2016 in Review

I guess this is going to be an annual tradition as long as I am mired in this swamp... I will inevitably stop this activity or run out of new drugs to try, but until then!
So uh, I did a great deal of drugs in 2016. I would consider this year the most concentrated year of my activities to date, at least in terms of rigorous study of new substances. I have thankfully reduced my level of casual abuse, which peaked the previous year, concurrent with worsening depression. A better mental state this year has meant more responsibly (although admittedly not entirely responsible) use. My mental health has vastly improved, mostly attributable to a wonderful support network and a relationship with someone that has lasted throughout most of the year. I am really truly and deeply in love and it has helped me wrangle my still tumultuous mental state better than I ever have before, this is not even the shallow confidence gained from someone adoring me, but an infinitely deeper level of improvement, introspection, enrichment, and support coming from someone who understands my mind at a fundamental level. I love you so incredibly much, and I am grateful for your presence in my life every single day.
This is the year I had the most hallucinogenic experiences, beating out 2015 by a margin of 20 experiences. This will probably be the peak of my use, as I am literally running out of new things to try and I am losing the energy, health, time, and wherewithal to pursue this as passionately as I once did. I have now had over 200 hallucinogenic experiences, and my quantity of tasted substances has reached 70.
Looking onwards, i still wish to pursue new substances at the very least, and to pursue a more refined and more strictly regimented pattern of casual use to enhance experiences or foment self-improvement and transhumanistic practice. I aim to end the casual abuse as it is detrimental to my health and fills me with feelings of guilt and unrequited hedonism. Although it is mighty mighty fun...  there are ways to have fun and have it still be useful and productive. As far as new combinations go, I wish to end the binging behavior I often find myself doing, where I am just impulsively stacking substances on each other without any real intent or direction. In the future, I wish to only do meticulously planned and calculated combinations. Most of this stems from a desire to continue producing reports. Having received some serious feedback on my reports, I aim to produce reports of superior quality and universal usefulness to the intrepid psychonaut, especially for the bank of new and rare substances that are beginning to rear their heads in the market.
Without revealing toooo much info, I will say that I have become an active participant in the inner workings of one of the most prominent websites for harm reduction and unbiased, pragmatic information on drugs. This has certainly helped to make me feel like the knowledge I have accrued is of some use and I am happy to be providing material gains to others through my passion and interest. This is something I wish to continue indefinitely, even beyond whenever I may stop my experiments.

Anyways, here's a power ranking of every new drug I tried this year. I'll take it from the top again. Full reports for all of these are in the sidebar.

1. 3-MeO-PCE: The #1 spot for the second year in a row is a dissociative, and more specifically, a delightful little arylcyclohexamine. 3-MeO-PCE presents as MXE's more functional cousin, leaning more towards the experience given by 3-MeO-PCP but improved in every way. Rather than the usual dissociative dumbing down, this one affects cognition almost like a psychedelic, vastly improving focus and cognitive ability. This one has some serious transhumanistic and therapeutic potential, and while quite rare, I now have a substantial quantity with which I can experiment. Euphoric, colorful, and truly shows the potential to improve my life and myself. I'm excited to further familiarize myself with this.

2. Diphenidine: My experiences with this chemical are apparently non-standard. It is strikingly similar to 3-MeO-PCE, although it strikes much more of an emotional and manic chord. This is a bit more dangerous than 3-MeO-PCE as I can definitely see the potential for going off the rails a bit. But damn does this one drill to my core and really make me think and feel in a way that feels uninhibited from my sober state. This is one to be used with the utmost caution, though its rewards seem bountiful and sweet.

3. 2C-C: As is going to be established repeatedly throughout this list, bodyload is truly one of the biggest hinderances to my experimentation. Some say to embrace it, to accept it, to feel the pain, but honestly after so many times that just no longer become interesting or productive. 2C-C has blessed me with experiences entirely free of any bodyload, and in its stead, it has a quite pleasurable feel in my flesh. It's sufficiently deep, analytical, and visual, and lacks the irritating stimulation that some of its cousins have. A delightful substance that is extremely useful in combinations.

4. 2C-I: I once presumed I had taken this in the early naive days of my experimentation, sold as LSD. I have since tasted a batch that is 100% confirmed to be this, and have had nothing but interesting experiences from it. It too is not too heavy on the body, and thus has found its way into my tool chest. What really places it high on my list is that when insufflated, I find myself struck with a deep focus that lets me complete any task quickly and efficiently without distraction, the way some described adderall to be. Most stimulants do not affect me much, so to find a drug that literally materially improves my functionality is a blessing. The visuals and psychedelic effects are icing on the cake.

5. Etizolam: My major qualm with benzodiazepines (I know its not technically one but judging by effects, it might as well be), is just how heavily they can affect memory for quite a period of time. Etizolam spares me that, being a short lasting experience that is more lucid in my memory than its cousins. The added bonus is that it doesn't leave me in a semi-blackout state for several days like some do (eg. clonazepam). It's useful for sleep, for acute stress and anxiety, for coming off trips, and is honestly pretty fun. I mustn't lose sight of the fact that its apparent relative benevolence is negated if I find myself binging on it recreationally.

6. Ephenidine: Ephenidine is another fairly psychedelic dissociative (see a pattern here?) that has given me my share of interesting experiences. It's a pretty standard experience that stands out for its euhporia, functionality, and deep colorful visuals and hole states. It simply lacks the emotional and cognitive depth of the other two dissociatives on this list so far, but is nonetheless a consistently enjoyable experience.

7. 2C-B-FLY: I only got one taste of this but damn what a good time. This is a drug that I would describe as overwhelmingly fun. The bodyload was a bit rough for parts of it, but no matter, this is a drug that filled me with joviality and unrestrained social capability. My cognitive processes and ability to interact with others was vastly improved, this drug is utilitarian and shows promise for use in social settings. It used to be cheap and readily available but I unfortunately missed my opportunity to acquire more. Oh well.

8. 5-APDB: To be entirely honest, I am not the biggest fan of empathogens. They are undeniably enjoyable, in fact they are the essence of enjoyment. The problem is, that enjoyment is so entirely detached from reality or any sort of pragmatic thought, it is a delusional fantasy that often leaves me feeling a bit silly and foolish in their wake. Also I just get really sappy and talkative and usually make a fool of myself. Nonetheless, I have had great times with this drug. I prefer it to MDMA because it lacks the stimulation and bodyload that MDMA can have sometimes.

9. Deschloroketamine: The first time I tried deschloroketamine I found myself elated, I had found an experience that was very very similar to my sweet golden MXE. There were a few slight differences, ones I considered minor at the time, but they would become glaring with repeated experiments. The main difference is energy level- while MXE is somewhat stimulating, Deschloroketamine destroys you, renders your body weak, impotent, and useless for a long while. While this is no issue while you're in the hole, the comedown is always draining and sluggish. The experience itself is quite enjoyable and euphoric, but the aftereffects are usually pretty rough.

10. DALT: This is a truly unique substsance, though its novelty only gives it a shred of merit. It's fun for casual use, for hanging out with friends, for throwing a relaxing psychedelic blanket on any experience, but it's simply too mild and too short acting to really stand out. It's just a slight taste of what could be a full experience and oftentimes just isn't worth the hassle of smoking it. As it stands, it is mostly just a novelty, but a pretty neat one at that.

11. Memantine: This is another one whose value mostly stems from novelty. It is incredibly long lasting, like multiple days long lasting. It's a marathon experience. While interesting, I'm not sure what merit to grant it, as it is one of the most fundamentally neutral things I have ever felt. It's intensely dissociating and oddly cold and clinical. I'm certain that I would not call it enjoyable or unenjoyable, it just is.

12. 4-HO-DPT: I had such high hopes for this one after what I had read online. This was my holy grail, and when it became available from a major vendor, I was ecstatic. Unfortunately, it turned out not to be up to the hype. Don't get me wrong, it is an interesting and enlightening experience that certainly glows in certain areas, namely psychedelic whimsy and enhanced cognition. But damn the bodyload is something hardcore, and administering it is by far the worst drug administration experience I've had. The chalky powder stings and clumps up in the nose, it smells putrid and the powder fluffs up all through the sinuses and throat, this is followed by intense nausea and overall discomfort. I really wish I could explore this further, but that's such an obstacle for me.

13. 2C-T-7: Similar to the last, this one yielded an incredibly interesting experience that covered a wide range of effects. It seems like this one gave me everything psychedelics could offer in one experience, and unfortunately that included crippling bodyload that lasted throughout the entire experience. Interesting, but once again, there are just major obstacles to me studying it further. The questionable safety profile is also a bit of an issue.

14. 2C-D: This is about as standard as a 2C-x experience could be, as if they were all averaged out into one. This unfortunately also included a rough bodyload, though nowhere near as intense and crippling as others. Overall, it was just short lasting and kind of uninteresting, there is nothing it does that other psychedelics don't do better. The one interesting tidbit was a sort of cognitive enhancement afterglow that lasted well into the next day, which was pretty delightful. It can apparently be used at low doses as a nootropic. I barely had any to play with though.

15. ALD-52: This is another one that held a lot of promise, but ended up being underwhelming in several ways. The main issues were once again, bodyload and just not particularly standing out as an experience in any way that would redeem it from that. It was certainly fun and my time on it was enjoyable, but it didn't stick out in any way that made me yearn to try it again. Suffering the discomfort it made me feel out in the woods wasn't too fun either.

16. ETH-LAD: Same as the last, I've heard most lysergamides are pretty similar and this was only subtly different from ALD-52. It too was rough on the body, and it too wasn't too interesting, although it's visuals were pretty unique. The big issue was that it really stymied social interaction, making everything awkward and really displaying quite the opposite effect to others like 2C-B-FLY. If I ever try this again it'll probably just be alone.

17. 2C-E: Opinion on 2C-E is torn. Shulgin spoke volumes of praise, while others recount their nightmarish and deeply uncomfortable experiences from it. I am apparently of the latter camp. It seems pretty dependent on the individual and consistent for that individual. The bodyload was the major offputting feature of this drug, as it just absolutely ravaged me and left me feeling deeply ill throughout and after the experience. That aside, it was interesting and had some pretty neat and enjoyable features, but in the end it was just too rough on me. I have entertained perhaps trying this one again just because it is so highly praised by some.

18. 5-MeO-DALT: This was just an uncomfortable experience from every angle. Bodyload was uniquely terrible, with nausea and really frequent urination. The experience was just odd, unsettling, and disquieting. The worst part of it though was that it seemed to instill an absolute inability to focus. My thoughts were racing faster than I could possibly maintain and it made for a deeply unsettling night of pacing and stressful discomfort.

19. O-PCE: I have taken this one a good bunch of times, I do not know why. Every time I regret it. This is pure dissociation, pure, debilitating dissociation that just completely wipes me every time, annihilating my functionality and dismantling my ability to do anything. It is long lasting and just completely unrelenting, it holds my head under the water and doesn't let me take a single breath for its entire 3-4 hour peak. There is no focusing or snapping out of it, once you are subjected to this drug you are completely under its control for as long as it desires. If any drug could make me fuck up my life accidentally, it would be this one.

20. Glaucine: And now we reach the bottom of the barrel. This is my absolute least favorite drug, it is responsible for the most irredeemably awful drug experience I have had. Even my out of control nightmare psychedelic experiences have some value to them, this was just a waste of my time and mental energy. This was just a hallucinated depressive episode, where I found myself writhing with discomfort just begging for it to end. It's a nonstandard hallucinogen that doesn't really match the receptor activity of any others, and my god it just sucked all the way through. The bodyload was rough, the mental load was rough, even coming off of it didn't feel entirely good. Just a stressful and entirely unenjoyable substance.

So that's it, that's my list for this year. I excluded a few that were too minor in their effects to really be placed with these other substances. Also, I excluded a few that are certainly powerful substances, but I simply have only had minor experiences so far that are not worth writing. These ones all warrant further exploration at higher doses.
-5-MeO-DMT
-AMT
-2C-iP


Happy new year to you all. Thanks for reading.

Memantine

Age: 21

Weight: 120 lbs

Dosage: 150 mg oral

Setting: My apartment

T0:00-Fifteen 10 mg memantine pills ingested. A quick shower was taken.

T0:30-First notes arise, a very slight feeling of dissociation and dizziness melding with a sense of joviality and euphoria. I feel giggly and excited, perhaps from the slight nibble of feeling I have contracted, or perhaps from some deeper chemical enhancement.

 T0:40-The dissociation now manifests as cold, clinical, and clean. It’s a very pure detachment, with numbness in my extremities and a sense of distance relative to my surroundings, both on a physical and cognitive level. The comeup has been very gradual, like I am slowly sinking into a sterile icy pool.

T1:00-Visuals begin to appear. They come in the form of an all-consuming array of spots and dots overlaid on every surface I gaze upon, little concentric circles of rainbow colors. Otherwise, the experience is fairly lucid and stimulating so far, in contrast to some other dissociatives that rush in like a paralytic flash flood. The progressive numbing of my extremities seems to be creeping towards its apex while my sense of proprioception collapses and dissolves. It feels as though my consciousness is in a balloon that is slowly rising from my body as it expands, lifted by a vestigial bastion of warmth in my core. Cognitively, a slight touch of deeper emotion, empathogenesis, and euphoria trickles in. It’s not quite to the effect of other drugs like MDMA, but is definitely greater relative to other dissociatives.

T1:30-I am very very dissociated, and the burgeoning experience shows no signs of slowing down or letting up. The dissociation is heavily mental, with a feeling of detachment from language, semiotics, cultural constucts, and other societal essences of humanity. I feel mechanical and icy, like a chilly golem. This difficulty understanding words and sentences is coupled with a faltering short term memory, making conversation difficult. Physically, I am still functional, I can get up and walk and carry things with no issue. Thus, it is in no way a ‘hole’ experience yet. I am slightly nauseous and am rapidly alternating between feeling too warm or too cold. The visuals begin to appear as patterns, still composed of dots, like a pointillist painting. These dots are distributed in orderly and harmonious configurations, seemingly dictated by some underlying mathematical arrangement. Blocky shapes in this meticulous order also begin to appear.

T2:00-I am dissociated to the point where typing is difficult, and closing my eyes leads to a total loss of coordination and sense of bodily presence. If I focus, I can snap out of it briefly and poke my head above the surface, but with my mind at rest, my thoughts begin to wander exponentially into the distance, blurring to sheer static nothing. It feels almost psychedelic in that the visuals have kicked up to the point of uncontrollably interrupting my perceptions. It is very difficult to focus on one thing for long, leaving me in that default state of my mind drifting off into the abyss.  My short term memory has been compromised further, rendering conversation near impossible. The bodily feel that was shifting randomly between hot and cold has finally settled on cold, with a sterile frost shuddering through me.

T2:40-I smoke a joint. I feel like I am floating a few inches above my head, and that there are curtains of red and green cellophane draped around the room, creating blocks of altered color in my vision. Every time my focus breaks and my mind wanders, I am not only drifting into the distance and fading away, but now I am being entombed, sequestered into a little bubble or chamber that provides a sort of tangible separation between myself and the rest of existence. Reading is very difficult, especially due to the fact that the words and letters seem to be hovering an inch off of the screen at random. My body feels like it is folding along angular lines, forming into some sort of prism.

T3:00-Still feeling cold, I retreat to my bedroom to grab a sweater but decide to stay up there for a bit to ride out the raging peak of this trip alone. The orderly visuals adorn every surface, dancing and pulsing in calculated, mechanistic unison. It appears as though everything is lit from below by a purple light with no discernible source, everything appears futuristic, shiny, and weird. My thoughts are disorganized and arbitrary, and they often wither before they can fully develop, leaving me feeling a state of total flat neutrality, my cognitive processes reduced to impotent static. I feel like a cold city skyline at night, seen from a great distance. When I close my eyes I am hit with a ghost image of the room that appears to be composed of a collage of numbers, letters, and other odd symbols. If I lie down with my eyes closed long enough, this dissolves into a great black and purple swath of something or nothing. Eventually this scene becomes occupied by characters, odd blocky humanoid figures composed of dense sections of random numbers, moving jerkily and going about their seemingly normal everyday activities, such as sitting at a laptop, or walking around their plane aimlessly. These beings do not really present in any discernible way- not good, or evil, benevolent, kind, caring, not even indifferent, they simply exist, like I am watching them through a screen, witness to them but entirely separated. I do not care about them, and they do not care about me, and it is alright. I return downstairs to find myself further physically impaired, with my sense of momentum and proprioception heavily compromised. Talking has now become difficult due to being unable to feel my mouth, and thus being unaware of how to properly use it to form phonetic sounds. I am pulsing like a jellyfish and my field of vision is being sliced into blocks that begin to separate from each other and form into 3-d cubes.

T3:20-The open eyed visuals peaked around now, with complex 3-dimensional patterns appearing on surfaces with mottled textures. Most notable were squiggly fractal patterns that resembled bone sutures or ammonitic sutures that begin to very clearly spawn on my ceiling. I found myself with my head lazily thrown back, slack jaw hanging open staring aimlessly at the ceiling. These patterns were not even moving or breathing or shifting, they were simply there, static and bold. Moving my eyes around left tessellated rainbow afterimages of everything, their forms fringed by this same squiggly suture pattern. It feels like everything is covered in spiderwebs and when I move I am disturbing some tentative stringy connection with everything else in the room. That I am anchored in some way to every surface and I feel a slight elastic resistance to every movement, as if the drug is gently but sternly suggesting that I remain still, static, slack and frozen.

T5:30-Continue to hang out and smoke more weed. I mostly just feel stoned at this point.

T8:45-Smoke even more. This time however, it seems like I have really stirred up the dust. I feel like I am suddenly and rapidly being drawn away from myself.

T9:00-Now, 9 hours into the experience, with the help of cannabis, I have entered a sort of a hole. I have curled up on the couch next to my friends and closed my eyes and become entirely separated from the reality they inhabit.

The hole began with a great golden pulsating concentric angular patterns across my eyelids. This soon became wiped aside by a great black abyss, which was soon speckled with explosions and splatters of little white dots, like CRT static or a blizzard. The abyss began to fold up into a network of cylindrical shapes and tubes, still streaked and battered with this onslaught of white particles. These forms then became cut and partitioned, it felt like my mind was being split into sections and separated into its various components. At last this visage shattered to reveal a vast infinite forest of spindly conifer trees, arranged in an eternal field of fractal patterns. I found myself hovering above it, then wandering amongst the trees, the sky above deep and infinitely black, no stars or clouds or anything. The white particles became a raging blizzard, the snow swirling and blowing around me and grating away at my vision. The ground was white with a shallow accumulation of snow. The forest was not scary, or uncomfortable, like everything else this trip it was fundamentally neutral. There was no fear in my heart, no sense of being lost or out of place, simply a sense of being somewhere new. It almost felt magical, and the mystery and majesty of the vastness bathed me in the glory of exploration. Upon opening my eyes and returning to the hole, I found myself immediately back among the forest, not having to navigate the convoluted entry process again. As time progressed I found myself entering a different sort of hole, a more abstract space where I was able to generate clear imagery in my mind, though without constant focus these would soon decay into rainbow concentric ripples and lose their form.

T13:00-Was down enough to go for a walk to a convenience store with my friends. Still felt pretty distant and not entirely stable on my feet, and interacting with the cashier/sharing space with strangers was difficult and awkward.

T14:00-I mostly just feel stoned now, but the visuals are presenting still. It’s the same rainbow suture patterns, now moving and breathing and subtly rippling. I end up falling asleep around now with little trouble.

T24:00-I wake up the next day, still feeling dizzy and out of it. This persists through the entire day, I have difficulty balancing and staying properly on my feet. Smoking brings back a similar feeling of dissociation, though definitely not to the same degree, and lacking in the visual aspect.

T48:00-I am still feeling it the next day. I feel separated from the world, as if I am watching everything on a TV screen. I am a bit off balance still, but find interacting with people smoother and easier.

T52:00-I can finally say I am down about now.

Conclusion: This drug is certainly fascinating. Not entirely enjoyable or fun, except for some tinges of euphoria at the beginning, rather it just felt fundamentally and deeply neutral. It’s essence was elusive and mysterious, it felt as though it was a drug that existed at the fringes of consciousness that simply was not meant to be understood. The cold and wintry essence of infinity that it contained was perhaps a symptom of the cold winter day, but the depths of the experience were certainly isolating and chilly. The afterglow is very very long and left me feeling off-balance for days.