DOSE:	20 mg	oral	2C-E	(capsule)
		vaporized	Cannabis - Hash

BODY WEIGHT:

155 lb

I wanted to share this report of a very special trip I took recently with my best friend Jack. First a bit of background info:

My dad made a lot of money during the dot com bubble, so he has a gorgeous penthouse in midtown Manhattan. He was away for the holidays, so I was housesitting the place between Christmas and early January. Extraordinary views of midtown and the Hudson, colorful art, pillowy couches, the works. Helps that my stepmom is an interior designer with ultra-wonky taste--the place is crazily & gorgeously appointed.

Jack and I have taken 2C-E together a bunch of times before, maybe 6 or 7 total. He introduced me to psychedelics with this substance in this city, and I've written another report of an experience we had together.

It's an amazing chemical: a long, clear, beautiful trip, similar in tone to LSD but way more visual and generally forward-moving, while LSD feels omnisensory and omnidirectional to me. That first time I tried 2C-E, back in 2012, I spent moments throughout the day trying to come up with a word to describe the experience: "tripping" was okay, but I wanted something more specific. The best I came up with was "cresting," which I think is 80% of the way there. I’m still working on it.

Jack stayed over the night before. We had a few beers and finished the last episode of Life is Strange, which he introduced to me--incredible videogame, with lovely visuals & soundtrack. It helped set a contemplative (and more than a little trippy) mood for the day ahead. We went to sleep around midnight, woke up at 8am, and made omelettes & coffee. We dropped the gel caps at 9am.

Since it was December in midtown we wanted nothing to do with the outdoors, due less to weather than tourists. It's a pity since I always love walking & exploring on psychedelics--movement feels amazing, and the possibility (and reality) of discovering something new around every corner is pure magic.

Instead, we spent the comeup watching Avengers: Infinity War (at his request, I’m not a Marvel fan but figured a visually stimulating movie might be nice). Jack started getting visuals around 10am, and shortly after got too antsy to watch the movie (fine with me, it’s pretty dumb). At this point I wasn't feeling much, maybe a little glowy but nothing distinct. I put on the music video for Still Feel by Half Alive, and then we headed downstairs.

We spent a while admiring the view. It was a beautiful day, blue skies and a little fog obscuring the taller buildings. We chatted for a bit about nothing much, Jack lay down on the couch to cloudgaze, and we decided to listen to some tunes.

I've always loved music on trips. Songs or albums that I hear for the first time on a substance often stay with me, and listening to music I love while high is a great pleasure. We started out with Fleet Foxes' latest album Crack-Up, which I'd been listening to for a while and had planned on playing during this trip. It's a lush and dense album, brilliantly composed and with a lot of soul. Helps that the apartment's main room is wired with a set of surround-sound speakers--whenever we listened to music during this trip, and we listened to a lot, we were totally immersed.

The album is an hour long, so I was fully in the sway of the drug by the time it ended. Jack and I alternately listened in silence (him lying on the couch, me on the hardwood, which always feel great when I'm tripping--same with warm rocks) and talking about what the music made us think of.

It's very clear, listening to the album, that the band (and specifically frontman Robin Pecknold) put a LOT of effort and heart into it. Every line is loaded with symbolic meaning.

We talked about the creative act, which is important to both of us. He's an actor by trade, so art & creation are his work. I work in renewable energy, but writing and Dungeons & Dragons are central parts of my life. I also talked about the need I feel to balance consumption vs. production in my own life: I consume a lot of media, and a lot of resources went into raising me and still go into maintaining me, so I feel like I need to put enough out there to at least start balancing the scales. I definitely haven't done so yet, but I plan on it: in my career, where I aim to help our society transition to a more sustainable mode of living; the family I eventually want to raise; and what small artistic contributions I make in the form of my D&D maps & campaigns.

It was about 11:30 when the album finished; I was definitely tripping. Visuals were great--not intense, but colors were crystal-clear and bright, and the small wisps of clouds in the sky were roiling and curling like they always do for me on any 2C-E or LSD trip. (I love cloudgazing while tripping, and I've always wondered why they have such a unique fractal pattern, which doesn't appear anywhere else. My theory is that because the compound changes the way our brains interpret sensory input, we're actually seeing some movement within the cloud that our eyes can't normally pick up. A similar thing happens with music.)

Jack and I talked a bit more about creativity and art, and then I started looking through my phone again for what to play next. My eye caught on Simple Song by The Shins, and I sat down in an armchair with my feet up and hit play. I love The Shins, and I love Simple Song. The imagery is surreal and dreamlike. There's one lyric that has always called to me: he sings, "And you feel like an ocean being warmed by the sun." As I lay in the chair, my arms propped on the edges, I felt afloat in a gentle lake of music. The sun was shining through the window onto my face, and I did indeed feel like a sun-warmed sea.

We played a few more songs, talked about how much we wish we could play music like a few of our friends can. We talked about a bunch more stuff, the future of the human race (I think probably very grim, with a slender chance of post-scarcity utopia), death, consciousness, classic entheogen stuff. I took a puff or two from my hash pen, which suffused me with warmth and bumped the visuals up a notch.

At this point I decided to try the balcony. It was nice out--a tiny bit chilly, but not even close to what I think of as December weather. After some cajoling I convinced Jack to sit out there for a while with me. I was in my comfiest outfit, plus my trusty grey hoodie. Jack bundled up and we headed out.

By this point it was maybe 1 or 2pm. The sun was shining more, and it got up to like 50 degrees on the balcony--crazy for 500 feet in the air in late December. I sat against the warm pane of the window, my feet on the table, taking another few puffs from my pen and looking out over this city that I love so much. We talked about how fucking awesome this apartment has been--my dad moved here when I was 14, so it's been in my life for over a decade. We talked about how lucky we both are to be healthy and following our dreams, and to have friends as good as we are--deep-bond, soulmate friends. I talked about the trajectory of my life, as follows:

My 25th birthday was one week past, so I had just finished my first quarter-century. It's been incredible--I went to college in California, have traveled a fuckload, and generally had a grand old time without any big stumbling blocks or traumas. I recognize that this is because of my immense privilege as a white American male from considerable wealth, and I'm very thankful for it. (I did get arrested once, but got off easy because, you know, rich white American family.) In re: the consumption/creation balance, I have recently been thinking of it as follows: the first quarter-century was for me, and the next quarter-century is not for me.

At the time, I was about to move thousands of miles away for a new job in renewable energy development. This job also happens to be in a place of spectacular natural beauty. I was really excited to move, even if sad to leave New York and the friends & family I have there. Sitting against that window, with a sheer wall behind me, the divide between 0-25 and 25-50 at my back, looking out onto a blue sky and a bright city, and beyond it a long highway with a new home, new job, and new community at the other end, I was filled with hope, joy, gratitude, excitement, and purpose.

After sitting like this for a while Jack put on LCD Soundsystem's Sound of Silver, which I somehow had never heard. I closed my eyes and basked in the sunlight and the intriguing textures of the music. I started seeing spiraling helixes behind my eyelids, twirling with the rhythmic pulse of Get Innocuous!. After the first song I shepherded us back inside, realizing that I wanted the full surround-sound experience. I lay on a big pile of pillows we have in the corner and sunk into the music.

The whole album is a feat of sound engineering--levels on levels, with textural elements that sneak up slowly or crash over you with crunchy intensity. Behind my eyelids I was in a room made of sound, walls morphing into and through one another, producing gorgeous tie-dye patterns and geometric solids that floated and burst through the space.

I felt cleansed and sunny after the album. All My Friends is especially good.

We spent a while after this chatting, eating cold grapes (hell yes), and drinking plenty of beautiful cold water. Eventually we decided to play a game, so we decided on chess. Neither of us are very good, but we both enjoy it. I made some stupid mistakes and lost the first two games (though I almost ran him to a stalemate in the second) before wising up and paying attention. When I focused, the dynamics of the game seemed clear to me: the strength of a pawn phalanx, the importance of setting up good back-row mobility early in the game, and the immense weight the queen brings with her everywhere she goes. I was seeing the board as a map of potential energy, arrangements of pieces setting up certain areas of safety or danger. It was very fun. I won the next two games, and since then have started playing chess online with Jack and a few other friends. I’m still not very good, but I’m better than I was that day.

We were getting sort of tired by this point. We ordered dinner and watched some goofy videos online (Jake and Amir, Aunty Donna, Chris & Jack), then headed to bed.

It was a really fun and special day, and one I won't forget.

Exp Year: 2018	ExpID: 113383
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 25
Published: Jan 15, 2026	Views: Not Supported
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2C-E (137), Cannabis - Hash (93) : Music Discussion (22), Glowing Experiences (4), Small Group (2-9) (17)