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Spiders, Hamsters, Insects, and Fear
Diphenhydramine
Citation:   GuineePig. "Spiders, Hamsters, Insects, and Fear: An Experience with Diphenhydramine (exp49371)". Erowid.org. Aug 11, 2020. erowid.org/exp/49371

 
DOSE:
500 mg oral Diphenhydramine (pill / tablet)
BODY WEIGHT: 160 lb
I was sitting at this computer last night at around 8:00pm when I decided I needed to spice up my life with an intoxicant. Not wanting to wake anyone up or drive far I scourwered the internet looking for legal mind altering drugs. What I found was Benadryl, a very common over the counter anti-histamine/allergy medication. Taken a way over recommended doses produces hallucinations.

I drove out to my local Safeway to find Benadryl on the counter, I bought 24 tablets for $5 and proceeded to head home. I sat down at my computer and started swallowing the liquid gel tablets. Common dosage of the active ingridiant (Diphenhydramine) was 150-300mg's. I took 14 pills to get a good trip. After those 14 I tried to locate the remaining pills, I only found four which meant I'd taken 20 pills, six more than expected raising the dosage of Diphenhydramine up to 500mg's which is considered a very very heavy dose.

It was around 10:00pm when I started taking the pills and 10:30 when I stopped. Around 11:00 I felt tired and heavy so I got up to walk around, I almost fell over after I stood up. It was very hard to use my muscles so I sat back on the computer and started listening to music. Shadow's looked very weird and my desk, which had been very cluttered earlier was very clear and not much was on it.

I thought that odd because I didn't remember cleaning it, so I went and laid down in bed to listen to music and see where my trip would take me. As I was lieing on my back I noticed the wall socket getting sucked into a hole in the wall, on further investigation nothing was happening, so I turn over on my stomach and looked at the lamp. There was an orange hamster behind it hiding from me, I kept trying to peek around and look at it, but it always ran away, I couldn't grab it either.

I gave up on the hamster and started looking at my laundry pile which was being infested with hundreds of insects all jumping around my room, this freaked the hell out of me so I turned over on my back and looked at the ceiling. There were about 20 spiders crawling around up there and the paint was starting to crack. I decided I'd had enough so I went to the bathroom.

My towel was missing from where I'd left it and there was a TV in the bathtub. My reaction was completely normal, I didn't even second guess any of this, but the spiders and insects scared the living shit out of me. I went back into my room and the hamster was gone, so were the insects but the spiders were still there. Any plastic surface I looked at was shimmering with white light.

By this time it was around 1:30am or 2:00am. I was sufficiently freaked out by the insects, spiders, and cracking paint. My power kept blinking on and off throughout the next half our, I thought it a good idea to goto sleep at that point. Without getting out of bed, the lights went out, the TV off, and I was asleep.

I would wake up in the middle of the night and see weird things. I saw my cat walking towards me once. The next time I woke up there was a computer on my wall, and my cat was sleeping on my feet. The third time I woke up I was searching for a bottle of water next to my bed but it wasn't there, the fourth time I woke up it was right next to my bed. I slept until 2:00 pm.

That trip was the most terrified I'd ever been in my life. It wasn't my first with hallucinagens, but the fact that I took a heavy dose and had no idea what to expect was not a good combination. Good experience nontheless, I'll do it again another time with a sober sitter and obviously less diphenhydramine.

When I woke up my desk was cluttered again, there was a large knife that I'd been using earlier that day on the ground which didn't apear at all last night, and all the paint was normal. My towel was back in the bathroom, and there was no TV in the bathtub..

Exp Year: 2006ExpID: 49371
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Aug 11, 2020Views: 1,299
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Diphenhydramine (109) : First Times (2), Difficult Experiences (5), Alone (16)

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