Citation: Clara. "Feeling Insane: experience with DXM (with CPM), Cannabis & Tobacco (ID 24561)". Erowid.org. Apr 23, 2007. erowid.org/exp/24561
[Erowid Warning: Most Coricidin contains CPM (Chlorpheniramine Maleate) which can be dangerous in high doses. See DXM Brand Warnings for more info.]
One night some friends of mine and I were bored and decided to do coricidin. The three of us doing it had used it several times before and had never had any bad experiences with it. I was especially excited about this experience because I wanted to recapture the free floating out of body experience and the feeling of oneness I had the first time I had thaken this drug.
0 min ... The three of us sat around the dining room table and popped ten each chased by grapefruit juice. About ten minutes later I decided to take the last two lonely c-hit pills remaining in the tray for a total of twelve.
45 min ... Both friends reported feeling numbish, the effects of the coricidin were coming on for them. I was disappointed since I was feeling nothing at all.
1hr 15 min ... Smoked a bowl together. It instantly kicked in for me. At first I just felt incredibly stoned and then clarity took over. We all walked to swing and everything was incredibly funny. While swinging, my sober friend began to look much like a gorilla, which resulted in laughter. As I swang the trees reached around the sky in an orbicular manner. It was as if I was in an orb.
2 hr ... We walk around the parking lot and play a miming type game where you play with imaginary energy balls. When it was my tern to form a ball, I closed my eyes and actually felt a gel substance that had a personality of its own. I passed it on to friends.
3hr ... We walk back to the house and watch tv. A friend passes a kaleidoscope around. I look into it and turn it very slowly. I see worlds within the tube that morph slowly. I had surprisingly sharp images of mirror like water, stone fences, and people at peace with themselves worshiping a statue.
3hr 30min ... Friends decide to go swimming. I am feeling tired and did not want to drown so I stayed and watched movies in my head with eyes closed.
4hr-7hr ... Friends return and report that the water felt like a being accepting them and molding into them. I semi regret not going but decide to go to sleep. In my sleep I have the typical flying experience in which I feel as if I'm behind a glass window just soaring in the sky. The DXM tries to take my places but not quite. I am lucid and try to help it along. At one point I find it pulling me in an overhead view of forests similar to an Imax theater shot. I then hovered over my stomach which is a very tangerine orange. That is all I remember of my dream.
7hr ... I wake up. My vision is extremely fuzzy, my heart is racing, and my breathing is steep. It feels as if my heart is an engine of muscle on top of my chest ready to explode. I am still at a point where I can close my eyes and see patterns, but when I open them the physical world or my earthly reality is like a painting smeared. I panic for about ten minutes just lying on the couch and decide to go back to sleep.
7hr-10hr ... I wake up on and off in a panic. I fear that I am going insane. I felt insane for the first time in my life. I feared that I would remain stuck in a half in and half out state of reality for the rest of my life and live at home or in a mental institution. I realize now that my thoughts were not rational or sober, but at the time I was very scared and believed all of this. I thought about going to a hospital but made myself wait until I talked to friends.
10hr ... My friends awoke and I told them how anxious I was feeling, how my body was acting strange (heart racing and quick breathing) and they calmed me down, reasuring me that it would go away. I drive my friends and myself home. As I go down a hill I get the feeling that my car may fly off the road and into space. I get anxious again and do breathing exercises.
[Erowid Note: Driving while intoxicated or tripping is dangerous and irresponsible because it endangers other people. Don't do it!]
11hr ... I go online and read about affects of DXM and reasure myself that it's all in my head and that it's the typical fuzziness of the day after coricidin.
13 hr ... It's about one pm and I decide to get some sleep since I haven't had much. I have calmed down by ths point.
19hr ... I wake up and watch tv. Everything is normal until I go outside and smoke a cigarette. I had been smoking through the whole c-hit experience, but hadn't had a cig since about 10 that morning. About half way through the cigarette the nicotine hit me. My heart started racing tremendously, I was hyperventilating slighty, I put my cigarette out right then and walked inside thinking that I'd sleep through it. I went to my room, closed my eyes and started to experience the flying feeling again, except this time I was traveling up into a light. I was convinced I was going to die.
I went down stairs and noticed my mother watching tv. I went to her and asked her to feel my heart. She said it was a little fast but not dangerous. To me it felt like it was about to beat out of my chest. I started freaking out. My fingers and feet went cold, I KNEW I was about to die. I told my mom to take me to the hospital. I did not tell her that I had done any drugs. She recognized that I was having a panic attack and tried to calm me down. I began to cry because I thought my life was going to end because of stupid coricidin. The anxiety attacks came in waves for two more hours. I'd get a grip on myself and then spiral out of control emotionally. At one point I told my mother to take me to the emergency room. I found that washing my hands, walking around, or looking in the mirror grounded my manic mental state.
My mother and her mother have a history of anxiety, and luckily my mom was there to help me through this. I am 17 years old and have never experienced anxiety or panic attacks in my life. This had to be the scariest thing I have ever been through. My mind was in a different state and I think for that one day I was mildly crazy. I had no control over my fears at all. The next day I felt very depressed. The world seemed devoid of all life and happiness. I could only see objects as physical things that were empty. Everything was like props in a play. I cried on and off. I no longer feared that I was going to die but I thought I had made myself stupid from the drug and that my brain would never be the same. I was caught in this weird loop of being stuck in myself and in emptiness. The next day was much the same, but after that things got better.
It has now been about a week since this experience and a faint echo of fear lingers in my mind. I am no longer scared of going insane, dying, or dumbing myself, but this persistant essence of fear is present in most of my thoughts. There is no reason for it and I don't understand it. I am just thankful that the extreme anxiety and depression flips have gone away and I can return to my normal life.
The only conclusion that I can come to about this hell of an aftermath is that the DXM and other shit in coricidin screwed with my brain chemistry. A week and a half before this experience, I did ecstasy for the first time, and think that perhaps my brain had not recovered full serotonin levels before the DXM. Maybe this is like how LSD surfaces dormant mental problems, although I've never heard of it happening with DXM. I have done that same amount of c-hit before with no problems, and my friends did not experience any problems from the same stuff I took. Whatever the case is, I'm never going to do coricidin ever again and I strongly advise against it. If you want to have an out of body experience, feel oneness, or just trip, stick with straight DXM.
Experience Reports are the writings and opinions of the individual authors who submit them.
Some of the activities described are dangerous and/or illegal and none are recommended by Erowid.
