DOSE: T+ 0:00	50 mg	oral	Tryptophan - 5-HTP	(capsule)
T+ 2:00	85 mg	oral	MDMA	(powder / crystals)
T+ 8:00	100 mg	oral	Tryptophan - 5-HTP	(capsule)

BODY WEIGHT:

75 kg

This is my second use of MDMA, and I remain gratefull that I can set my own doses reliably (I was able to obtain a small ammount of pure powder from a chemist.) A friend and I both dosed up while on a camping trip beneath the stars (with the recent meteor showers, no less!) He took about 125 mg (he's about my size.) I had planned to take more but chickened out at the last minute. The MDMA was taken on a full stomach (a tasty stew, yum! I had taken 50 mg of 5HTP (the health food supliment/seratonin precursor) about two hours before, and took another 100 mg an hour after the experience. The trip was spent talking (intently, of course ;-) with the even higher friend, but here's the highlights:

First, no nausea on onset whatsoever--the MDMA came on very smooth and gently about 50 minutes after ingestion (some tingling sensations started about 15 min before onset.) In retrospect, don't doctors usually tell you to take a pill WITH food if it might cause an upset stomach? Why not do the same with our drugs of choice?

On the other end of the trip, after I was down (about six hours from ingestion) I went to bed (in the very dark) and noticed I was able to produce a very delicate visual of stars sliding through my visual field, a little like falling snow. This was almost certainly inspired by the gorgeous stars overhead during the trip, and goes to show that, yes, there is just a tiny sliver of a hallucinogenic quality to MDMA. Very nice--a little post-high bonus. I was tired the next day, but not too badly. The second day I was positively filled with energy, contrasted with the last time I used MDMA (I didn't take any 5HTP then) and was seriously wiped out for two days. One data point does not a connection make, but I'd suggest giving 5HTP a try if you find yourself tired the day(s) after a trip.

But...and this is the real meat of it...from this trip I think I finally have a good grasp of the drug's psychological effects. At first I thought of it as removing your fears, but that's not quite it: The sense of self preservation is still perfectly intact. Now, I would rather confidently describe the effect as a dissabling of ego-defense mechanisms. On MDMA I was very open about the things that I really wanted to talk about but was afraid to share, while still having no trouble holding my tounge about other personal information (which fits government research that determined MDMA wasn't usefull as a 'truth serum'.) I would theorize that when bad things happen to people we tend to try to supress them, denying the importance of the injuries we have suffered ('I'm not that weak! I don't care!) or the harm we have done to others ('Hey, I wasn't that bad a person!) The strange, extraordinary effect of the MDMA was that, for a few precious hours, I was able to face it all without evasion: Yes, people really HAD hurt me that badly, and yes, I had really hurt other people that badly and there was no good excuse. And in that moment of absolute, unblinking emotional honesty comes the chance to forgive. To forgive yourself for the rotten things you've done out of pain or fear. To forgive the rotten things that have been done to you by people suffering from their own pain and fear, because, having let yourself understand their motivations, you no longer hate them. Facing your inner feelings without fear, you begin to understand. As you begin to understand, you become able to forgive and embrace yourself and others without resentment of what's past and gone. It's been weeks since this experience, and I still feel like singing in public (and believe me, I'm no Pavoratti.) A weight on my soul has been lifted. MDMA is not an answer--but it may give the chance to find the answers to your problems yourself.

To be perfectly honest, I had regarded the claims of MDMA as an invaluable aid to psychological therapy with great skepticism, envisioning a movie drunk patting a hip flask and winking, saying 'for medicinal purposes, of course.' Yah, right, you evil druggies just want to get high. Jesus, what a shortsighted view of the world. Considering we get raised on moron-drugs like alcohol it's no wonder people don't apreciate how rich and subtle some psychoactives can be until we try them. What is an hour of perfect honesty and acceptance of yourself worth to the anorexic? What is the chance to face the past and let go of it without fear or anger worth to a crime or accident victim or the terminally ill? That MDMA was taken away from even medical professionals is truly a crime against the mental health of our society. Any idiot can score MDMA on the streetcorner or at the club or even at school and the government thinks having it available to licensed doctors is going to suddenly make it available on the streets? It's already available to anybody who wants it. Total criminalization has nothing to do with keeping it off the streets and everything to do with trying to keep the drug from being thought of as potentially beneficial--the politics of the drug war simply have no room for anything but a moralized absolutist position of 'all drugs are evil for all people at all times no matter what.' It is the tragedy of the prohibition war that the greatest enemy of my life, liberties, and property isn't a foreign power or terrorists or even criminals--it is my government.

Exp Year: 2001	ExpID: 9114
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Aug 30, 2001	Views: 14,681
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MDMA (3) : Small Group (2-9) (17), General (1), Health Benefits (32), Glowing Experiences (4)