Background: 160 lb male, good overall health, smoke cannabis an average of 5 - 10 times per month over the past 12 years or so, no experience with synthetic cannabinoids other than the substance in question.
I'd tried JWH-073 five times previous to this experience. The first three times were spread out over two weeks; the two most recent experiences were earlier this same day. In all those trials I'd measured my doses between 3-5 mg, but after this experience, I wonder whether I'd actually been vaporizing all the chemical. My dose this time is not precisely known since I split somewhere around 15mg with a friend. What I do know is that on previous trials I'd just exhaled a relatively small amount of vapor. This time I got two sizable rips off my crack pipe style bowl and exhaled a respectable plume of smoke; I suspect I may have gotten additional residue from earlier trials. This evening was also my first time redosing; I smoked around 5mg at 4pm, then again around 8pm. I find JWH-073 to have a much more pronounced peak than cannabis - even at relatively low doses, it's quite a bit more intense and drops off much more rapidly, leading to an urge to redose that I never feel with weed. This, my third dose of the afternoon/evening, took place around 9pm.
As soon as I put down the pipe I knew I was in for an intense experience. Within a 45 seconds I felt tremendous anxiety and an accompanying urge to be alone. I told my friend I was getting a glass of water and walked into my kitchen. The level of purely visceral anxiety I felt was unbearable. I sat down at my kitchen table and tried to relax, to give in to the experience, but the panic just flourished. I reminded myself that the peak passes quickly and I just had to ride it out, and tried to read to distract myself, but couldn't follow what was happening. A few minutes later (my sense of time was rapidly deteriorating) my friend walked in. I became increasingly confused as we talked, or maybe I just become increasingly aware of my level of confusion, until I reached a point of utter disorientation. I had no idea what was going on. My memory was totally obliterated, so that I was aware only of the present moment. Concepts lost all meaning, including such fundamental and usually ones like "me", "you", "body," and "time." I had no idea who I was, where I was, who my friend was, or what was happening. All I knew is that I somehow existed and my friend somehow existed, and it seemed like we always had existed and always would.
Needless to say the concept of "drug" had also ceased to exist; I had no recollection that I'd taken something to cause this. Yet somewhere in the background I maintained a vague awareness - faith, almost - that this was a temporary state that would pass, and I think that's what saved me from totally losing my shit. I had no sense of time, obviously, but I'd guess the peak passed in 15 minutes. I went into my room and sort of danced, just moved my body around to discharge some of the overwhelming physical energy I felt, and when I rejoined my friend in the kitchen I was able to carry on a conversation with him, though I was still monumentally fucked up.
Everything he said brought back a piece of reality for me. For example, he said "I have to go home soon," and I thought, "Oh yeah, people have homes where they live. Oh yeah, this in fact is my home." He mentioned calling someone and I remembered that there were other people in this universe, and that that's in fact what I myself was, and what he was. His request for a glass of water brought back the whole concept of how we put various substances in our body to sustain us, and the concept of plumbing. Brick by brick, my sense of reality reconstructed itself. It was pretty wondrous, the dawning realization of how complex and interconnected our world is, the countless phenomena that exist and interact to form our reality. I imagine this realization is not unlike what we all experience from the moment of birth though early childhood, as we gradually become acquainted with our world. But in this case, the whole process happened in about 20 minutes.
I walked my friend to the train about 45 minutes after smoking. While I was still quite altered, I had no difficulty negotiating consensus reality. I went to sleep around midnight (T+3 hrs) but woke up in the middle of the night (not unusual for me) and was surprised to realize that I still wasn't entirely baseline. I was even more surprised when I woke up this morning; I was subtly but unmistakably altered. I was also exhausted, but I went into work anyway. The altered state gradually tapered over the course of the day, but I'm just really starting to feel totally baseline now, at T+26 hrs). This state incidentally was not unpleasant, though it certainly compromised my ability to perform my job. What was unpleasant was how utterly depleted I felt, physcially, mentally, and emotionally; I felt torpid and stupid all day, and my short-term memory was noticeably compromised.
The only time I've ever been this far gone (aside from breakthrough experiences with 5-meo-DMT and salvia) was on 7g of the most ludicrously potent shrooms I've ever tried (penis envy strain), an experience that ended badly. In fact the utter confusion and disorientation were very similar. However, my level of anxiety was actually higher this time. Had the duration been longer, I sense things could have gotten really ugly. While I've found the effects of JWH-073 very cannabis-like at lower doses, this experience was completely different, in terms of both subjective effects and intensity. I just can't imagine ever being anywhere near this high on cannabis. But in a sense, my entire experience could be explained by that most common of cannabis effects, short-term memory loss, taken to its ultimate extreme. At the peak of the trip, I had no memory whatsoever, so I was confined entirely to the present moment. As such, I had no reference for anything, so nothing made sense. I was totally in the moment, but not in a samadhi sense where you feel connected to everything and utterly safe. I felt not liberated but imprisoned in the now - I could not move outside of it, and so my experience lacked continuity and context and was just chaos.
I wonder whether the redoses contributed to that confusion. Even at low doses I find JWH-073 more draining than cannabis (ie, I feel more depleted when I come down), and going into this, my third experience of the day, I felt fried. Next time (this morning I considered, half-seriously, flushing my supply; now that it's finally over I'm contemplating ordering more - I'm in awe of this chemical) I will start with a clean neurochemical slate and try just one large dose. There is clearly tremendous psychedelic potential here, and I want to explore it with a more prepared mindset.
I'd tried JWH-073 five times previous to this experience. The first three times were spread out over two weeks; the two most recent experiences were earlier this same day. In all those trials I'd measured my doses between 3-5 mg, but after this experience, I wonder whether I'd actually been vaporizing all the chemical. My dose this time is not precisely known since I split somewhere around 15mg with a friend. What I do know is that on previous trials I'd just exhaled a relatively small amount of vapor. This time I got two sizable rips off my crack pipe style bowl and exhaled a respectable plume of smoke; I suspect I may have gotten additional residue from earlier trials. This evening was also my first time redosing; I smoked around 5mg at 4pm, then again around 8pm. I find JWH-073 to have a much more pronounced peak than cannabis - even at relatively low doses, it's quite a bit more intense and drops off much more rapidly, leading to an urge to redose that I never feel with weed. This, my third dose of the afternoon/evening, took place around 9pm.
As soon as I put down the pipe I knew I was in for an intense experience. Within a 45 seconds I felt tremendous anxiety and an accompanying urge to be alone. I told my friend I was getting a glass of water and walked into my kitchen. The level of purely visceral anxiety I felt was unbearable. I sat down at my kitchen table and tried to relax, to give in to the experience, but the panic just flourished. I reminded myself that the peak passes quickly and I just had to ride it out, and tried to read to distract myself, but couldn't follow what was happening. A few minutes later (my sense of time was rapidly deteriorating) my friend walked in. I became increasingly confused as we talked, or maybe I just become increasingly aware of my level of confusion, until I reached a point of utter disorientation. I had no idea what was going on. My memory was totally obliterated, so that I was aware only of the present moment. Concepts lost all meaning, including such fundamental and usually ones like "me", "you", "body," and "time." I had no idea who I was, where I was, who my friend was, or what was happening. All I knew is that I somehow existed and my friend somehow existed, and it seemed like we always had existed and always would.
Needless to say the concept of "drug" had also ceased to exist; I had no recollection that I'd taken something to cause this. Yet somewhere in the background I maintained a vague awareness - faith, almost - that this was a temporary state that would pass, and I think that's what saved me from totally losing my shit. I had no sense of time, obviously, but I'd guess the peak passed in 15 minutes. I went into my room and sort of danced, just moved my body around to discharge some of the overwhelming physical energy I felt, and when I rejoined my friend in the kitchen I was able to carry on a conversation with him, though I was still monumentally fucked up.
Everything he said brought back a piece of reality for me. For example, he said "I have to go home soon," and I thought, "Oh yeah, people have homes where they live. Oh yeah, this in fact is my home." He mentioned calling someone and I remembered that there were other people in this universe, and that that's in fact what I myself was, and what he was. His request for a glass of water brought back the whole concept of how we put various substances in our body to sustain us, and the concept of plumbing. Brick by brick, my sense of reality reconstructed itself. It was pretty wondrous, the dawning realization of how complex and interconnected our world is, the countless phenomena that exist and interact to form our reality. I imagine this realization is not unlike what we all experience from the moment of birth though early childhood, as we gradually become acquainted with our world. But in this case, the whole process happened in about 20 minutes.
I walked my friend to the train about 45 minutes after smoking. While I was still quite altered, I had no difficulty negotiating consensus reality. I went to sleep around midnight (T+3 hrs) but woke up in the middle of the night (not unusual for me) and was surprised to realize that I still wasn't entirely baseline. I was even more surprised when I woke up this morning; I was subtly but unmistakably altered. I was also exhausted, but I went into work anyway. The altered state gradually tapered over the course of the day, but I'm just really starting to feel totally baseline now, at T+26 hrs). This state incidentally was not unpleasant, though it certainly compromised my ability to perform my job. What was unpleasant was how utterly depleted I felt, physcially, mentally, and emotionally; I felt torpid and stupid all day, and my short-term memory was noticeably compromised.
The only time I've ever been this far gone (aside from breakthrough experiences with 5-meo-DMT and salvia) was on 7g of the most ludicrously potent shrooms I've ever tried (penis envy strain), an experience that ended badly. In fact the utter confusion and disorientation were very similar. However, my level of anxiety was actually higher this time. Had the duration been longer, I sense things could have gotten really ugly. While I've found the effects of JWH-073 very cannabis-like at lower doses, this experience was completely different, in terms of both subjective effects and intensity. I just can't imagine ever being anywhere near this high on cannabis. But in a sense, my entire experience could be explained by that most common of cannabis effects, short-term memory loss, taken to its ultimate extreme. At the peak of the trip, I had no memory whatsoever, so I was confined entirely to the present moment. As such, I had no reference for anything, so nothing made sense. I was totally in the moment, but not in a samadhi sense where you feel connected to everything and utterly safe. I felt not liberated but imprisoned in the now - I could not move outside of it, and so my experience lacked continuity and context and was just chaos.
I wonder whether the redoses contributed to that confusion. Even at low doses I find JWH-073 more draining than cannabis (ie, I feel more depleted when I come down), and going into this, my third experience of the day, I felt fried. Next time (this morning I considered, half-seriously, flushing my supply; now that it's finally over I'm contemplating ordering more - I'm in awe of this chemical) I will start with a clean neurochemical slate and try just one large dose. There is clearly tremendous psychedelic potential here, and I want to explore it with a more prepared mindset.
........ 