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  • Trip Reports Moderator: Cheshire_Kat

Ether - First Time - Not so great

R.M. Shackelford

Bluelighter
Joined
Feb 24, 2004
Messages
185
Me and two friends were bored tonight, so we went to Walmart and bought a can of Prestone starter fluid. We sprayed it into a bottle, mixed in one part water, shook it for a while, then seperated the heptane from the ethyl ether.

Not knowing what to expect or how much to do, I poured some on the rag and tried to take a whiff. It smelled terrible and seared my nostrils. I passed the rag as we all gave it short smell and tried to decide whether we should commit to getting high off it. My friend dipped the rag in the cup with the pure ether and soaked up almost all of it at once. I started taking bigger drags and realized that it's not so bad once you get used to it.

I can't give you the play-by-play of the next 45 minutes or so, because everything became so distorted and bizarre I wasn't entirely sure what was happening. I have a lot of experience with nitrous, and they are very comparable. Everything was fluttering, my motor skills were impaired in much the same way. I could still walk when I wanted to, but I was numb and clumsy and stupid. But ether came on slower, and stayed longer. I would be totally high on ether, but quite unaware of it, as I struggled to think normally. I started noticing insane patterns of predictability in the things happening around me. My friend playing the keyboard, closing the door, making a noise. It all seemed to have been played out in front of me a thousand times before, in my dreams, or something, and I had an insane outside perspective on everything that was happening. Strong sense of helplessness.

I remember laying on the couch, with the ether-soaked rag in my hands, twisting it in circles and struggling to understand the complexities of its shape. It didn't make any sense to me. I would close my eyes and see existance summarized in inexplicably bizarre ways. Color-coded spheres sliding on a frozen pink lake to the tune of a single ultra-high-pitched shriek that encompassed and defined everything.

The thing that really bothered me about it was how hard it was to tell when and how it was affecting me. My insane thoughts would get really far before I would remember I was drugged, and it upset me. I wanted to be able to think clearly between the streaks of (mild) euphoria. There's no clear distinction between being on ether and being off, like there is with nitrous. It lingers.

I think I didn't push it quite far enough to get to the second plateua of intense physical euphoria. I'm not sure if I ever will, either. I'm glad I tried it, but it gave me a headache and scared the bejeezus out of me. I don't think I'll do it again soon.
 
I remember laying on the couch, with the ether-soaked rag in my hands, twisting it in circles and struggling to understand the complexities of its shape.

Shapes are pretty complex things sometimes...
 
Yeah, I remember trying starting fluid 15-20 years ago. But I tell you what, if you even get the chance to get some lab grade ether then grab it and give it a try. It's a completley different experience.

We used to pour it into a glass bottle and heat it in warm water in a sink to get it to evaporate much quicker. The stuff evaporated so quickly when warmed that you couldn't even keep your thumb over the bottle to keep it in. So then we would just hit it from the bottle. It was so strong the stuff would burn until you got used to it. I wouldn't attempt to do anything like this with ether extracted from starting fluid though. Too many impurities. Mine was a 4 liter jug that came from my college chemistry class, so I know it was decent stuff.

Oh the days.... 8)
 
This is very interesting. Could you elaborate more on how yu separated the ether from the heptane? I have never heard of this.

I am very interested in hearing reports on oral Diethyl Ether, as it was consumed in the 19th century...

GP: Glad to hear you didn't make instant Molotov with your heated ether bottle ;)
 
Mean Girl said:
Bored = Ether?

Christ I don't envy your headspace.

I don't know about bored = ETHER

I've been further with lab grade ether (heated as I described) than I can even begin to describe. It's not for the faint-hearted. Basically you can do it to the point of blacking out and then stop. Right before you black out is complete fantasy land though each time. A trip sitter is probably good.

If it sounds childish to you that's fine, but once you've been there you will be a believer. =D You hear and read all kinds of stories about people going under anesthesia having all kindsof life-chaging dreams and revelations. Well pour yourself some ether in a bottle and have your own revelations. I've got quite a bit of experience (years ago) with many different surgical anesthetics, but trust me, pure ether is top notch.

Lab grade is the way to go though. The stuff from the starting fluid cans is just too impure to heat and inhale.

-gp
 
I wasn't saying it sounded childish, but just ether didn't strike me as something to automatically pop into my head when I was bored, and I was curious about the mind that thought like that.
 
Jamshyd said:
This is very interesting. Could you elaborate more on how yu separated the ether from the heptane? I have never heard of this.

I am very interested in hearing reports on oral Diethyl Ether, as it was consumed in the 19th century...

You mix 1 part starting fluid, 1 part water, and shake it for five minutes, then let it settle for a few minutes. You get two very distinct layers - a clear one on top, and a milky one on bottom. We used a big turkey baster to suck off the top layer, which is the layer you huff.

Orally? I wouldn't suggest it. I'm not sure if it's safe, but it seems to me about as smart as drinking paint thinner.
 
Pure (I guess?) Diethyl Ether was used orally in the 19th century by people (mostly women) who had no access to alcohol.

But thanks for sharing.. I didn't know such an easy method existed, lol. Not that I will be drinking Ether extracted from starting fluid.

And GP: I don't think it is the best idea to heat Diethyl ether... lab grade or not...
 
I really do not see how adding a highly polar solvent to two nonpolar solvents is going to properly separate them. Granted, diethyl ether has an oxygen moiety, so it is clearly more polarized than heptane. However, it seems like highly non-polar solvent + moderately non-polar solvent + incredibly polar solvent would just yield a big ugly mess. In other words, this stuff you were inhaling was probably a mix of diethyl ether and heptane, both of which are neurotoxic (diethyl ether obviously less so).
 
Jamshyd said:
Pure (I guess?) Diethyl Ether was used orally in the 19th century by people (mostly women) who had no access to alcohol.

But thanks for sharing.. I didn't know such an easy method existed, lol. Not that I will be drinking Ether extracted from starting fluid.

And GP: I don't think it is the best idea to heat Diethyl ether... lab grade or not...

When I mention heating ethyl ether, I'm talking about 'warming' it in a water bath, not heating it over flames or anything flammable. If you raise it even on 10 degrees or so in temp, you would be amazed how much more quickly it evaporates. So if that wasn't clear before, let me make it so now. =D We use to pour the lab grade stuff into cleaned out whiskey bottles and fill the bathroom sinks with really hot water keeping our whiskey bottle submerged in the hot water. That's pretty much all it takes. Nothing dangerous about it as long as there's no smokers in the room. 8(

Another one of my favorites was isoflurane a surgical-grade anesthetic I used to have easy availability to. That stuff would knock you on your ass a lot quicker though, so it was a little less 'fun' and had to be done in small huffs. With ether, when I was in college, we used to get 4-5 of us crowded around the bathroom sink sharing the bottle. When one of us would get to the knee buckling point, somebody would sit them down and somebody else would take over the bottle. Basically once you got to the point of your knees buckling, everything was fanstasyland for a few minutes. It really was fun stuff.

If you ever do lab grade ether (huff it), you will never do the stuff extracted from starting fluid can again. It's really trash in comparison. In high school I did the same thing spraying starting fluid into a bottle of water and shaking, letting it settle,etc. There was a small circle of us that were regulars to the stuff. But once I got to college and got the real thing from my chemisrty lab, oh shit. 8( Complelety different.

I read about folks drinking it too, but I never did give it a try personally.

I'm not at all ashamed to admit I used to love inhalents when I was high-school/college age. I never did paint thinner, gasoline or anything like that, but I did a pretty large amount of ether and other various surgical anesthetics in my time. Mostly stuff that was meant to be inhaled, just not abused. Also did whippets and quite a bit of rush/poppers too, since I guess they count as inhalents. The 'trashiest' thing (at least to me) I ever did was propane and I did it several times. That stuff is addictive. When my one friend who loved ether and rush did propane with me for her first time and refused to do a second hit (she was too trashed) I realized this stuff is really wrong.

To this day, I still do whippets, but I limit my use to when I'm tripping. God, I couldn't image what a bottle of lag grade ether would be like in the middle of a 2ce trip.
 
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