Introduction
This was my first profound experience with a dissociative anasthetic, so I figured best to write a report. I was quite surprised at how powerful DXM is at this dose, as I was expecting a relatively mild experience, and instead found myself in quite a deep state of dissociation.

Dose
Two gelcaps, each containing 120mg DXM, taken 15 minutes apart. I figured by spacing apart the doses I would prolong the experience slightly but lessen the peak.

Setting
My first time at Circus! I felt slightly out of place amidst the posh deco and older, more upscale crowd, but the general vibe was friendly and welcoming.

the experience
At around the 30 minute mark after ingestion of the first cap, I began to feel the onset of 1st plateau DXM effects, similar to my first experience at 165mg. I felt a sense of anticipation and alertness, and my surroundings became different in a way I can't quite describe: it was as if I had found myself in a parallel universe, in which there was another Circus nightclub, everything seemingly the same but undeniably, indescribably altered. I felt very giddy listening to the music, which had become an enveloping, powerful wall of sound. All the orchestras in the world could not compete. Movement became more fluid and effortless.

About thirty minutes later (T+1:00), the second cap was exerting its effects and I transvered up into the second plateau. I felt very heavy, numb, and my movement suddenly became uncoordinated. The euphoria I felt earlier was replaced by complete abscene of emotion: it was as if I no longer had the ability to feel. No longer able to continue dancing, I sat down on a padded seat near the dance floor.

My mind began to drift into a vast expanse of nothingness. Nothing seemed to matter at this point; the world and emotion and struggle had lost its significance. I could think about the most disturbing topic in a completely detached, unemotional manner. I felt warm and exetremely comfortable. My thoughts centered on the absurdity of the human condition: since nothing apparently matters, what is left to do but dance?

I felt I should be lying down, so managed to stumble away from the dance floor towards the chill area (at perhaps T+1:30). What happened in the next few hours is difficult to describe, but I'll try my best. I was lying down, my eyes closed, neither quite awake nor asleep but somewhere in between. Despite the fact that I was alone and in an unfamiliar environment, I felt nothing but complete comfort and bliss. Time seemed to slow down. My internal dialogue slowed to a halt, leaving my mind as clear and open as the cloudless sky. It was if I was sailing in a sea of blackness. In the midst of nothingness, I felt complete.

I felt a sense of warmth, as though I was surrounded by the presence of everyone I cared about, the feeling of being loved and cared for. Memories of past events seemed to drift to the surface. I truly understood the term "dissociative anasthetic", a feeling of floating above and behind the physical world and become nothing more than a spirit floating in a vast expanse of emptiness.

I remained lying down, in this dreamlike state, for a good 2.5-3 hours. When I finally got up, I felt the 1st plateau effects once again, and I began to dance and feel a sense of euphoria return. The effects tapered off, and the return to baseline was gentle and comfortable. I slept soundly, and have no day-after effects aside from a slight headache.

summary

This experience was very different than anything I've felt before, very different from both tryptamines and phenylthemines of which I am more experienced with. I'm not even sure if words like "enjoyable" or even "meaningfull" apply properly to this experience. I have heard DXM became compared to an opiate-like sensation, and while I have no experience with opiates and thus no basis on which to compare the two, much of the DXM experience is what I'd imagine opiates to be like. I can imagine how DXM could be psychologically addictive to those seeking to repress difficult emotions, as it defintely was an "escape from reality". I intend to take DXM once more in the next month, probably at a high dose, and see where it takes me.

So I have to write a term paper for my "Philosophy of Science" course, and what topic would I choose to write about if not..you guessed it..DRUGS!!

Actually I should qualify the above. My paper isn't really about drugs, but about the biology of religious experience. I do discuss drugs in part of my paper, which is present here for your own reading pleasure and edumacation.

"Can religious experience be artifically induced?

The practice of devising ritual in order to facilitate the occurrence of mystical experience is common in religion, though not well studied by science. Religious music, meditation, fasting, and self-mutilation are all techniques used by various religions in order to induce mystical experiences, and these practices may be effective precisely because they trigger the neurological processes that are responsible for religious experience. A particularly notable example involves the use of psychoactive mushrooms among the indigenous people of Mexico, a practice likely dating back thousands of years. The ingestion of a substance for the purpose of inducing mystical experiences implies a biological mechanism for the resulting effects. While the ingestion of a substance may be interpreted by some as compromising the supposed legitimacy of the mystical experience, this was no problem for the indigenous Mexicans, as they considered the mushroom itself to be a sacred object, calling it teonanactlt, the “flesh of God”.

When, in 1959, Hoffman and collaborators succeeded in isolating the active ingredient of psychoactive mushrooms, namely psilocybin, the mystery of the “scared mushroom” had given way to the discovery of a chemical that could possibly be used to artificially induce a religious experience. In 1962, Pahnke devised an experiment to test this possibility, conducting the famous “Good Friday” experiment in which psilocybin and a control were given to two groups of divinity students, who then reported their experiences on a scale devised to measure mystical experience. Given the significance of the study’s findings, they will be discussed is some detail below.

The methodology of Pahnke’s double-blind study involved forming ten pairs of closely matched divinity students, with one of each pair receiving psilocybin (30mg), and the other receiving an active placebo. The purpose of the active placebo was to invoke uncertainty as to which of the pair had received psilocybin, however, this attempt was only partially successful, as by the end of the experiment the participants were able to figure out which had received the psilocybin by discussing its effects. The participants, under the influence of either the psilocybin or the placebo, attended a Good Friday church service, and then filled a questionnaire designed to measure the components of a mystical experience: 1) sense of unity, 2) transcendence of time and space, 3) sense of sacredness, 4) sense of objective reality, 5) deeply felt positive mood, 6) ineffability, 7) paradoxicality and transiency. These categories are consistent with scholars of religious experience, such as William James (1902), Evelyn Underhill (1910), and W.T. Stace (1960), and are considered valid even by academic critics of the experiment. The results of the questionnaire (and those of a 6 month follow up) indicated that those who had received the psilocybin reported significantly higher scores in each of the categories, thus providing the first scientific basis for the hypothesis that religious experience can be artificially induced.

The “Good Friday” experiment, while it certainly suggests that religious experience can be triggered by specific neurological functions, unfortunately provides little insight into what specific brain function are responsible for religious experience. Since the study demonstrates that psilocybin is capable of inducing a religious experience, at least under certain conditions, it follows logically that psilocybin must be responsible for stimulating those neurological functions responsible for such experiences. Unfortunately, the mechanism of action of psilocybin on the human brain, as well as those of other psychedelics, is not well understood. It is known that psilocybin has affinity for the 5-H2TA receptors, and that hallucinogens are partial agonists at the 5-H2TA receptor sights (Marek and Aghajanian, 1996). However, 5-HT (serotonin) is responsible for mediating a wide variety of emotional experiences, not only those of a religious nature. More research is necessary into the mechanism of action of psilocybin and other psychedelics, which may by extension shed light on the neurological processes responsible for religious experience.

Despite its being almost 40 years old, the “Good Friday” experiment is still relevant for providing the first experimental confirmation of the potential for inducing religious experience by artificial means. Unfortunately, legal restrictions on the administration of psychoactive substances to human subjects have prevented the continuation of such research. Anecdotal reports suggest that other psychoactive substances, particularly n,n-DMT, a compound that occurs naturally in the pineal gland, may be even more powerful in its potential to induce a mystical experience, yet legal restrictions continue to obstruct scientific research into this potential."

my intuition is razor sharp

Won't it be ironic how despite you "spending countless hours in the gym" and "hundrends of dollars of finaplix" you STILL don't get any booty. BLOP!

happy birthday!

and that d.a.re. t-shirt rawks :)

fat guys have tits!

Yeah, go to any symphony and you'll surely see a whole crew of ravewavers who've skipped school/work just to hear their favorite orchestral music..suuuuuuurre

awesome. i'm gonna sick my hyena on yo sorry ass.

when you are at work, or school,
the monday after another round of debauchery,
do you ever hint to the drug-naive that you know something they don't? do they suspect? do you ever just tell people outright?

i suppose i'm particularly curious now because I just led a university class of fifty students into a debate on spirituality and psychedelics. by the nature of my arguments, it became obvious to all that I was speaking out of experience :)

i find most of the drug-naive to stubbornly grasp to anti-drug arguments, quite possibly to justify their own refusal to use. scare stories substitute for knowledge, anecdotes substitute for experience.

if nothing else, I am convined that responsible drug users must speak out, so that popular misconceptions regarding drugs become blunted by their lack of correspondence to reality.

and yet, speaking out leaves one at the mercy of those who seek to silence dissenting views. I speak not of myself, for I surely have not the persuasive power to render my speech significant, but of those in the past who suffered persecution for speaking out: Leary, Shulgin, and others.

to speak, or to remain silent?

i'll answer my own question :)

Until the last few years, I prided myself on reason and mistrusted emotion. As a result I became emotionally cold and distant, especially in my early-mid teen years.

Recently, my perspective has shifted dramatically, and I've come to view reason as nothing more than a social construct. There is no reason independant of values, and values depend on emotional responces. Hence, emotion is the core of being. I've come to idealize pure emotion as the essence of life, and the only thing which has any intrinsic value.

beef patty one dollah

made: eating ice cream outside in the beautiful weather.
made: looking up at the sun, and feeling the warmth of its rays upon me
made: getting my statistics assignment done at the last minute
made: finally got mah package in the mail
made: letting go

Which of the two plays a bigger role in your life? Which do you consider to be more important, and why?

i'd be down!! hmmm..on mush?!

i KNOW theres a part of my brain that supposed to tell me tha'ts a BAD idea, but I think that part of my brain has been damaged long ago ;)

thats what happens when a complete nut just happens to be able to sing and dance

that pic gives a whole new meaning to the phrase,

can i bum a smoke?

bring da motherfuckin ruckas!!

ahhh damn wutang brings back craazy junior-high school memories

i hope its still hapenning

GOLD.

made: another crazy party
made: i danced like a lil kid
made: chillin wit capital j and stabba
made: crackout breakfast with screwhead

ruined: my place is a mess from the party, and i'm too tired to clean
ruined: apprehension about leaving

azzizzuzz is right, theres no law specifically forbidding prostitution.

however "soliciting sex" is illegal, and since prostitution involves the solicitation of sex, its hard to imagine any scenario in which prostitution occurs *without* an illegal act being commited

yah its the building at wiliam+guy, i think we're referring to the same place. it truly is an awesome building, especially since I moved there ;p

cars are overrated. i wanna ride around montreal in a six-horse chariot, and throw spears at random people. THAT would be cool

yeah i'd guess the majority of prostitutes in N. America do so to support their "habits". probably the worst thing about being a prostitute isn't the job itself, its the fact that society considers you the lowest of the low

hook me up with some of that beef

when the cops show up...everyone pedal extra hard!

raw meat. MOOO!

exactly!

1+1 pizza is still king in my books.

Sunday might be the first tams of the season!
I'm so down.

Prostitutes make their money fucking strangers. Telemarketers make their money fucking over strangers.

neoform's back in the closet.

hullabaSTABBINGS!

nah nah it was charlie's, matt rolled it tho. that was craaazy

the expos still exist? WOW.

eternal sunshine 9/10
return of the king 8/10
barbares invasions 8/10

i'm there!

Most of the sketch I've encountered has been in Toronto or involved people from there.

One such incident occured when me and my old roommate Jess went to a jungle night at the Down One lounge. Some guy that Jess knew (but I didn't) offered me 10$ to drive him someplace nearby to make some "delivery". Next thing I know theres a whole crew of unfamiliar people riding in my van, directing me to go and stop at various places. I was tired to the point of almost passing out, so I wasn't prepared to really argue with them. Next thing I know some guy comes in with a PS2 thats apprently just been stolen while I've been waiting. Then an argument breaks out as apprently they fight over it. All in all it was one one hellava sketchy night.

Oh well, at least I got my 10$ outta it.

Its funny how this thread has degenerated into a "suck up to Al in vain hopes of getting money" contest.