After trying ecstasy at a rave I decided my next experiment would be to combine it with acid. Everyone I had consulted about this mixture had only positive things to say about it. My experiences with both materials separately led me to believe they would combine well. I resolved to try it out at the next opportunity I had.

So, one lovely night I found myself at another outdoor party. As I walked in several people offered me acid, but I didn't see any ecstasy for sale. I spent the first twenty minutes I was there surveying the scene then headed out to find my X. Twenty minutes later I scored.

After considerable thought I decided to take the acid first, wait till it was affecting me, then take the MDMA. I took the acid and went to sit with my friend T, who had taken some of the same acid. We sat around and watched everyone dance while we were waiting for it to come on. This was T's first rave and she seemed to be pretty amazed by it. Before long the DJ put on a track I really like and I went out to dance.

I wasn't really feeling the acid yet, but as I have gotten in better shape I find I can dance longer without chemical help. After about three songs T came out and started dancing as well. We danced for about ten minutes before I decided to go and rest for a few.

By now I was starting to feel the acid. Everything took on a kind of psychedelic glow. I was getting trails off of various things from time to time as well. I went inside and got some water and brought it outside to drink it. I ran into a girl outside who I had talked to earlier while looking for X and stopped to chat with her. It turned out we lived in the same town. We chatted for a while and she introduced me to her boyfriend. I decided to take my ecstasy, since I was now definitely feeling the acid.

I swallowed the little capsule with some water and sat back to await its onset. I didn't have to wait long. Within fifteen minutes I was feeling different. My trip seemed to go up a notch in intensity and there was an added sense of energy and euphoria. I left my backpack near my new companions and went to dance.

At this point I was mostly feeling just the acid, but the X came on stronger and stronger as I danced. I felt absolutely great. I usually feel somewhat tense at first, as if there were a sort of "membrane" I have to break through before I can really get into it. This time, that wasn't present at all. I felt completely at home and relaxed. I had a ton of energy and dancing seemed like the absolute best way to spend it. My movements were liquid and flowing. They seemed instinctual, as if I didn't have to think about them at all. With eyes closed vibrating constructs of color and light surrounded me. I felt more comfortable with my eyes open, where I could observe the people around me. When I would look at someone I felt I knew what they were feeling, like I was right there in their head with them. It was great.

After a while I broke off to chill and get a drink. By now I was tripping hard. The ecstasy had changed the acid trip both qualitatively and quantitatively to a higher degree than I had expected. When I went to get some water I was a bit disoriented since they had closed the area where I had gotten it previously since I had been there. I wandered around a bit until I found a cooler and got a drink, then took it over to one side to sit down and enjoy it.

The people I had been talking to earlier were sitting nearby and they invited me to join them. I was happy to do so. We all compared notes on our respective trips and made conversation. I really enjoyed talking to everyone. I felt a sort of instant connection to them all. The girl I had met offered to give me a backrub, and I readily assented. I sat in front of her while she rubbed my neck, shoulders and back. It felt incredible. I was experiencing major synesthesia, as the sensations on my skin translated into sprays of color. She rubbed my back for a good ten or fifteen minutes, until it was someone else's turn. A major highlight of the evening!

I noticed that the candyflip visuals were different than acid visuals. Acid visuals seem to flow off into the edge of infinity, while my visuals on the combination were sharply edged and vibratory. Everything seemed charged with emotion and meaning. The full moon hanging in the sky was wreathed in colored halos that swirled about it in a most meaningful way. I felt as good as I ever have.

My friend T turned up and I asked her how it was going. She was almost speechless, wearing a huge grin and saying, "Great, wonderful, I am having a great time". I caught a lot of her energy and it only pushed my mood even higher. I had a huge grin plastered to my face. It felt like my face might split.

I got up and danced some more. Again it was just incredible. Previous to this experience I liked LSD best as a dance drug, but I think the combination of acid and X has it beat. Every movement I made seemed right, and I was just feeding off the energy of the others dancing around me. Everyone I made eye contact with smiled and I smiled back. Someone accidentally kicked me while performing a break dancing maneuver, but he quickly apologized to me. I impulsively hugged him and told him not to sweat it. The whole dance floor was alive with good feeling and trippy energy.

When they switched DJs the new guy was playing some stuff I didn't care for so I returned to where I had been sitting and resumed conversation with my new found friends. I found that talking and chilling out was almost as much fun as dancing. The people I met were really into the rave scene, much more so than myself. I was watching one of them dance and mentioned he was a really great dancer. He thanked me for the compliment and we started talking again. We talked about drugs, the rave scene, our town, what we did for a living, etc. Just a general getting to know you conversation, but I enjoyed it immensely. I felt like most of my usual defenses weren't present. I wasn't worried about what anyone thought about me, or whether I might say something offensive or anything like that.

I sat and talked to those guys for quite a while. At some point around 4:20 a.m. we smoked a bowl. This was approximately four hours after I took the X. It was definitely wearing off, and it seemed to take most of the acid high with it. The pot got me stoned and kicked the trip back in a bit, but it dulled the edges and made it a bit less distinctive.

I hadn't seen T, the girl I had come with in a while. I decided to look for her and spent the next twenty-five minutes walking around peering at people in the semidarkness, trying to determine if any of them were she. I didn't see her anywhere and I had a moment of paranoia, wondering if she had left without me. I decided that was ridiculous, especially since she was probably still tripping on the acid she ate. Rather than stumbling around I the half darkness I decided to just have a seat and wait for her to walk by.

And, sure enough, she did. She sat down next to me and I asked her if she was still tripping. She said she was mostly down, so I offered her some pot. She agreed and I loaded up and passed her some kind buds. We smoked it with the guy sitting next to us and enjoyed the mountain sunrise while we chatted about the evening.

By 6:30 we were ready to go. We headed out and drove down the mountain, talking about our night. She was amazed that events like that happened, much less every weekend. She seemed eager to go to another. I talked at a mile a minute, an after effect of the MDMA, which always makes me extremely talkative. We arrived at my house and chilled out for a few until she headed home, at which time I went in to bed.

I awoke about four hours later and was up for the day. I felt tired and worn out, but not too terribly much. I probably would have felt almost the same if I had stayed up all night dancing without any drugs. Ecstasy is one of the few psychedelics that seems to reliably produce a sort of hangover, but it is never too bad in my experience. Certainly nothing compared to the hangover from drinking too much.

This was an incredible trip. The synergy between these two agents is just amazing. The effects of combining drugs are fascinating and complex. It is hard to predict what the results will be. Some of my expectations of the experience were right, and some were way off. The whole trip just felt different than X or acid taken alone, superior in many ways to both. I definitely like ecstasy better with acid than by itself, especially in a rave environment. I will definitely try this combination again in the future.