Experience:Zopiclone (7.5 mg) + Mirtazapine (7.5 mg) + Cannabis

Subject

Age: 22

Sex: Female

Height: 175cm / 5"7 inches

Weight: 72kg / 160lb

Date: 05/2021

Background

I have used zopiclone on and off the past five years as a sleeping aid. Hallunications I experienced in the past were unintentional and usually right before passing out. These included closed eye hallucinations of morphing shapes accompanied with a general feeling of falling into them, and good old shadow people. Nothing even comparable to what I recently experienced.

I've used LSD, first time was 150ug, an experience I'll briefly describe as powerful as it was uncomfortable. Second and last time was only 20ug.

I started smoking cannabis at 16 and developed a strong dependence for it. I wouldn't hestitate to use the word addiction. I generally "quit" in 2019, but I've occasionally used it since late 2020, and have used it almost daily/nightly the past three weeks.

Mirtazapine was prescribed two months ago for depression and anxiety and has been more or less helpful... until I started smoking again.

Set and setting was alone in my room after a difficult and emotional night. My intention was to only take the zopiclone after the mirtazapine and see what would happen if I stayed up, but due to my distress I went for a smoke and came back.

I don't recommend this mix. I don't even recommend mirtazapine and cannabis in the first place (despite experiencing it nightly the past three weeks) and considering I have a half-brother with schizophrenia, what I did was stupid and concerning.

Report

The familiar taste of tinfoil.

First (and only) hallucination I experienced before smoking was a cloud of black dust in front of and above me. It had a look I can only describe as "digital", comparable to a "plague cloud" from the game Pathologic, though less dense, more fleeting. For reference

After smoking I remember an immediate sensation of regret. I knew I was "fucked", so to speak.

Quickly (at least, in my mind it felt quick) I began hearing voices, one in particular I believed was my mother. Even when I wasn't directly "hearing" noises I felt there was a sense of busyness around me and in my head. I knew I was hallucinating so to block out the "noise" I went back to listening to music. I put on something relaxing and familiar (Aphex Twin's SAW), but to my surprise the music was unrecognizable. If anything the music intensified the sounds I was hearing and worsened the experience by blurring the lines between the music and hallucinated noises/voices. I listened to half of the album, which felt like one short song.

During this I experienced closed visuals I can't even begin to describe. Various shapes and structures constantly forming into other shapes. Everything I physically felt and visualized had a pulsating, vibrating, "constant" sensation to it... due to the constantly changing nature of this experience I can't record every single visual I experienced. The open eye visuals included flashing specks of light, blurred squares across my field of view (look up "transparent checkered squares"), brief shadow people (more "cartoon-y" than the shadow people I previously experienced, which literally felt like there was someone in my room) morphing out of the ground briefly. There were very brief, fleeting moments where I felt like the room around had me had changed and that I was in another environment. Everything felt "digital" and as fake as it was real. My brain was racing and I couldn't keep track of my thoughts, let alone everything I was hearing and visualizing. I was scared and paranoid, but extremely sedated at the same time.

Physically my reaction to everything was extremely delayed. The one time I left bed to pee had me feeling like I was walking through concrete and everything I did had a sort of input lag I couldn't control. I was walking strange, lopsided, trying not to fall. The most extreme physical sensation was a sort of kinesthetic hallucination where I felt as though my bed was rolling and rumbling, shaking walls. I felt as though I was on top of this rolling/rumbling, before it felt as though it was going through me. Underneath the music I was convinced there was an earthquake and thunderstorm outside.

I started to have enough of this. I looked at the time (2am) and couldn't believe it since what felt like 15 minutes was two hours. I put on ambient song that never fails to knock me out, and next thing you know I'm awake (after dreaming of being in a post-apocalyptic wasteland), feeling numb and out of body for the entire day.

Even if I wasn't on an antidepressant, I would not recommend THC and zopiclone.

Never again.

Timeline Again, my perception of time was extremely compressed... what felt like twenty minutes was actually two hours, so I can't give a detailed timeline.

~11:30PM - Ingested 7.5mg zopiclone an hour or so after the mirtazapine. By then I was feeling the sedation of the mirtazapine.

~12:30AM- Smoked weed, experienced psychosis for about two hours.

~(?)2:15AM - Passed out