Perfect Potentiation
2C-T-2, Cannabis & Hydromorphone (Dilaudid)
Citation: Joshi. "Perfect Potentiation: An Experience with 2C-T-2, Cannabis & Hydromorphone (Dilaudid) (exp20755)". Erowid.org. Jan 27, 2003. erowid.org/exp/20755
DOSE: T+ 0:00 |
30 mg | oral | 2C-T-2 | (powder / crystals) |
T+ 1:00 | 2 hits | smoked | Cannabis | (plant material) |
T+ 2:00 | 2 hits | smoked | Cannabis | (plant material) |
T+ 3:00 | 2 hits | smoked | Cannabis | (plant material) |
T+ 4:00 | 2 hits | smoked | Cannabis | (plant material) |
T+ 5:00 | 2.0 mg | oral | ?? | (pill / tablet) |
BODY WEIGHT: | 153 lb |
When I first started doing psychedlics about five years ago, one of my best friends (and mentors in this area) was a staunch opponent of cannabis. He had never been drunk, had never tried a cigarette, had never taken an opiate, and -- in a country where cannabis was legal, even -- never smoked pot after the first time trying it. He did, however, do MDMA, LSD, mushrooms, 2C-T-2, DMT, 2C-B, etc., quite constructively. Between his attitude and Shulgin's, I came to think of marijuana as a 'mediocre drug,' and that I would never want to combine a psychedlic with marijuana, for fear of 'muddying up' the experience, blotting out the the clarity of the psychedelic mindset and reducing the possibility of insight and far-reaching fantasy by blunting my mental capcities.
When compared with psychedelics, marijuana may well be a 'mediocre drug,' but it can be used in social settings, etc., that are unconducive to psychedlic exploration. It is good to admit that sometimes we want a mild alteration of consciousness. But it is really the latter half of these beliefs -- that marijuana will blunt the effects of a hallucinogen -- that I have truly started to doubt.
Four months ago, I took two (or three?) tabs of LSD, had a medium-intensity trip for about five hours, felt myself starting to come down a little bit, smoked half a bowl, and THEN I had a real trip. I was astounded at the degree to which the marijuana affected the quality and intensity of the experience.
Last night, I decided to combine 2C-T-2 and cannabis. I took between 25-30 mgs, being experienced at this dose level, and my friend M, who had tripped only once before, took 10-15. We both went in on more or less empty stomachs, which I recommended given my prior experience with 2C-T-2. After prepping our tripping space -- changing lightbulbs to colored lightbulbs, selecting music from my vast CD collection BEFORE we were too incapacitated to sort through it all, listening to a little Massive Attack to get ourselves psyched, we smoked each perhaps two hits of marijuana at about the T+1h point.
Very little had happened psychedelically up to this point. I had felt a first alert, and started to feel a warmness and tingling, but I was clearly not *there* yet. Within the next fifteen minutes, I was truly *there*, and the experience intensified over the following half hour.
I have done 2C-T-2, at this dose level, four times previously. None of these experiences were at the same consistent intensity as the following. Absolutely, there were times at which the intensity peaked, but there were frequent low points as well. The cannabis seemed to 'prop up' the whole experience, pushing it to be more uniformly intense, making it much easier to get into far out hypnagogic/fantastic states, and generally extending all aspects of it. It still felt like 2C-T-2, but like the most intense moments of my previous 2C-T-2 trips, more or less all the time. When I really 'went for it' (details below), the drug went with me, and I certainly got farther than I ever have with this substance
We smoked pot three or four more times over the next six hours. Each time (well, until the end, when the 2C-T-2 simply wore down), the intensity -- even when we were not conscentrating on fantasy, i.e. lying down with closed eyes, or staring at some triptoy -- increased very noticably over the subsequent ten minutes.
One thing that did *not* happen was a very measurable 'stoned' effect. First of all, we didn't smoke that much weed, which I think is a prerequisite for this kind of potentiation. Yes, perhaps the 'edges' of the 2C-T-2 feeling were slightly blurred, but I never felt stupid and lethargic, or even hungry. I have no idea what the neurochemical basis of this might be. But it was.
Highlights from the beautiful six-hour trip include:
1. The twenty minutes when I decided, because of the sensory/heat-related feelings that I was having all over my skin, that I would take a shower. I feel bad for leaving M all alone (he was busy listening to Celtic Cross/Hallucinogen/Doof and watching the Geiss screensaver, which can be entertaining for a disturbingly long time on drugs), but my shower experience was unbelievable. Certainly, when I put in the yellow lightbulb, and got into the shower, it was quite impressive, my skin and body feeling alive and beautiful as the warm water hit me, but it was when I turned out all the lights in the bathroom that it really became something special. I was surrounded by immense CEVs (with my eyes open in the darkness of course). I came to believe that there was something spiritually very valuable about standing in the middle of the shower, with the water hitting my face.
As I lifted my head, I felt myself going through layers of existence, until I met the entities that lived, I guess, above the shower(?), or were somehow 'above' me spiritually. This is where I really 'went for it,' letting myself go into this consciousness, and it approached in power some of my most treasured entheogenic experiences. I had other moments in the shower, too: I briefly believed that it was an ordinary morning and I was getting ready to start my day, which was interesting, as well as having a sudden fear that in the darkness I had washed my body with shampoo. Eventually, however, the light coming from under the door took on a very menacing quality, and I decided to leave the shower -- but this was after about fifteen minutes of the most amazing reverie, being surrounded by constantly shifting worlds, Adam and Eve, tunnels, etc.
2. Boiling water for tea, staring into the pot, seeing letters and eyes appear on the bubbles, seeing the rest of the room start to bubble along with the stove, feeling a kinetic association between the bubbles and my own body.
3. Staring at an Alex Grey painting which we took off the wall and put on the floor. This is where the 2C-T-2 visuals really showed themselves in full force. They were not the acid/mushroom type visuals which often involve colored halos around objects in addition to whatever morphing they may do, but real, 3-d effects, where various elements of the picture took on different depth, pulsed, moved, flowed, dissappeared and reappeared, cause the room to move as they do, etc. This became very meaningful, spiritually, even though we went into it just looking for some cool hallucinations. But such is how it is with psychedelics and I wouldn't want it any other way.
Additionally, I concluded something I think very important about lights and visuals here, which is that 'vibe' lighting, which is very important to me, and which I effect with colored lightbulbs, christmas lights, shades, candles, etc. (not all at the same time), is not that conducive to the most intense OEVs. Real standard, not-at-all-psychedlic lighting can in fact promote much more intense visuals of this type. I think that the two can be used at various stages of a trip, for different things.
4. My reading a Rumi poem out loud while my M stared at a Tibetan mandala.
5. M and I singing and playing bells and singing bowls together, really engaging in a kind of spontaneous sonic meditation or prayer.
6. Listening to some Scarlatti harpsichord sonatas and feeling as though we were suddenly in the 18th century, really *there*, and feeling incredibly physically the crunching low-register dissonances he sometimes uses.
7. Sitting and chatting with M, when the trip was on its downward stages, and suddenly each of us realizing that the other's face was morphing and turning into different faces -- of our friends, celebrities, etc. Kind of funny (how the hell can I be mistaken for George Bush?!?!) but kind of weird interpersonally as well.
In general, there were amazing feelings of merging with music, with the sound taking me to very far headspaces, especially with Lonely Child, by Claude Vivier... Also very special about the trip was the degree to which M and I were always on the 'same page,' experientially. Sure, he didn't see letters on the boiling bubbles, but he was absolutely there and experiencing the same thing. We did almost everything together (except for the shower) and this feeling of connectedness -- despite out different doses, which, because of our different sensitivities to the chemical, I don't think resulted in markedly different trips -- pervaded the experience. This is certainly not the rule for tripping with even close friends, and it made for quite a wonderful time. Often I feel as though I need to 'get things done' on a trip, and I feel bad sometimes that I haven't, that the experience has been too short, or that I didn't go far enough ever. Not so with this one -- it was just perfect.
We started at 7:30 PM, and M took a cab home, relatively sober, at 3 AM. We started coming down at around 1:00 or so, at which point I began to develop a terrible headache, for which I took 2mg dilaudid, which helped somewhat. (it must be very different when you inject the stuff, because I've used it for headaches in the past, and I don't know why they made such a big deal of it in Drugstore Cowboy... I guess I'm just not that excited about opiates to begin with) I really didn't feel like eating for a while, and every time I did eat, I felt somewhat yucky afterward. Especially after a scrambled eggs with turkey and scallions (which I made more because I wanted to make scrambled eggs than I wanted to eat scrambled eggs), I didn't feel at all good. I'm glad that we started on empty stomachs. I slept without difficulty at 4 AM, finally getting up at about 1:15 PM. It's now almost 5:00, and I'm starting, after a cup of tea and some Alleve, to feel like a human being again, but I've been extraordinarily lethargic and unmotivated and blunted and headachey for the last four hours. 2C-T-2 may channel marijuana's effects to different ends, but the next day moving-through-pea-soup-feeling is still there, made uncomfortable by 2C-T-2's own hangover (and whatever the dilaudid may or may not add to the mix). It's certainly not as bad as MDMA for me -- which I refuse to do anymore fo that very reason -- but it's still not great.
Overall, however, I do wholeheartedly recommend this particular combination. It is good to note that two people had essentially the same level trip (give or take) with dosages that varied by a factor of 2. Also, that over the whole experience we smoked perhaps a bowl and a half (if that between us), so not very much cannabis is necessary for a very effective potentiation.
Exp Year: 2003 | ExpID: 20755 |
Gender: Male | |
Age at time of experience: Not Given | |
Published: Jan 27, 2003 | Views: 21,668 |
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2C-T-2 (53), Cannabis (1) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Glowing Experiences (4), Combinations (3), General (1) |
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