Frequently Asked Questions/Who am I?

Hello! In my interactions with the research chemical community I often get asked many questions again and again by different people, and while I don't mind answering questions and talking to people in the community, I figure for efficiency's sake I can preemptively answer some of those questions here! 

It's also a good way to talk about who I am and my background, to the degree I feel comfortable doing so. 

Table of contents:

• 1: What is your favorite Drug you've tried?
• 2: What is your least favorite drug you've tried?
• 3: What is the weirdest/most unique drug you've tried?
• 4. Which of your reports that you've written were your favorites/which do you think are the most interesting and worth reading? 
• 5. Where can I get _____?
• 6. What is your educational/career background?
• 7. Why do you do this?
• 8. What is your process for writing reports?
• 9. Do you share these reports elsewhere (like Erowid)?
• 10. Why do you smoke weed in all of your reports? Doesn't this make them 'impure'?
• 11. Have you experienced long term negative effects from drug use?
• 12. Have you experienced long term positive effects from drug use?
• 13. What are your methods for mitigating negative effects from drug use?
• 14. Isn't it reckless to be the Guinea Pig for all of these little-known substances?
• 15. Are you addicted to anything?
• 16. Are you mentally ill? 
• 17. How long have you been using drugs for?
• 18. What first got you into using drugs?
• 19. What is your ideal setting to trip in?
• 20. How many drugs have you done?
• 21. How many times have you "tripped"?
• 22. How often do you use drugs?
• 23. What gender are you lol
• 24. Can I support you financially? 
• 25. Should I do drugs?

1. What is your favorite Drug you've tried?

This is a simple question but it is surprisingly hard to answer. This is what I get asked the most, by far. (actually what I get asked the most is "where did you get ___?")  If you don't want to deal with paragraphs then I'll just list it out quick and easy. Of course there isn't just one answer.

Cannabis, LSD, 1cP-LSD, 4-AcO-MiPT, 4-AcO-DPT, 2C-B, 2C-C, MXE, 3-MeO-PCE, 3-MeO-PCP, Etizolam, Isopropylphenidate, and DXM could all qualify as a "favorite".

(note: Some of the reports are old and outdated and deserve revisiting- particularly 3-MeO-PCE and 3-MeO-PCP. I have had hundreds of experiences with those compounds at various doses in various settings and I feel like I have quite a lot more to say on them than just those initial reports! The existing reports really do not do such special compounds justice.)

This naturally leads into another question- why are these your favorites? Why so many? I see each as serving a different purpose- Isoprophylphenidate is not my favorite when I'm getting ready for bed, Etizolam is not my favorite first thing in the morning (sometimes), I cannot find myself using LSD daily like I do with cannabis etc.

In an uncharacteristic move I will try to keep my reasoning for each brief:

Cannabis: I use cannabis daily, multiple times a day, in various forms, it's a comfortable and familiar way to alter my mind that doesn't rack up the same long-term negative consequences that most other drugs do. 

LSD: LSD was the first psychedelic I've tried and with upwards of 50 uses it still manages to be insightful and interesting every time, like it always has something new to show me, with low body load.

1cP-LSD: A milder and more visual alternative to LSD for when I don't necessarily want to take a deep dive but would rather just enjoy a lysergamide with a strong sensory flourish.

4-AcO-MiPT: A sardonic and creative and at times challenging and invigorating tryptamine that always knows where to poke, with beautiful visuals to boot- a fun counterpart to myself.

4-AcO-DPT: I love DPT analogues for their alien quality, though they have a taxing body load, but this one is quite potent and dodges around the nastiness its siblings bear, with a really deep and insightful emotional introspective edge to boot.

2C-B: Lucid eye candy, a manageable and functional trip with intense bright visuals that I find perfect for enhancing nearly any real life situation, can go deeper if I allow it to also.

2C-C: For when I want 2C-B but am willing to sacrifice some of the visual intensity for a gentler bodyload and less stimulation, a lovely relaxing and fun psychedelic.

MXE: MXE is the golden standard for dissociatives for many, including myself, it did so much, it was social, exploratory, alien, warm, vivid, insightful and introspective, it was everything I wanted and needed it to be (though we still should look beyond it)

3-MeO-PCE: 3-MeO-PCE is a unique dissociative beyond my conceptions of MXE, immensely therapeutic and introspective for me with a lot of fun mania and really interesting potentiation of other hallucinogens, my #1 dissociative currently

3-MeO-PCP: The most recreational dissociative for casual and social use in my opinion, a great deal of fun but can be very deep and insightful if I allow it to be, a great versatile drug that shines in combos too- more suited to casual use than 3-MeO-PCE is. 

Etizolam: Having tried many benzos at this point, etizolam still stands alone in terms of euphoria and functionality, the effects are proportioned to each other in just the exact right way that I never get in the way of myself having a good time- incredibly useful as a gentle low-dose anxiolytic too.

Isopropylphenidate (no report yet sorry!): Having tried many stims at this point, IPPH stands alone in terms of hitting the right proportions of effects, just like etizolam- just the right amount of push and motivation, just the right amount of physical stimulation, none of the good is outweighed by any of the bad, none of it goes too far, a true goldilocks stim for me.

DXM: A disclaimer that I don't *like* DXM so much, or consider a favorite so much, as it is just one of the most fascinating and interesting drugs in existence with so much to offer, and perhaps one of the most influential on my life overall. I'm doing more than one sentence fuck it. While I do not particularly enjoy taking DXM, I will say no drug has so profoundly affected my perception of altered states, my perception of reality as a whole, and my creative and artistic life as DXM has. It's truly something unique and special and immensely influential on my life even if it's not necessarily fun. Don't dismiss this one just because you can get it OTC, there are incredible unimaginable depths to DXM that no other drug will offer. I came to DXM at a very low point in my life and the sheer weirdness of it helped me retain a foothold in this world ironically. I owe a lot of my artistic and aesthetic tastes to this drug, there is nothing quite like it.

Lastly, the honorable mentions that I don't feel like elaborating on, these are all drugs I think are worth investigating for any intrepid psychonaut.

2C-I, DOM, 2C-B-FLY, 4-AcO-MET, 4-HO-MET, DPT, 4-HO-MiPT, DiPT, 2F-DCK, 3-HO-PCP, 3-Cl-PCP, Ephenidine, Clonazepam, Pyrazolam, 4F-MPH, 3-FPM

2. What is your least favorite drug you've tried?

Many drugs have made me suffer considerably, usually as a result of certain side effects, referred to commonly as bodyload. Some were still interesting and unique experiences though, an example of this would be Methallylescaline. Some were mostly just negative side effects, paired with an experience that was just downright boring, like 4-MeO-MiPT or DOiP. Some are fun briefly but this is quickly outweighed by negative side effects, like α-PCYP or 2C-iP. Glaucine was a miserable terrible experience but there was something interesting in how it generated such dysphoria. 

Others were purely net negative, just zero interesting or redeeming qualities, like 5-MeO-MET. 

Still, I feel bad dismissing any of these drugs as objectively good or bad, I feel rude writing a drug off entirely as "trash", the experiences are subjective and others may find value in compounds that didn't sit right with me. 

Generally I don't enjoy Empathogens also. They make me gushy and I embarrass myself. The euphoria feels shallow and forced. Most other people I talk to experience a much more profound euphoria, and I am frankly a bit envious.

Another drug that I cannot take or enjoy anymore is one of the most widely consumed and popular psychedelics- Mushrooms. After a string of nightmare trips and traumatic experiences, there just seems to be a psychological block that I cannot overcome to enjoy them anymore. There's plenty of others for me. 

Probably the most popular drug that I personally detest and rarely ever use is Alcohol. Maybe it's genetics, it usually just makes me feel ill before I feel any of the more popular effects. I think its a waste of my time and I can get similar effects from other drugs without the negatives. 

3. What is the weirdest/most unique drug you've tried?

There are many drugs that I have taken that are not among my pantheon of favorites but still offered extremely interesting, unique experiences that are worth investigating. I encourage intrepid psychonauts to investigate these compounds further, not to necessarily seek insight or pleasure, but to expand their perceptions of the boundaries along which a  mind can be altered.

DiPT: DiPT is well known as being the psychedelic that triggers distinct auditory hallucinations. This is not common or normal for psychedelics, this is in fact an extremely unique effect that is, as of now, not understood at all. Ingestion of DiPT will induce a perceived drop in the pitch of all incoming sound, along with jangling, reverberating quality imparted to those altered noises. The only other drug known to primarily induce auditory effects is 2-Me-DET, which seemingly never left the laboratory of Shulgin. A total mystery, that you can freely explore!

Memantine: Memantine is noteworthy for the incredibly duration of its experience. On my highest dose of memantine, I was in a hallucinogenic dissociative state for 5 days. It is quite an experience to wake up and still be on the throes of a substance you ingested almost 24 hours ago. It is a unique, fascinating dissociation, replete with vivid visuals and a distinct cold character. Not functional or usable in any regard, just a fascinating exercise in stepping out of this world for an extended period of time.

DXM (Modulated with CYP2D6 inhibitors): This is really something entirely indescribable. DXM on its own has a unique pharmacological profile. For most users, their liver metabolizes DXM into the active metabolite DXO, which acts as an NMDA antagonist. By using certain drugs like anticholinergics or bupropion however, you can inhibit the enzyme that metabolizes DXM, meaning the DXM will pass through your liver untouched, and then go to your brain in its original form. This leads to a very unique cascade of effects, replete with borderline delirium along with extending the duration of the experience across several days, yielding an odd hypomanic state. Frequent use of this combination led to a sort of extradimensional paranoia and encounters with odd entities that would lurk in my open eyed space. It's really to this day hard to wrap my head around those experiences and describe them in any meaningful way. It seems that jumbled non sequitur nonsense was in fact the very nature of such experiences, not meant for the comprehension of the mere human brain.

4. Which of your reports that you've written were your favorites/which do you think are the most interesting and worth reading? 

Not all reports are made equally. Sometimes the experience was lackluster. Sometimes I just didn't assess it or describe it well. Most of these reports are raw data, tedious and boring to anyone who isn't seeking out that specific information. Some are written by a younger me who was less skilled in writing or cataloguing the effects of drugs. Some of them were more exciting exercises in writing and narration however, and some were simply just more interesting experiences. The ones I am most proud of are listed below:

Ether + Memantine ++ 3-MeO-PCE + LSD + 4-AcO-MiPT + 4-HO-MET + 2C-C

3-MeO-PCP + Cocaine ++ 3-MeO-PCE + 4-AcO-DPT

4-ACO-DPT & 3-HO-PCP

DMT (Changa)

2C-B

1B-LSD

4-AcO-MET (Revisited)

3-Cl-PCP

Diphenidine

2C-I + 3-MEO-PCP + DALT + 3-MeO-PCE

MPT + DMXE + MXiPr

DXM + 4-HO-MiPT + LSD + DPH + Hydroxyzine

DXM + LSD + DPT + DPH

5. Where can I get _____?

Please don't ask me this. The information is easy to obtain, I'm not the sole gatekeeper of it. If you are motivated you can find a way. This blog is not for that purpose. 

6. What is your educational/career background?

I hold a BS in Biology, which was achieved with great difficulty; I am not a good student. My fatal flaw is a total inability to do mathematics. My primary path is concerned with Entomology and Systematics. I don't have any formal background in pharmacology or chemistry or neuroscience and have mostly only learned the bits of those fields immediately relevant to my interests, I have little foundational knowledge in them. I have recently begun learning more about chemistry from a pharmacological perspective in a more formal setting.

I deeply love the biosphere around us, and I deeply love this planet's biodiversity, particularly all of the amazing animals without bones. I am passionate about the study of biodiversity, and I hope to contribute what little I can to the grand and endless project of cataloguing all of the life on Earth, before it is gone forever. 

Feel free to ask me any questions about bugs via my email, I love to talk about them. I can also try to help and identify any interesting insects you find!  

7. Why do you do this?

I wrote a post about it

8. What is your process for writing reports?

It depends on circumstance. Some experiences I enter with the full intention of writing a report. I take timestamped notes intermittently throughout the report, typically on a premade template on my laptop, or in a notebook or on my phone if I'm out and about. The notes are typically sparse and usually just to get a sense of how the experience progresses through time or to jot down particularly interesting details. In the case of certain dissociatives, my motor skills are compromised the notes are near-incoherent gibberish laden with typos that render parts of it unreadable.

Other experiences I don't enter with the intention of turning into a report but they turn out to be so noteworthy that I write one from what details I can recall- these usually have less accurate time stamps.

I usually leave about a week to mull over the experience, add in any extra notes that come to mind and then I just copy the notes into a word document and build from them, filling them in with details from memory or details related to the setting. I also piece details together from text conversations or testimonies from other people. Typically I procrastinate and take forever to chip away at a report bit by bit. Other times I just take some benzos and a manic dissociatives and when I wake up the next day a report is written. I usually give it a quick proofread and do some minor copyediting before posting them, but they are changed very little from their first drafts.

I have gotten a lot of help with my writing from some of the staff and crew at Erowid- I would say my writing has improved a lot over time, both in terms of style and in terms of being useful, effective, detailed reports, mostly due to the invaluable advice of these good folks. 

9. Do you share these reports elsewhere (like Erowid)?

All reports I post are kept in the Erowid Experience Vaults, otherwise most of my reports are shared to bluelight and reddit (r/researchchemicals or r/drugs), and single substance reports are kept by the Effects Index.

10. Why do you smoke weed in all of your reports? Doesn't this make them 'impure'?

I address that in this post. Decide for yourself.

11. Have you experienced long term negative effects from drug use?

I'm pretty sure yeah. There's the HPPD, though I consider that a good thing. I've developed GI problems such as near-constant nausea as time has passed- I may attribute this to my frequent uses of psychedelics, almost all of which inflict me with digestive problems at this point. While bodyload was entirely tolerable in the beginning of my explorations, nowadays I need to use a battery of supplements to suppress these effects. I also have developed urinary issues, from frequent need to urinate to difficulty in doing so, possibly from using so many arylcyclohexylamines over time, or perhaps from certain phenethylamines. Overuse of benzos may have affected by ability to sleep normally, even when I kicked my dependence on them. I feel like I'm in a constant state of strung out fatigued stimulation, particuarly when I lie down to sleep at night. I'm sure time abstaining would help alleviate some of these effects, but perhaps some of it is permanent.

I also don't know if I can attribute these effects purely to drugs, I ultimately have and have usually had a pretty poor diet, poor sleep patterns, and I exercise very little. This could be a result of food intolerances, environmental toxins, who knows, but I don't think drugs can be ruled out entirely.

Social and interpersonal consequences are another matter. I have had an at times very strained relationship with my family due to my use that may never fully heal. Oh well.

Update as of 2023: I abuse dissociatives daily now. If I am not taking dissociatives, it is somethign else, like gabapentinoids, benzos, opioids, or other GABA drugs. I am fully a drug addict. This is just my life now. It is not sustainable at all but it feels like there is no sign of it slowing down any time soon. I suppose it was inevitable.

12. Have you experienced long term positive effects from drug use?

Hard to say. One one hand, there's everything in the previous question, the potential health problems, the problems with relationships. On the other hand, embarking on this project has substantially improved my writing and information processing skills, it has given me a hobby that has given meaning and purpose to my life, it has brought about so many wonderful and important and formative new friendships and relationships, it has brought me into the fold of a vibrant and interesting community, and has led to some truly formative, significant and ultimately I would say positive experiences that have exerted massive influence on the trajectory of my life, my creative development, and the formation of a sense of identity. Who I am today is intractable from drugs, even if I were to stop forever, who I am is formed of years of substantial substance use. It is truly impossible to say what I would be like if I never took that plunge, if I didn't even know about the existence of all the substances whose virtues I extol- a truly impossible hypothetical.

In a more acute sense, some drugs have proven to be quite therapeutic in the short term. DXM combined with buproprion would put me in a state of healthy functional hypomania for a few days. 3-MeO-PCE is my go to substance for immediately arresting and navigating out of a heavy depressive episode. In many instances I have taken psychedelics (frankly in reckless doses) when on the brink of suicide and it's pulled me back from the edge. 

13. What are your methods for mitigating negative effects from drug use?

Depends on which drug of course. This is going to be a long answer.

In general, a great overall harm reduction practice that carries over to all substances is to keep meticulous records of use. I know it sounds lame, nerdy etc. who keeps records of their partying and good times? This can also end up painting a discouraging or seemingly futile picture for daily users. While I've fallen into occasional habits of daily use, I try to avoid it, and for certain substances this is particularly advised as harm reduction practice (namely, benzodiazepines and alcohol). But life circumstances don't always allow for that. For myself however, I set limits on how much I can use certain substances each week and try to hold to it. I also will use this schedule to plan longer breaks from certain substances that I find myself using too frequency. While keeping a record consciously helps with trying to keep a handle on things, sometimes use slips out of control due to external stressors.

Lifesaving harm reduction practices *should* be common knowledge and you should know them already if you're lurking around a blog like this. Test any and all street drugs for fentanyl, even seemingly legit pharms or stimulants. Get testing kits for testing psychedelics and empathogens, especially anything sold as MDMA or ecstasy, or any club drug really. Don't you dare get into this shit without getting a scale that weighs out mgs, an AWS gemini has served me well for anything >15 mg, for anything under that volumetric dosing is recommended. Seriously if you can't afford to drop like $40 on a scale you shouldn't be spending money on drugs that are that potent. Titrate doses up slowly when starting with an entirely new class of drug until you've felt out your personal sensitivity. Spend a long time researching compounds in question before trying them, really do you damn homework. It's really easy to be reckless, it's really hard to deal with the consequences of being reckless, or even impossible if you are dead. 

With psychedelics I often find myself having to mitigate bodyload, typically in the form of digestive issues and nausea. Loperamide, fresh ginger root, DPH, single Datura seeds and lemon extract oil can sometimes help a bit with this. The prescription nausea medication Ondansetron (Zofran) is a magic bullet for suppressing psychedelic nausea, though it is not always available. Often there are issues with urinary retention too. It is good to keep hydrated though one must beware of drinking too much. Other times they will induce frequent urination- 1 or 2 Datura stramonium seeds can sometimes help alleviate this, though they must be handled with the utmost care and one should familiarize themselves with the potency of the specific plant the seeds were harvested from, just to be safe! I would presume pure Atropine or Hyoscamine, as is sometimes prescribed as a medicine, would work to this effect too, with less risk. 

With dissociatives the physical risks primarily come from chronic use. It's important to stay hydrated with dissociatives, to flush out potentially toxic metabolites that would sit in the bladder and damage its lining. This is a well-established risk from arylcyclohexylamines, particularly higher dosing ones like ketamine. I find that chugging down cranberry juice can help flush me out. 

With benzos, there really is implicit harm in use that users have to accept. Unless use is really truly infrequent, harm will be accrued. I have accepted this for myself. Daily use is usually a point of no return and one will have to eventually confront potentially hellish withdrawal symptoms. Even infrequent use every week as I do can eventually damage normal GABA production. I take occasional longer breaks to check in with myself, though this can risk developing kindling effects upon later discontinuation. Playing with benzos is playing with fire, no way around that.

If you use opioids, carrying naloxone and not using alone should be a no brainer. Some pharmacies give out naloxone for free. Don't fucking stigmatize your friends who use opioids or judge their decisions, that pushes people into using in isolation, which is all the more dangerous. 

Don't combine depressants, I don't care how fun it is. Opioids and benzos together can be a death sentence but naloxone can still potentially save you. Benzos and other depressants like GHB or alcohol or barbiturates or muscle relaxants is a potential death sentence that you potentially cannot be saved from in a timely manner. Combining stimulants and depressants is not reccomended, but if you must, take single starter doses of both, redosing to ramp up one effect over another is a recipe for disaster and a sneaky overdose. Even if you aren't doing that though, it can still be quite dangerous for your heart.

Negative effects from drugs can in part be mitigated from maintaining a healthy lifestyle. This means getting plenty of sleep, staying properly hydrated, eating enough and eating a balanced nutritious diet, and getting sufficient exercise. Often this kind of lifestyle is mutually exclusive from a lifestyle of heavy drug use, depending on the class of drug. A stim binge is fun and all but a body is not meant to go that long without food or sleep. I certainly do not maintain a healthy lifestyle. Drugs would probably feel better for me if I did though, and they would probably feel better for you too, sorry. Do what you are able to, something is better than nothing! 

The last area of danger is in psychological, emotional, behavioral, and social effects from drugs.

Hallucinogens all carry a risk of inducing a severe delusional panic state, or a 'bad trip'. This is best mitigated by controlling set and setting and taking these drugs in an intentional manner. Prepare for your experience, take it in a familiar and comfortable setting (per your own preferences of course!), and most importantly, make sure to settle your shit before you dose, like any family/social/work obligations, make sure to preemptively deal with anything that would be a nasty intrusion when you're having an out of body experience. Impulsively taking a hallucinogen in an unfamiliar setting can be exciting, but it must be acknowledged that this significantly increases the chances of having an experience go south. If you're most comfortable alone, take them alone. If you're most comfortable with a trip sitter, find someone you know and really truly trust and feel comfortable with, ideally someone experienced in the realm of hallucinogens. There are so many stories of experiences devolving into bad trips because the people they thought would be cool trip sitters end up being untrustworthy or judgmental or selfish. Pick your friends carefully! The best advice I can give for avoiding a negative experience is to not resist, to just sit back, go with the flow, let your body be still and let the experience take you where it will, even if it may seem daunting or terrifying. Ultimately, while a bad trip can be truly traumatic and destructive, I have found many of my negative experiences to ultimately be productive and beneficial when the dust has all settled. Take solace in that.

Other times hallucinogens can produce dangerous changes in behavior such as inducing mania, powerful delusions or paranoia, This is particularly an issue with certain dissociatives or stimulants, and is often exacerbated by sleep deprivation and repeated redosing. It is always best to take breaks between using stimulating substances like this and let yourself cool down and return to baseline. Other drugs like benzos can lower ones threshold for impulsive and dangerous behavior and lead to a cascade of damaging effects from compulsive redosing, delusions of sobriety, and engaging in activities like employment, being around family, or driving while completely blacked out. It may be good to have someone else sit on your stash of drugs to prevent redosing. These behavioral effects can have grave consequences in one's social, professional, financial, romantic, educational, and legal life, and in the most extreme cases can lead to serious or even deadly harm brought upon oneself or others. Beware anything that lowers thresholds for self-control and affects memory, a fun night can quickly turn into a catastrophe without the user even noticing. 

The standard advice is that people who suffer from mental illnesses should exercise the utmost caution around hallucinogens or avoid them altogether. I would say this is the safest thing to do. However, people with mental illnesses make up a significant portion of those who use hallucinogens, and while there are plenty of horror stories of people's afflictions becoming worse with drug use, there are others of revolutionary treatment and changes in perspective that have turned out to be immensely positive for people. It really is to the user's discretion- you know yourself best, you know what you may or may not be able to handle. It is best always to wade in slowly than just dive into the deep end, no matter what your conditions are. Substance use disorders and pre-existing mental illnesses have a way of intertwining for many people that can often be catastrophic. I am not the most mentally healthy and my substance use is at times problematic, though for the most part I have found using substance to be a valuable part of my life. Idk more on this in question 16.

The last note I'll say on harm reduction is not directed at the user but rather those who are around people using substances. Stigmatizing, judging, and rejecting someone for their choice of drug almost never discourages a person from using that drug, it achieves nothing but simply adding the burden of hiding their use from you and having them lose trust in you. When one doesn't trust that you can know about their use, they will often resort to unsafe usage patterns to keep their use secret. The best harm reduction practice is to be openminded, to talk honestly with others about yours and their use of substances, to allow for clearly defined practices to use safely. If you use some substances but turn your nose up at others who use other substances, you can fuck right off.

14. Isn't it reckless to be the Guinea Pig for all of these little-known substances?

Yes. That is a risk I have accepted. In many cases, one can make a rough estimation of the safety profile of a substance based on its structure and the safety profiles of similarly structured compounds. There are of course, always exceptions to be wary of. The best way to mitigate harm from this is to titrate upwards from a very low dose when using a wholly novel or unfamiliar substance, gradually increasing the dose until desired effects are felt while being mindful of the nature and intensity of side effects that may arise. While acute toxicity can be immediately apparent, chronic toxicity from repeated use of novel substances is largely unexplored territory, and should I fall victim to that I can only hope that my decisions can serve as a warning to others. 

15. Are you addicted to anything?

The one class of substances where I have previously developed a physical dependence is benzodiazepines. Nowadays I can abstain from them for a time, though the effects of cessation are still noticeable, as are their long term effects on my functioning. I use dissociatives more frequently than one should, though they notably rarely produce physical dependence. A psychological dependence though, sure. That is well documented. I use cannabis daily, though I don't notice negative effects from abstinence (I also haven't tried to abstain from it in earnest...) Most other substances I use with relative moderation, definitely more frequently than any normal person but not on a daily basis. 

Update in 2023: I am fully psychologically addicted to dissociatives. If they are around me, I will consume them. I consume them daily and have steadily been building up a nasty tolerance. I will use any other drug I can get my hands on in their stead if I am unable to access them for whatever reason. Addiction is sneaky, gradual, and ultimately inescapable. I walked the razor's edge for almost a decade and I have finally slipped. I am not seeking treatment and I don't have any intention to any time soon. This is just my life now.

16. Are you mentally ill? 

Yes, this is an apparent theme in many of the older reports, though it is something I mention less in the newer ones. I guess you could call that progress. I've struggled with depression and suicidal thoughts since I was 15, culminating in several attempts on my own life throughout early adulthood and 2 stints in a psychiatric hospital. I was ultimately diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder. I have tried a variety of prescribed medications and also CBT and DBT talk therapy, though honestly both of those did not prove fruitful for treatment and I ultimately gave up on them. In recent times, all of my symptoms have become much more manageable, and they typically are episodic, though they are very intense when they flare up. I partially credit dissociatives to helping me get ahold of my symptoms, particularly 3-MeO-PCP and 3-MeO-PCE.

Treating mental illness is, as it stands, mostly trial and error. I cannot say strongly enough how terrible an idea it is to go about treatment the way I did. I found what works for me-ultimately through sheer luck. I am certain it will not work for you. Each person unfortunately has to go through all the hoops and determine what works best for them personally- while I found psychiatric medications ineffective, they have been revolutionary for the quality of life for others. It is all dependent on your specific circumstances. 

17. How long have you been using drugs for?

I began smoking cannabis at 15, and would occasionally take whatever pharms came my way. I first tried LSD at 16, my first hallucinogen. When I turned 18 and began college my 'research' took off and I began to use hallucinogens weekly.  After a stalling period of more abusive use of drugs, I directed myself more to the dedicated study of drugs in earnest at 20. It's only grown from there.

18. What first got you into using drugs?

Probably consuming media that emphasized synesthesia and traveling to indescribable worlds at the boundary of our own- Fantasia, The Phantom Tollbooth, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Sorry Mom and Dad, it's not your fault, I was an imaginative kid, something would've brought it about eventually) - the idea of a synesthetic experience has always been exciting to me. When I was 10, in our school's DARE program, the nice officer mentioned there were drugs that could make you see things that aren't there, make you see sounds and hear colors- it was meant to sound scary but I thought this sounded awesome, a whole new world existed at the limits of ours. I drifted away from this until I was 15, when I started smoking weed to fit in with my friends who had at the time. After some awkward initial attempts, I became a big fan of it. I became friends with more prominent drug users in my school, soon I was taking random pharms, and then much to my excitement, at 16, I encountered LSD. I fell in love instantly, and soon was trying DXM and mushrooms. I first learned about 'research chemicals' browsing 4chan at that age and reading random reports on Erowid when I was bored. 4chan also introduced me to the magic of tor and the silk road, which was buzzing with peak activity at the time. The summer before I began college I decided to take the plunge and ordered a variety of "research chemical" psychedelics to widen my horizons. Thus began a period where I obsessively hunted down and obtained every hallucinogen I could get my hands on, a quest that continues to this day though I have exhausted much of what is available. My reasons for doing this are in question 7. 

19. What is your ideal setting to trip in?

Alone, either in my own personal living space, or outside walking around the city. I've always made a sanctuary of my living spaces, adorning them with dim lighting, incense, dense clouds of decorations, and particularly hundreds of dead animals preserved in various ways (skeletons, mummies, wet specimens etc.), along with fossils, rocks, minerals, framed insect specimens etc. It's a hobby to collect what I find and surround myself with all of these inanimate projections of my identity. I love a cluttered, lived in, dense, dank, filthy little space where I can hide away on something soft. I am constantly wired into digital devices for many of my experiences. Otherwise, I enjoy walking around the city, either at day or night (though more intense experiences dictate that I stay in). I really don't like using drugs around other people- low doses of some psychedelics and dissociatives can make for good socializing drugs, but I personally prefer more intense experiences, and when undergoing an intense experience, it is mandatory that I am alone. Interacting with people becomes burdensome, another thing to feel anxious about when I am on drugs. I would rather just worry about myself. I don't always trip alone, this is apparent if you read my reports- I do have a very small and tight list of people I feel comfortable tripping around, most of whom also love to experiment with research chemicals. Beyond them however, alone is the preference. 

20. How many drugs have you done?

I keep a list here :p As of this writing (edited 2/3/2022) I have intentionally taken 190 different psychoactive substances.

21. How many times have you "tripped"?

Defined as any intentional ingestion of a hallucinogenic substance, as of this writing (2/3/2022), 673 times.

22. How often do you use drugs?

For the first few years I would take a psychedelic or dissociative once a week and smoke cannabis near daily. Then I would begin taking benzos. And then stimulants to wake me up from the benzos.

Ultimately the habit I keep nowadays is: Cannabis daily, Psychedelics once every week or two, dissociatives once or twice a week, benzos around 3 days a week (often after a dissociative), stimulants once or twice a week (usually to wake up from a late night benzo dose), with an occasional opioid or miscellaneous other GABAergic drug sprinkled in. I have maintained this frequency (with occasional long breaks) for about 3 years. 

23. What is your Gender? They/them? Are you a fucking SJW theres only 2 genders etc etc 

If it bothers you that much just exit out and read something else

Gender neutral pronouns are a preference, but I promise I will not be upset or offended or hold it against you if you use anything else. Use what you feel is right. 

(This is just my preference and shouldn't be assumed about other gender nonconforming people!) 

24. Can I support you financially? 

Trick question, no one's ever asked me this. If you like the writing and want to kick a buck my way though email me: nervewing@protonmail.com (BTC only)

25. Should I do drugs?

That is for you to decide, that's not my call.