The Magic Crystal

MDMA
nervewing

Context

Name:
nervewing
Trip Date:
05/01/2016
Age:
20
Setting:
My apartment
Gender:
Not specified
Height:
6'0''
Weight:
120lbs

Substances

Name Dosage Route of Administration
MDMA 160 mg oral, 50 mg insufflated Oral and insufflation

Introduction

MDMA is a commonly used drug that honestly probably doesn’t warrant a trip report, but just for the sake of completion/the sake of having a point of reference for the other empathogens I may take, here’s a report for it. This was my first time taking MDMA by itself.

Onset

Onset
T0:00:

Dose. The MDMA is in the form of one large crystal that weighs 160 mg. while it is in a capsule, I decide it would be cooler to just pop the capsule open and just swallow the rock by itself.

T0:40:

I feel warmer. Or like, warm, wet, and slightly sweaty. There is a bit of restlessness in my muscles that makes lying still feel uncomfortable. The feeling in my head is like I am focusing my thoughts to the point where they form a great hot nexus in my skull. It is the feeling of pulsing and sinking into my head. It reminds me of the “burnt out” feeling that is left behind after taking psychedelics. It seems to coalesce with a warm buzzing queasiness in the pit of my stomach.

T1:10:

That oft mentioned teeth grinding is kicking in. I chew on some gum to alleviate it. I am lying on my bed right now, I can feel my heart beating so fast it feels like it is fluttering. I feel persistently short of breath, and there is a tightness in my chest. This coincides with a feeling of emptiness and weightlessness in my core that is feeding into the heartbeat and shortness of breath. It feels like the room is spinning and I am being tossed about on its waves, the turbulence finding its center at the core of my gut. I am warm and sweaty. This is pretty uncomfortable honestly. I listen to music and it’s really quite nice. My vision is blurry and twitching.

T1:30:

I spend some time in my backyard and it is exceedingly pleasant. The sun is nice and the plants are alive and the body load is fading. I feel pretty great about things now. I go back inside to find my roommate cleaning up the house a bit. I help him out and find it wonderful to be in the company of another person. I start talking to him about everything, conversation flows easily. This drug feels like heavily amplified sociality. I begin to detect hints of narcissism in me, but everything feels so good that I can choose to scoff at them and ignore the feeling. I want to talk honestly and openly to my roommate about deep things. I can hear every nuance of emotion in both of our voices. Touching things feels so great, lying on soft surfaces like his bed or on the couches feels like being hugged by pulsing rainbow clouds. This entire interaction is laced with my typical behavior on empathogens, which is apologizing profusely for being so talkative and overly emotionally earnest.

Peak

Peak
T2:00:

I go up to my room to relax for a bit. The visual effects are most prominent now. Everything looks clearer, like there is no motion blur when I move my eyes. The entire world is somehow in higher definition than my 20/20 vision, with crisp stark outlines and well-defined, vibrant and deep colors. I feel as though I have a better sense of depth perception, and like I can pick up on the minutiae of every texture, every surface. Shadows are darker, lights are lighter, but the contrast doesn’t make things appear overexposed, rather it makes everything appear more ‘real’ than it really is. There is also a strobing, twitching effect. My entire field of vision would be shaking and vibrating and pulsing, but every now and then it would rapidly twitch, shake, and shudder. Imagine watching a wasp, how as it crawls around on flowers it occasionally rapidly beats its wings. This is what my entire field of vision was doing.

I feel so smiley I just want to hug my bed and roll around on soft surfaces. I know I act like a fool when I go on social media and try to digitally communicate with people while on empathogens, but I kindly remind myself not to do that this time, to keep this overwhelming euphoria to myself. I do tell my girlfriend however. I was apprehensive of doing so before because I felt like it might not bode well, but now that I was happily under the influence, all that anxiety lifted and I felt no issue with being open with her. I listen to music and its sounds burrow deep into my ears and dance.

T2:45:

My roommate has a date over. We smoke 2 blunts. With most psychedelics and dissociatives, smoking a lot of weed seems to have the effect of kicking the experience back into the peak. This was not so however. I still felt the MDMA in my system, I felt stimulated and warm, I felt friendly and better at making conversation, I felt that restlessness in my limbs and still had that pulsing, burnt feeling in my head. But after smoking, I mostly just felt stoned on top of all that, instead of having those effects be amplified. The empathogenic aspect of it seems to have mostly worn off and certainly wasn’t kicked back up by the cannabis. Honestly this was probably for the best as I was with a stranger.

T3:45:

After hanging out for a while, I decide to watch a movie with my other roommate. I bump 50 mg before we start. It stung a good bit. However, I didn’t notice much effect from it. The movie was a pretty silly and funny movie, but I didn’t find myself laughing much. Perhaps this is the drained serotonin feeling of coming down, a flattening of emotions and a distinct somberness. I know MDMA has a legendarily debilitating comedown, and I am a bit anxious that I am beginning to take that plunge.

Offset

Offset
T4:25:

The movie ends. My roommate goes to bed and I go upstairs too. I linger around for a while and smoke eventually. Nothing else really happens, I barely feel the MDMA anymore.

T5:20:

I decide to walk to my girlfriend’s house. It is around midnight now. The entire walk I feel energized and warm and glowy, but it is still that burnt feeling afterglow. I honestly don’t remember a lot of it. I passed a lot of people but didn’t feel any particular empathogenic connection towards them.

T6:30:

I arrive at her house. We snuggle and fall asleep. Cuddling feels incredible. It feels like the MDMA was still clinging on and I could sink into its smoldering remains in the peace of her house. I felt a bit restless in the limbs but dang just embracing someone and lying with them felt so incredibly nice. I had trouble falling asleep. Like it felt like Sisyphean fever dreams that imitated life, or the type of sleep where you don’t feel dreams and don’t feel rested at all and you keep waking up / forgetting you ever fell asleep at all so it just feels like you haven’t gotten any sleep. This was a bit irritating. But I felt fine the next morning.

Conclusion / Aftermath

Empathogens are alright. I can see immense therapeutic value, but as far as recreation goes, I think they make me too sappy to do well with other people around.