My first MDMA trip

I have wanted to try MDMA ever since I heard Sam Harris recommending it. I have done Psilocybin and LSD. Psilocybin is my god. Had it not been for Psilocybin, I would have killed myself by now. I was curious about MDMA.

A friend gave me an MDMA pill; I am forever grateful to him. I took half a pill, on an almost empty stomach. I still have the other half. What follows is my trip report. However, don’t expect me to be too candid; I am a private person and my demons are my own. I won’t name them.

I had had a bad day and had been in a bad mood for a while. In retrospect, I should not have taken it.. But oh well… It took 20 mins to take effect. I was browsing reddit on my laptop, as I do every Monday, and had to close it once I started feeling the MDMA kicking in… I felt dizzy and with extremely low blood pressure, almost to the point of fainting. It reminded me of general anesthesia, the moment just prior to falling asleep. I laid in bed, wore a sleeping mask and put the “Psilocybin Research: John Hopkins” playlist playing on shuffle. This is what I always do with trips. I always have it on shuffle, though I am starting to wonder if it is ordered in a specific way? Should we, instead, have it on sequential? I should probably e-mail them about that. The final songs seem to be nice for the comedown. Next time.

At the start of the trip, there was a point in which I was nearly calling 911. I remember thinking “Ah shit, bad trip. Took too much. I am such an idiot..”. I felt as if I had dangerously extreme low blood pressure. I think at that point I might have fainted. I tried to remain calm and convinced myself to just “let it come, let it be and let it go”, just as one does in meditation. It seemed to work.

While wearing the sleeping mask, I was tripping nicely. Felt almost weightless, a blissful experience. However, if I took it off and looked at the ceiling or elsewhere, the trip effects decreased by a substantial factor. I was fine without the sleeping mask, just a bit zoomed out, obviously high, fairly weightless and wave-like, but nothing to write home about. With the sleeping mask, however, I was there, in the other realm. It felt heavenly. If it got a bit too much I would just take the mask off to ground myself. I did that just once.

MDMA gives you so much compassion and love, to the point of absurdity. I wanted to send a message to all my friends saying that I love them and if they ever need me to hold their hand or hug them, I am there. At that moment, I absolutely truly loved them. I didn’t do it because I still had some reason in me, it was not all emotion. I also didn’t want to open my eyes. Again, opening the eyes paused the trip. I was loving every second of it. I was able to redirect the compassion and love towards myself. I loved myself then: “You are worthy of love. You deserve it.”. My demons were not that demonic. This is why we trip.

I remember thinking “This is one of the best moments of my life.. I am not scared of dying. If this is what it feels like, I want to die. I don’t care.”. I thought to research the Dignitas project, which is an assisted suicide project in Switzerland. That is how much I didn’t care to die. I welcomed it. And this thought did not have a sad weight to it. It was neutral, almost devoid of emotion. “I am ready. I am free and I am okay with that. Enough with the suffering” is how I would explain my frame of mind. But again, when one trips, one is in another realm and it is hard to put the experience into words. Maybe that was just my brain telling me something: “No matter what you do, you are broken. Better to just exit the game?”. A very coffee-shop like chat though, just as if it was a matter of fact and we were talking of whether I should buy a new plant or not.

I did not cry with MDMA. I always cry with Psilocybin (though it is a weird cry, almost without any emotional weight, just tears leaving the lacrimal glands).

In the middle of the trip I had to pee. I took the sleeping mask off and went to the bathroom. I was scared that I wouldn’t be able to continue my trip. Again, with the mask off, things were nearly normal. I was, however, able to squeeze a bit more from the trip once I came back to bed and wore the mask. Other than that, I nearly didn’t move. The trip took about 3.5h. For those 3.5h, I did. not. move.. Sometimes I would just move a finger, just to make sure I still could. I don’t think I was ever this immobile for this long. My teeth were chattering though. That was easily fixed, I just kept them slightly afar or put the tongue in between them. The 3.5h went by really fast. I wish it had lasted 2 or 3 times more.

The comedown is horrible. The down-regulation of serotonin is very pronounced. I hated myself before the trip. I loved myself during the trip. I hate myself after the trip. I am a bit better now, but the comedown is tough. A sitter would probably help in the after-trip. Just to have someone with whom to talk and cuddle.

I have OCD and obsessive thoughts, think rumination: thinking of your demons and your failures and whatnot… As with every other trip I have done, I couldn’t get a fix on my OCD thoughts. They appeared but disappeared just as fast. I couldn’t hold onto them. I think this is probably what non OCD people experience. It was nice. I should probably get medicated. I read N-Acetyl Cysteine (NAC) is good for that.

I haven’t written a report for my Psilocybin trips. I should do that soon. Psilocybin gives a much better musical experience. Listening to music while under the effects of Psilocybin is comparable to the difference between listening to a shitty mp3 via shitty earbuds and being a god, with perfect earing and using a $5 billion headphones. You are the god while on Psilocybin. Funnily enough, I find myself changing songs while under Psilocybin. I didn’t do that with MDMA. Probably because I want to select really good songs while on Psilocybin due to being able to discern much more detail. As far as musical experience is concerned, Psilocybin is much better.

Anyway, the music was still nice, it was captivating and it was helpful. I think it served to boost the compassion and love. I also think that the epiphanies I got during this MDMA trip were not as useful as the ones during the Psilocybin trips. In the Psilocybin trips, I was able to take some of them into the “real world”. In the MDMA trip, they mostly stayed there, in that other realm. I lived them but there seems to be a wall between the me in the present moment, post-trip, and the me in the then, on-trip. I know what I felt, but I don’t feel it now. In other words, Psilocybin had more of a positive effect post-trip than MDMA. All in all, Psilocybin is a better teacher.

I recognize Psilocybin to be more introspective, somehow?.. With all that said, I wouldn’t say Psilocybin is better just yet. Firstly, n=1 for MDMA. I have to take it a few more times to make any meaningful comparison. MDMA seemed to have more of a compassion/love theme but it felt more pointed. Psilocybin had tons of compassion/love, but more in general terms. For all beings, even my ancestors. Though MDMA also had that at points. Ah fuck, I don’t know the difference. Psilocybin did not have the bad comedown.

One needs to point out, however, that every trip is different. It is so much a function of the setting that I almost feel stupid mentioning differences between these 2 drugs.

I have not said this yet but here it is: I loved it. As with the other trips, this was one of the best moments of my life. I don’t know what that says about me but my top X moments are all psychedelic/drug trips.

This one, however, is not one I wish to repeat soon, if ever. While under the influence, it is great. Once it is over, not so much. The post-mdma sads are fucked up. The crushing feeling of dejection and isolation is a big contender for “worst I have ever felt”. I can see this being highly addictive. Apparently, taking 5-HTP should help with this. I will just ride it out.

This reminds me of that Alan Watts quote:

If you get the message, hang up the phone. For psychedelic drugs are simply instruments, like microscopes, telescopes, and telephones. The biologist does not sit with eye permanently glued to the microscope, he goes away and works on what he has seen.

I got the message, I think? I felt love. I touched it. I felt worthy of being loved. But now, post-trip, it is a far away goal again. I feel like I am missing something, there should still be more to understand. I am not enlightened yet. Or am I?

I think I see the goal. Now I need to walk the path? What the fuck is the path?