#first plateau

First Plateau, First trial with edibles.

This is a story from my past. I don’t condone the use of psychoactive substances, this is for harm reduction, documentary, and entertainment purposes only. 

Scroll to “EXPERIENCE” to skip the boring details.

This time, I wanted to go to the bar for a hip hop show on something, but since the night would go late, it couldn’t put me to sleep and not give me too much anxiety. Weed alone is a sleepy substance post peak, so is alcohol, phenibut, and I wasn’t really up for 4-ho-met due to its unpredictable nature. 

A first plateau dose of DXM seemed to be the answer. It has the bonus of being a bit hallucinogenic and having music related euphoria. I noticed the first plateau was killer for dancing in my very first DXM trial.

I dosed 135 mg and mixed it with water.  I chickened out of taking 150. I made sure not to eat a grapefruit this day, due to the drug interactions. Right before I dosed, I ate a 5 mg THC candy, the first in a series. I also drank a big cuppa black tea right before I left the house, at 9:30. 

I was starting to feel a little paranoid as I waited for the bus. The first edible was probably bringing me to threshold, combined with the black tea and anxiety just from having taken a relatively unfamiliar substance. I took sips. I got on the bus. I felt dread, but there was no way the DXM had started.

As I was on the bus, I read that enzyme inhibition from grapefruit lasts 3-7 days and could amplify the subjective effects of DXM by 30-50%. This scared me more. I felt like a rat in a cage waiting for my friend to let me into the lobby of the apartment complex.

First real alerts seemed to be some mild memory loss, increased enjoyment of what I expected would be a shitty show, and this feeling of warmth and having difficulty finding a comfortable position for more than a few seconds. I told my mates what I took and that I was nervous. I also told them the dose was so low that I had no reason to be scared.

I finally finished the syrup at like 10:30 right before we left for the bar, and popped another 5 mg THC.

THE EXPERIENCE (First Plateau Hits)

The Dose: 135 mg of DXM, 10 mg THC, many grapefruits.

At the bar, I started to feel a little bit more, just after 11. I stared at stickers that covered every surface. They just seemed quaint, interesting in the way that people would bother to make them at all. Most of them were goth themed or kind of edgy. I walked around the darker corners of the bar scanning for stickers. At the bar stool, my friend took so long to order a beer that when he finally picked one, I said “3 of those for us, please,” just because I didn’t want to deal with frustrating the bartender. I really didn’t want to drink, but I felt obligated. I ended up splitting my drink with someone.  When the music started, I was loving it. I danced so hard that the rapper on the microphone shouted out to me specifically. I felt so good to dance enthusiastically, and I was grinning pretty wide. Soon, it felt nice to have my eyes closed, and I started imagining spaces, and squinting and shaking my head around to check for visuals. Nothing really happened, but I did enjoy seeing the world blurred as I shook my head. Did it make tracers? I can’t say. I had this pang of panic here and there, I only remember being afraid that I was drinking  a glass water too quickly, before realizing that was silly. 

I had this feeling of expecting a bit more, even though I was having a great time and talking about friendship, music, and reminiscing about previous shenanigans at this bar. Between 12:30 and 1:00, I had munched an additional 15 mg of THC, not really giving them time to hit, and I bid my friends goodbye. I entered my house in the dark and took a leak.

I realized at that time that this started to feel odd, and I couldn’t tell if I felt really tall or just that the moment felt surreal. I realized I was coming up again, and I was higher than I had been so far all night. I guess I didn’t realize I was high when I was talking so much. 

To my despair, my good headphones were left at my friends house and I would have to scour the house for a pair that only works on one side. This was a hassle. I didn’t want to wake up my fiance, but I was wired as fuck. It seemed to me that the high had transitioned to being a mild trip at this point, and it was still getting stronger.

If it’s possible to potentiate your way into a new plateau, maybe I entered the second plateau right here. Maybe the weed just started the trip. This didn’t feel like my time on 240 mg DXM.

Lying in my bed, I felt like I was inside a cacoon of blankets, in warm blackness, rotating as I tossed and turned inside some shell type thing that stayed stationary I slipped about inside it, like it was lubricated. It felt like my body and the rest of the world didn’t need distinction, and I no longer cared for any reference to size. The headphone cable was driving me crazy, touching my skin or pulling my ear. I also couldn’t tell a headphone was in my ear on the side that didn’t work, until I touched it. When I opened my eyes, I felt like I was on a flat platform that was raised uncomfortably close to the ceiling, and it was moving just slowly enough to be distracting.

The body sensations didn’t really tingle like marijuana does normally, it was more like Novocaine (without the pins/needles) or fever delusions- impossible to describe sensing that your body is shaped differently- these feelings were slightly delirious compared to marijuana on its own and I really enjoyed having my eyes closed. I had typical tripping feelings- emotional spaces changing rapidly, weird awareness of the body (in particular, feeling nothing but the contact point of my teeth for a few seconds).

Time

CRAWLED

Forward.

Radiohead sounded to me like some tumbling machine in BodySnatchers. I realized I was only a minute into the song, and that I had only listened to 3 or 4 songs since lying down, and this song felt like it’s own epoch.

I checked the clock. 2:11. I was still climbing. Officially tripping now.

The song ended after an eternity. I checked the clock. 2:14.

I experienced imagery that had rich colors, but it seemed to have great detail despite being not really seen- this stuff changed every second just like marijuana, but it had a new character. I remember seeing some yellow and white 16-bit hypnogogic organic-machinery-hybrid piece of something, and some pink fractally decals. When I opened my eyes in pitch black, I saw egg-carton like purple hills made of a un-moving purple phosphenes. 

It felt almost like taking half a tab of 1-P LSD too late at night (especially in that I really wanted it to stop). I got out of bed and took a melatonin. I didn’t know if DXM prevented sleep or if grapefruit makes it take longer to metabolize. I would have taken a benzo if I had one, I simply didn’t want to be awake tripping until I had to get up at 6:45 am. Eventually I took out my headphones and fell asleep at around 3:00 am.

I felt a bit shitty when I woke up, like I had severe jet lag, or like I had way too much caffeine in place of sleep- this was of course because I had 3 hours of sleep and melatonin in my system.