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This IS Your Mother's Cough Syrup
DXM
Citation:   Lady J. "This IS Your Mother's Cough Syrup: An Experience with DXM (exp7359)". Erowid.org. Jun 3, 2003. erowid.org/exp/7359

 
DOSE:
8 oz oral DXM (liquid)
BODY WEIGHT: 210 lb
My little adventure began sometime around 12:30 at night. I had bought an 8 oz bottle of tussin maximum strength cough medicine. This was my second time robo-tripin, actually more like my fifth, but the first few times I didn't know what I was doing. I am one of those extremely rare people that actually like the taste of cough medicine. A few times when I had a cold I had knocked back more of the nyquil night time formula than I was supposed to. I liked the floaty detached feeling I got before I fell asleep. Then I got on the internet and found out that people actually slam this stuff. I can't say that I'm surprised. People will do any thing to get off.

I had researched my dosages and decided that 8 oz should be enough to get me to the third plateau, but not enough to be dangerous. I was interested in the reports of OBE's that people have experienced on that level. I'd been trying to have an OBE on and off ever since I'd first read about them when I was twelve. So far I'd gotten no joy.

I sat drinking my 8 oz of syrupy goodness while watching an old black and white movie. It was the generic brand so it wasn't as thick as regular robo. I had it finished in about 10 mins and didn't have a problem keeping it down. I finished watching my movie and waited for the robo to kick in. I was in my room, where I planned to spend my trip. My mother was in her room, but I knew that would not be a problem as long as I kept it down. I'm 26 and she pretty much ignores everything I do. I set up my 5 disc cd player with some cool tunes, turned my hallogen lamp to its lowest setting and plugged in the headphones. I was set.

It kicked in at around 1:30 about an hour after I had taken it. I felt a bit lightheaded and everthing had taken on a brightness that hadn't been there a moment before. I put on my earphones and entered tussin conciousness. The music was exquisite, moving through me with a power reminiscent of ecstasy. I could hear every nuance. No, I had heard these sounds before, but now I noticed every nuance. I lay down in the semi-darkness surrrounded by shadows, and stared at the faces caught in my textured ceiling.

Then I closed my eyes.

For a moment there was nothing, only darkness and the sounds coming through my headphones. Then slowly, the world took shape around me. My mind, in a creative leap, was taking ideas, feelings, associations and whatever else from the music and turning them into images. The inside of my head was like some bizarre music video. And I'm not talking daydreams. I always think of daydreams taking place somewhere in the back of my mind underneath the images that I receive from the daytime world. No, I'm talking you are there. Welcome to Tussin Space. It's everything that VR was always cracked up to be, but never was.

My body was not there at all, I was simply a spark of awareness moving through this mindscape. I remember moving through a house filled with broken dolls. The ceiling was very low and the walls were painted in a vivid dark blue that looked bumpy and peeling. Depeche Mode was playing and my mind moved in time to the music, turning corners on beat and zooming in and awayy to fit the feel. A swell in the music suddenly lifted me away from those rooms and twisted halls and sent me flying through the ceiling and over the roof. I flew low over rooftops, then trees and then into the side of a mountain, where I slid through totally unreal looking tunnels. Everything looked like CGI.

Then I opened my eyes.

Instantly I was back on my bed staring at the wall. Things were looking a little blurry and messed up, but undeniably real. It makes me feel cold and alone to open my eyes to the real world. I pulled up the blanket to warm me but soon tossed it off again. The coldness I felt had very little to do with body temperature and more to do with feeling shakey and confused. I closed my eyes again and I was back in my own little world feeling safe and secure. For me, there are no questions in Tussin Space, there are only images and movement. It's like lucid dreaming. You move through Tussin Space knowing that it is Tussin Space and that you are just a blink away from the real world.

Around 3:30 I turned my light up and started to move around. It was hard getting to my feet. My legs wanted to collapse underneath me. I took a step and it felt like I was floating. I took each step with exagerrated caution like I'd forgotten how to walk. If I turned my head too fast I got dizzy. Somehow I made it to the bathroom. I looked in the mirror and my eyes were wide and staring. My pupils were huge. My hair was a mess. I looked totally fucked up. I decided not to look in the mirror anymore. I did my business and walked through the rest of the house being extra quiet so as not to wake my mom. Soon I got tired of that. The floating effect is cool. but not as cool as the music. Tussin Space was calling me back.

I stayed listening to my music until about six which is when Bauhaus came on. Suddenly my world wasn't so cozy and safe anymore. Normally I love Bauhaus, but now that goth band was way too dark and depressing. This was when my night turned from a great trip to a bad trip.

I turned off my stereo and got back into bed intending to get some sleep. Yeah right. I just lay there in bed watching the walls getting brighter and brighter as the sun came up. My vision was totally fucked. The walls seemed twisted in some wierd way. My room was quiet now that the music had been turned off and there was a bubble of apprehension inside of me that grew to fill the silence. That shakey/alone/confused feeling was back only stronger this time. I lay on the bed listening to my heart beat. It seemed to be pounding along way too fast. My skin felt itchy and tight and extremely hot. I took off my shirt and laid there in my panties wondering if I was going to have a heart attack. An hour dragged by, one of many slow, drawn out hours. I was waiting for the effects to wear off and they just weren't. My breathing was fast and shallow. I worried about falling asleep. What if I stopped breathing. By this time I was extremely scared, and not thinking straight at all. I thought about dialing 911. I thought about waking my mother. I played those scenes out in my head and they looked bad. My mother would get me to a hospital, but the hospital would call the police. That would be VERY BAD.

I thought about dying, slipping away from the real world forever. Would I enter Tussin Space for good? Or would I just be erased like I never existed. The possibility of this had never really bothered me before. What's one more human more or less. I've always recognized that anyone of us could kick off for good at any given moment. Life is fragile. Deal with it. Well it began to bother me now. The idea that I might suffer a massive cardiac arrest and die at any second had me in a petrified funk. I'd be here one second breathing, thinking, living and then the next I would cease to exist. No more sunny days, no more beautiful music, no more me. My mind was paralyzed with indecision. I finally decided to stay where I was because a)I had reseached dosages before hand and 8 oz should not be a lethal dose b) I had told myself that I should stay in the room no matter what and c) it was the easiest thing to do.

By ten I managed to slip into an extremely shallow sleep. I dreamt that there were two men and a woman with me in my room. The woman was in some kind of uniform and she was sitting by my bed taking my blood pressure and temperature. The two men were talking about how I was dying and there was nothing they coud do. The woman was saying reassuring things, but she also seemed to think I was dying. This was almost like a hallucination that I was slipping in and out of. I opened my eyes many times convinced that they were there with me. When I realized that they weren't I felt more lonely than ever. By 1pm I was no longer afraid of dying. My biggest fear was that I had damaged my brain and that I would stay like this forever. My thoughts were still really confused and my vision was fucked up. Everything now looked stretched out and at kind of at an angle to me. I staggered to the bathroom and my pupils were still dilated. I returned to bed and thought about killing myself. I felt that I couldn't handle it anymore. The vision of blood pouring from my vein filled my mind over and over again. I had to be at my part-time job at 5pm and I'd never be able to do it like this. I wasn't even sure that I had enough coordination to call and tell them I coudn't make it. This seemed like an insurmountable problem to me.

By 3pm my vision had mostly cleared up and I was thinking a lot more clearer. By 4pm I was still a little shakey, but basically ok.

My trip lasted about 13 hours. I thought that it would only last 8 hours at the most. I guess the moral to this story is every trip has the potential to be different. Sometimes the body metabolizes substances slower than at other times. Also you should probably consider a sitter with you in case you freak out.

I'll probably try it again. I'm still hoping for an OBE.

Exp Year: 2001ExpID: 7359
Gender: Female 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jun 3, 2003Views: 28,385
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DXM (22) : Alone (16), Difficult Experiences (5), General (1)

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