And now for a bonus feature: my one 2C-I train wreck. Well, it worked out fine in the end, but Erowid might still classify it as such. I've only had maybe three or four "bad trips", where I really really wanted it to end. For a brief time, this was one of those.
It was a beautiful spring weekend day, and I wanted to visit a friend and trip with him. He had just gotten into a new apartment, and invited me to come see him. I didn't want to trip indoors, and the outdoor areas of his apartment complex were shared with other tenants and rather confined between the buildings. So I suggested we find somewhere more natural to trip. I thought it would be a great idea to drive up the canyon, into a state park where we could do a bit of hiking around and then, when the effects had faded, drive home. There were just two small problems.
It was about 3:30 pm when we found parking at a picnic area that looked like had some room for us to wander from. We dosed (12 mg I think) and then hiked a good distance from the tables onto a small hillside with a nice view. At this point, everything was very pleasant. My friend lit up a cigarette and just stood admiring the scenery. I asked him how he felt. He replied: "I feel awesome!" Ahh, 2C-I. I started to notice the sun getting lower, and my friend commented about how it would be dark soon and we didn't have any lights. I replied: "No worries man, we'll just make our way back to the picnic area and wait until we're down enough to drive home". Problem number 1: the area was officially closed at sunset. Right on time, a pickup truck appeared in the distance. My friend said "uhoh", and I'm like "no need to be paranoid". He giggled at me when it approached and we could see the driver in uniform. It stopped. The ranger told us the park was closing and offered us a ride to our cars in the back of his truck. By this point, the peak effects hit like crazy. The ride was terribly fun (at least for me, my friend says he was wigging out bad), but as we walked out toward the parking area, the ranger shut a gate behind us. We could have just hopped it, but we didn't want to get into it with a park ranger or something worse like actual cops.
So we're sitting in the car, and it's dark now. It was pretty boring, and I didn't want to put the keys in the ignition (for some music at least), lest some cop show up and hit me with a DUI. (I actually hid the keys, just in case.) For a while, I watched the colorful blobs and patterns which were overlaying the now very dark landscape. It was so dark---stiflingly dark. We both were feeling quite paranoid about cops driving by on the road, seeing us, and stopping. (The parking area was just a few spaces right off the road.) I don't recall but I think one of us had weed on our person. (Actually, I think we'd been smoking it too.) Y'all know how insanely 2C-I makes pupils dilate. We were sitting ducks.
And then it happened. Problem number 2: I ran out of water. I sucked on the nipple of my backpack water holder, and got that horrifying sound of the last bits of water mixed with air trickling from it. Under normal circumstances, I had brought plenty of water for a short evening walk in the park, but in my anxious tripping state stuck inside my car, I'd managed to suck it all down and now I *really needed water*. My friend didn't have any to offer me. It was an emergency! I found the keys and started the car. I was going to get us out of there. My friend thought I was nuts. (I was.) He asked me how I could drive with all those crazy visuals. At first, it didn't seem too bad, but it took enormous concentration to follow the lines on the road, which seemed barely illuminated versus the visuals. Then while going around a tight series of complex curve, I felt my hands and arms go completely numb and vanish like in "Spirited Away". I just saw the steering wheel spinning in front of me as we somehow navigated the curves. I considered pulling over, but it was a tight canyon with no pull-outs for miles. Somehow, the part of me that was driving was able to disconnect enough from my tripping self to get us out of the canyon. Once out, the road was straight and well lit, and the rest of the drive was much more relaxed. About 30 minutes later, we got back to his apartment, smoked some weed and chilled for a bit. Then I realized I was hungry and he had no food at all, but the effects had mostly dropped off so I was comfortable driving. I ate one of the most satisfying meals of my life with him.
Some years later, I actually drove that same stretch of road at night again, and even while totally sober it was a bit scary. Something about that particular canyon makes for terrible nighttime visibility and requires constant concentration to navigate the many curves.
So bad trips can happen even with light doses. All it takes is just a little bit of ill preparation. We got started much later than planned and didn't anticipate the park closure. I also didn't bring an extra receptacle of water. If I'd waited things out another 1-2 hours, the drive back would probably have been much less scary. I've driven while lightly tripping on various other occasions but always late into the effects when I don't have visuals or disappearing arms. That somatic hallucination was just crazy!
For comparison. My other "bad" trips both involved ayahuasca of one form or another.
It was a beautiful spring weekend day, and I wanted to visit a friend and trip with him. He had just gotten into a new apartment, and invited me to come see him. I didn't want to trip indoors, and the outdoor areas of his apartment complex were shared with other tenants and rather confined between the buildings. So I suggested we find somewhere more natural to trip. I thought it would be a great idea to drive up the canyon, into a state park where we could do a bit of hiking around and then, when the effects had faded, drive home. There were just two small problems.
It was about 3:30 pm when we found parking at a picnic area that looked like had some room for us to wander from. We dosed (12 mg I think) and then hiked a good distance from the tables onto a small hillside with a nice view. At this point, everything was very pleasant. My friend lit up a cigarette and just stood admiring the scenery. I asked him how he felt. He replied: "I feel awesome!" Ahh, 2C-I. I started to notice the sun getting lower, and my friend commented about how it would be dark soon and we didn't have any lights. I replied: "No worries man, we'll just make our way back to the picnic area and wait until we're down enough to drive home". Problem number 1: the area was officially closed at sunset. Right on time, a pickup truck appeared in the distance. My friend said "uhoh", and I'm like "no need to be paranoid". He giggled at me when it approached and we could see the driver in uniform. It stopped. The ranger told us the park was closing and offered us a ride to our cars in the back of his truck. By this point, the peak effects hit like crazy. The ride was terribly fun (at least for me, my friend says he was wigging out bad), but as we walked out toward the parking area, the ranger shut a gate behind us. We could have just hopped it, but we didn't want to get into it with a park ranger or something worse like actual cops.
So we're sitting in the car, and it's dark now. It was pretty boring, and I didn't want to put the keys in the ignition (for some music at least), lest some cop show up and hit me with a DUI. (I actually hid the keys, just in case.) For a while, I watched the colorful blobs and patterns which were overlaying the now very dark landscape. It was so dark---stiflingly dark. We both were feeling quite paranoid about cops driving by on the road, seeing us, and stopping. (The parking area was just a few spaces right off the road.) I don't recall but I think one of us had weed on our person. (Actually, I think we'd been smoking it too.) Y'all know how insanely 2C-I makes pupils dilate. We were sitting ducks.
And then it happened. Problem number 2: I ran out of water. I sucked on the nipple of my backpack water holder, and got that horrifying sound of the last bits of water mixed with air trickling from it. Under normal circumstances, I had brought plenty of water for a short evening walk in the park, but in my anxious tripping state stuck inside my car, I'd managed to suck it all down and now I *really needed water*. My friend didn't have any to offer me. It was an emergency! I found the keys and started the car. I was going to get us out of there. My friend thought I was nuts. (I was.) He asked me how I could drive with all those crazy visuals. At first, it didn't seem too bad, but it took enormous concentration to follow the lines on the road, which seemed barely illuminated versus the visuals. Then while going around a tight series of complex curve, I felt my hands and arms go completely numb and vanish like in "Spirited Away". I just saw the steering wheel spinning in front of me as we somehow navigated the curves. I considered pulling over, but it was a tight canyon with no pull-outs for miles. Somehow, the part of me that was driving was able to disconnect enough from my tripping self to get us out of the canyon. Once out, the road was straight and well lit, and the rest of the drive was much more relaxed. About 30 minutes later, we got back to his apartment, smoked some weed and chilled for a bit. Then I realized I was hungry and he had no food at all, but the effects had mostly dropped off so I was comfortable driving. I ate one of the most satisfying meals of my life with him.
Some years later, I actually drove that same stretch of road at night again, and even while totally sober it was a bit scary. Something about that particular canyon makes for terrible nighttime visibility and requires constant concentration to navigate the many curves.
So bad trips can happen even with light doses. All it takes is just a little bit of ill preparation. We got started much later than planned and didn't anticipate the park closure. I also didn't bring an extra receptacle of water. If I'd waited things out another 1-2 hours, the drive back would probably have been much less scary. I've driven while lightly tripping on various other occasions but always late into the effects when I don't have visuals or disappearing arms. That somatic hallucination was just crazy!
For comparison. My other "bad" trips both involved ayahuasca of one form or another.
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