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Mostly Not Regretful
DXM
Citation:   Nathan. "Mostly Not Regretful: An Experience with DXM (exp10860)". Erowid.org. Oct 29, 2006. erowid.org/exp/10860

 
DOSE:
  repeated oral DXM
    repeated oral BZP
BODY WEIGHT: 135 lb
I’ve had a very bad, mostly immature/rebellious, attitude about America for a few years because of all the seemingly-worthless people I see spending their lives away in shopping malls and dating bars or whatever. Then I got to the point where I thought that the reason I want to protest against that kind of crap is because I don’t want my children to grow up in an environment driven by advertisements and buy, buy, buy hardened plastic culture. Then I decided I don’t think I care about that either.

It was actually a very nice late afternoon around about November 1 that changed my mind. I had been doing dxm/bzp during the day, was completely worn out and then went out to the back yard and sat down next to the pool, looking at the sky. Something about the singularity of that day just made me realize that I wanted to start having a positive attitude about life always, and stop this foolishness (I'm a computer 'professional' with a nice house in the suburbs, 23 years old, no wife/kids). I had told my self this so many times before, and earnestly wanted/tried to have a good attitude in general, but something over the last several months has made this difficult. Obvious places to point fingers are the job market and lay-off, the abuse of the drug dxm during the winter months of early 2001, and relationship issues. There’s no real need to explain the job thing, as anyone would be distraught without a source on income, and relationship problems with loved ones are very common.

Regarding the drug, dxm -- I was using it as a means of fun, escape, experimentation, rebellion, or whatever. I guess it would be a typical drug abuse story. I was able to purchase the drug on the Internet in pure powder form, started putting it in gel caps and swallowing it. I never got to where I was using very high dosages. Most of the time, if I were at a high dosage, I would not remember a thing of the experience. I started out at the beginning taking dxm by drinking a bottle of robitussin on business trips or whatever and then just staying in the hotel room. It was interesting most of those times, and very pleasant. It is a very non-sexual drug, actually completely anti-sexual for me. It’s completely disgusting, but something about it is incredibly wonderful. There is a big release at the beginning for me, a very full sense of euphoria and confidence -- at this stage I will really want to call friends and say hello.

As the drug wears on, things turn more bizarre. At higher levels, I will not have any idea where I am and will have many voices speaking to me at the same time (very schizophrenic). I have even had the classic alien abduction, which I’m still trying to figure out. I know it has to be a figment of my imagination, but it was very real at the time. It very much resembled something like the paranoid feeling in the movie The Truman Show, if the Truman character had been arrested and taken somewhere in a helicopter or space ship.

The most fun parts of the dxm drug, I think, are the intense closed-eyed visualizations that can be evoked when very relaxed. This drug seems to affect everyone differently, but if it is quiet and I can concentrate (it’s not too hard to shut off the outside world on dxm, actually), I can bring up rooms and settings from anywhere in my memory, or motion-picture fragments of memory in seemingly real settings. It’s really kind of wonderful just to be able to sit and be inside memories while awake. Mostly the memories that can be reconstructed in my mind (rooms or places usually) are rather static as I try to bring back into focus every detail of the scene. By the time I have brought the scene back (say, my childhood bedroom), I feel completely as if I am standing in that room at some indefinite point in time.

Usually I am not able to bring people that I know into view while trying to explore closed-eye visuals. I have seen many strangers in these “waking” dreams, but everything while dreaming like this seems very alien in the first place. Seeing my reflection in the mirror is someone I don’t really recognize (though I do have the mental power to override that, and know that it is my reflection in the mirror). On my recent trips I have been seeing what seems like fragments of video in my mind, of past events in my life. The motion picture segments repeat in a loop until I’m distracted by something else (often another random video segment). The strange thing is that it seems to be filtered through a Microsoft Windows environment (do you think I spend too much special time with the computer?), the memory videos are often set inside Microsoft’s Media Player, and sometimes I see my whole mind and whatever I’m thinking about as the desktop of a Windows 2000 computer. It’s more of a Terry Gilliam goofy kind of paranoid/humorous feeling, than anything. I always feel it’s just kind of my mind playing a subtle joke on me (and we’re laughing at each other and our ridiculousness -- though my mind has definitely the upper hand).

Also, I’m very fascinated by the idea that we may be able someday to upload our brains to computers and live forever in robot bodies, but that’s just kind of silly too. I think it’s often my internal view of the potential future that dominates me while on dxm. In this state I’m thinking of the future as being completely computerized, full of as much privacy as you want, but full of advertisements as well, and without the restraint of time on our lives (i.e., we conquer time, scientifically).

Anyway, the path of my eyeballs (all over the place) while under the influence of dxm, particularly when a booster dose is taken about four hours into the trips (about an hour after the peak), is incredible. At some points I have felt that I must have the most incredible cinematographer inside my head directing my eyeballs -- of course this may be just because of a failure in me on the part of the drug to allow me to tell quality from banality.

This ocular alignment strangeness is a very annoying aspect while coming down if there isn’t sufficient time to do so -- one eye seems to track casually, randomly, while the other seems to go more or less where I want it. I don’t know if it is actually my eyeballs, or if it is just an internal “difference between the eyeballs not matching up” problem inside my head while under the influence of dxm.

Watching any movie takes on epic proportions, and is often very engrossing. Unfortunately, I have not really been able to recall the movie very well afterwards (because of short-term memory problems caused by the drug), though during the movie, my short term memory was mostly sufficient to keep track of a plot and characters and everything. Maybe that is more of an indication of something to do with long-term memory more, hell, I don’t know.

Music has a very peculiar feel to it. With dxm, quality decisions seem more (for me) to focus on the historical significance and influence of the work (whether it be music, literature, or other artwork). So, when I’m listening to something on headphones while on dxm, I think more about the general feel of the album, and its place in history, often more than the music itself. This is an interesting way to listen to music (and probably the way I do in real life as well), but it’s strange that I can’t really seem to give into the music on dxm. I think it partly has to do with the fact that I can’t keep track often of what the lyrics have said, what the overall theme is, or keep track of what is going on in the song structure-wise. The music feels very dry and thin, often, and I can only really focus on one or a few details at a time, or the overall feel.

This differs from movies, strangely, but perhaps because movies have a more linear, scripted, direction than complex music? I think of movies as much more complicated, but that may really be referring more to the process of making a movie, as opposed to that of music. This may be reasoning for the popularity of movies, that they can so easily be understood their sight/sound environment. Whereas, music requires you to try to shut off the visual world to get something out of it (very hard for most people to do on a regular basis).

Anyway, those are results in me of some of the memory problems associated with using dxm. This supports what I think is a greater concern for the whole picture of the universe and our place here that comes forth with dxm use. Dxm is a very “macro” drug focusing on general ideas and big ideas -- something like 5meo-dipt could be considered a very “micro” drug (from my point of view, at least) because when using a drug like that I enjoy focusing on the details, on being small, a single point in the universe, whereas on dxm I feel the whole universe fits neatly inside my mind if I'd like it to.

During my terrible/wonderful binge with dxm over the course of a few months of being laid-off and having to read the newspaper every day, I was awakened to new concerns about the environment, corruption in the government, our foreign policies (and then to see the World Trade Center/Pentagon disaster!), drug policies (of course, because I was a drug user), and the general attitude of America as the top of the world. This kind of attitude sent me to a very bad place that I regret, and I’m now recovering from it (except for the environmental issues) and trying to integrate myself back into society and to start liking people again.

I do not regret using/abusing dxm. I never felt fear while on dxm, except when I would think of the contemporary state of the world and how terribly (I thought) we’re screwing things up. It would actually have been perfectly fine if I had had no one else on earth to deal with, but as a drug for social interaction, dxm is rather worthless (except to some degree during the amazing euphoria/come up section, but I wouldn’t be able to be gregarious in person, only over the phone or email). I hate to say this, because I do not think that drugs are a completely good path, or an at all better path towards understanding what it means to be part of “life”, but I do feel that dxm “expanded” my mind. But I would much more healthily have expanded my mind by reading and writing, making real friends, and exercising.

The use of dxm caused a very definite creative slump in my life. As with all drugs, I think they can be really fun (but completely unnecessary) for the reception of music, movies, or other artforms, but I think they are very, very damaging to creative output. This damage is caused by the failure to be able to discern levels of quality in what I am doing. Everything seems “great”, but mostly it really isn’t. I look back on paintings or songs I created while under the influence of dxm and they mean something to me, at times, but on the whole they are the worthless output of a skewed and immature view of the world. Once I get over the hump with drugs of feeling that they are providing me drive-thru-lane enlightenment, I can start to enjoy life again, even with the occasional use of drugs.

So, I’ve pretty much removed myself from dxm. One strange thing is that dxm does not even remotely have a “scene”, or certainly not here in Dallas. I have never felt more lonely in my life. I wasn’t even cool enough to buy the drugs that made me fit in. It was all just a joke of course because I don’t really care to fit in, but wouldn’t mind if I did (such logic). I gave away capsules of dxm to a few friends and no-one much liked it, which is probably good because I didn’t have to change my lifestyle significantly to get away from dxm (that is, I didn’t have any friends that were being a bad influence).

On a request from a friend that he would resell dxm if I could supply it, I ordered 50 grams of dxm along with 50 or so grams of bzp about a month ago (mid October). I started out trying the bzp and got no result by it self, but then tried it in combination with dxm and it felt amazing. For the first time, my dxm trips have actually been memorable (obviously because the strong stimulant effect of bzp is keeping me awake in opposition to the dissociative/depressent effect of dxm). This time around I have used it much more responsibly (am I lying to myself again?), and have used it with my girlfriend, which provides much more interaction.

The concept of “dxm space” is very interesting and true -- it was strange integrating my girlfriend into my dxm space that I had for so long not visited. Also, the environment in my house has changed (new carpet, countertops, tile floors), and it almost feels like a separate drug just for those reasons. Using it with a loved one can be very frustrating and depressing, too, because we got out some very frightening secrets to-gether (mostly from me about during my early dxm abuse days), and the whole event can become terribly confusing and seemingly interminable if you just want to come down so that you can discuss something like normal human beings!

Also, something about laying in bed all covered in the smells of dxm (bad breath, stinky perspiration, general disgustingness) late at night with the light on looking at someone you love, but thinking about the enormity of time you will have to spend with this person if he/she is “the one”, can really make you never want to get married or commit to anything at all (though, Woody Allen films can create the exact same effect, without drugs!).

This area is the worst part of dxm -- the lingering come down. I think in the beginning I really liked it because I thought, “hey, this is great -- this drug is lasting forever”, but now, about seven times out of ten, I just want it to wear off sharply and let me go on with my day (well, I know I just shouldn’t take it in the first place if I have something else I would rather do). At the end of the dxm experience I am totally exhausted, but unbelievably far from being able to sleep. With the combination of bzp, this is often a mildly euphoric (probably more “dead/indifferent”) time where reading history books, or listening to music is again enjoyable or epic. I think it’s really the added bzp that straightens me out, perks me up, and allows my short term memory (and eyeball tracking) to function well enough to read, or do normal people things. The first cup of coffee or tea after a 'trip' is always invigorating.

I guess I really haven’t talked about what happens around the peak. Naturally it’s hard to describe, and will sound very pretentious. Sometimes I find myself locked comfortably into what I would consider a state of nirvana (though I am no expert in this area), meaning that everything is blended together as one/nothing/everything, the sense of duality and division in consciousness ceases, and I can remove myself from outside thought for a few seconds before I realize that I’m thinking that I’m not thinking. I’ve never been able to grasp the “this statement is false' paradox that is talked about in dxm space, but I don’t have a very solid logical background to understand why this is beautiful anyway.

One of my common feelings is that of sitting on the face of the earth with no atmosphere between us and the rest of the universe. Laying on my couch I feel like I’m laying on my funeral table, facing the sky, waiting for whatever to happen. It’s not really a novel idea, but it just all seems we’re boxed up in these little houses (to paraphrase some Kinks lyrics, I think) waiting to die -- if I take the pessimist’s view. I’ve kind of come around the other side again.

I have just finally decided to stop being a skeptic. I am going to try actively always to believe most everything anyone says (unless it’s just really ridiculous -- that point is for me to decide), and in major choices concerning the way I feel about world issues and so forth, I will thoroughly research the topic to find the majority opinion, and then adhere to that, regardless of how ridiculous it is. Is that a “conservative” political attitude? I don’t know. But dxm has thrown me all over the left/right sides with no clear direction. Now that I’ve been so weird and different for too long, lost opportunities for developing friendships, and saddened my parents, I think I want to go back to trying to fit in. Maybe I’ll even buy a “Tom Hilfigger” shirt. Fuck.

Exp Year: 2001ExpID: 10860
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Oct 29, 2006Views: 44,150
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DXM (22) : Various (28), Sex Discussion (14), Music Discussion (22), Retrospective / Summary (11)

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