About a month ago at Electric Zoo in New York City, I had an extremely bizarre experience while under the influence of three little pills. I rose up to become a god, and then I fell very, very far, coming to the edge of a chasm that might have swallowed me up forever.
4PM (T+0): I meet up with two old friends from highschool (I will refer to them as T (female) and M (male)), and they show me the pills they had procured for the event. They were brown/purplish pills with a music note on both sides. They were a little thicker than usual, and were not very well-pressed. My friends tell me that they have MDMA, 2CI and probably some speed and/or caffeine, according to their trusted dealer. We all take one immediately, and just sit around chatting and catching up.
4:15PM (T + :15): T and M both report some nausea, but I feel fine.
4:30PM (T + :30): T and M and I are sitting on a grassy hill, listening to the music drift toward us from the stages fairly nearby. My friends’ nausea has disappeared. The breeze on my exposed skin starts to feel really wonderful. I find myself lightly stroking my own forearms, and as I run my hands down my arms I slowly breathe in and my whole body seems to inflate with a sense of well-being. Out of nowhere T (who I had not seen in over a year) exclaims how much she had missed me, and we share a fairly long hug. The music of the festival begins to sound incredibly beautiful, and T and M and I all exclaim at nearly the same time that we should go dance at the main stage.
5:00PM (T + 1): We are all casually dancing to the beats of Dirty South, who is performing on the main stage. Thousands of people around me smile and cheer and move. The subtle changes in tempo of songs I have heard before suddenly seem enormously noticeable and enrapturing. T and M and I begin to hold hands, and T and I kiss. It is wonderful and entirely platonic. I feel more beautiful than I had ever felt before. Other people are more beautiful than I had ever before realized. I compliment a random girl on her tattoo of a tree, and she thanks and hugs me. Often during the music I would look up at the passing clouds, which seemed to be alive, and to pulsate with energy.
5:30PM (T + 1:30): Feeling wonderful, we all decide to sit down on the grassy hill again. We all pop another pill. I suggest a massage train, which my friends think is a great idea. M’s hands on my back feel truly otherworldly. It is as if he is massaging my organs (I realize this sounds bizarre, but I can’t think of another way to describe it). It begins to mist a little bit. None of us are particularly upset by the prospect of rain though; we all stand up and began dancing slowly in the downpour. At one point I close my eyes and tilt my face straight upward, opening my mouth. Tiny droplets on my tongue feel like thousands of soft wet feathers caressing my tongue. The rain reminds us to get some water bottles, as we are all thirsty.
6PM (T + 2): Major Lazer (the show we had all been the most excited about) starts up on the main stage. We go around the side of the crowd and are able to get a great spot in the front, about twenty feet from the stage. Major Lazer begins and we (along with thousands of others) go wild. To just jump wildly and breathe deeply and scream loudly is ecstatic. I am so close to the speakers that I initially feel as if the bass is consuming me, or that I am becoming the bass. I am very glad we had brought a lot of gum, because my jaw is clenching wildly.
6:30PM (T+ 2:30): I feel omnipotent. The way I dance is so powerful and yet so graceful. I feel like I could dance for days, like I am expending zero energy. Every part of my body is in sync with every part of the music. I decide to take one more pill, because I want to stay in the same state through Benny Benassi, who is up next. It is beginning to get dark, and the clouds become even more beautiful. At one point I look up at the trees behind us, which I think are willows. They make me think of weeping willows, and for a few seconds I am sad. A tear rolls down my face. But then I notice that their leaves are shimmering with an emerald intensity which is beyond description…and after a few seconds I realize that each branch and each leaf is dancing along with everyone there, to the music. I smile and breathe very deeply and thank the trees for all the oxygen they provide for me to breathe. And then I breathe out and take off my shirt and dance harder than ever, like I never have before.
7:30PM (T + 3:30): Benny Benassi begins, and when the first song drops and the lightshow on the stage explodes, I have to close my eyes. But the same sequence of about a second of the lightshow plays itself over again at least four more times on my eyelids. All thoughts leave my head except the music (which feels more like it is in my heart and lungs) and my body and the bodies of those around me.
8PM (T + 4): Although I am still dancing wildly, my friends M and T have been complaining of nausea for a little bit. I start to feel it as well, and we all decide to go get some sports drinks and sit down for a bit. Unlike earlier, after we sit down we are not talking much. Our nausea gets worse, and T claims that she needs to leave because every person she sees is beginning to look like a monster. I want to stay, but M throws up suddenly and we all decide we should leave.
8:15PM (T + 4:15): We are in the bus leaving Randall’s island, and we all confirm that we feel terrible. My nausea is worsening by the minute, and I am afraid that I will vomit in the bus. We get off the bus in the middle of Manhattan and an intense feeling of numbness comes over me. There are people everywhere and cars and buses going by, but it feels almost as if I’m a spectator in my own mind watching all of it happen. We cross the street haphazardly and almost get hit by a bus (but none of us were fazed by this until later—we didn’t speed up or slow down as we walked across the street).
8:30PM (T + 4:30): Eventually we somehow hail a taxi. As we drive to Grand Central Station, the lights outside seem to streak past, until I can barely differentiate one from the other. T and I listen to calming music on my ipod, which still sounds very good and calms me down somewhat. I find it difficult to speak, and when the taxi driver speaks I find it difficult to understand him. I look out the window at the skyscrapers going by, and suddenly my mind floods with hundreds of image of all of the LIFE in the city. I cannot help but think of all the people in all of those buildings that at that very second are working, eating, sleeping, fucking, crying, dying. It is as if I feel all of that—every sensation and emotion and touch and word rushing through my head and I feel like my brain is a rubber band about to snap, like a bubble getting bigger and bigger that is about to pop, like a mighty avalanche traveling at 150 kmh that is about to go over the edge of a cliff and then…nothing. At the very second when I feel like my brain will explode because the entire city is inside it and it can’t hold it any longer, it all ends and I am left with the one earbud in my ear, playing Starkey’s Spacewalk and I am again numb, except for my stomach which feels worse with every minute.
9PM (T + 5): (This half hour is very difficult for me to remember. What is here is likely only bits and pieces of the actual experience.) We arrive at Grand Central Station, and the true horror begins for me. As we desperately try to navigate the station, people begin changing…their eyes become larger, and every eye seems to be looking at me. This causes me such paranoia and fear that I look down, but I realize then that most people’s feet have become as wide as their hips. A woman reaches out with her arm to grab her child or something, but it suddenly looks like her arm is sprouting towards me, and I try to scream but nothing comes out. We realize we must wait about half an hour for the next train, so we sit down on a bench in a relatively quiet corner. The station announcer over the loudspeaker comes on, and it sounds like she is speaking in Japanese or Chinese or some other Asian language. I ask my friend T if the announcer is speaking English, and she responds that she is. The announcer comes on again, and this time she sounds…as if she is speaking in tongues. I cover my ears, and a feeling of dread slowly spreads over my body. At one point two policemen walk by not too far away, and I almost yell out “Come over here! Please help me! Give me the thorazine, take me to a hospital, sedate me!” I actually will myself to scream these words, but my lips barely open, and no sounds come out.
9:30PM (T + 5:30): At some point my friends inform me that we need to get up to catch our train (they seem to be doing marginally better than me at this point). As we walk to the train tracks, I feel as if I am going to vomit everywhere. I want to vomit everywhere, because I want to drown in my own vomit. And I want to drown all of the people-monsters surrounding me, with their huge feet and eyes. Waiting for the train to arrive at the tracks, I contemplate the best way to stop this. I feel as if I am watching a TV show in which the characters are watching a TV show in which what is happening to me is occurring. My mind is so numb. I unfeelingly contemplate whether throwing myself on the 3rd rail or in front of the approaching train car would be a better way to die. This feeling passes after about five minutes, and T and M and I board the train. We sit down, across from a group of giggling girls. I think about vomiting on them, and vocalize this to T. She just impassively looks at me, and says “That might be a bad idea.” For the next two hours, at every minute I feel I must actively fend off the nausea, to prevent myself from vomiting.
10PM (T + 6): The train ride is horrible. At one point I close my eyes, thinking the lack of visual stimuli might calm me down. However, within about two seconds of doing so the darkness began coalescing into a variety of bizarre and frightening figures, and I feel as if I am losing my grip on my own thought process. It is almost as if my mind begins to accelerate forward, thinking every thought and every thought relating to that thought, branching out into hundreds and thousands of fractals moving at a pace I cannot imagine. I feel as if I am losing my mind, and my eyes snap open.
10:30PM (T+6:30): The train ride is excruciating. At every moment I feel as if I must actively force myself not to vomit. And then my mind begins to…fray. Earlier I had been staring at a screw in the wall, but I begin to feel like I am losing control of my ego. Strange and terrible thoughts pop into my head. I realize that at every second I must actively suppress these thoughts, that I must keep my mind very full so as to keep these thoughts out. I start thinking about my classes this semester, and all the books I will read for them, all that I will learn. I think of all the people I have yet to meet in my life, all the friends and lovers I will have. But it feels as if I will never return to my normal life, like this train ride will never end.
11:30PM (T + 7:30): The train ride ends. We take a taxi back to my friend’s dorm, and all huddle into T’s bed. I don’t feel like I can speak, and neither of the other two are talking much. The nausea slowly worsens.
3:30AM (T + 11:30): Very little has changed, although M is eventually able to fall asleep. T and I occasionally discuss our highschool times, and reminisce. It helps some, but I feel so detached from my past (not to mention my present and future). At this point my nausea is so bad that both T and I decide I should go to the bathroom and try to throw up. I sit on floor in front of the toilet, and try to let it all go. I have been suppressing my urge to vomit for over six hours now, so I thought it would come easily if I tried to do it. I even stick my finger down my throat, and all I do is cough violently. I begin to cry.
4AM (T + 12): Back in T’s room, she tells me that she needs to sleep. I tell her it is ok, that I can handle myself. She falls asleep. I still cannot close my eyes, for doing so makes me feel almost immediately as if I am losing my mind. I try to shut my eyes and concentrate on happy things, like my family, but in my mind’s eye they turn to dust, or begin screaming and then catch on fire. So until about 9AM I just stare at the wall. Colors and patterns slowly creep into the peripherals of my vision, and I let them. I’m not sure what happened to me in this five hour period, although I know that I did not sleep. (As I said, closing my eyes seems to precipitate a freefall towards madness). I just…was.
9AM (T + 17): My friends wake up and are amazed that I have not fallen asleep, and are somewhat worried about me. I feel OK now, and the nausea is finally gone (after about 10 hours of not stopping), but I still cannot close my eyes. I try to close my eyes and meditate on a white field, but then I feel as if the whiteness is encircling me, physically suffocating me, and I must open my eyes.
1PM (T +21): I am exhausted. I close my eyes and the crazy images and thoughts rush over me, but I think I fall asleep almost immediately before they can drive me into a panic.
6PM (T + 25): I wake up. I feel OK physically (or at least not nearly as bad as I expected to feel), but there is still a lingering sense of dread hovering over me. The rest of the night is spent smoking a few joints and watching movies in the room. None of us had any appetite until the next morning.
Please don’t tell me “blahblahblah you’re dumb, this is why you have to be careful what pills you take.” I get it VERY WELL NOW, after this experience. I am posting this so that others can learn from my mistakes.
I also wouldn’t mind learning if anyone has any idea what might else have been in the pills. I am sure that quite a bit of MDMA was, based on my previous experiences with verified ecstasy tablets and molly. The 2CI that the dealer claimed to be in there seems likely as well, based on what I have read on its effects online. But it seems as if there was likely something else in those little pills… (BTW, we did talk to my friend’s dealer the next day and he was quite surprised. He said he took one and a half pills the previous week and had no ill-effects except some minor hallucinations from the 2CI. He claimed to have sold all of the remaining pills).
Would I do it again? Probably. The first few hours of this experience were life changing, truly incredible and indescribable. I have never felt more powerful, more beautiful or more centered. And as for the darkness I had to face? I think it has made me a stronger person. I feel as if I have been to the edge of everything, that I have peered into the abyss. At least I now know what’s there.
4PM (T+0): I meet up with two old friends from highschool (I will refer to them as T (female) and M (male)), and they show me the pills they had procured for the event. They were brown/purplish pills with a music note on both sides. They were a little thicker than usual, and were not very well-pressed. My friends tell me that they have MDMA, 2CI and probably some speed and/or caffeine, according to their trusted dealer. We all take one immediately, and just sit around chatting and catching up.
4:15PM (T + :15): T and M both report some nausea, but I feel fine.
4:30PM (T + :30): T and M and I are sitting on a grassy hill, listening to the music drift toward us from the stages fairly nearby. My friends’ nausea has disappeared. The breeze on my exposed skin starts to feel really wonderful. I find myself lightly stroking my own forearms, and as I run my hands down my arms I slowly breathe in and my whole body seems to inflate with a sense of well-being. Out of nowhere T (who I had not seen in over a year) exclaims how much she had missed me, and we share a fairly long hug. The music of the festival begins to sound incredibly beautiful, and T and M and I all exclaim at nearly the same time that we should go dance at the main stage.
5:00PM (T + 1): We are all casually dancing to the beats of Dirty South, who is performing on the main stage. Thousands of people around me smile and cheer and move. The subtle changes in tempo of songs I have heard before suddenly seem enormously noticeable and enrapturing. T and M and I begin to hold hands, and T and I kiss. It is wonderful and entirely platonic. I feel more beautiful than I had ever felt before. Other people are more beautiful than I had ever before realized. I compliment a random girl on her tattoo of a tree, and she thanks and hugs me. Often during the music I would look up at the passing clouds, which seemed to be alive, and to pulsate with energy.
5:30PM (T + 1:30): Feeling wonderful, we all decide to sit down on the grassy hill again. We all pop another pill. I suggest a massage train, which my friends think is a great idea. M’s hands on my back feel truly otherworldly. It is as if he is massaging my organs (I realize this sounds bizarre, but I can’t think of another way to describe it). It begins to mist a little bit. None of us are particularly upset by the prospect of rain though; we all stand up and began dancing slowly in the downpour. At one point I close my eyes and tilt my face straight upward, opening my mouth. Tiny droplets on my tongue feel like thousands of soft wet feathers caressing my tongue. The rain reminds us to get some water bottles, as we are all thirsty.
6PM (T + 2): Major Lazer (the show we had all been the most excited about) starts up on the main stage. We go around the side of the crowd and are able to get a great spot in the front, about twenty feet from the stage. Major Lazer begins and we (along with thousands of others) go wild. To just jump wildly and breathe deeply and scream loudly is ecstatic. I am so close to the speakers that I initially feel as if the bass is consuming me, or that I am becoming the bass. I am very glad we had brought a lot of gum, because my jaw is clenching wildly.
6:30PM (T+ 2:30): I feel omnipotent. The way I dance is so powerful and yet so graceful. I feel like I could dance for days, like I am expending zero energy. Every part of my body is in sync with every part of the music. I decide to take one more pill, because I want to stay in the same state through Benny Benassi, who is up next. It is beginning to get dark, and the clouds become even more beautiful. At one point I look up at the trees behind us, which I think are willows. They make me think of weeping willows, and for a few seconds I am sad. A tear rolls down my face. But then I notice that their leaves are shimmering with an emerald intensity which is beyond description…and after a few seconds I realize that each branch and each leaf is dancing along with everyone there, to the music. I smile and breathe very deeply and thank the trees for all the oxygen they provide for me to breathe. And then I breathe out and take off my shirt and dance harder than ever, like I never have before.
7:30PM (T + 3:30): Benny Benassi begins, and when the first song drops and the lightshow on the stage explodes, I have to close my eyes. But the same sequence of about a second of the lightshow plays itself over again at least four more times on my eyelids. All thoughts leave my head except the music (which feels more like it is in my heart and lungs) and my body and the bodies of those around me.
8PM (T + 4): Although I am still dancing wildly, my friends M and T have been complaining of nausea for a little bit. I start to feel it as well, and we all decide to go get some sports drinks and sit down for a bit. Unlike earlier, after we sit down we are not talking much. Our nausea gets worse, and T claims that she needs to leave because every person she sees is beginning to look like a monster. I want to stay, but M throws up suddenly and we all decide we should leave.
8:15PM (T + 4:15): We are in the bus leaving Randall’s island, and we all confirm that we feel terrible. My nausea is worsening by the minute, and I am afraid that I will vomit in the bus. We get off the bus in the middle of Manhattan and an intense feeling of numbness comes over me. There are people everywhere and cars and buses going by, but it feels almost as if I’m a spectator in my own mind watching all of it happen. We cross the street haphazardly and almost get hit by a bus (but none of us were fazed by this until later—we didn’t speed up or slow down as we walked across the street).
8:30PM (T + 4:30): Eventually we somehow hail a taxi. As we drive to Grand Central Station, the lights outside seem to streak past, until I can barely differentiate one from the other. T and I listen to calming music on my ipod, which still sounds very good and calms me down somewhat. I find it difficult to speak, and when the taxi driver speaks I find it difficult to understand him. I look out the window at the skyscrapers going by, and suddenly my mind floods with hundreds of image of all of the LIFE in the city. I cannot help but think of all the people in all of those buildings that at that very second are working, eating, sleeping, fucking, crying, dying. It is as if I feel all of that—every sensation and emotion and touch and word rushing through my head and I feel like my brain is a rubber band about to snap, like a bubble getting bigger and bigger that is about to pop, like a mighty avalanche traveling at 150 kmh that is about to go over the edge of a cliff and then…nothing. At the very second when I feel like my brain will explode because the entire city is inside it and it can’t hold it any longer, it all ends and I am left with the one earbud in my ear, playing Starkey’s Spacewalk and I am again numb, except for my stomach which feels worse with every minute.
9PM (T + 5): (This half hour is very difficult for me to remember. What is here is likely only bits and pieces of the actual experience.) We arrive at Grand Central Station, and the true horror begins for me. As we desperately try to navigate the station, people begin changing…their eyes become larger, and every eye seems to be looking at me. This causes me such paranoia and fear that I look down, but I realize then that most people’s feet have become as wide as their hips. A woman reaches out with her arm to grab her child or something, but it suddenly looks like her arm is sprouting towards me, and I try to scream but nothing comes out. We realize we must wait about half an hour for the next train, so we sit down on a bench in a relatively quiet corner. The station announcer over the loudspeaker comes on, and it sounds like she is speaking in Japanese or Chinese or some other Asian language. I ask my friend T if the announcer is speaking English, and she responds that she is. The announcer comes on again, and this time she sounds…as if she is speaking in tongues. I cover my ears, and a feeling of dread slowly spreads over my body. At one point two policemen walk by not too far away, and I almost yell out “Come over here! Please help me! Give me the thorazine, take me to a hospital, sedate me!” I actually will myself to scream these words, but my lips barely open, and no sounds come out.
9:30PM (T + 5:30): At some point my friends inform me that we need to get up to catch our train (they seem to be doing marginally better than me at this point). As we walk to the train tracks, I feel as if I am going to vomit everywhere. I want to vomit everywhere, because I want to drown in my own vomit. And I want to drown all of the people-monsters surrounding me, with their huge feet and eyes. Waiting for the train to arrive at the tracks, I contemplate the best way to stop this. I feel as if I am watching a TV show in which the characters are watching a TV show in which what is happening to me is occurring. My mind is so numb. I unfeelingly contemplate whether throwing myself on the 3rd rail or in front of the approaching train car would be a better way to die. This feeling passes after about five minutes, and T and M and I board the train. We sit down, across from a group of giggling girls. I think about vomiting on them, and vocalize this to T. She just impassively looks at me, and says “That might be a bad idea.” For the next two hours, at every minute I feel I must actively fend off the nausea, to prevent myself from vomiting.
10PM (T + 6): The train ride is horrible. At one point I close my eyes, thinking the lack of visual stimuli might calm me down. However, within about two seconds of doing so the darkness began coalescing into a variety of bizarre and frightening figures, and I feel as if I am losing my grip on my own thought process. It is almost as if my mind begins to accelerate forward, thinking every thought and every thought relating to that thought, branching out into hundreds and thousands of fractals moving at a pace I cannot imagine. I feel as if I am losing my mind, and my eyes snap open.
10:30PM (T+6:30): The train ride is excruciating. At every moment I feel as if I must actively force myself not to vomit. And then my mind begins to…fray. Earlier I had been staring at a screw in the wall, but I begin to feel like I am losing control of my ego. Strange and terrible thoughts pop into my head. I realize that at every second I must actively suppress these thoughts, that I must keep my mind very full so as to keep these thoughts out. I start thinking about my classes this semester, and all the books I will read for them, all that I will learn. I think of all the people I have yet to meet in my life, all the friends and lovers I will have. But it feels as if I will never return to my normal life, like this train ride will never end.
11:30PM (T + 7:30): The train ride ends. We take a taxi back to my friend’s dorm, and all huddle into T’s bed. I don’t feel like I can speak, and neither of the other two are talking much. The nausea slowly worsens.
3:30AM (T + 11:30): Very little has changed, although M is eventually able to fall asleep. T and I occasionally discuss our highschool times, and reminisce. It helps some, but I feel so detached from my past (not to mention my present and future). At this point my nausea is so bad that both T and I decide I should go to the bathroom and try to throw up. I sit on floor in front of the toilet, and try to let it all go. I have been suppressing my urge to vomit for over six hours now, so I thought it would come easily if I tried to do it. I even stick my finger down my throat, and all I do is cough violently. I begin to cry.
4AM (T + 12): Back in T’s room, she tells me that she needs to sleep. I tell her it is ok, that I can handle myself. She falls asleep. I still cannot close my eyes, for doing so makes me feel almost immediately as if I am losing my mind. I try to shut my eyes and concentrate on happy things, like my family, but in my mind’s eye they turn to dust, or begin screaming and then catch on fire. So until about 9AM I just stare at the wall. Colors and patterns slowly creep into the peripherals of my vision, and I let them. I’m not sure what happened to me in this five hour period, although I know that I did not sleep. (As I said, closing my eyes seems to precipitate a freefall towards madness). I just…was.
9AM (T + 17): My friends wake up and are amazed that I have not fallen asleep, and are somewhat worried about me. I feel OK now, and the nausea is finally gone (after about 10 hours of not stopping), but I still cannot close my eyes. I try to close my eyes and meditate on a white field, but then I feel as if the whiteness is encircling me, physically suffocating me, and I must open my eyes.
1PM (T +21): I am exhausted. I close my eyes and the crazy images and thoughts rush over me, but I think I fall asleep almost immediately before they can drive me into a panic.
6PM (T + 25): I wake up. I feel OK physically (or at least not nearly as bad as I expected to feel), but there is still a lingering sense of dread hovering over me. The rest of the night is spent smoking a few joints and watching movies in the room. None of us had any appetite until the next morning.
Please don’t tell me “blahblahblah you’re dumb, this is why you have to be careful what pills you take.” I get it VERY WELL NOW, after this experience. I am posting this so that others can learn from my mistakes.
I also wouldn’t mind learning if anyone has any idea what might else have been in the pills. I am sure that quite a bit of MDMA was, based on my previous experiences with verified ecstasy tablets and molly. The 2CI that the dealer claimed to be in there seems likely as well, based on what I have read on its effects online. But it seems as if there was likely something else in those little pills… (BTW, we did talk to my friend’s dealer the next day and he was quite surprised. He said he took one and a half pills the previous week and had no ill-effects except some minor hallucinations from the 2CI. He claimed to have sold all of the remaining pills).
Would I do it again? Probably. The first few hours of this experience were life changing, truly incredible and indescribable. I have never felt more powerful, more beautiful or more centered. And as for the darkness I had to face? I think it has made me a stronger person. I feel as if I have been to the edge of everything, that I have peered into the abyss. At least I now know what’s there.
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