TerminallyChillNB
Greenlighter
I'll make possible details of interest bold, so you can quickly determine what you might want to read, if anything.
This isn't a normal trip report in the usual sense. Its more of an announcement of a strange trip that was completely unintentional, and stuck on. I don't normally write trip reports and certainly don't write them to show off my emotional depth as I've seen in some. I'm pretty skeptical by nature so it's a strange trip to talk about as it was as all-encompassing as it could get. I'll make possible details of interest bold, so you can quickly determine whether or not to read.
I took 10mg of Ambien to help me sleep after a day of non-excessive 4-MMC use. Non excessive being all measured sub-100mg doses spread out over 10 hours.
So normally, I'd go to bed, fall asleep. With ambien there is no wind down to sleep, it's more like I just lose consciousness. This occasion I didn't fall asleep. I got distracted and wound up staying on my laptop for a bit over an hour. Well when I decided it was time, I turned off the light and BOOM, hallucinations. It was a lot like unusually subtle photoreceptor bleaching at first, and since my laptop was the only source of light in a now dark room, such would be a reasonable assumption. However, there was a certain difference in that the unusual areas weren't bound to a set range of my field of vision. They were independent of my mind as well as each other which was immediately shown by their movement. The pace wasn't steady when moving, it was not necessarily linear, the areas were susceptible to objects in their path (furniture), and were creepily the size of a person.
So basically the best way to describe the areas would be, ectoplasmic apparitions or ghosts energies lacking the human image, or at least what I imagine such would look like. I'm not necessarily a believer in such, so my initial thought was "oh shit" immediately followed by fear. I pretty much jumped across the bed to turn the bedside lamp on, waited a few seconds to take a look around and convince myself it was nonsense, and then turned the light off again. Still around, but I didn't see any reason to try the light again. So I laid there in the comforting glow of my laptop and observed, still pretty freaked out, but not in a fearful way as before.
I did that for a short while, then thought to push the laptop screen back a small bit to see how that change in lighting would affect them. When I did, there was a haze of sorts I could see grazing the edge of the top of the screen, slightly wrapping around the top corner. The haze was the same as the areas, slightly visually distorting to the environment behind, and in the glow it had a prismatic effect which was really intriguing. Being so close, I had to try to touch it, but there was still an enormous amount of uncertainty as I reached my hand out to the space above the screen.
There wasn't any tactile sensation, but I had mostly expected a sudden disappearance when mixed with something certainly real or perhaps a hologram like effect, and neither was the case. It was physically interactive in that the glow rolled about my hand when I waved it through, and when simply left there or placed a short distance away, there would be an attraction that would pull the glow to wrap around. This was VERY cool. When encompassed my hand looked as if there was a frame rate issue about it with tiny bars being visible but not straight across, distorted like through a curved glass. This is basically what I had for about an hour, maybe an hour and a half, till I fell asleep in the usual ambien manner, just extremely delayed it seemed.
You have to remember that I hadn't taken any hallucinogens or excessive amounts of either substance, which could possibly lead to hallucinations. I was completely unimpaired and completely aware that what was happening was abnormal and a bit ridiculous. None of the confusion or induced giddiness I might get with psilocybin. With psilocybin I act foolish and am confused throughout the peak, which normally normally leads to me telling myself it's what happens so I shouldn't try to piece anything together, and just enjoy the trip.
The next day, I was so skeptical about what had happened that I started to think it was an extremely lucid dream, and I maybe I HAD been knocked out by the ambien. I guess thats what I was thinking would be more realistic.
So, I did it all over again. 100mg 4-mmc 5hrs before the event, and 50mg more 4-mmc 2hrs before. I took 10mg ambien and I waited 45minutes to cut the lights, which was followed by mostly the same stuff that had happened the night before. Which was awesome. A notable addition was responsiveness to speech. Shown in physical actions, nothing major, but enough to confirm.
This was all extremely cool, but it was also kind of creepy because in the back of my mind I was thinking something may have just gone wrong in my brain. A minor concern. Really though, I am more excited about having been able to repeat such an experience.
I suspect what happened was my body was still too stimulated to rest, but the ambien still started the sleeping process in my brain, leading me to start dreaming while awake. The light factor could maybe be the trigger due to the reduction in my sensory-load. Or, my brain was maybe fooled by the lights being turned off into thinking I'd closed my eyes to go to sleep?
Some people just hallucinate with Ambien... I don't think it's solely responsible though. Having used it long enough to recognize a predictable reaction to it up to this point, I'm pretty confident it was a combination of things. I also feel I was already predisposed to triggering such a reaction.
Daily 450mg Wellbutrin XL (+ 900mg Lithium Carbonate e.r.) may put me at an atypical chemical state that may possibly increase probability of such an experience. Wellbutrin regulates the reuptake of dopamine and norepinephrine. Dopamine being a chemical that is released in reaction to sleep deprivation as a means of stimulation. Norepinephrine being a chemical that is released during, and increases activity of, REM sleep. I don't know if the lithium would have any part, but I've read reports of unusually strong trips from people dropping acid while on lithium.
So there's the non-supernatural reality of it all. Like I said, I'm a skeptic, but knowing its only an abnormal psychological phenomenon REALLY doesn't take away any of the pleasure to be had interacting with an ectoplasmic apparition in a slightly expanded reality.
This isn't a normal trip report in the usual sense. Its more of an announcement of a strange trip that was completely unintentional, and stuck on. I don't normally write trip reports and certainly don't write them to show off my emotional depth as I've seen in some. I'm pretty skeptical by nature so it's a strange trip to talk about as it was as all-encompassing as it could get. I'll make possible details of interest bold, so you can quickly determine whether or not to read.
I took 10mg of Ambien to help me sleep after a day of non-excessive 4-MMC use. Non excessive being all measured sub-100mg doses spread out over 10 hours.
So normally, I'd go to bed, fall asleep. With ambien there is no wind down to sleep, it's more like I just lose consciousness. This occasion I didn't fall asleep. I got distracted and wound up staying on my laptop for a bit over an hour. Well when I decided it was time, I turned off the light and BOOM, hallucinations. It was a lot like unusually subtle photoreceptor bleaching at first, and since my laptop was the only source of light in a now dark room, such would be a reasonable assumption. However, there was a certain difference in that the unusual areas weren't bound to a set range of my field of vision. They were independent of my mind as well as each other which was immediately shown by their movement. The pace wasn't steady when moving, it was not necessarily linear, the areas were susceptible to objects in their path (furniture), and were creepily the size of a person.
So basically the best way to describe the areas would be, ectoplasmic apparitions or ghosts energies lacking the human image, or at least what I imagine such would look like. I'm not necessarily a believer in such, so my initial thought was "oh shit" immediately followed by fear. I pretty much jumped across the bed to turn the bedside lamp on, waited a few seconds to take a look around and convince myself it was nonsense, and then turned the light off again. Still around, but I didn't see any reason to try the light again. So I laid there in the comforting glow of my laptop and observed, still pretty freaked out, but not in a fearful way as before.
I did that for a short while, then thought to push the laptop screen back a small bit to see how that change in lighting would affect them. When I did, there was a haze of sorts I could see grazing the edge of the top of the screen, slightly wrapping around the top corner. The haze was the same as the areas, slightly visually distorting to the environment behind, and in the glow it had a prismatic effect which was really intriguing. Being so close, I had to try to touch it, but there was still an enormous amount of uncertainty as I reached my hand out to the space above the screen.
There wasn't any tactile sensation, but I had mostly expected a sudden disappearance when mixed with something certainly real or perhaps a hologram like effect, and neither was the case. It was physically interactive in that the glow rolled about my hand when I waved it through, and when simply left there or placed a short distance away, there would be an attraction that would pull the glow to wrap around. This was VERY cool. When encompassed my hand looked as if there was a frame rate issue about it with tiny bars being visible but not straight across, distorted like through a curved glass. This is basically what I had for about an hour, maybe an hour and a half, till I fell asleep in the usual ambien manner, just extremely delayed it seemed.
You have to remember that I hadn't taken any hallucinogens or excessive amounts of either substance, which could possibly lead to hallucinations. I was completely unimpaired and completely aware that what was happening was abnormal and a bit ridiculous. None of the confusion or induced giddiness I might get with psilocybin. With psilocybin I act foolish and am confused throughout the peak, which normally normally leads to me telling myself it's what happens so I shouldn't try to piece anything together, and just enjoy the trip.
The next day, I was so skeptical about what had happened that I started to think it was an extremely lucid dream, and I maybe I HAD been knocked out by the ambien. I guess thats what I was thinking would be more realistic.
So, I did it all over again. 100mg 4-mmc 5hrs before the event, and 50mg more 4-mmc 2hrs before. I took 10mg ambien and I waited 45minutes to cut the lights, which was followed by mostly the same stuff that had happened the night before. Which was awesome. A notable addition was responsiveness to speech. Shown in physical actions, nothing major, but enough to confirm.
This was all extremely cool, but it was also kind of creepy because in the back of my mind I was thinking something may have just gone wrong in my brain. A minor concern. Really though, I am more excited about having been able to repeat such an experience.
I suspect what happened was my body was still too stimulated to rest, but the ambien still started the sleeping process in my brain, leading me to start dreaming while awake. The light factor could maybe be the trigger due to the reduction in my sensory-load. Or, my brain was maybe fooled by the lights being turned off into thinking I'd closed my eyes to go to sleep?
Some people just hallucinate with Ambien... I don't think it's solely responsible though. Having used it long enough to recognize a predictable reaction to it up to this point, I'm pretty confident it was a combination of things. I also feel I was already predisposed to triggering such a reaction.
Daily 450mg Wellbutrin XL (+ 900mg Lithium Carbonate e.r.) may put me at an atypical chemical state that may possibly increase probability of such an experience. Wellbutrin regulates the reuptake of dopamine and norepinephrine. Dopamine being a chemical that is released in reaction to sleep deprivation as a means of stimulation. Norepinephrine being a chemical that is released during, and increases activity of, REM sleep. I don't know if the lithium would have any part, but I've read reports of unusually strong trips from people dropping acid while on lithium.
So there's the non-supernatural reality of it all. Like I said, I'm a skeptic, but knowing its only an abnormal psychological phenomenon REALLY doesn't take away any of the pleasure to be had interacting with an ectoplasmic apparition in a slightly expanded reality.
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