Experience:DXM (225 mg, oral) - A Missed Opportunity

I'm a person who is very interested in the use of substances for purposes outside of simply having fun or getting high for the sake of getting high and have been wanting to try a psychedelic for quite a while, however the most I've been able to do is get stoned and read about substances instead of actually being able to try them. Eventually, I found myself also reading about dissociatives like Memantine, 2F-DCK, and Dextromethorphan. I learned that these substances are apparently really effective anti-depressants and also extremely good for introspection. I zeroed in specifically on DXM because of how easy it is to get and went from there.

I had been reading about Dextromethorphan (DXM) for a couple months before properly trying it and had learned about the use of upper plateaus for introspective purposes and, with harm reduction in mind, wanted to build up to that, instead starting at a dosage that I figured would bring me to lower second plateau. With all of this in mind, I bought a box of Assured brand cough gels on amazon (the dollar store near me was completely out) and once that arrived I waited for a proper day to do it. Not too long afterwards that day more or less came and I was able to find a place away from home to try it out. I admit that my setting wasn't too good as I was at my sister's apartment with my nieces (don't worry, I wasn't trying to babysit them. That would be ridiculous, especially with the experience I was about to have). Frozen II was also playing for a good portion of it, Followed by Tiger King when my sister got home. At roughly 9:50 AM, I started slowly taking every cough gel in the bottle in increments of 1-3 (not that there was a particular pattern) up until about 10:00 AM.

10:38 AM - I started noticing that while walking around, my arms had a bit of a habit of wanting to move in odd ways that I was able to control easily. It's like I felt a bit of a "tug" in my arms in the direction they wanted to move, which in my case was upwards or off to the side. I recognized that the effects were kicking in a lot faster than I expected, especially considering that they came in gel cap form, which supposedly takes an hour extra.

10:43 AM - I began to experience a bit of a faint tingling feeling located in my hands and head, as well as faint euphoria. I also felt a vague pressing sensation behind my eyes. It was also getting easier and more common to space out. I began feeling nauseous roughly three minutes later and decided to drink the last bit of ginger ale I had left to see if it would help in my favor.

10:48 AM - I started losing my depth perception and feeling like my eyes were in an odd place or odd position in my head, as well as being hyper aware of where they are in my skull. At this point the euphoria and tingling had faded away for the most part. Two minutes later, I started getting double vision. I also started having to take a bit longer to process what people were saying to me and that led me to believe that I was being messed with in a playful manner. Additionally, my speech started to break down and become slurred.

10:52 AM - I started feeling extremely tall whenever I looked down and ultimately whenever I got up to do something. Around this time I remember loudly ranting about how I found the activity on the back of a cereal box to be the dumbest thing in existence for about thirty seconds. Three minutes later, my robowalk was starting to pick up and I started noticing the disinhibition that had already kicked in. The nausea was also picking up, although I don't remember having an itch that a lot of people experience apparently.

before 11:12 AM - The double vision and blurring was getting quite noteable and the effect I experienced involving the increase in awareness regarding where my eyes were was also quite intense. Four minutes later I noted that I felt as if I was merging with the chair I was sitting in, as well as a sense of percieved bodily heaviness. At around this point the short term memory impairment was at full blast and I no longer had a good perception of time. The times mentioned are based off of the data on a series of audio recordings I took to document my trip.

11:12 AM - the nausea was getting hard to tolerate, so I stumbled to the bathroom and threw up. Due to the small meal I ate that morning, nothing much came out, however I did notice the partially digested gels.

11:14 AM - Upon looking in the mirror after getting up and flushing the toilet, I became utterly confused by my reflection, and in the audio recording of the event, wasn't too coherent about describing it. It sounds like I was confused by whether or not I was looking in the mirror, something about a video, and whether or not I was looking at something, but truthfully all I can remember is just being astonished by the depersonalization and not knowing how to describe it due to the intoxication. On my way out of the bathroom I remember asking someone "what is space?" in an attempt to convey my altered sense of spacial awareness and depth perception.

11:25 AM - I start experiencing thought loops, as well as a total loss of depth perception. I note in the recording that "I have lost any sense of thinking and brain", followed promptly by me repeating how it was 11:25, but then being cut off by the awareness that I was experiencing thought loops. I also noticed how my legs felt completely weightless, as well as my arms.

11:32 AM - I start noticing how lightweight yet heavy my arms and legs are. They were hard to move, yet when I had the willpower to move them they were extremely light and easy to move for a brief period of time. Afterwards, I went out on the balcony to take a hit of my CBD vape (a thing which I wish I had kept track of).

11:37 AM - I asked myself what actually makes something real, but I was then interrupted by the possibility that I might have the enzyme deficiency that 5% of trippers supposedly have (a thought/statement which was repeated a lot before this, along with "I'm so tall"). I then interrupted myself with "what the fuck are lips?", which didn't really reflect my train of thought yet came out of my mouth anyway. I then attempted to listen to a Deftones song (Smile, off of their unreleased album). The music sounded extremely distant and bassless, and oddly enough it stayed the same volume no matter how close to my ear I put the audio source. Additionally, I remember that everything was this kind of distant volume. After this, I remember staring blankly into my lap as all commotion in my head and my inner voice stopped entirely for roughly five-ish seconds. I remember noticing this and snapping back out of it to go inside.

11:41 AM - I was inside on my couch and noticed that I physically couldn't move. I eventually was able to shortly afterwards, but for that brief time I was totally unable to move my lower body while laying on the couch.

11:52 AM - I was starting to feel uncomfortable. Along with throwing up twice, my skin felt like leather (I was pretty ambivalent about that) and I was getting hot flashes and sweating. I wanted to use the time for introspection seeing as that I definitely surpassed second plat into lower third but I couldn't because of the noisy environment and didn't think to go out on the balcony again. There was a brief point where I thought to myself "oh shit, what if I somehow overdosed and am dying", but that went away as soon as I remembered that I only took 225mg and the LD50 for most people seems to be 800mg higher than that. My mouth was also dry. I also remember not feeling air entering or leaving my body but I knew I was breathing and that the sensation or lack thereof is just the DXM tricking me. In an audio recording that takes place a minute after this event, I remember noting how dissociated I was and how I felt kind of away from everything so that I only have myself to worry about, although nothing introspective happened.

12:08 PM - In an audio recording I go over once again how I might have the enzyme deficiency and how out of it I am. Since the audio recording doesn't really mention anything new or interesting, I'm gonna throw in that during this time and at the beginning of the comedown everything looked and felt extremely dream-like but with more dizziness and nausea, which I stated in the next audio recording very bluntly in the form of "everything's a dream". Around this time I remember my sister watching Tiger King and me yelling at a Peta spokeswoman on TV.

12:57 PM - My double vision faded away and I was now able to read things easily again without having to close one of my eyes. I should note that even during the peak I was able to understand language and writing, but it just took me a little longer.

1:01 PM - I was able to think in a clear-headed way, but the tactile anesthesia, the robowalk, and pretty much all of the other effects were present.

1:31 PM - word articulation started to come back to me, although all of the other effects were still present, although probably a bit less intense than

before 2:25 PM - I feel mostly sober, although still out of it and still with a sensation of weightlessness and partial tactile anesthesia

By 2:32 PM I was mostly sober apart from vague tactile anesthesia that I couldn't tell was still there or not.

The next day's afterglow effects included feeling out of it, but also a sense of relaxation and mild euphoria, along with an enhanced sense of music appreciation, slightly worse short term memory, and a mild headache.

Moral of the story: Don't do what I did and test for the enzyme deficiency, because even though only 5% of people seem to have it, it's still a possibility. Also, make sure your setting isn't too noisy.

Submitted by DropTherapy