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A Nightmare with No Escape
2C-I & Cannabis
by P
Citation:   P. "A Nightmare with No Escape: An Experience with 2C-I & Cannabis (exp92874)". Erowid.org. Apr 14, 2012. erowid.org/exp/92874

 
DOSE:
20 mg oral 2C-I (powder / crystals)
  1 bowl smoked Cannabis (plant material)
BODY WEIGHT: 145 lb
First off I should let you know a bit of my drug usage history. I started smoking marijuana just one summer ago and have been doing it recreationally a few times a week ever since. Additionally I would consider myself a fairly experienced tripper as in my short period of using drugs I have had hallucinogenic experiences with mushrooms, LSD and DMT several times before.

It was the summer after my senior year in high school and my friend (whom I get just about every substance I have used) calls me excited one day. He has this new drug 2C-I and tells me it’s a lot like LSD. All my experiences with LSD, though at low doses (only one hit each time) have been very enjoyable so I decide to give it a shot. I am confident in my ability to handle just about any substance given that it is not a heroic dose, so I ask for whatever he recommended as a standard first trip.

A day later I have the pill and am very excited to try this it out. I also have a few bowls of marijuana packed that I plan to smoke later on into the night.
I wait for my parents and brother to go to bed and when I believe them to be fast asleep I swallow the little white pill and sit down to watch some tv to pass the time. From what research I’ve done online I hear it takes a while to kick in so I feel comfortable and relaxed sitting in my basement watching Futurama, excited and feeling overall good. It is 11pm.

I have several activities planned out to make the experience as “trippy” and enjoyable as possible; a strobe light along with some music and my laptop if I get bored. I know the sound boundaries of my house like the back of my hand and I know that if my parents are upstairs in bed like always at this time of night, playing music in my basement will go unnoticed.

30 minutes pass and nothing notable happens.

An hour goes by, no noticeable effects yet, my body feels a bit colder and my fingers are starting to tingle but I attribute these observations to the fact that my basement is a little chilly. I lie down on the couch and cover myself with a blanket and turn on the strobe light and music, hoping these will possibly trigger a reaction.
What feels like about 10-15minutes later I sit up, my body is beginning to feel weird, a bit uncomfortable perhaps? Nothing I can’t handle, almost as if something inside my body is turning around slowly and something is beginning to stir. I decide to go outside and smoke a bowl to take the edge off.

Outside I take it hit by hit and immediately I feel the effects. These are not normal feeling I would get after smoking marijuana, the 2C-I was definitely triggered in some way by possibly interacting with the THC as I see the world becoming more vivid and a bit unstable right before my eyes, each hit I take I hold in as long as possible and when I exhale a wave of euphoria hits me in the back of the head like a hammer.

The world is a strange and unfamiliar place to me now, a good strange. I walk around my house and examine the beauty of nature and the landscape. It is vivid, colorful; my body feels a lot more comfortable after smoking, but not like any normal marijuana high I’ve ever felt. I feel energized yet heavy and I open the door to go back inside.
Back inside it is dark and the whole atmosphere seems to transformation as I step through the doorway. As I walk to my basement door I notice my cat is sitting on the kitchen floor. Strangely she seems almost alien to me, I stare at her for a while and she stares back at me but I feel no emotional association. I love her very much and on a normal night I would walk over to pick her up or pet her, but I am getting strange vibes off of her and I don’t go near. At this point the hallucinations have clearly began to kick in and all I can do is stare as her eyes begin to expand and contract as they stare back at me, along with the rest of the room. I begin to feel wary of my surroundings and I can’t seem to lose the feeling that I am being watched.

As I make my way to the stairs I begin seeing flashes of light everywhere in my path of vision and they begin to form somewhat distinguishable hallucinations, I catch a shirt hanging on a chair in my peripheral vision and it morphs into an alien head with eyes, a face, everything. This startles me and I turn my head to examine it but it returns to its original state.

This only increases the sense that I am being watched so I tell myself, “You are being paranoid, it’s just the drugs kicking in”. I brush it off and continue downstairs.
Back downstairs I lie back down and look at the ceiling as the strobe light switches from red to blue to green seemingly changing the mood of the entire atmosphere. I begin seeing distorted cartoon faces made of flashes of color, they are grinning at me and random objects are dancing wildly on the ceilings and walls, at this point I am feeling quite anxious and distrustful of my surroundings so I decide to distract myself by playing music on my computer and surfing the web.

I can’t concentrate on this task however as I realize just how much I am beginning to hallucinate, mainly in my peripherals. Any object in my peripheral vision is going crazy now, a bookshelf, a lamp; they are spinning wildly morphing into indistinguishable shapes. When I turn to examine them however they seem completely stationary and normal. There is something almost sinister about all the objects in the room, many of which begin morphing into other creatures, other animals. They are beginning to take on personalities of their own and all of them are giving off their own unique aura. I look at my watch and realize it is 12:30.

This means only about 10 minutes have gone by since I finished smoking the weed.
Holy Shit! I think to myself. The anxiety is only getting worse at this point and I am getting stronger feelings of distrust and suspicion of my surrounding atmosphere. At this point I decide I want out! The intense peripheral hallucinations don’t help as I keep looking around to see if anything is actually stirring.

Nothing is there; it’s just me alone in my basement. “You idiot” I think to myself, “this isn’t fun”. I should have planned to be around some friends, anyone to help me feel more comfortable. I can feel my heart thumping in my chest and I can’t decide if it is beating faster than normal, but I assume it is because I have the distinct sensation of fear. I decide to play some calm music and try to relax, but this is impossible, something in the 2C-I has me feeling wide awake and jittery, this is where it starts getting worse.

Thump!

I hear a loud noise; it is coming from the main floor of my two story house that separated me from my parents’ room on the second floor. My whole body stiffens up. I am listening closely now, did I hallucinate that noise? I ask myself.

I hadn’t, I hear footsteps and a door open and someone coming downstairs.
Shit! Shit! Shit! I say out loud to myself, I turn off the music and rush for the light to turn it on and unplug the strobe light. My parents surely heard the music and are coming downstairs to investigate. I can’t act normal now, I’m on drugs, what was I thinking!

I sit down and try to compose myself and when I look up I see it is my brother. I am relieved but at the same time I remember my brother only knows of my marijuana use. In fact we have smoked together before, but he is strictly against any other drugs and assumes I am the same way. I can’t let him know what I’m doing.

He could tell I had just smoked and noted that I smelled like weed. He asked if I wouldn’t mind sharing and I lie and tell him I’m all out, as I can’t comprehend smoking anymore at this point. He seems disappointed and retreats back upstairs to his room. Now I am regretting this decision, I am more alone than I have ever been; if I had smoked with my brother at least he would have stayed with me and provided me with some company. But at least it is not as bad as before. My brother’s brief presence seemed to have warded off any anxious feelings of being watched by my surroundings, at least for the time being. I decide to close my eyes and let myself relax.

CEVs are intense; a lot like the kind you might get from marijuana, I credit this partly due to the fact that I had smoked a bowl previously, but they were on a whole different level. I feel myself being drawn further and further into my mind and the CEVs are constantly morphing and changing by the second. At the same time there is a growing presence of evil outside of my body. I bolt upright and open my eyes wide to an unfriendly and unfamiliar world.

The entire atmosphere now has an evil aura about it and at this point I am feeling very uncomfortable with my environment. I tell myself that this is certainly the peak of the trip and it can only get better from here as I should start to come down soon, I cannot wait to come down. It is now 2am however and I am tripping harder than I ever have on any substance.

I go to sit in a corner of the basement covered in a blanket to comfort myself, I want it to stop, demonic faces made of flashes of light continue to haunt me and objects in the room seem to morph into disturbing images. A bunched up blanket on a chair looks like a disfigured body, as I unfocused my vision the whole world around melts and spins, the floor curves up toward me and lines and patterns jut out from every direction. If I close my eyes the visuals are even more terrifying so this is not an option. Now my mind is working at hyper speed and hundreds of amusing and horrifying thoughts pop into my head. I am actually amazed that my mind is able to process them as fast as it is. The only comfort I have is in telling myself that this is all a fake world, none of it is real. But I am only half convincing myself. I feel utterly overcome by anxiety and my body feels uncomfortable, like it is being squeezed and compressed by some supernatural force.

I force myself to endure this for what seems like forever. Time does not have a lot of meaning at this point, every time I look at my watch I think, “Do these numbers really matter?” They’re just a bunch of symbols after all, without humanity numbers wouldn’t even exist or have meaning, nor would time.

I am amused by my strange thought patterns and I spend most of this period of time just thinking about whatever pops into my head. This helps me make it through this period as it distracts my mind from the frightening outside world. After a long while goes by I finally begin to feel like I’m coming down as I sit there motionless in my basement contemplating. I have endured around 3 hours of this now and it is roughly 5am. I feel comfortable and good again. The visuals have subsided for the most part but I still feel pretty out of it and quite “high”. My mind is jumbled and an overall mess. My body on the other hand is still wide awake. 2C-I is a stimulant after all.
My only desire at this point is to go to bed, pass out, and forget all about this nightmarish episode. When I finally feel comfortable enough to venture up to my room and lay down it seems that sleeping is out of the question. My mind is too focused at this point to sleep, so an idea hits me.

I’ll just smoke a little more weed! It can’t hurt, just enough to prompt my body to fall asleep. A very bad idea as it turns out.

I reached into my drawer and take out a homemade bong and pack a bowl, after the first huge hit I open the window to blow the smoke out and immediately my mind begins screaming at me, “You idiot!”

The demons from the 2C-I are back and it’s just as strong as before. It’s like the THC and 2C-I have combined to form some horrible blend of hell designed to torment me. I don’t smoke anymore this night and all I can do is wait until the combined effects fade away, which I guess was around 8am, I lay in bed enduring more torment until I fade out of consciousness.

Looking back at this experience now around a month later, it was the first and only bad trip I have ever had with psychedelics. I feel assured however that, had I done it right and had I prepared a better set and setting, perhaps not all alone in my dreary basement; it could have been an enjoyable trip. The hallucinations, though frightening at the time, were pretty cool now that I think about it. I hadn’t seen or felt anything like it up to that point in my life, but needless to say i wont be toying around with this chemical anytime in the foreseeable future.

Exp Year: 2011ExpID: 92874
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: 18
Published: Apr 14, 2012Views: 25,436
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Cannabis (1), 2C-I (172) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Hangover / Days After (46), Music Discussion (22), Bad Trips (6), Difficult Experiences (5), First Times (2), General (1)

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