

I answered with “Ya, I think it’s a good time for a drink.”

t+0:00: Under the pretence of just another swig of Corona, one dose of 2c-b wandered its way down my throat and into my system. I glance at my mobile phone, memorizing the current time and doing mental calculations about what I should be thinking and when. I finish my Corona, listen to the music playing in the bar area for a bit and then venture off to try and find a good conversation.

t+0:30: No effects as of yet, which is not unusual for an oral dose, according to literature. I find myself talking with friends and doing my best to understand what seems to be a highly complicated series of social complications and conflicts that is developing. The venue is becoming extremely crowded, much more so than to my liking. I witness groups of naïve clubber kids purchasing 2c-b under an ecstasy pretence, and I cannot help but feel like I am watching a string of sailboats about to experience quite choppy water.

A friend of mine “D” enters my reality in a state of panic. After several rounds of stuttering and regrouping, D manages to convey to me that he’s dosed five of these “wicked ecstasy” pills and he‘s feeling “very scattered” and that everything is playing games with him. He also comments about things having halos and red dots appearing seemingly everywhere. After my asking, he says that he is “not okay” and needs to get to a secure place. I shake my proverbial head and help him gather his things and reunite with his friends. But I know that this could be a red flag, as this is a friend of mine who has definitely taken too much (we’re looking at around 50mg 2c-b orally) without doing his research. And this could possibly plague my experience, as I will be indefinitely worried about his security and well-being.

t+0:45: First alerts are here. What I feel is an anxious/tense feeling building along my spine, and I feel my neck and sinuses begin to tense up. All in all, the generic feeling of a phenethylamine saying “hello.” I will note, though, that as it continues to develop, I begin to feel slightly scattered, as if my short-term memory is sacrificing a bit for the experience. This is, for me, uncharacteristic for psychedelics, as I usually find the mind-expansion comes before the mental confusion. (+) on Shulgin’s scale.

t+1:00: Simply put, this level of dosage feels like a low/medium dose of MDA, take away the strong love for humanity. I was affected, sure, and was it different from that with which I associate this venue? Noticeably, yes. It was “organic” instead of “therapeutic” to be brief. It was imposing and not accentuating, it was greeting me as a tourist, not an identifiable townsman. (++) on Shulgin’s scale.

t+1:30: The effects have been level for the past :30, never breaking above (++), and I do not anticipate anything more than what I currently know from one 2c-b pill. I am enjoying the music a lot and never have I felt like the 2c-b has imposed on my ability to control either my mind or my body. One idiosyncrasy that I do notice is that I only feel nausea immediately after I have a drink. And furthermore, this only happens when the drink is carbonated. B expresses to me that he is feeling much stronger nausea.

I find D again and make sure that he is okay. He is struggling to keep it together, but doing quite an admirable job, all things considered. I decide that he is in good company and it will be okay for me to leave his presence indefinitely.

t+2:00: Looking at my mobile phone, I knew that if I was going to redose, it would have to be very soon. The last thing I wanted was a situation in which the venue closed and I was not in a headspace to be able to deal with getting myself home. I had been “testing the waters” in my mind in that I had been tracing over several sensitive issues in my life to see how 2c-b made me interpret them, and I was confident that 2c-b was not doing anything to negatively accentuate my temporary reactions. 2c-b was all very much involved with my immediate surroundings; it was not a contemplative substance, nor was it leading me to any novel self-assessments.

t+2:10: “You only live once!” “When in doubt, double the dose!” “Do it for science!” If it wasn’t my inner voice looping these motivations that made my decision for me, then it definitely was B putting his arm around me and telling me how magical his night was becoming that was the first in a sequence of events that eventually ended with two more 2c-b pills orally entering my system. There I was, fastening my proverbial seat belt and using my dwindling (relatively) sober moments to organize both my thoughts and my pockets. 30mg (approximately) in totality, with 20 of them currently cracking their knuckles.

t+2:30: I return to the patio and find A and B. I sit down next to them on the ground, they’re both visibly in isolatable frames-of-mind. B turns to me almost immediately, stares into my eyes, and says “Man I am tripping my ass off.” This alarms me a bit, as B is a big guy and he is very experienced with taking large doses of potent drugs. A is sitting directly in front of me and is also trying to talk to me. Now A often uses his hands a lot to assist him in communication and this, coupled with the fact that A’s hands are rather large, was the first real threat to my sense of perception. And after that, all it took was the slightest of glances into a well-lit backdrop off to my far right for me to realize that the entire world was breathing at me.

The engines have been started, I’ve passed the point of no return. The rabbit hole is now above my head and it’s time to withdraw from the world of normalcy. It was less of a booster than it was the beginning of a completely new experience. I likened 10mg of 2c-b to MDA, but the additional two pills had taken a hard right turn to the sugary hills of psychedelic wonderland. The drug was flexing its muscles for me, and it was rapidly taking over both my consciousness and physical body with little remorse.

Personally, I do not care much for rapid onsets, so I do my best to distract myself when they do occur. Hence in this instance, I removed my mp3 player from my pocket and suggested upon C, who has a history in the metal/industrial scene, that we listen to some industrial bands. I put on Life Cried - ‘Burnt to Ashes,’ which possibly has the best backbone beat of any industrial song I’ve ever heard. We both immediately agree that “this is really good” and I proceed to advertise to her a few of my other favourite industrial bands. I am impressed by C, as when usually I advertise music to people, they listen for 20 seconds, and hand it back to me. But she listened through four full-length tracks without showing any emotions other than enticement, and I was excited that I found someone who liked this music at such a pivotal time of my night.

I felt that it was important for me to take a walk around the venue before things got too intense, both so I could have a little time on my own, and also so that I could gauge exactly where I was at physically. And what I noticed was that the relationship between my mental processes and my physical capabilities was decaying rapidly. I had little trouble knowing where I was, what I wanted to do or how I would go about doing it. But actually putting my ideas into practice proved to be much, much harder. It was almost like being intoxicated to the point of “sloppy,” though having a relatively clear mind. Or I could compare it to a lucid dream, where one is trying to do some type of mechanical task, but one’s appendances simply do not want to work.

I wouldn’t have been able to walk in a straight line, my lack-of good spatial judgment was only redeemed by my acute knowledge of the venue’s idiosyncratic layout. Everything was breathing and swaying, things were not appearing their correct size and people’s expressions and actions were both muted and exaggerated. My mind was clear, but it was very hard to mentally multi-task. Trying to remember everything that I needed to do was like trying to remember a list of words in a foreign language that one’s only been given a small amount of time to memorize. I had never been this altered before at this venue, and I recently consumed 120mg MDMA and 150mg blotter LSD in combination there. Definite strong (+++) territory.

And then the music, well the music was quite intense for me. It sounded much louder than before, and the breaks were really messing with my head. It was not quite like mushrooms or LSD, though, in that it did not feel like my entire reality was changing, and consequently the new reality contained music with these new perceptions as standard facets. I never left the frame of mind that all changes were simulated by something I put into my body, not unlike how a person might relate to glasses or a hearing aid. I was in a funhouse-type setting, it was a simulation meant to entertain me in a non-standard way, but never did my jaw drop to some proverbial curtain no longer partially blocking me from some true world. Much more like 5-MeO-DiPT.

With all this said, the perceptual changes were very strong and I was very affected by the 2c-b. It’s a different type of psychedelic, yes. I emphasize that I did not discover new truths or feel like I’d only now come into contact with the real world (a la LSD, Mushrooms, Salvia, etc), but instead it just sensually overwhelmed me and acted as a blender for my mental processes.

And then something interesting happened. No matter what substance it is, nearly every time I take a psychedelic, I have one reoccurring thought pattern. Admittedly, it’s nothing more than a habit that my mind, independent of the psychoactive, draws to the forefront, but regardless it is always there. I get this feeling of deja vu, concerning psychoactives, and how they’re actually so much more than a description on a website or the vicarious experience of someone else’s report. It’s comparable to a day in elementary school; one spends all morning reading and learning new things and then one is sent to recess. Sure, one could keep reading through recess, but instead it’s much more rewarding to just let go and play. And the same thing goes for using drugs, I can try and ride out the experience taking notes, remembering relevant facts and advice and trying to think scientifically, or I can take a step back, remembering that I’m just a human who put something into my system that’s going to make me become a bit nutty.

Almost comically, I found myself with a dilemma. I really needed to urinate, but I was afraid to use the restroom. I knew that behind that big door with the little logo of a man on it was a room trippy enough to blast me to the next level - a level that I definitely did not want to experience in a crowded public place with a police presence. It did not help that A had just returned from the same restroom I planned to use, taking unusually long because he had stopped to have a conversation with a tree, visibly just beyond the restroom window.

Nevertheless I went for it, racing to the urinal and closing my eyes. Should we live as Thomas Aquinas or as Socraties? Do we travel the world with a journal full of relevant information, or a journal left largely empty so we can record our experiences? Should we be Geordi La Forge, knowing exactly how our starship operates, or Han Solo, simply grabbing the controls and making a run for it? Can the validity of research be compared to the soundness of experience? Can one person extensively research psychoactive substances and ensure himself of having a better experience than another, who has no idea what he has taken, but loves how it’s getting him “fucked up”?

For being in a public place, complete with at least a thousand other people, complicated stairs, the presence of police and security, and an upper bound on how much time I had left before I’d be forced to function well enough to hail a taxi and get myself home safely, I was tripping very hard. 2c-b, though it may be the little brother of the 2c-x family, has nonetheless learned how to punch rather hard! My motor skills were still very handicapped and I could not read my mobile phone to save my life. I began to wish that I was in a different setting, perhaps on a sunny beach. Or even better, in my bed, underneath blankets, with my headphones delivering to me the exact same music as my surrounding venue. I was admittedly slightly cold physically, and could sense that any form of physical warming would be welcomed and deeply appreciated. B mentioned to me that he was also feeling cold.

I found D again. This time, though, I was less of a watchful guardian and more of a co-tripper with my arm around him, telling him that I see it all too and that we are going to be okay. He is, at this point, barely able to understand the words that are coming out of my mouth, and he attempts to light a lollipop that I am sucking on, thinking it’s a cigarette that I need to smoke. I cannot even begin to imagine what he is experiencing, as he is (roughly) twice as far down the rabbit hole as me, but he is somehow getting through his night.

Another common theme for my night was that everything, be it the way the DJ played, the way a group of people interacted, the way my clothing fit on me, etc. was “slightly wrong.” I liked everything that the venue (and its contents) stood for, but I just felt like everything could be done slightly better. It is really hard to describe, but impressioned on me was a feeling that if a few things were slightly different, everybody would be having a much better time and a lot of the awkwardness and social inhibition that is standard in a place like this could be largely removed. I couldn’t even begin to give examples, but I just felt hypersensitive to human error being introduced into everything. And the more that humans work to create bigger and better delicacies for themselves, the more prominent imperfections and unresolved issues become. Something is always “slightly wrong,” but it’s endemic to life and fruitless to strive to correct.

Other times, such as when I’ve taken mushrooms, I’ve wanted to embrace this and label it “human nature” and such, however 2c-b and its lack of benefit for human relationships and bonding almost made me want to interact with and be entertained by things that were several stages away from direct human influence. If I could, I would have accepted a beverage from a dispensing machine before I would have let someone mix me a drink. I know this sounds rather odd, but this is probably the strongest psychological impression that 2c-b left on me.

It was quite easy for me to pick out what other individuals in the venue were on the same 2c-b. It was also incredibly easy for me to judge the emotions of random people in my presence. I could tell who was euphoric, who was scared, who felt lonely, who had experienced something like it before, etc. And furthermore, not only was it the patrons whose faces were so easily readable, but the venue staff also took on very personal roles. Typically, I view these people as very cold and professional, remaining stone-faced and sober on their shifts and understanding their duties to be predominantly of a “damage control” nature. But on this night, I saw these people as stressed, tired, jealous of the patrons, etc.

A significant amount of literature has suggested that 2c-b has an element of sexuality to it. It has been contrasted with MDxx in that its inflicted eroticism is not limited to an empathetic “desire to cuddle,” but instead made people “as horny as rabbits.” Interestingly enough, my experience was largely void of any sexual nature. This was not the case for A or B, though, however both are quite overtly sexual people in general, so I am not sure just how much more developed the drug made this. My sexuality is much more implicit and psychological, so perhaps due to the lack of mental drifts and psychological overhauls in this experience, my personal sexuality remained untouched. Continuing with the theme of things being “slightly wrong,” when I tested out the sexual nature (or lack thereof) of 2c-b, while I did not have any hormonal responses, I did extend the idea of “slightly wrong” to the way that most people treat and understand sexualities, both their own and those of others.

So I sat there on the patio, next to B and some others, and I removed from my pants pocket a bubble-blowing kit that I had brought with me. I began to blow bubbles all over the place. Interestingly enough, for the amount of people tripping there, very few seemed to respond to the bubbles. A, however, loved them. I accidentally blew some in the direction of one woman, though, who remarked loudly “Oh my god, like now I am totally going to smell like dish washing detergent!” and then glared at me. I stared back for a few seconds to figure out if she was actually mad, which she was, so I just let her exclaim at me to her heart’s content and then walk away. Probably not someone with a relationship with aging quite like mine.

One thing I noticed about 2c-b is that it did not at all push me to want to be social. Unlike MDxx, I did not want to meet strangers, but instead I just wanted to sit around and entertain myself. A and B seemed to have no problem being very social, but I understood it to be almost too strenuous. Having a conversation with someone, beyond just playing around with A, B, and/or C, would have been very challenging, and it would have been readily apparent that I was on something stronger than MDxx. I can “fake sobriety” on MDxx compounds, but definitely not in this situation.

2c-b is as good as anything I’ve tried at enhancing music. I likened it to 5-MeO-DiPT earlier, but really it has a full characterization of its own. I could feel the music tingling and pulsating throughout my body and I was only a few social inhibitions away from truly letting the music dominate my state-of-mind. The loud parts barreled at me like a weighty freight train, whereas the melodic sections had me feel like I was lying on the ground during a heavy rain. I couldn’t think of any other forms of music than what was being played as what I would want to hear, and it did give me that ephemeral feeling of “Trance is the best music in the world. Period.”

There was a bit of a discordance between the music and the lighting, though, in that while both were gratifying, the gratifications were largely mutually exclusive. It was impossible for me to assemble the influences that both were having on me into any single type of ultimate sensual eruption; I was left with having to appreciate distinctly one or the other at any given time. And I had a craving for such a harmony, so I was disheartened slightly in that I had kept attempting to blend my senses without any fruition.

I had one beautiful moment, though, slightly before the end of the peak. I was standing slightly behind the main floor, near B, who was talking to a random stranger. And it was the combination of blue fluorescents with green and yellow strobe lights, the fog machines all erupting, and the DJ transitioning into Motorcycle - ‘As the Rush Comes’ (first time I heard it live) that had me feeling like I was watching a firework display within a hurricane. I couldn’t help but extend my palms toward the ceiling, lean my head back and take in the beautiful moment.

B picked up on my feelings and we exchanged a good hug, and then listened to the song play out. He said something to me along the lines of “most of our city is sleeping right now, but even their most splendid dreams wouldn’t compare to our current realities” and it really did fit the moment perfectly. It was that ephemeral and phenomenal understanding that most psychonauts know of, where the social, legal and medical risks that we take in order to exhaust what life has to offer to us all seem perfectly justifiable. Bad trips and dodgy memories are shoved under the bed and the euphoria of the current moment convinces us that the choices we’ve made are not only worth it, but are as rewarding for us as anything in life.

It’s an amazing feeling, better than winning an important competition, much better than the best sex, better than a warm bed after a long day. Standing there, under the beautiful lights and with the music engulfing me, a friend at my side and my body having a quality relationship with what I’ve fed it, it’s the ultimate culmination, the amalgam of emotions and sensations that I can only wish every human were able to know.

t+4:00: All of a sudden, the peak is over. In a matter of about 15 minutes, I went from as high as ever to a state that I will describe as “buzzing” on a psychedelic. There were minor, but definitely controllable, visual distortions and my senses were still quite amplified, leading me to call this chapter of the experience a (++). But the connection between the mental and the physical was quickly being repaired, and I was able to relax and enjoy my final hour at the venue without being plagued by any fears of unknowns. I should note, though, that my pupils were still extremely dilated and B commented that my eyes were freaking him out. B agreed with my assessment, though, about the diminishment of the major effects and seemed to be enjoying the asymptotic phase of his trip settling in as well.

t+5:00: Both A and B have gone home, and I decide that it is time for me to leave as well. I opt for a taxi over a public bus, as this substance has me feeling quite cold and I do not want to combine that with riding a public bus. The taxi ride was about 90% reality and 10% Star Wars. I did my best to make conversation with the taxi driver, but he kept giving me “degenerate youth….geez” looks.

t+6:00: I get home and to my surprise run into my apartment co-habitants, awake and preparing to leave for a camping trip. I was greeted by one of them (“oh no way!…..Dude, what the ****? Look at you!”) at the base of our building. Apparently it’s not normal behaviour to arrive home at 6am, covered in glowsticks, with Chinese wind chimes braided into my hair, pupils the size of coins, a toy dragonfly around my neck, and my pockets overflowing with random junk. Lucky for me, she will not judge me for my choices, lest I cause damages to the apartment or something (which I never do). My other co-habitant was still half-asleep and I don’t really think picked up on me or my big pupils. However, I got a great wave of euphoria knowing that they were soon to depart, as it meant that I had the freedom to come down in an empty apartment.

I spent the next two hours at (+), browsing the internet, taking (an amazing) warm bath, drinking tequila and taking notes for this report. The comedown was not difficult, and I did not experience the prototypical craving for more, which is not uncommon when I use MDxx and/or Amphetamine substances.

Next Day: I was able to fall asleep after 8 hours of the first dose, and slightly under 6 after the booster dose. I slept intermittently, yes, but I slept much better in totality than I usually do after such atypical of a night. I ended up grabbing nearly 8 hours of sleep, waking up refreshed and energized the following afternoon. I will comment that this substance made me dream quite lucidly. In fact, I kept dreaming about having conversations with friends about this experience, and was really taken aback when I’d wake up and realize it was not real.

I did not experience any negative physical effects the following day. In fact, I took a walk outdoors at night and had an abundance of energy and great excitement for the ability to listen to my mp3 player while I walked. Later in the night, I got a bit anxious/depressed about the things that I feared would undermine my trip the previous night, but it was not anything near an emotional breakdown. Just a feeling of returning to my typical life, which subsequently meant returning to my current issues and difficulties.

Epilogue:

I am glad that I am now privy to the knowledge of what a breakthrough in the 2c-x family can feel like. It really is a unique substance, however one that can nearly adequately be described by attributes of other, more popular ones. The visuals echo those of a strong mushroom trip, as does the audio enhancement, the struggle to link the mental and physical processes is reminiscent of LSD, the feeling of having a rational mind despite being definitively altered is likened to the MDxx experience, and finally the struggle with one’s motor skills is not unlike being extremely drunk.

Is 2c-b a club drug? For me, the answer is very difficult. I really want to believe that I could learn to use this drug in a social environment, as after all things are considered, it’s very similar to a candy-flip (MDxx&LSD), but much easier on the mind. In fact, I think that if I could hone in on a perfect dose and figure out what supplementary nutrition worked best, I could quickly learn to use this drug in public and enjoy it very much. Aside from true MDA, I have not come across any other substance that allows for such extreme sensory enhancement, but spares the user of a strenuous mental overload.

On the other hand, I found 2c-b to be a substance which has an enjoyment factor inversely proportional to both the amount of social distractions one faces and social attendances one must make. If one is used to, such as I am, using MDxx chemicals in a situation that has one constantly talking with people, changing locations, texting/calling friends, watching over people, etc., then substituting 2c-b will almost definitely prove to be quite frustrating. My favourite moments on this drug were the ones where I was alone and completely under only my own influence. For me, this drug was anything but a social lubricant. Instead, it was a tool for me to enhance my own experiences at my own accords.

The best aspects of 2c-b would be the visual and audio enhancements that it provides. They do take a bit of getting adjusted to, as they come on quite fast, but the really are the hallmark elements of this experience. The worst aspect would be the “scattered” feeling that I got, which leads to a discontentment for social relations.

Exp Year: 2008ExpID: 72502
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Sep 2, 2008Views: 38,164
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2C-B (52) : Music Discussion (22), General (1), Club / Bar (25)

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