Catch-22
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2001
- Messages
- 4,518
During the last few weeks, my mental outlook has been very contemplative and introspective. I have been reading Being and Nothingness by Sartre and reading dozens of trip reports on the internet. The day before this experience, I had a reflective conversation with a friend of mine where we spoke for about four hours.
I wanted to trip at night, so for the past few days I had began shifting my sleeping patterns. I woke up at 8:00 PM and did some light stretching. I am not taking any medications and have no physical/mental problems. Except for a handful of crackers, I have not eaten in more than 14 hours. I feel somewhat nervous but upbeat and looking forward to the experience.
Note = Quotations are from actual entries either made in my journal or spoken into a tape recorder during the experience. (I used the tape recorder from 12 AM until 4:30 AM, otherwise I wrote in my journal.)
8:30 PM (+0:00) = This is my first experience with 2-C-T-7, and it has been about five years since I lasted tripped. I nervously ingest a capsule containing 18.2 mg and unplug my telephones. I “psychologically begin insulating myself inside my apartment.” I take a quick shower and “any apprehensions…seem to dissipate.” I look at myself for five minutes in the mirror, then put on a favorite t-shirt and pair of jeans.
8:52 PM (+0:22) = “I seek a couple of benefits from this experience.” I want to “temporarily remove myself from the ordinary world” so I can recapture a more essential frame of mind. “Now in my mid- to late-20’s, I find myself getting bogged daily in daily experience” and want to “reclarify what is truly important to me.” I also want to explore myself and get some honest insight into “why, despite my abilities and ambitions and respectable levels of accomplishments, I fail to live up to my own internal standards.”
9:06 PM (+0:36) = “Feeling vaguely thick. Not unpleasant at all….” My apartment is quiet except for classical music playing on the radio.
9:17 PM (+0:47) = “I do feel slight queasiness. Right now I am lying on my back….” My apartment is dark except for one light in the kitchen.
9:21 PM (+0:51) = “As a precaution, I grab a wastebasket and move it over next to me on the couch.” I focus on writing so I can ignore the physical discomfort. “My body has been changing in recent years. About ten years ago I was athletic….I am not happy with how I have put on significant weight. Too many nights spent drinking, a late night snack before going to bed. I am now 6’3”-6’4” and 280 lbs, and I don’t like it….My own frustrations of not accomplishing my personal and professional goals—I take these things….and channel my resentment at others.”
9:28 PM (+0:58) = “There is a slight commotion outside. Notice a dead feeling in my stomach. I feel clean, pure….and restless. I try to take my pulse and get 48 [beats per minute].” But I also realize this is not possible?
9:37 PM (+1:07) = “Difficult to write.”
9:39 PM (+1:09) = “The classical music from the radio seems….full, rich, clear! Definitely impacting my mood.”
9:44 PM (+1:14) = I think about the South American mountain tribe from the movie Altered States. “I feel euphoric—my face numbs, my arms are heavy….my feet cold. There is a dead spot in my stomach, can’t even really say it’s uncomfortable.”
9:50 PM (+1:20) = “Queasy….”
10:08 PM (+1:38) = “Feel tingling on top of head. Shortness of breath.” The classical music gives way to The Orb. “Some motor coordination problems….I have not yet peaked—and feel The Orb taking me higher!”
10:16 PM (+1:48) = “I am glad I am alone with this. My thoughts wander [and I] wouldn’t want questions or talking from others. How to describe this? My head is warm, my chest is cold, my groin is warm but my feet are cold.”
10:35 PM (+2:05) = “I am in an altered state. Still coming up….”
10:42 PM (+2:12) = “Finally! Cool all over except for top of head….”
10:56 PM (+2:26) = I fall into the sofa, then lay on my back watching the ceiling. “Slow at first, then patterns….swirlings—washed back and forth—easier, more distinguished—melts, swirls and crawls of patterns. Some pixelation of vision.”
11:00 PM (+2:30) = “Stomach light, shaking, trembling, head tingling, feet/knees quivering, hand shaking. Writing is a tremendous challenge….[Illegible]….Shoulders loose, knees weak, jaw clenching…[Illegible]”
? = “Three dimensional, wave/cresting type of patterns. Washing over me. Still cognizant in the moment but completely and delightfully impaired.”
~11:45 PM (+3:15) = I went for a fifteen minute walk around my neighborhood. I live in a medium sized city in the southern United States. The sky was overcast and I could barely see any stars.
~12:05 AM (+3:35) = The introspective qualities start taking over as I talk into the tape recorder. “What is holding me back in life?” “Why can’t I just be brave….? I’m showing cowardice. I’m not trying. I’m not challenging myself!” I also try to describe some of the visuals I am seeing. “Floating patterns, cascading in and out. Three-dimensional. Breathing. [Garbled] Undulating. Feeling alive.” I also realize that although I could handle more 2-C-T-7, I am very comfortable with this dose.
12:15 AM (+3:45) = “Wish I was in the wilderness.” I remember going hiking with my father when I was 7 or 8 years old. I feel tightness in the jaws that is mildly uncomfortable and notice that I am sweating lightly.
? = I make some disoriented comments into the tape recorder.
~12:30 AM (+4:00) = “I went to the bathroom, and looked at myself in the mirror….and saw I was different people. There’s the constructive me….[Garbled] There was the destructive me….Above, there’s the real me….where I need to focus. Then underneath, the regular guy trying to hold different pieces together….I need to see that the upper me is being dragged down. I liked all of them except one….he [the negative one?] was cold, his glare was pale…. [Garbled] There was some visuals, then a meltdown and a build back up….”
12:46 AM (+4:16) = I change the setting of my apartment by turning on all the lights. I drink a soda and it tastes great. I feel energetic and “pushed”. I decide to try to some oil painting. “I feel soft and clumsy.”
1:12 AM (+4:42) = I express my amazement at the painting experience. Kind of Blue by Miles Davis is playing on the stereo.
1:27 AM (+4:57) = I look into the mirror for approximately 10 minutes and then try to describe it into the tape recorder. “I just went to the mirror and I saw some things. If I don’t change, it will take over….and there was a sense I need to clarify [myself]. You could tell looking in….I was looking into my eyes—a keyhole into this alternate universe. And….” The taped entry continues for about thirty seconds, but I never finish my description and apparently just shut the tape recorder off. As I write this the next day, I think I meant to say something like: The disappointment of not achieving all your goals is minor considered to the despair of not accomplishing any of them.
1:43 AM (+5:13) = By now I am becoming more loquacious with my tape-recorded entries. I go outside and stand on my balcony for a minute. A neighbor’s cat is lying in the windowsill of the apartment across from me. The cat looked at me, and I looked back at the cat. We locked eyes for about a minute and I felt some kind of (psychic?) connection until I was distracted by a car noise from the street. Snapped back to reality, I retreat into my apartment and lock the door.
? = I return to look in the mirror for the final time. “Melt away to the worst I can be, and then come back to the best I can be….” I realize and accept I will never be perfect, because my strengths as a person are linked to my weaknesses. They are tied together and cannot be separated. The key is that if the strengths are busily utilized, the weaknesses do not have a chance to take hold and flourish. The opposite is also true: “Every hour I let the bad person run free is 10 hours the good guy can’t walk with a smile on his face.”
? = I eat a few crackers and feel very good. I turn out all the lights and lay on the sofa watching a candle. “I feel more eager to have a conversation. I feel much more eager to philosophize with someone. Ask questions, answer questions. This would be the sociable time.” I feel a burst of energy, and have to consciously suppress the urge to call friends or go for a drive in my car. Instead, I compose a poem describing the flickering candle into the tape recorder.
2:11 AM (+ 5:41) = I turn all the lights back on and start cooking a meal. Miles Davis gives way to Bob Dylan and I feel euphoric.
2:35 AM (+6:05) = I feel energetic. Physically I have some tension from jaw clenching. My head tingles and there is a cool feeling in my knees and ankles. I take two Advil (each 200-mg ibuprofen) and a Centrum (multi-vitamin). I eat less than half of the meal I cooked before returning to work on my painting.
? = I have a strong reaction to the song Positively 4th Street by Bob Dylan. “I don’t know exactly what he’s singing about. Is he singing to himself? Is he singing to someone else? Or is someone singing this to him? But to me, it sounded like parts of me talking to other parts of me. Not exactly, but enough to give me chills….”
3:15 AM (+6:45) = Bob Dylan gives way to Luna’s Penthouse.
3:48 AM (+7:18) = I finish the painting and name it “Washed Away”. [At the time I thought the painting was mediocre, but as I write this the next day I am really beginning to like the way it looks. The scene is a storm at sea with a rocky island in the background. The sky is turbulent and swirling, about to conceal a fading sun. A large wave is building that will soon block almost the entire view from sight.]
4:00 AM (+7:30) = I lay on the couch for 20 minutes. I feel heady and enthused, and begin to contemplate this experience.
4:30 AM (+8:00) = Luna gives way to Mazzy Star who gives way to Sonic Youth. I feel a dull pain in my jaw and slight discomfort on the top of my head so I take two more Advil (each 200-mg ibuprofen). “At this point….if I did have a steady girlfriend I would want her here with me to experience the aftereffect.” I have thoughts of incorporating this experience and future 2-C-T-7 trips into my regular life. “This is the part of the trip where you bond.” For the next 90 minutes I organize my thoughts. I sketch in my journal, and draw myself looking into the mirror with all the different people looking back at me. I feel euphoric. The apartment is silent except for the music and I drink plenty of water.
6:30 AM (+10:00) = I spend six hours playing around on the computer, relaxing and enjoying myself.
1:00 PM (+16:30) = I eat a small meal and watch mindless television.
3:00 PM (+18:30) = I go to bed and drift off to sleep after about ten minutes.
11:30 PM (+27:00) = I wake up feeling refreshed except for a dull ache in my jaw, some tension between my shoulder blades and slight pressure in my eyes. I am happy, seem mentally alert and feel ready to begin a new project of some kind.
This experience was very enjoyable and I gained some beneficial insights that should help me with my daily life. The physical discomfort was noticeable at times but never prohibitive. While my dosage was mild, I now understand my reaction to 2-C-T-7 and would be willing to try 20-25 mg orally in my future experiences. I would like to try other settings or perhaps eventually combine 2-C-T-7 with other drugs.
In conclusion, I appreciated the introspective and creative aspects of the experience. I now understand that the enjoyment is not in achieving perfection but the process of trying, and the disappointment of not living up to your full potential is minor compared to the despair and bitterness of never realizing even a small amount of your potential. I enjoyed the feeling of painting, and sometime in the future might try to dictate an entire short story into a tape recorder while experiencing 2-C-T-7.
[Edited to fix a format problem]
[This message has been edited by Catch-22 (edited 01 April 2001).]
substancecode_2ct7
I wanted to trip at night, so for the past few days I had began shifting my sleeping patterns. I woke up at 8:00 PM and did some light stretching. I am not taking any medications and have no physical/mental problems. Except for a handful of crackers, I have not eaten in more than 14 hours. I feel somewhat nervous but upbeat and looking forward to the experience.
Note = Quotations are from actual entries either made in my journal or spoken into a tape recorder during the experience. (I used the tape recorder from 12 AM until 4:30 AM, otherwise I wrote in my journal.)
8:30 PM (+0:00) = This is my first experience with 2-C-T-7, and it has been about five years since I lasted tripped. I nervously ingest a capsule containing 18.2 mg and unplug my telephones. I “psychologically begin insulating myself inside my apartment.” I take a quick shower and “any apprehensions…seem to dissipate.” I look at myself for five minutes in the mirror, then put on a favorite t-shirt and pair of jeans.
8:52 PM (+0:22) = “I seek a couple of benefits from this experience.” I want to “temporarily remove myself from the ordinary world” so I can recapture a more essential frame of mind. “Now in my mid- to late-20’s, I find myself getting bogged daily in daily experience” and want to “reclarify what is truly important to me.” I also want to explore myself and get some honest insight into “why, despite my abilities and ambitions and respectable levels of accomplishments, I fail to live up to my own internal standards.”
9:06 PM (+0:36) = “Feeling vaguely thick. Not unpleasant at all….” My apartment is quiet except for classical music playing on the radio.
9:17 PM (+0:47) = “I do feel slight queasiness. Right now I am lying on my back….” My apartment is dark except for one light in the kitchen.
9:21 PM (+0:51) = “As a precaution, I grab a wastebasket and move it over next to me on the couch.” I focus on writing so I can ignore the physical discomfort. “My body has been changing in recent years. About ten years ago I was athletic….I am not happy with how I have put on significant weight. Too many nights spent drinking, a late night snack before going to bed. I am now 6’3”-6’4” and 280 lbs, and I don’t like it….My own frustrations of not accomplishing my personal and professional goals—I take these things….and channel my resentment at others.”
9:28 PM (+0:58) = “There is a slight commotion outside. Notice a dead feeling in my stomach. I feel clean, pure….and restless. I try to take my pulse and get 48 [beats per minute].” But I also realize this is not possible?
9:37 PM (+1:07) = “Difficult to write.”
9:39 PM (+1:09) = “The classical music from the radio seems….full, rich, clear! Definitely impacting my mood.”
9:44 PM (+1:14) = I think about the South American mountain tribe from the movie Altered States. “I feel euphoric—my face numbs, my arms are heavy….my feet cold. There is a dead spot in my stomach, can’t even really say it’s uncomfortable.”
9:50 PM (+1:20) = “Queasy….”
10:08 PM (+1:38) = “Feel tingling on top of head. Shortness of breath.” The classical music gives way to The Orb. “Some motor coordination problems….I have not yet peaked—and feel The Orb taking me higher!”
10:16 PM (+1:48) = “I am glad I am alone with this. My thoughts wander [and I] wouldn’t want questions or talking from others. How to describe this? My head is warm, my chest is cold, my groin is warm but my feet are cold.”
10:35 PM (+2:05) = “I am in an altered state. Still coming up….”
10:42 PM (+2:12) = “Finally! Cool all over except for top of head….”
10:56 PM (+2:26) = I fall into the sofa, then lay on my back watching the ceiling. “Slow at first, then patterns….swirlings—washed back and forth—easier, more distinguished—melts, swirls and crawls of patterns. Some pixelation of vision.”
11:00 PM (+2:30) = “Stomach light, shaking, trembling, head tingling, feet/knees quivering, hand shaking. Writing is a tremendous challenge….[Illegible]….Shoulders loose, knees weak, jaw clenching…[Illegible]”
? = “Three dimensional, wave/cresting type of patterns. Washing over me. Still cognizant in the moment but completely and delightfully impaired.”
~11:45 PM (+3:15) = I went for a fifteen minute walk around my neighborhood. I live in a medium sized city in the southern United States. The sky was overcast and I could barely see any stars.
~12:05 AM (+3:35) = The introspective qualities start taking over as I talk into the tape recorder. “What is holding me back in life?” “Why can’t I just be brave….? I’m showing cowardice. I’m not trying. I’m not challenging myself!” I also try to describe some of the visuals I am seeing. “Floating patterns, cascading in and out. Three-dimensional. Breathing. [Garbled] Undulating. Feeling alive.” I also realize that although I could handle more 2-C-T-7, I am very comfortable with this dose.
12:15 AM (+3:45) = “Wish I was in the wilderness.” I remember going hiking with my father when I was 7 or 8 years old. I feel tightness in the jaws that is mildly uncomfortable and notice that I am sweating lightly.
? = I make some disoriented comments into the tape recorder.
~12:30 AM (+4:00) = “I went to the bathroom, and looked at myself in the mirror….and saw I was different people. There’s the constructive me….[Garbled] There was the destructive me….Above, there’s the real me….where I need to focus. Then underneath, the regular guy trying to hold different pieces together….I need to see that the upper me is being dragged down. I liked all of them except one….he [the negative one?] was cold, his glare was pale…. [Garbled] There was some visuals, then a meltdown and a build back up….”
12:46 AM (+4:16) = I change the setting of my apartment by turning on all the lights. I drink a soda and it tastes great. I feel energetic and “pushed”. I decide to try to some oil painting. “I feel soft and clumsy.”
1:12 AM (+4:42) = I express my amazement at the painting experience. Kind of Blue by Miles Davis is playing on the stereo.
1:27 AM (+4:57) = I look into the mirror for approximately 10 minutes and then try to describe it into the tape recorder. “I just went to the mirror and I saw some things. If I don’t change, it will take over….and there was a sense I need to clarify [myself]. You could tell looking in….I was looking into my eyes—a keyhole into this alternate universe. And….” The taped entry continues for about thirty seconds, but I never finish my description and apparently just shut the tape recorder off. As I write this the next day, I think I meant to say something like: The disappointment of not achieving all your goals is minor considered to the despair of not accomplishing any of them.
1:43 AM (+5:13) = By now I am becoming more loquacious with my tape-recorded entries. I go outside and stand on my balcony for a minute. A neighbor’s cat is lying in the windowsill of the apartment across from me. The cat looked at me, and I looked back at the cat. We locked eyes for about a minute and I felt some kind of (psychic?) connection until I was distracted by a car noise from the street. Snapped back to reality, I retreat into my apartment and lock the door.
? = I return to look in the mirror for the final time. “Melt away to the worst I can be, and then come back to the best I can be….” I realize and accept I will never be perfect, because my strengths as a person are linked to my weaknesses. They are tied together and cannot be separated. The key is that if the strengths are busily utilized, the weaknesses do not have a chance to take hold and flourish. The opposite is also true: “Every hour I let the bad person run free is 10 hours the good guy can’t walk with a smile on his face.”
? = I eat a few crackers and feel very good. I turn out all the lights and lay on the sofa watching a candle. “I feel more eager to have a conversation. I feel much more eager to philosophize with someone. Ask questions, answer questions. This would be the sociable time.” I feel a burst of energy, and have to consciously suppress the urge to call friends or go for a drive in my car. Instead, I compose a poem describing the flickering candle into the tape recorder.
2:11 AM (+ 5:41) = I turn all the lights back on and start cooking a meal. Miles Davis gives way to Bob Dylan and I feel euphoric.
2:35 AM (+6:05) = I feel energetic. Physically I have some tension from jaw clenching. My head tingles and there is a cool feeling in my knees and ankles. I take two Advil (each 200-mg ibuprofen) and a Centrum (multi-vitamin). I eat less than half of the meal I cooked before returning to work on my painting.
? = I have a strong reaction to the song Positively 4th Street by Bob Dylan. “I don’t know exactly what he’s singing about. Is he singing to himself? Is he singing to someone else? Or is someone singing this to him? But to me, it sounded like parts of me talking to other parts of me. Not exactly, but enough to give me chills….”
3:15 AM (+6:45) = Bob Dylan gives way to Luna’s Penthouse.
3:48 AM (+7:18) = I finish the painting and name it “Washed Away”. [At the time I thought the painting was mediocre, but as I write this the next day I am really beginning to like the way it looks. The scene is a storm at sea with a rocky island in the background. The sky is turbulent and swirling, about to conceal a fading sun. A large wave is building that will soon block almost the entire view from sight.]
4:00 AM (+7:30) = I lay on the couch for 20 minutes. I feel heady and enthused, and begin to contemplate this experience.
4:30 AM (+8:00) = Luna gives way to Mazzy Star who gives way to Sonic Youth. I feel a dull pain in my jaw and slight discomfort on the top of my head so I take two more Advil (each 200-mg ibuprofen). “At this point….if I did have a steady girlfriend I would want her here with me to experience the aftereffect.” I have thoughts of incorporating this experience and future 2-C-T-7 trips into my regular life. “This is the part of the trip where you bond.” For the next 90 minutes I organize my thoughts. I sketch in my journal, and draw myself looking into the mirror with all the different people looking back at me. I feel euphoric. The apartment is silent except for the music and I drink plenty of water.
6:30 AM (+10:00) = I spend six hours playing around on the computer, relaxing and enjoying myself.
1:00 PM (+16:30) = I eat a small meal and watch mindless television.
3:00 PM (+18:30) = I go to bed and drift off to sleep after about ten minutes.
11:30 PM (+27:00) = I wake up feeling refreshed except for a dull ache in my jaw, some tension between my shoulder blades and slight pressure in my eyes. I am happy, seem mentally alert and feel ready to begin a new project of some kind.
This experience was very enjoyable and I gained some beneficial insights that should help me with my daily life. The physical discomfort was noticeable at times but never prohibitive. While my dosage was mild, I now understand my reaction to 2-C-T-7 and would be willing to try 20-25 mg orally in my future experiences. I would like to try other settings or perhaps eventually combine 2-C-T-7 with other drugs.
In conclusion, I appreciated the introspective and creative aspects of the experience. I now understand that the enjoyment is not in achieving perfection but the process of trying, and the disappointment of not living up to your full potential is minor compared to the despair and bitterness of never realizing even a small amount of your potential. I enjoyed the feeling of painting, and sometime in the future might try to dictate an entire short story into a tape recorder while experiencing 2-C-T-7.
[Edited to fix a format problem]
[This message has been edited by Catch-22 (edited 01 April 2001).]
substancecode_2ct7
Last edited by a moderator:
