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Unexpected Synergy and Pain
by Xorkoth
by Xorkoth
It's sometime in early May, 2014. I have been undergoing many great changes in my life, most notably the collapse and end of my twelve-year relationship, and just quite recently the experience of an ibogaine flood dose to get over my ten-year opiate addiction, which worked like a miracle. Although I have managed to get to a pretty healthy place with it, emotionally I am still reeling and hurting from my breakup. I'm having difficulty letting it go the rest of the way, though I have accepted it and even feel happy that it's finally over and I can live my own life again. It technically ended last May, but we still lived together until the beginning of this February and for at least half the time between those two events, I was unwilling to accept that it was really over and so I remained entirely with her in my heart. It's been a confusing time, but also liberating, and overall I am happier than I have been in a very long time.
It's a work day, just an average work day. As I finish up work, I spontaneously decide to take some of the 4-FA I have lying around, simply to enjoy it. I don't have a lot left so I accept that I may finish it tonight, but I decide to start with 80mg, taken rectally. The come-up begins quite quickly, within 10 minutes. A sense of physical and emotional lightness rapidly overtakes me and over the course of 30 minutes it develops into a beautiful euphoria, not really empathic at all but very nice indeed. It's nothing special though, just your run-of-the-mill 4-FA high, moderately strong. I browse Bluelight and chat with some people, enjoying myself quite a bit. My pupils are somewhat dilated but overall I feel pretty average for this substance.
At about an hour and 15 minutes in, I make the spontaneous decision to add some 4-HO-MET that I also have lying around, because I feel like adding a psychedelic sparkle, and I believe that 4-HO-MET will merge very nicely with this euphoric stimulant given that it itself feels euphoric and physically pleasurable. So I weigh out 15mg of 4-HO-MET, and add another 40mg of 4-FA, mixing them together with a couple of mLs of water in a shot glass. I draw it into an oral syringe and ingest the combination rectally, then wash my hands and sit back down at my desk, and work on selecting some music. I settle on Shpongle's "Nothing Lasts But Nothing Is Lost".
Within a very short time, another 10 minutes, I begin to feel both the redose of 4-FA and the 4-HO-MET begin to come on at the same time. So far, the 4-HO-MET does indeed bring a nice sparkle into the mix, and a sense of giddiness that isn't present with the 4-FA alone. I begin the music and continue, for the time being, to browse Bluelight. I feel the 4-FA coming up stronger while the 4-HO-MET remains at the same level. I am feeling a very pleasurable euphoria, and I have a wide smile plastered to my face.
Then, without warning, something happens. Within a single moment, I go from feeling averagely euphoric and altered to full-on tripping, along with a massive flood of serotonin. My eyes open wide and I let out all my breath as euphoria slams forcefully into my brain. Extreme nystagmus takes control of my eyeballs and I draw my breath in gentle gasps, similarly to how I do when a good MDMA roll first hits. The music suddenly jumps to the forefront, and my jaw drops at its beautiful complexity, as every sound becomes clear and glorious. My thoughts feel too scattered and saturated in this unexpected flood of euphoria to communicate with others, so I close Bluelight and just sit back in my chair, disbelieving of the state I have suddenly found myself in. The euphoria is as intense as anything I have ever felt from MDMA, an overwhelming tide of pure pleasure. This, however, feels much more jarring than MDMA, more intense, more like a chemical flood. Patterns familiar to me from 4-HO-MET are overlaying everything and colors are super-saturated, and observing these colors floods me with even more euphoria. I marvel at the genius of Shpongle as my entire energy field vibrates along with its flow. The euphoria is less empathic than with MDMA as well. I feel little urge to communicate with others; instead, I feel drawn inward, while simultaneously every cell rejoices, calling out to the heavens in praise of the bafflingly powerful feelings of perfection they feel.
Before long, the nystagmus becomes so intense that it's hard to keep my eyes open, so I stop trying. As my world becomes dark, that darkness is replaced by swirling patterns that form into conceptual scenes based on the music and my thoughts. Said thoughts, unbidden, turn to my ex and our relationship. I feel happy to have experienced what we had, and I realize I wouldn't change anything about it. I'm glad to have experienced both the positives and the negatives, because they are all a part of me now, a part of how I have grown to become the person I am today. I reflect on what led to our breakup. There is no point in getting into that here, but I realize my own participation in our undoing. As I ruminate on these things, saturated with euphoria, I realize that while I am glad for having experienced it, I'm also glad, so glad, that it's over. I feel a great sense of excitement for what is to come... being able to run my life as I want to, spending my time on myself, and eventually getting to fall in love again.
I continue to listen to music, think, and smoke weed now and then. The euphoria continues unabated for a good few hours. I get up to pee, and look in the mirror. Wow, my pupils are enormous right now! I don't think I've ever seen them so big, I can't really see any color at all, and the bathroom light is on which causes pupil constriction. As I try to focus on my reflection, the nystagmus makes it difficult. The euphoria is so strong that it's almost painful in its sharpness. I think to myself that I look a little pale, and as I hold my hand out before me, it is shaking. Everything is patterned and rippling around me, soft blues and greens predominating. My head feels filled with noise, which makes directed thought difficult, yet there are many thoughts in there, sliding around each other somewhat bewilderingly. I feel amazing, but there is a faint element of alarm to it, as if my mind is whimpering to me that to feel this good can't be healthy. A slight trace of menace is present in the feeling, and I am just a bit uneasy.
I head back to my desk to listen to music some more, and not long after I sit down, I begin to feel a small amount of stomach pain that feels like gas. It's pretty minor and doesn't seem like anything to worry about, so I don't, at first. But as time goes on, that pain grows and grows. It still feels like gas, but like an unmoving bubble that is growing larger and causing greater and greater pressure in my guts. Before long, I start to break out in a cold sweat and I find myself holding my breath and hunching forward awkwardly in my seat. This is really getting painful. As it continues to build, I start to feel slightly nauseous, not from an unsettled stomach, but from the pain. I decide to walk upstairs - slowly and hurting - to lay down in my bed. I bring my laptop with me so I can watch some episodes to occupy myself.
I lay down, and my body feels a little more comfortable but the stomach pain only grows worse, continually worse. It has stopped feeling like I have gas, and now feels like my insides are on fire while being gripped tightly with an iron fist. All I can do is writhe and focus on the pain, groaning, breathing lightly and quickly, since it hurts more to take a full breath. I'm covered in sweat and experiencing possibly the worst pain I've ever experienced. At some point I can no longer tell if it's increasing or not, it's just a massive wall of suffering, who can tell if it grows even more? It's already the entirety of my perception.
During this time, I repeatedly contemplate calling an ambulance. The pain is so intense that it scares me, it feels like something is seriously wrong. All traces of the euphoria and good feelings have left me; now my body feels weak, cold, and sore. Sickly. I am consumed with pain and fear, and a sharp anxiety about whether or not I should do something drastic and call an ambulance. My eyes hurt, and it feels like it's from them being so wide and dilated. Time drags by slowly. At first I am unable to even think of doing anything to distract myself, because it's impossible to ignore my state. But gradually, after perhaps an hour or so, I start to have a little bit of a handle on it. It still hurts ferociously, but I have discovered a particular way to lay, on my back, slightly tilted to the left side, abdomen twisted just so, which seems to relieve a bit of the pressure and makes it feel a little better, and after such a long stretch of agony, even a little relief is felt and greatly welcomed. I turn on some Family Guy episodes and watch them. It helps me to take my mind off of my situation, even if I've already seen all these episodes before. Slowly, ever so slowly, the pain begins to subside. Finally, at around T+9 hours, I am able to fall asleep.
I wake up the next morning, relatively early considering, and to my surprise, I feel perfectly fine, as if nothing had happened. In fact I feel better than I usually do the morning after 4-FA alone. Very strange, but I'm not going to complain.
* * * * *
I came upon this report partially written the other day and I read through it, and then felt I should finish it. It was kind of weird continuing to write it in the present tense, since it happened over 2 years ago. I only ever tried this combination once, due to the extreme pain I felt in the second half of the experience, but it was very interesting. It produced a level and type of euphoria that I have never experienced before. I felt flooded with serotonin like my early MDMA experiences, except this was more of an undirected and forceful feeling, I didn't feel particularly loved up, but I felt filled with a universal love sort of feeling, and it was like being strapped to a rocket ascending into heaven. The sheer bliss was amazing to behold and experience, but it was also very jarring at the same time. I was actually uneasy with how much euphoria I was feeling, so there was this dichotomy of extremes. I was having an amazing time, but there was an undercurrent of unease throughout, which of course became much stronger when I began to feel the most intense pain ever. That pain was far too high a price to pay for the hours of euphoria, and it dominated the trip both in content and duration. It was the closest I have ever come to making a reasoned decision to call an ambulance and go to the ER because of drugs. It might have been stupid of me not to, although it did turn out fine, so I'm ultimately glad that I didn't, since I never had to deal with that. But it could have turned out differently. The pain was something I have never felt before, a burning and twisting feeling in my gut that was quite terrifying. And then, as I slept, it departed from me as if it had never been.
I did have some moments of insight into my emotions at the time, during the good parts of it, but I would never willingly put myself in that situation again. I have no idea if it was a one-off thing, some sort of confluence of factors that came together to produce an adverse reaction, but I don't intend to find out. The whole thing felt like a bad idea. It should be noted that I was fresh out of a long period of time where I was very unhealthy, addicted to opiates (not anymore when I had this experience but it hadn't been more than a few weeks since my last dose) and not eating enough, not exercising. I was skinny and weak, I had started working out but only just, and I was coming out of being in the worst shape of my life. I had also had recurring periods of taking a lot of loperamide to help with trying to taper off opiates, before I did ibogaine, and I always felt that it was hurting my digestive system. I mention these things because they could be factors, though it could be unrelated as well.
I'm glad I came upon this half-written report and decided to finish it. I wanted to get this out there to report an alarming reaction to a combination, and it's always interesting to go back into yourself from years back and see how much you've grown since then.
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substancecode_4fa
substancecode_tryptamines
substancecode_amphetamines
substancecode_stimulants
explevel_experienced
roacode_rectal
exptype_positive
exptype_difficult
exptype_healthissues
_combo_
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The good part of it does sound quite nice. Interestingly, that feeling you describe as feeling so good that it can't be healthy is something I've gotten from 4-HO-MET alone. It actually made me cautious of it at first because it made it seem almost too good to be true, like if I treated it as safe like other psychedelics and overused it it might start to negatively impact me in at least some way. Obviously it's used relatively widely for a research chemical now and it seems pretty safe, but that is still how it has made me feel.... I wonder what it is about it?