Erowid Canvas Tote/Shopping Bag
This reusable "Ecobag" is made of 100% recycled mid-weight
(10 oz) cotton canvas, printed with the Erowid logo.
Donate now and receive yours!
A Psychedelic Paradigm
DOC
Citation:   Psilo707. "A Psychedelic Paradigm: An Experience with DOC (exp73020)". Erowid.org. Mar 9, 2009. erowid.org/exp/73020

 
DOSE:
T+ 0:00
4.0 mg oral DOC (capsule)
  T+ 2:00 2.0 mg oral DOC (blotter / tab)
BODY WEIGHT: 180 lb
Substance: DOC (2,5-Dimethoxy-4-Chloroamphetamine)
Dose: 6 Milligrams / 4 mg powder in clear capsule. 2 mg blotter.
Setting: My Apartment & Area of Town.
Date: Saturday, October 22, 2005.



Intro

When it comes to new age, more recently discovered psychedelic drugs, the most common complaint is that they aren�t as deep or complete as the more traditional substances such as LSD or Mushrooms. Many of these compounds seem to be fairly fun and colorful, each with their own unique feeling, but rarely do I hear of someone speaking about the new raw power, or having a spiritually revelating experience when it comes to the obscure psychedelics. Examples of the types of drugs I�m referring to are those such as the entire 2C-x line of compounds, 5-MeO-AMT, TMA-2/6, etc. Some of these are great, and are highly valued in some cases, but none can match the up to the power and consistency of the psychedelic king, LSD.


So who would have thought it would be one of the DO-x line of substances that broke the cycle, to rise above the rest and drowned everything else in its wake? I sure didn�t, and was expecting another fun-but-predictable (more amateur) psychedelic trip that I had traveled so many times before. Little did I know my brain was about to be twisted around inside a psychedelically explosive tornado, clinging on to the last bit of sanity I thought I knew existed.


Part 1: The Doctor Pays A Visit


3:30 pm. (+0 Hours)
This was to be the first trip in my new apartment, and I knew I wanted to stay around my semi-quiet area of the neighborhood for the most part, as I usually do when trying something new. The trip was going to be only my roommate and me, and I preferred not getting anyone else involved with the drug until I had done it myself. As we downed our initial 4 mg capsules, I told myself this trip was going to be one of research and analysis about the drug, seeing as the data for it was still extremely limited. This didn�t mean I was going to hold back on having fun during the experience � it was just to reaffirm I needed to get all the information I came for.


4:30 pm. (+1 Hours)

Most chemicals seem to give a sense of �presence� in the body, long before the actual come-up even begins. I�d had this uneasy feeling since the 20-minute mark after ingestion, and was just now beginning to receive mental effects. Still very subtle and undefined though. The come-up reminded me of an extremely long LSD come-up with a little less anxiety, but still a bit of uneasiness.


5:30 pm. (+2 Hours)

Through a few interesting acts of fate, we found ourselves in possession of some 2 mg DOC blotters that we had definitely not planned to take. With our 4 mg being a bit light at this point, I asked what could be the worst that could happen? � and we each took another dose, upping ourselves to 6 milligrams.


5:45 pm. (+2 Hours 15 Minutes)

It�s at about this two hour mark that we can agree we�re finally tripping pretty solidly. The apartment has a new life to it, static energy buzzing all around us and into our dazed heads like an ethereal train. It is at this time I discover the power of the visuals of this drug. As I walk into my bedroom, my jaw drops. I�m frozen in time as I stare at something that almost never interests me when under the influence of a trip-inducing substance� the computer screen. The wallpaper that was currently shining from my LCD screen was a flawless photograph of some barren trees in the cold light of winter. Normally a still picture, the branches within were now all erratically dancing on the screen like gypsies around a blazing fire, performing a tribal ritual in some far-off land. Colors were morphing in and out of existence while the image was almost mocking me with its never-before-seen intensity. The more I moved my eyes around, the more the objects on the screen dashed back and forth, in and out, new trees forming and the others disappearing into the shadows like the fog was creating it�s own lunar eclipse. With that said, it should be noted that even though this is a complete (and well-rounded) psychedelic with multiple positive points about it, the visuals truthfully are one of the main aspects of the experience, and they will now be further described to the best I can use the English language to do such (which is not very well, simply because words can�t do something like this justice).


VISUALS

Imagine your vision becoming so complex, so deep and intricate, that it feels like multiple universes are taking up space within the current image in front of you. Any single aspect of your vision, or object within the space, can not be regarded as a singular entity for more than a few seconds, and it�s hard to follow exactly what you�re seeing. Fractal shapes containing every color of the rainbow � and colors that are beyond the rainbow � seem to appear and disappear, shift and dash to various coordinates within the picture your eyes have been insta-painting to the multiple lobes of your brain. The world in front of you as a whole is melting downward, curling diagonally at the sides with an effect so profound, you�d think you had teleported into a 3D-Animated Pixar film. Staring at one single spot too long will execute a chain of events within your mind, eventually leading to a rippling effect that spirals out from the focal point, consuming anything and everything within your peripheral.


Most drugs make you �see� visuals. DOC makes me �feel� visuals. It�s as if my eyes have somehow gained their own sense of touch, and are reaching out to the textures in front of them, caressing the shadows and enveloping the waves of light. They are integrated into my mind state; they have literal meaning. The drug was active/aggressive and wanted its power to be felt. It expresses itself by never resting; it demands attention and requires itself to be the process with the highest priority in the brain. The visuals of DOC surpass anything I have ever done. It�s leagues ahead of mushrooms and the 2C-x�s, and similar (yet stronger to) solid LSD visuals.



Part 2: His Prescription Was A Trip Into Space


6:30 pm. (+3 Hours)


We decided to take a walk outside while the San Diego sun was still making its presence. Living in a college area, we didn�t want to deal with any masses of kids running around (most likely drunk), so we headed towards the trolley station with the intent to take the train to the outskirts of the county. When we arrived at the station, we noticed something very interesting within the area that somehow neither of us had seen before, despite having been at the station nearly every day for the past couple of months. Running along the top of the two-hundred-foot stone wall bordering the back of the station, was a huge engraved riddle. Even at first glance, we could tell this was no ordinary riddle, especially seeing as it was over a hundred feet in length from side-to-side. We decided they wouldn�t use the time and money to put it there if it wasn�t going to be a good and challenging riddle. It�s one of the longest riddles I�ve ever had to deal with, and we have not yet figured it out. I have written it down and will present it to you now. Use the picture for an accurate version of it, since there is a possibility that the three levels of lines mean something.


�Arteries veins and capillaries, for autos rain and catenaries. All three lines are side by side, above below and stratified. One is numbered less than nine, another was here at the dawn of time. The last will be here after a wait, or right away if you�re not too late. Look around to solve this riddle, Name all three � top bottom and middle. If bewildered feel the handrail, the answer there is writ in braille.�


Trying to solve it while tripping hardcore was futile. My mind just kept going in circles thinking about the subjects of trains, train tracks, time, and location. So we boarded the next trolley that came our way, and headed east, away from the College area of San Diego.


7:00 pm. (+3 Hours 30 Minutes)

We had arrived at a desolate stop in the town of El Cajon, and walked around for a minute. While it felt good to be in the fresh air, we decided the area was actually pretty shitty, and got back on the train. It was on this train that the social aspects of the drug were to be tested. A large, confused looking man sat next to us right before we departed, and immediately asked us how to get downtown the fastest way possible. I had never been at the location we were at, and I knew I had to use some critical thinking skills to answer his question in a legit fashion. Glancing up at the route-map, I realized he had to exit the Green Line train, and wait at the station for the Orange Line train. In my head, I was thinking he wouldn�t like the idea of having to get off and wait again, so when my words came out, I made sure they came out in the clearest and most concise fashion possible. This entire process of thinking and responding happened in about 15 seconds of time, and my brain was moving at full speed throughout the short duration. To my relief (and surprise), he immediately understood what we were telling him, and made plans to get off at the next stop. For the next few minutes, we discussed the entire San Diego trolley system, and had a few other words of small talk. A few more instances of talking to strangers happened, and combining those experiences with this one, I concluded about the essence of public encounters while on DOC:


SOCIALIBILITY:

While there is no desire to speak to strangers, the situation is not too demanding when it occurs. Topics and questions seem to be more easily understood than when on many other types of psychedelics including Mushrooms and LSD (although very similar to the latter). The dazed-tripper look may be present in some, but will not be a big factor at all as long as you can maintain a straight face. Still, it can�t be denied that social interaction with sober individuals is harder to deal with than normally. When in a public place filled with people, the common thought that �everyone is looking at me� can definitely occur, and may give some sense of nervousness/anxiety. It is for this basic reason that I would not generally recommend DOC as a drug to be taken in an urban or active environment, especially one that is prone to be filled with various commotion.



8:00 pm. (+4 Hours 30 Minutes)

We finally reach home and immediately get comfortable and ready to settle in. This is the peak of the trip in my opinion. 4 hours and 30 minutes after the initial dose and ~3 hours after the boosters. We were now out of our minds. Psychedelic madmen, voluntarily locked away inside a wooden structure that had provided us with shelter for months. If there were spectators watching us through cameras inside the walls of the apartment, we would be labeled as legally insane without a second thought. I recall points in time where I was literally crawling on the ground, laughing hysterically; all for the simple fact that my mind knew it was so dramatically altered that there was no point in even trying to act normal. Inside my head, I was having a lot of fun. Good, clean fun, too: At few points did I feel a negative thought occur, or any sort of hostile emotion that would have brought my opinion on the experience down very much. I knew what I was doing, I knew how I [would have] looked to an outsider, and that realization was the reason that I could justify my absolute departure from any sort of sane thought. I will now explain the peak of the trip, without any regards to my personal experience:


THE PEAK:

Absolute Psychedelic Awareness. Bliss, a paradigm of the psychedelic feeling. Thoughts that rampage through my mind, colliding with themselves and provoking many strange, but positive emotions. Sight, sound, touch, and various other-worldly senses combine into one, blasting me in the face with realization that every aspect of life effects and relates to one another, not one aspect of the universe hides alone. Particles from the deepest reaches of space, no matter how seemingly useless or obscure, still have some sort of indirect effect on your location in the �here� and �now�.


If thoughts become too abstract and I want to switch my mind to another topic, it can be easily done. The flowing of one thought into another is unbelievable during this multiple-hour long peak. It�s very similar to a hard LSD peak, and like-wise, much more directed, defined, and not as �questionable� as that of a Psilocybin mushroom experience.


Make no mistake � this is heavy stuff. Really heavy stuff if taken at a higher dose such as this. It tests the limits of how deep and expansive your mind can actually go.



9:30 pm. (+6 Hours)

Having gained back some sense of how to move in reality (mostly because I was now fully accustomed to being insane), it was time to blast some music. Music is a huge part of my life� I listen to nearly every genre there is, so I knew I wanted to explore. I first experimented with electronic styles, because I was dubious about them from the start (because most electronic-based music isn�t very good on LSD, and I thought it would probably be similar). I came to the conclusion that I usually come to while �on� LSD, and now DOC: That trance is boring as hell and House is bland at best. And god knows I was already in too intense of a situation to even think about listening to Hardcore of any type. In the end, the genre that stuck out above the rest in the electronic category was Drum And Bass. Now maybe I�m already biased towards it, but at the time, I had convinced myself that this was the superior genre of the bunch. Intricate and highly kinetic strings of aural pulses rapidly bounced off the hammer in my ear, and entered my brain, each string remaining inside and none ever leaving. The result of this much drum-kick stimulation was an overload of my sensors to correctly detect rhythmic patterns, and I sank into the music and become one of the notes with all the rest. The music existed in my body and not in the objective real world, and my entire soul existed within the invisible sound that reflected itself as a compositional repertoire off of my angled walls. The whole experience at this point was soothingly intense, and re-affirming of my opinion that DNB can be a very psychedelic and trippy kind of music � something that is not heard within it at first.


But I went much further with my musical exploration, and in the end, everything else took a backseat to one genre in this specific case. The next hour, listening to classic rock (and jamband based for the most part), was possibly the apex of my trip. The closest I came to a spiritual revelation while on DOC was holding the speaker to my ear blasting the Allman Brothers �Nobody Knows�. Rock is limitless. It can go forever into the depths of the sound layers, and the guitar can weave sounds that computer based music could only dream of. This is not to objectively say that one type of music is better than another (I love both Rock and Electronic), but for this specific mind state, it was clear which genre was the superior. Which brings me to my audio summary:


AURAL SENSES

DOC is a very auditory substance in addition to being visual. A spherical globe of sound seems to enter my head, and many additional ambient and background noises can be heard, usually without clear recognition of where they�re coming from. When listening to music in a closed environment, the sounds become non-directional and every single auditory particle can be felt and heard in the same place within my mind. It�s almost as if I can hear my brain taking in the sound waves and converting them to literal data that is recognizable. Music has few limits once the barrier has been breached this strongly, and it�s clear that DOC is one of the best drugs of all time when it comes to the �enhancement� of sound.



Part 3: The Medicine Seems To Have Worked


12:00 am, Midnite. (+8 Hours 30 Minutes)
Still peaking? Maybe. Visuals have toned down just a notch. But everything else is still madness. We are resting on our couch just talking; another one of my roommates has come home from work and she is interested in our status. At this time, I realize how truly clean feeling the trip has been during the entire duration. Not one bone in my body is moving as I state dazedly at the television. I don�t remember what was on, I only remember that it didn�t matter.


BODY LOAD:

There is a very light body buzz that is present throughout the trip. It�s a positive buzz for the most part, although I wouldn�t say there is any euphoria present. The physical world around me seems animated � maybe slightly artificial. Movement is easy, but instinctual calculations on where to move myself can be definitely altered. The anxiety that is felt on many psychedelics, and the feeling that �something is about to happen� occured, but not too often. I feel this will greatly differ between users though, more so than any other aspect of the drug. But overall, I feel this is yet another positive side of the substance.



3:30 am. (+12 Hours)

We haven't done much in the last few hours truthfully. I had been doing a bit of drawing, which turned out to be interesting, but not much different from the kind of designs I do on mushrooms or LSD. My thought process during the creation of abstract designs was very sped-up yet overly refined. I made a lot more �lines� on the page than I usually would when sober, and every detail mattered in some way. If I over-did something and didn�t like the look of it, I was immediately able to come up with a compromise to make the section look better. Other than drawing, we listened to a few good cd�s on the stereo, notable ones being Nightmares On Wax � Cabroot Soul, and the new Gorillaz album. We put in Dark Side of the Moon for a while there too mostly to compare and contrast its listening ability to that of when tripping on LSD. Not much of a difference, both awesome.


8:00 am. (+16 Hours 30 Minutes)

We both tried to sleep for a few hours. I think I laid in my bed from 4 am until this point, in sort of an absolute haze � a lack of thought, yet still mildly tripping. There was absolutely no way I was going to get to sleep. I got up and walked around the house exhausted, yet still with a lot of energy (if you know what that kind of feeling is like, you know it�s a strange one). I checked on my roommate and he was in the same situation � hadn�t even been close to sleeping. This extremely high length of time where mental activity is occurring is the biggest downside of the drug. It was now roughly 17 hours after we dosed, and we could still look at a wall and see psychedelic patterning. Lightly, lightly tripping, and physically able to feel the chemical still inside of us. I was definitely not used to going this long without a sober thought. Which brings me to the short summary of the comedown:


DESCENT:

Really long, really slow. The comedown is smoother and transitions slower than almost any drug I�ve ever done, if not the most. Sleep will not come easily and I found my mind racing even after 24 hours of ingesting my doses. This is probably the most negative aspect of the drug and I wish it would not be such a long lasting experience. It is mentally draining and the next day isn�t depressing, but it�s much like a standard psychedelic afterglow, where one does not want to be very active or take care of many real-world situations. If all drugs were put on a list in order of how negative their comedown�s were, DOC would probably be right around the middle. A lot of time needs to be freed up and dedicated to the use of this drug because it zapped me for multiple days.



9:00 pm. (+30 Hours)

I lay in my bed after a very lazy day and attempt to sleep. It works! � but it takes a while. I can still feel my body being inhibited by some slightly altered chemical feelings, although they are very dim and many people might not notice them. I wake up the next morning feeling slightly more refreshed but still tired. But I�m thankful to have slept.


OVERALL


The word �paradigm� is defined as �one that serves as a pattern or model�. This is the word that came into my head during some point in my trip, and it stuck with me. Contained within this drug is the essence of the meaning behind the word �psychedelic�. While not perfect, it�s one of the most complete experiences that a psychoactive substance is going to provide to the mind. The depth of our world is revealed, yet simplified and confined to each of our levels of understanding about life. Space and time are folded on top of each other and assimilate every sensual aspect of the universe, then presented to us as one single entity, proving that everything that has ever existed is in some way a part of us.


DOC is a hardcore psychedelic. I would compare it very closely to LSD, but being slightly longer lasting, and definitely more visual and colorful. I believe it�s one of the most successful �new age� substances to have gotten recognition in the past decade within the drug community. I believe it could become popular if the circumstances call for it. But should it? That is the important question. It�s powerful, mind-bending, and more intense than most drugs the modern drug world knows about. Only time will tell when (or, if) one of these obscure substances becomes the next drug to gain popularity in the drug subculture. But personally, I hope something like this remains underground.


Exp Year: 2005ExpID: 73020
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Mar 9, 2009Views: 16,755
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
DOC (357) : Various (28), Music Discussion (22), Glowing Experiences (4)

COPYRIGHTS: All reports copyright Erowid.
No AI Training use allowed without written permission.
TERMS OF USE: By accessing this page, you agree not to download, analyze, distill, reuse, digest, or feed into any AI-type system the report data without first contacting Erowid Center and receiving written permission.

Experience Reports are the writings and opinions of the authors who submit them. Some of the activities described are dangerous and/or illegal and none are recommended by Erowid Center.


Experience Vaults Index Full List of Substances Search Submit Report User Settings About Main Psychoactive Vaults