Foxy lady!

24 mg 2C-T2

Substances: 2C-T-2

In PHIKAL, Shulgin talks about suitable doses between 12 and 25 mg, so we each had bought three pills containing 8mg each. We started by taking two pills each, to check out how we would react. This was at about 8 pm. We had heard that with 2C-T2 the visual aspect of the trip is particularly interesting so we went out to a field and laid down to watch a stunning sunset. ('Hey, are you feeling anything yet?' 'I dunno, but that sure is one hell of a sunset..') After maybe 45 minutes/1 hour there wasn't much effect except for some slight physical discomfort, which I recognized from other times I take psychedelics or MDMA (feeling 'edgy', slight stomach-discomfort, general feeling of being nervous), and some hints of enhanced colours. Since we were used to psychedelics taking effect faster we decided to go ahead and take the third pill too. The sunset had passed, without it seeming to be any more beautiful than it already was, so we retreated to the terrace. From here, things start getting somewhat distorted. After maybe 1,5 hrs after taking the first two pills the effects started to become apparent. We both were gripped in a euphoric state and kept telling each other that this had to be the perfect alternative to MDMA for a party. We had speakers out on the terrace, put on a trance CD and started our own two-person outdoor rave, and now the fact that we didn't have any neighbours within a few miles to worry about REALLY paid off (I was somewhat sorry for the animal wildlife around us which we must have freaked out though). Dancing around with eyes closed beautiful patterns started forming in front of my eyes, with notable neon-bright colors (pinks, bright-yellows and greens and blues) and an amazing sharpness. The patterns themselves were of the fractal-kind familiar from mushrooms, but sharper, with better contrast and without the 'endlessness' that mushrooms sometimes show you. The music worked great together with the visuals: definite synesthesia. Another notable aspect was that, not like a mushroom trip, my mind seemed to remain remarkable 'clear'. I could watch the beautiful visuals I was having, and be wondered and amazed by them. With mushrooms, you can have the effect that visuals start merging with your thoughts (makes sense?), or that you loose any concept of 'thought' or 'consciousness' altogether. 2C-T2 does not do this, the visuals just float in front of you and you're not 'sucked in' or as overwhelmed (at least at this stage..) as with mushrooms.

At one point while I was dancing the shapes I was watching suddenly started taking on known forms, and I was quite happily amazed when I realized I was watching myself dancing from a point to my right and about nine feet up in the air, somewhat distorted and in strange, psychedelic colors, sure, but it was definitely me. I told my friend I could see myself dancing, he asked me 'where?' and I tried to point myself out. Which is very confusing if you're watching yourself! I pointed forward, because the 'vision of me' was in front of me, but then I *saw* myself pointing in some other direction. I moved my arm around untill I saw myself pointing directly at myself. Again, if this happened while I'm on mushrooms, I might go wow... ehr... duh... scary... wheee... ummmm... if that's me over there then who's this overhere...oh no, I've died and I'm starting my forty-day trip around the moon' or maybe more in the lines of 'I can see myself... this is important... this means something...' and more of those disturbing, incoherent thoughtstreams might race through me, distracting me and causing me to forget I was watching myself in the first place. But now I could casually observe myself, and I laughed becuase I had heard so many stories of OBE's and now I seemed to be experiencing one myself, and I was thrilled! Later on I picked up my mattras (we had been sleeping outside on the terrace the entire vacation), threw it out into the fields and layed down to watch the stars. Since there are no neighbouring houses for miles and no big city for at least 15 miles, I had an excellent view of the heavens above me. The milky way could be made out clearly, and I could see thousands of stars. It's usually a great place to watch shooting stars, you'll see at least one a minute guaranteed. But now it was somewhat confusing to watch the stars because they wouldn't stay in one place and kept making connections to each other. Each star continuously fired of purple lightning rods (for lack of a better description) to it's neighbouring stars. I felt I was watching someones brain in a highly agitated state, with neurons communicating with each other at high speed, continuously forming new connections. This bombardment of and between neurons, synapses and electrical charges wasn't as soothing as I hoped 'looking at the stars' would be so I soon returned to the terrace, greatly entertaining my companion by the entire effort. Back on the terrace, the music soon got to me again and I continued dancing.

At one point I sat down on the ground, legs crossed and with a strong feeling of PERFECTION. I felt to be in a state I could dwell in forever, the euphoria and feeling of having reached the maximum of what I could be were incredibly strong. The immensity of my ego at the time bordered insanity. I asked my friend to take a picture of me while in this state, so I could check later how attractive and perfect I appeared to the outside world. Check out the link below for an interpretation of that picture.

Both me and my friend (we had tripped together a couple of times before) had a strong feeling that our trips where connected and even somewhat intertwined at some levels, and most things that I experienced, he experienced as well (and vice-versa, of course). At some other point, I wrote down a poem, writing it while my eyes were closed. But (apart from not being able to see what I was doing) it was hard to find the *exact* words for what I wanted to say, and the poem didn't turn out as spectacular as I hoped it would: the on-the-spot-translation (I'm Dutch...) is somewhat like this: *to see yourself / dancing / aspiring / achieving / your own perfection / sealed by everything / from that other self*. Well, as I said: it just didn't really catch the mood to my satisfaction.

Later, when dancing got me tired I sat down in a recliner chair (still out on the terrace) and tried to 'turn into myself' some more, do some inward exploring. But I kept being distracted by all those amazing things that were floating in front of my eyes, I was just too amazed. At one point, I was watching a pattern extremely similar to some of the patterns you might see using the 'Elements' eye-candy software, when all of a sudden out of the depths of my vision letters started to race by, in big sweeping movements, sixties/seventies-like lettertype, bright neon-colors, and just... letters, and numbers, and comma's and hyphens, questionmarks, exclamationmarks, periods, the works. Again I just laughed in amazement. I kept telling my friend that I had never imagined I could hallucinate the alphabet. It was hilarious. Since our minds stayed so clear, we kept talking to each other all the time, telling eachother what we were seeing and feeling. My friend kept seeing naked ladies, of which I was a little jealous. With the realistic appearance I had of the alphabet (bright defined colors, and more importantly, sharp contrast) I imagined Beautiful Naked Ladies would be a very pleasant (realistic!) thing to be looking at... In general my friends visuals were a lot more 'real': he described seeing things like cars and gadgets like you'd see them at The Sharper Image. (During later experiences I have seen 'real naked ladies' myself in my visuals, and yes... they sure are *pleasant*)

By now it was maybe 12am, and we had already smoked some marihuana from an improvised waterpipe, with no noticeable effect (..or noted effect..) whatsoever. We'd inhale an entire bowl with one big inhale, and not feel a thing, not even smoke burning our throats or lungs. We were amazed at how much smoke we could actually inhale at one time. (There was nothing wrong with the pipe, we checked the next day.)

The effects were starting to level a little bit, it seemed, so my friend suggested we'd use some laughing gas. I was enthusiastic, and immediately went inside to get the necessary equipment. I returned to my reclined seat, filled a balloon, and waited for a suitable part of the CD. I started inhaling, and almost immediately noticed severe effects. Usually I experience nitrogen-visuals as speeding *towards me*, but now I was moving with ever increasing speed *through the visuals* (apparantly this is 'normal' nitrogen-effect to many people, but I was quite amazed by the effect, and once again I had a clear mind to be amazed about it). The visuals were speedy, and fractallized, as is normal with nitrogen, but the 2C-T2 added so much more clarity and contrast. This speeding continoud throughout my inhaling the contents of the balloon, but suddenly things jumped from 'very fast' into 'waaaayyyyy-beyond-lightspeed' and a visual/sensory explosion associated with 'breaking through to something completely different' and I was revealed the face of God. Now, I'm not religious in any way (well, actually I consider myself to be an agnostic: I'm always open for the possibility, and like many, a few psychedelic experiences with 'heroic doses' of mushrooms and DMT have led me to some mild believe that very possible there could perhaps be something/one else/other beyond what we normally see. I'm just so bloody rationalized in these matters, it's frustrating. I see happy people joyfully and fully convinced of their own faith singing hare-krishna-hare-krishna-krishna-krishna-hare-hare-etc or even 'praise be the Lord, hallelujah' and I can envy those people (perhaps in a somewhat demeaning manner, but still..). I just don't seem to have it in me to make that oh-so-important and legendary leap-of-faith. But still... I HAVE felt the presence of and in some basic non-verbal way communicated with the Mushroom spirit, something I don't question, but I'm digressing...) and I'm still not religious in any way today. I don't think it was the 'face of God' that I saw, at least not the God most christians seem to admire. It didn't even resemble a face. It's more the impression it made on me at the time: 'wow! that must be god!' and the strong realization that 'this was it, there's nothing beyond this' (taking nitrogen under 'normal' circumstances usually creates a similar state in that there also seem to be 'breakthroughs' from one level/dimension to a next, but I'm always left to wonder what the level *beyond* that level is. In this case there definitely were no further levels to break through to). What I was actually seeing was, in fact, a bright yellow, extremely radiant figure of three overlapping circles, in a triangular orientation (get it?). Upon later reflection, the whole thing seemed somewhat like the initial effects of smoked DMT: the extremely fast and hard rush of visual and mental effects, the feeling of being swept completely of your feet (luckily I was already in a reclined position), but whereas DMT-effects seem to level out after a while, this experience culminated in a climactic peak-explosion, followed by that god-like vision. Upon seeing that vision the balloon (which I was still inhaling from) slipped out of my grip and I was (and my friend who was watching me and breathing with me confirmed this (that's another whole interesting phenomenon: to use someone elses psychedelic consumption for your own psychedelic experience: it works!)) quite literally catapulted from my chair, I flew maybe three feet through the air and landed somewhat painfully on the concrete floor of the terrace. I was writhring on the floor, almost convulsing (by now I no longer had a 'clear mind' on what the fuck was going on), just going 'wow! oh my god! that was too much!' The CD had ended at the *exact* moment I had my 'encounter' and flew out of my chair, and I was shouting to my friend 'and the music stopped too! the music stopped!' I was referring to the amazing coincidence (which I was convinced could NOT be coincidence at the time, of course) but I think my friend just thought I was saddened or shocked there was no more music so he said 'well, you can put something else on'. This comment brought back some clearmindedness, and I suddenly realized I was completely freaking out, sliding around the floor with no real conscious control of my limbs. This realization worked as a bucket of water, and I got up from my writhing/convulsing position on the floor and went into the house to change the music, I was extremely hyper and agitated, still in some sort of shock about what had just happened, I kept tripping and walking into things, but I did manage to change the music and go back outside to tell my friend about what I had just seen. He decided to stick with what he already had ingested and skip the nitrogen. Note that normally when I use nitrogen, I'm usually uncapable or at least totally unwilling of doing anything involving movement or interaction with my surroundings for at least a couple of minutes while I'm coming down from the nitrogen-high, but now I dropped my balloon, flew a few feet through the air and got up almost immediately and started walking around. This was maybe 4,5-5 hrs after the first two pills, and there were still about 3-4 hrs left of intense visual hallucinations.

When I had calmed down some I laid down on my mattras, and looked at the sky again, where I saw a giant wire-framed UFO hovering, shaped somewhat like an hourglass and at least 5 kilometers long (it was HIGH in the air and it was HUGE). By this time I had some clearmindedness back and with some effort I could force myself to realize the shape I was seeing was caused by the contrast between the treetops I was looking through and the sky itself: the opening between the trees was somewhat like an hourglass. But this realization just didn't change the fact that there was a UFO hovering above me. It stayed there for about two hours. Now me and my friend started getting tired, so we got in our sleeping bags and tried to go to sleep. We smoked some strong hasj, which is very helpfull when coming down from MDMA and you just want to 'chill out' untill sleep takes you away. But the visuals just didn't stop. For a while, I got scared and thought 'what if it never stops, I'll be psychotic for the rest of my life...' Thoughts like that. But by reflecting on earlier experiences I was able to calm down and tell myself I'd be okay eventually. This stage was a little more like a strong mushroom trip, with more elaborate and overwhelming forms of synesthesia and strange patterns of thought. I remember at one point that I started concentrating on the inside of my leg. From my bone I shifted my focus towards the outside, only to notice that my leg seemed to be merged seamlessly with the visuals I was seeing. From the visuals I could make a similar shift in focus towards the music. Yet another thing that blew my mind: my leg was connected directly, smoothly and without any noticable gap to the music I was hearing! For a few moments my body, the visuals and the music all existed on one and the same level of being, and I could observe them in a similar way. This had me entertained for a while, and I kept going back and forth between my leg and the music.

The continouing visuals and mental tricks the 2C-T2 was playing on us kept us up and talking occasionally untill probably around 5 or 6 am, untill somewhere/somehow we finally did doze off. I can't recall any dreams I might have had. When I woke up again when the sun started heating up the terrace, about 10 am, there were still the faint contours of the bloody wire-frame UFO above me. For the rest the after-effects where mainly fatigue, minor visual distortions (accentuated colors, funny things with depths) and a strong and lasting impression from my 'close encounter'. What the fuck WAS that! I'm still not sure...

At some point during the trip (I have no idea when) we also listened to Jimmy Hendrix, which totally blew our minds away: the raw power of the music, the extraordinary textures of his guitarplaying are just awesome accompaniments to any psychedelic experience. We talked about the nature of 2C-T2 and agreed that 'Foxy Lady' was a perfect name for it, it totally captured the sharpness of the visuals, the dominating yet ego-boosting power of the emotional effect and the general attractive nature of both the visuals and mental state of euphoria. We really feld 'foxy' ourselves... We also came up with another name, or actually a sound, that would be pretty much impossible to transcribe. Well, here goes anyway: ffjlllbrffrrhuhhfjfrrrrbuuuuhhm, pronounced very rapidly, just let a big gulp of air rush out without using any force, let the airflow play around with your lips, tongue and facial tissue. Get it?!?

To summarize: both the onset and the total duration of the trip took much longer than we expected (initial noticable (visual) effects after 1,5 hrs, peaking after maybe three-four hours, effects lasting almost ten hours before we fell asleep, and still some minor visual distortions/very mild hallucinations up to fifteen hours after ingestion). Had we known this, we might have dealt differently with that third pill, taking it up to the max of Shulgins' advised dose. I still believe a lower dose could be very suitable for a dance party, supplying you with euphoria, energy and a solid psychedelic dance-able edge while still being able to maintain a clear mind from time to time to do your necessary shopping for drinks (we've all heard the horror stories of people on MDMA buying drinks at ten times their actual prize: 'no, really, I WANT to give you all that money for that beautiful glass of tap-water you're selling me, you've earned it! In fact, get all these beautiful new friends of mine overhere a drink as well!!'), but as of yet, I haven't tried it out. In an article (voor U Nederlanders: in de Vrij Nederland van 18 maart 1999) I recently read on drug use in the Dutch partyscenes it was stated that 2C-T2 was now the most popular drug sold in smartshops, with 'several thousand' (!) pills sold each week. Conscious Dreams sells them in doses of three pills (8 mg each).

The visuals were truly amazing, such bright colors and so much more contrast and sharpness than with mushrooms (except if you're using high doses of mushrooms). There were points I was just completely flabbergasted by the bizarre things the 2C-T2 showed me (I mean: the alphabet! come on! has anyone out there ever hallucinated the entire alphabet, including digits and exclamation marks, just zooming by?!) The fact that your mind stays relatively clear and focused throughout the trip (except near the end, when you start getting tired) was surprising and led to many hilarious observations. My friend described the experience as though you're watching a movie unroll in front of you in which you can get involved, or not if you don't want to, an aspect which reminded him very much of 2CB.

Concerning the combination with nitrogen: a literaly breathtaking experience, but one I didn't seem to be prepared for. The 2C-T2 definitely adds a whole new level of sharpness, speed and impact to the nitrogen-rush. For 'inward exploring' or other (self-)therapeutic means it didn't seem particularly useful to me, mostly because I was very conscious (in an extremely positive way!) of my own ENLARGED ego, I had no care I could think of to be dealt with. Also, the visuals at times just took the upperhand and were all I could think and be amazed about. 2C-T2 didn't give me the open or expanded mind that is so suitable for self-exploration that mushrooms can give me. But than again, I didn't try *that* hard and I also have basically no knowledge of (professional) therapeutic methods and techniques. All things considered, a very impressive and pleasurable experience: I will definitely use 2C-T2 again in the future.

For my humble 'artistic' impression of this experience, check out http://www.geocities.com/paris/jardin/1842/pics/24mg3.jpg