IMPORTANT NOTICE: Please copy and paste the survey found on line 384 of this Issue and return it promptly. There are only 3 questions and you'll be put in a drawing for 5 grams of DXM to be given away on November 20. This month's contest winners are announced in this Issue and last month's survey results are also posted. Thank you for your participation! -=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=- "The road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom." - William Blake THE DXM ZINE. Issue 9. December 1998. A Symposium of Articles Pertaining to DXM Use (c)1998 UAF/Gravol Publications Email at Zine@dxm.net. Please visit our IRC channels on EFnet at #High, #Dxm, and #Uaf. Official Zine Web Site at http://www.alaska.net/~zorak/dxm/. Official Zine Web Site Mirror at http://www2.1starnet.com/dominion/. Official Zine Web Site HTML at http://members.xoom.com/fuzzycow/dxm/. Official #High Web Site at http://www.amvalue.com/~ben/. Official #Uaf Web Site at http://uaf.lycaeum.org/. Edited by Gravol, with article contributions by fellow DXMers. Now over 300 subscribers strong, in 14 countries. DISCLAIMER: The authors of this zine do not condone the use of Dextromethorphan in any way. This text is simply used as an informative guide to issues relating to Dextromethorphan use and should be used for entertainment purposes only. We are not responsible for any actions taken by anyone reading this text. ADVERTISEMENTS: You may now advertise your products or your services in this section of the zine. Advertising is free for all who are interested, I just ask that you provide a link on your Web site to the Zine Web Site at http://www.alaska.net/~zorak/dxm/. The editor has the sole discretion to edit or remove any advertisements he deems inappropriate. Send your advertisements to Zine@dxm.net with the word "Advertisement" in the Subject line. Thanks! --- Hi! Dxm.net offers shell accounts and complete virtual hosting solutions through e-systems.net. We are just cool! Apply today by contacting next@dxm.net. Thank you! --- Greetz! The UAF is looking for a few good men and women that can help out on the zine with artwork, articles, and other related activities. If you are familiar with the UAF, and have any experience with ascii art, jpg/gif artwork, coding, or drug-related chemistry, you are strongly persuaded to email the founder, RESiST0R, for further information on how you can help out. If you're not familiar with the UAF, please check out their website at http://uaf.lycaeum.org or email at uaf@lycaeum.org. The UAF Chemicals & Crime is again back up after a short leave of absence, and it is released each month along with the DXM Zine. The zine is presented as an alternative to all those small zines out there about H/P, drugs and other "taboo" topics. We believe in free speech and mean no harm by material published. We hope you will take a part in this exciting organization! --- Hello! To subscribe to the DXM Zine, email Zine@dxm.net. To get back issues, go to www.alaska.net/~zorak/dxm/ or www2.1starnet.com/dominion/. Subscribing is safe and easy, and only the editor has access to the subscriber list. It will never be sold or shared with anyone else, so subscribe today! Please note that we no longer take subscriptions from juno.com because Juno does not allow attached files exceeding 100k to be sent to its users, so please provide an alternate email address if you fall into that category. --- Just in! Specialized DXM caps and shirts... get your own shirt or cap with the letters DXM embroidered in it. Any color/size you want. Shirts also available that say Dextromethorphan, DXM, or any other DXM-related logos. You choose what you want! Very low prices! Hats are $8 and shirts are $12. Act today and trip away with your new apparel. Email Zine@dxm.net for more information! --- Help Wanted! The Editor is looking for an individual highly dedicated to DXM and somewhat knowledgable in neurology and psychology to further advance the Zine thru the Turn of the Century. Someone who can edit articles, or retrieve information off the 'Net, advertise the Zine or research theories and abstract principals. Anything to take the redundant burdens of editorial composition and save time for the true necessity of any zine... creativity, being unique, and expressing ideas. If such a dedicated individual exists, then please step forward and email Zine@dxm.net and volunteer your services as Co-Editor. Make a name for yourself in the DXM community and go down in history as one of the willing to engage in the everlasting flow of knowledge to those who seek it. --- DXM Zine back issues in HTML! The DXM Zine is now available in HTML again! To encourage subscription, only back-issues will be available. Visit http://members.xoom.com/fuzzycow/dxm. --- New! Introducing a new section for the Zine, where subscribers can post information about themselves, their hobbies, how they came to know DXM, or any questions they might have regarding DXM. This section is still new so any input you might have would be greatly appreciated. Feel free to send some info about yourself to Zine@dxm.net with "Personals" in the subject line. Thank you! --- CONTENTS 1 From the Editor - by Gravol 2 Letters to the Editor 3 DXM News - from Internet reports 4 DXM Survey 5 *Miracle on Fifth Street - by Gravol 6 *My First DXM Trip - by DrnknMnky 7 *DXM...A New Religion, Part Two - by Terrence, John L. 8 *Theoretical Synergistic Combos - by Steel 9 *Three Trips in Time - by Innuend0 10*Confusion about DXM and Grapefruit Juice - by FuzzyCow 11*The Thirty-Sixth Trip - by Anonymous 12*If at First You Don't Succeed... - by Cashmere 13 NMDA Antagonist Neurotoxicity and Olney's Lesions - by William White 14 I Felt My Soul Being Ripped From My Body - by Raoul 15*The Cycle of DXM - by Adolf 16 DXM Poetry - by various authors 17 DXM Site Review - by Gravol 18 Info on Ordering Pure DXM Powder - from compiled information 19 DXM Music and Movie Reviews - by various authors 20 Various DXM Sources (from the PDR for Non-Prescription Drugs) 21 Various DXM Internet Sites 22 Various Trip Reports - from Internet reports 23 DXM Personals 24 Complete Listing of DXM Zine Past Issues 25 Credits/Zine Information * DXM Zine exclusives FROM THE EDITOR by Gravol Hello! Once again I find myself at the end of the year, looking back on everything that has happened within the last 12 months. And all I can say is that I'm glad it's in the past! It's time to move on to bigger and better things. Break out the eggnog and the Robitussin and eat, drink, and be merry! You deserve it. As the century closes to a final triumph you can be thankful that you are still alive and very much astounded by the fact that a new period in history is fastly approaching us. The twentieth century is about to close its doors, and an even greater spectacle will take place. God only knows what awaits us at this great turning point in history. I, for one, am glad to be alive and apart of the happenings of the late twentieth century. I am equally as glad to be able to have the freedom of taking DXM and finding true enlightenment upon the heavens and having a feast of friends and a universe of knowledge at my fingertips. Life is looking better every day, in every way, and I can only thank DXM for bringing out my creative side, for inspiring me, and for being here now... for if it wasn't for that first spoonful of Robitussin, I would never be saying these words, or know the things I know, and you would never have even known my existance or dabbled in the mysteries of true enlightenment and self exploration. I am very glad to be apart of this joyous Christmas holiday and am equally enlightened that you, my subscribers, have made the Zine what it is today. DXM is vastly growing towards a horizon of everlasting bliss and I will take you there... follow the sun, and your dreams, to that island of joy, submerged in an everlasting sea of red gooey syrup for all to stumble upon and find their true selves... I hope you will join me. Let this be the merriest Christmas of them all! Gravol St Augustine, FL December 24, 1998 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR From cliffalex@mindspring.com: By the way, I just wanted to let you know that I enjoy reading your zine a lot -- and I don't just mean because of the immense information and interesting views (any encylopedia or resource contains facts) -- but your METHOD of writing, your style. It makes it a very GOOD read. It's great that it has so much to offer, but what makes it work and really sink in is that you write your articles in a way that is relative to us. I think what you're doing is good for everyone. - C. Alexander From jfhb1145@aol.com: This issue made me very happy. I'm not the only one who believes DXM leads to enlightenment from higher beings. Only you think they are good? What the hell are you thinking telling people they are good. THEY ARE EVIL. I repeat THEY ARE EVIL. It is evil. I heard or read somewhere that PCP, K, and DXM are all in the same family? the more I do K the more I think it's nothing like DXM. So do you know if that's true or not? - Jesusface From the Editor: Dear Jesusface- Any tool such as the ouija board or automatic writing can lead to evil spirits and possible cases of possession. However, I do not view DXM as a "ouija board," but a medium to further open the doors of perception between the two existing realities that make up our universe as we know it. By choosing DXM, you gain powerful insight in spiritual matters and self progression and it would only narrow- mindedness to assume that all entities you encounter are evil. Perhaps you should say a chant or a prayer before embarking on such an adventure... you do have control in who you encounter. If you desire to find a higher, loving source... then you will find it. Just don't be too quick to judge a book by it's cover. And as far as K, PCP, and DXM being in the same family... I beg to differ. They may all be dissociatives of some sort, but that is only because they can't be classified in any other concrete group of drugs. Marijuana doesn't fit into any other type of drug either, but that doesn't make it in the same family as DXM. DXM, I believe, is one of a kind... a true shamanistic medium for converging upon the higher self and finding true enlightenment. And I hope that you do so. - Gravol From steel@pdq.net.au: Hi Gravol, Season greetings etc.,I am reading at this moment Zine #8. I (as always) have a strong emotional\psychological response when I read someone else's drug experiences that are almost an exact replica to mine. I am reading your specific "trip story" of MY SLED...AND THE ATOMIC BOMB of Friday the 13th, Nov., 1998. I just as U am extremely sensitive to DXM & other psychedelic\hallucinogenic drugs, in fact they scare the shit out of me. I'm prone towards "bad trips".. even cannabis makes me get hard-on hallucinactions, which is why I always take a small dose of valium like 20mg, or any other benzodiazepine I may have lying around... this seems to make me enjoy "the ride" without having to crap myself 'cos the "Tree Monsters" are chasing me. Anyways U are in the forest of some kind, near a resting place of a ghost town called Sprucevale. This is where my past quickly came back in a flash 'cos as I was reading 'bout U... it was as if I was reading of myself. I have had & still do have the very best euphoria in a forest type surround- ing. Talk about INTENSE! Woohoo...If U can remember, could U please give me the name of the album\artist of the lyrics that U mentioned, "and we're on our way, no we can't turn back... Cuz it's too late,too late, too late." It's on the tip of my tongue but I just can't think of whom they might be. Take it easy... - Steel From the Editor: Dear Steel- I thank you very much and am very happy to see that an experience of mine has rekindled past memories of yours. The artist whose lyrics I quoted in that article were that of Jim Morrison, who was inspired in turn by William Blake, who in turn inspires me. As you will see the quote at the top of this issue, it was written by William Blake. Seasons greetings and many blessed trips! - Gravol From fescueme@aol.com: I want to pick your brain on this, why did you try it [GFJ] with DXM polistyrex, does it work better with the bromide? How can they make Delsym taste so good, and Robo so bad? You do good work... Saw your aol profile, make the drug work for you (sexually). Let the women know you can last longer than the general male populace. If I knew at your age what I know now, they would have written books about me...LOL. - FescueMe From the Editor: Dear FescueMe- The GFJ seems to work better with the regular DXM than with the time-release DXM... at least for me. I experienced quite a bit more paranoia with the Delsym+GFJ than I did with the other combinations. As far as sex and DXM, I must say that even though my sex drive isn't what it used to be, I know this change is only temporary and I still seem to be just as horny as ever, but now I can last so much longer... much to the amazement of my girlfriend, I'd imagine. :) I guess you could say DXM can be used as a "Stay-Hard" tool of sorts, but I wouldn't use DXM just for that purpose alone. :) - Gravol From emailaccountx@yahoo.com: Just want to say thanks, keep up the great work. - X From casmooth83@aol.com: I have read and downloaded all of the issues and I am glad to see that there is an informative publication on what is still a relatively underground culture. Keep up the good work! - Cashmere Smooth DXM NEWS from Internet reports "New DXM Zine website established" There is now a third official DXM Zine website being established, thanks to FuzzyCow. This site is unique in respect that all issues found here are in HTML format for your viewing pleasure. There has been quite a bit of effort put into the new site, and everyone is encouraged to check it out. The site is located at http://members.xoom.com/fuzzycow/dxm/. "Michigan town puts restrictions on DXM" It has been noted by a Cheboygan, Michigan, resident that due to a former newspaper article exposing the current trends of abuse of DXM, that most DXM-containing OTC brands have been put behind the counter and proof of age is required to purchase the products. Not only this, but DXM has been written into city law so the current restrictions on purchasing DXM stay in effect indefinitely. It is not known at this time whether this includes all DXM-containing medicine, or just various brands of cough syrup, or cold pills, or both. It is also not known whether purchasers have to sign their name to purchase the products. More information will appear in a future issue. "Price changes in effect for Biotech" Please refer to the section on Ordering Pure DXM Powder in this Issue of the Zine for updated prices for Biotech International. They have again changed, effective immediately. All other prices are deemed current, but if you find any corrections that need to be made, please contact the Zine administration. "DXM Zine announces contest winners" Congratulations to Adolf and Brianna, last month's winners in the new DXM Zine contest. Brianna sent in her survey and was picked on December 20 to win 5 free grams of DXM HBr powder. Adolf contributed an article for Issue 9 and was also picked on December 20 to win 10 free grams of DXM HBr powder. The next drawing will be on January 20. Information on contest rules follows: The DXM Zine has announced a new drawing in which anyone who sends in survey results from each the current issue will be put in a drawing for a 5 gram giveaway of DXM. People who contribute articles or trip stories will be put in a drawing for a 10 gram giveaway of DXM. Each month, 15 grams total of DXM HBr will be given away to 2 different subscribers. Hopefully, this will get more people involved with contributing to the DXM culture and this zine. "New breakthrough in combating DXM nausea" An avid reader of the DXM Zine has pointed out that by taking two teaspoons of ginger before dosing on DXM, you will eliminate almost all nausea from occurring. It is yet unknown what may cause ginger to react with DXM, or if it even does, but I encourage you to try the same if you have ever experienced DXM nausea and report back the findings. All credit goes to Sruli of Massachusetts on discovering this home remedy of sorts. "Drixoral anecdote involving Schering-Plough" A subscriber reported to me that he contacted the makers of Drixoral, Schering-Plough, and asked in a letter why they had stopped making Drixoral Cough LiquiCaps. Much to his amazement, he received a response after a short while with a letter stating an apology for no longer carrying the product, but with the letter were 3 free boxes of Drixoral Cough Caps. The letter also said something to the effect of "We hope you will find these 3 boxes of Drixoral helpful in combatting the upcoming cold season." The letter, however, made no mention of an answer to the sender's original question, as to why Drixoral Cough was pulled off the market. Last Updated: December 31, 1998 DXM SURVEY A Survey on DXM Use Hello and welcome to this month's survey. Please take the time to fill out the following form and return it to Zine@dxm.net with "Survey" in the subject line. Results will be posted in Issue 8 for this survey. Also, when you return your survey you are automatically put in a drawing for a 5 gram giveaway of DXM powder to be drawn in December. Last month's results are posted at the end of this section. 1. Y/N Are you pleased with the content of the DXM Zine? 2. Y/N Do you use DXM on a frequent basis? (i.e. once every couple days). 3. Y/N Have you noticed any permanent or long-lasting physical side effects from persistant DXM usage that can be attributed to DXM alone? If so, state the condition. As you can see, this survey is related to a wide variety of topics, ranging from the content of this Zine to whether our subscribers are habitual DXM users, and if so, if there are any physical side effects present in the long-run. With most drugs, there are deaths and numerous bodily injuries, but with DXM we have yet to see any substantial number of cases of bodily harm caused by this drug, so perhaps it would be wise to further probe this question and offer some light on the frequently asked question... is DXM truly safe? Please do your best to answer and return promptly. It would be appreciated if you could return the survey before reading the actual Zine so the results can be recorded immediately. The cut-off date for receiving entries is January 19. Thank you. Last month's survey results are posted below: There were 25 participants, or 8% of the total number of subscribers. 44% of those who participated have tried DXM with grapefruit juice. 45% of those who participated and have tried grapefruit juice reported the experience to be better than they initially expected. 68% of those who participated claim their religious beliefs have been influenced or changed by DXM. These results show that while grapefruit juice may not be a favorite for all individuals, it has certainly left a lasting impression on the DXM community. Since it is so different, the first experience can very overwhelming and many people who tried it had negative experiences simply because they took too much DXM. In all reality, you only need about 350-600mg of DXM to reach satisfying levels, and only 2 glasses of grapefruit juice. Another amazing aspect of this survey was that nearly 2/3 of all subscribers underwent a religious change after partaking in DXM, which is more substantial than any other drug in the world. This obviously implies that DXM does have very strong ties to the spiritual world... even moreso than LSD or salvia divinorum. And in all aspects, it would only make sense to base a religion on DXM usage for the enlightenment and self-progression of the individual self. Thank you to all who participated in this survey, and I hope even more of you will participate in this month's survey. MIRACLE ON FIFTH STREET by Anonymous I can honestly say that a miracle has occurred in my life this Christmas holiday. After abiding by the general principals of the Church of Tussin (no, I'm not a holiday fruitcake) and taking DXM in a respectful, explorative manner, I have discovered something truly amazing... you can do DXM every day if you so desire, and actually improve your life to the point of pure enlightenment and bliss... and my friends, I tell you, I am a living example. All was going great from the start of December when I met my lovely girlfriend. We had initial obstacles to overcome of all shapes and sizes but we overcame them and we only grew stronger. Now she is away in Georgia, this being the final obstacle of the year, and once she returns we'll be in each others' arms. We've even talked of marriage and starting a family. We both want a commitment. She is very beautiful and has inspired me to draw and write poetry, much to the same style as William Blake once did back in the 1790s. As I continued my DXM use over the early days of December, overcoming the evil drugs such as amphetamines and XTC (which contains methamphetamine) I have found a perfect point in my life where everything seems to flow together in one place and time. On Tuesday night, the week of Christmas, I traded a half- full bottle of GHB for 30 sugar cubes of acid. The acid itself has shown me how great life is and I now have all the drugs I desire to live it... DXM, LSD, and GHB. Now I can move onto my next goal of getting another nitrous oxide tank. But what's more is that I have seemed to please the higher powers with my way of living, and my good deeds towards men. I have never had a bit of trouble getting Robitussin... even when my car was a quarter-of-a-tank below the empty mark at 2am I was still able to drive across town and successfully buy a bottle of it. Take the DXM away, and you take away the backbone of happiness. I understand all reality and universal thought... all that I need to understand right now... and I am perfectly happy with my life. Never have I been happier. Who would've thought that doing DXM every day could lead to this type of enlightenment? I assure you, it is 100% genuine... remarkable as it may seem, it is truly a Christmas miracle. I have everything I want out of life flowing together, all by mere coincidence... money in my pocket, a nice car, a great girlfriend, a great social life and wonderful friends, great luck, my old hobby of coin collecting has come back, and I am now drawing and writing poetry again like never before... and I always have a smile on my face. I never imagined so much could be possible. I'm even starting college in January and my car payments will soon be paid off. I know, somewhere high up in the heavens, the gods must be smiling down upon this moment... knowing that an individual has used light and love to meet his needs of enlightenment and shed total knowledge and absolute understanding and compassion among all others. Again, I emphasize to you... never before has my life been so complete, so happy. It's not a false happiness. It's a wonderful happiness... songs fill my head, words inspire me, my hands create beautiful masterpieces, everything I do seems to turn out perfect... and I am in love with the one perfect girl I never dreamed I could have.... and it is all coming true. And why? Because of doing DXM every day. I swear to you... DXM itself may not be the only thing to thank for this bliss but it is purely an essential necessity in reaching the great chasm that divides good and evil... beauty and decay. I have bridged the gap... I have opened the doors of perception and my heart is filled with everlasting love and enlightenment for all mankind and I can honestly say this is the Merriest Christmas I've ever had. And I want to extend my blessings and utmost joys to you and everyone you know, so that you may have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! MY FIRST DXM TRIP by DrnknMnky "Use your powers for good, not for evil. Well, you can use them for evil if you want, but it voids your warranty." Dec. 1, 1998 Subject: Male 140lb (63kg) 19 yrs Location: Tiny dorm room in SK, Canada Bathroom across the hall Prev Exp: Pot, oil, alcohol Dosage: 150ml bottle of Delsym DM Ingredients are dextromethorphan polistirex (900mg) At 5:30p I ate a ham sandwich and some cookies. I didn't wasn't sure if I was going to do this tonight or not. I finished reading the FAQ and about 200 reports, so I figured I was ready. At 7:00 I diluted about 1/2 the bottle (450mg) of Delsym in some water and gulped it down. It was actually pretty good. I started up a journal to record what I was feeling. I also took a few puffs of Berotec (asthma inhalor), just in case. I got out some CDs and a blacklight, my stomach gurgled a bit and felt a bit tight, but not nauseous at all. I played around some more on the computer. At 8:15 I started feeling lightheaded, but by 8:30 it went away. I decided to finish off the bottle, so I now had 900mg in me. At about 9:00 I started feeling drunk, goofy, then mellow and nice. By 10:00 I was feeling very stoned and time was slow. I talked on IRC a bit and took out my contacts because they were bugging me. I laid on the floor and looked at the ceiling, listening to music. I was listening to Tool, but I took it out and put in underworld. The stucco ceiling looked all sparkly with the blacklight on. After enjoying the buzz for about an hour, I had to go to the bathroom. I felt ok enough to handle it. Unfortunately, I haven't been stoned in a long time and forgot how to handle it in public. I opened the door to go across the hall to the bathroom. There were two guys standing about 5 feet down the hall talking about something. Don't ask me why but I did panic and sorta jumped across the hall into the bathroom and shut the door. Later, when I came out, they were gone. For some strange reason I had an urge to phone my girlfriend. She had no clue I was doing anything like this. She is straight, doesn't even smoke. Luckily, she is very open minded. We talked for about 15min, and then I told her what I was doing. (This stuff must be truth serum!) She was a bit scared, but I told her I had researched it and everything. I started to explain the reason I was doing this, etc. when I peaked. I don't remember much of what happened then. Lots of CEV. Energy clouds, flowing strands of color, everything. A big weird triangle, blue, green, black, pink... Somehow we started talking about life, the universe, and everything over the phone, I was definetly 'at oneing' what I felt & saw I told her, what she said back got incorporated into what I was seeing, we started connecting on a spiritual/mental/psychic level. I could see the two of us as big jellyfish made of energy (like Abyss). I could see the whole network of consciousness, and God was a huge blue stand of energy that connected everything together. It was cool. It was definetly a religious experience, and I'm not even that religious. One thing was clear to me, however, there is a supreme power. "I have no idea what happened - blue green mesh mold network - connected - GOD wow." One thing that I realized, is that everything was planned out through fate. Everything from the day I met her, to when I found out about DXM, to this day that I decided to try it, was utterly planned out. About 1 1/2 hrs (1hr after I peaked) into the conversation I started coming down enough to ask "what the fuck just happened?". Both of us still don't know, but both of our perceptions of life have changed drastically. We talked for 2 1/2 hrs. That's going to be one massive phonebill :( After I hung up, I felt extreme deja vu, like I knew this place... "This is the real reality, thiis is where I live." I think I laid in bed now, and just thought. No more CEV's. I got up to go to the bathroom. At 1:44 AM I was "walking around like a tank" (I think I was walking around my room on my toes for a bit). When I walked down the hall to the second bathroom (first was being used) I felt like I was walking like a toy soldier, sticking my feet way out. Seemed like I was in a Busta Rhymes video. My pupils were huge, and my left was bigger than the right (doesn't this mean hemmorhaging or something). [Editor's note: This is not anything of alarm. Often one pupil will appear bigger than the other. It may not even be so, considering if you are looking into a mirror on a high dosage of DXM, this may cause it to appear bigger in your mind's eye.] At 2:00, I laid in bed and thought. I might have drifted in and out of sleep. I noticed my eyes were taking 2-3 sec. to look at things after I looked at them. Like, I'd try to look at the desk, and then my eyes would slowly track up to the desk. I think I fell asleep at about 4:00. At 7:00a I woke up and noticed my eyes were still doing the same thing. Still pretty stoned. At 12:00 I woke up again. Everything was back to normal. I had a slight headache that went away as soon as I drank something. For the rest of the day, I've felt sort of warm and nice, and more solid and grounded. I haven't eaten all day, but I'm not really hungry. I just want to lay in bed and read. I've talked to my GF, and our relationship is definetly on a higher level now, so that worked out pretty good (don't try this at home). [Editor's note: Several people have reported, myself included, that tripping on either DXM or LSD with your boyfriend/girlfriend can actually enhance the relationship and allow each other to learn things about the other in a higher level of understanding and consciousness.] It was definetly a good trip. I'm thinking mid/high second plateau. Most of the things I saw came from things either one of us said. I didn't lose any idea of identity or location. I didn't get nauseous (but I have a very strong stomach), no itching, etc. I came down with some new perspect- ives, beliefs and a stronger relationship with my GF. Will I do it again? Probably, but not for a while, I have finals, etc. coming up. This seems for me like something every once in a while when I'm feeling like exploring. DXM...A NEW RELIGION, PART TWO by Terrence, John L. This is the second part of the article that relates for the first time about DXM being used in religious practices. These practices are explained below, along with the religious organization that supports them, the Church of Tussin. The Church of Tussin Objective: To promote the exploration of one self and of the universe with the powerful shamanic device, DXM. This is not a blasphemous satire on religion, but a secret ritual of practice that enables oneself to perceive reality in a different way, and to contact higher spiritual beings for the promotion of self exploration and development. Rituals: There are no exact rituals or rites, as you may call them, etched in stone, but a basic foundation should be summarized when attempting to reach the higher powers of coincidental understanding. You should take the DXM respectfully and not criticize others who do so, or the methods in which they do. You must take the overall truth in light that there is universal karma and that you will someday be judged by all the pain and joy you've caused other individuals. But to further understand other individuals and what they may be feeling, or why they feel it, you must embark on a spiritual journey into the depths of the universe, and experience what true love and understanding is all about. Only then can you begin to understand the complex workings of the universe and idealize the fundamentals of every- day respect and congregation of essential principals, being those of love, light, and understanding. You are a unique person, and whatever practice or ritual you outline as your own you should stick to, and not try to copy others practices. For whatever works best for you may not work best for others. To even begin to grasp the concepts of reality and the universe, you must understand the foundations of love and diversity, amongst those respect for others. Open yourself up to these beliefs and understandings and then you will manifest a greater power that will beseige you in every circumstance possible. Tithings: To please the higher spiritual powers, it is only asked and presumed that you give out as much love and light as possible to others. Don't hold back and be selfish... if you follow these basic principals of fundamental ritual then you will accomplish a great task of bettering your life for the well-being of mankind and for yourself. You may even find that everything you want from life will come to you in due time, for there is a time and a place for everything. And when it is your time, you will know it. Give, and you will receive. That is the Great Circle of Life. Practice: One may ask of the frequency in which he or she should practice these concepts of spiritual development. The answer is simply the more, the better. High plateaus are not necessarily the tool for greater development. By staying at the lower plateaus, you not only develop a greater understanding for the universe but you are also able to function accordingly and promote your positive virtues to others in a fashionable, unsuspecting way. People will notice a positive change in you, and you will notice a change in yourself. For as little money as it takes to buy a bottle of Robitussin, you should take small amounts on a frequent basis and see how far you get. But never use it in general as an escape route from a trecherous life, or you will miss the whole point of this religious concept. Seek, and you shall find. DXM is only the avenue you take to get you to that better place, higher up, where all the streets meet into one great circle and the great fountain of life spurts boyantly out for all to see, encompassing every body and soul who has made the fascinating journey to reach it. And with these words I leave you all with great tidings and good will towards men, for the Heavens are truly shining down upon all who seek to further advance themselves spiritually. THEORETICAL SYNERGISTIC COMBOS by Steel "No sooner does man discover intelligence than he tries to involve it in his own stupidity" - Jacques Cousteau NOTE: I've recently (3-4 weeks ago) made a theoretical 'synergistic combo' of the following: DXM: Low dose of 60-80mg (I only weigh 57kgs). GHB: 9-10 grams (I have EXTREME HIGH tolorence to all GABA binding drugs). CAFFEINE: 100mg tab...WHY? Well it DOES target GABA receptor sites & also has slight dopamine affinity & also acts as a GHB inhibitor. EFFEXOR: NSRI; Norepinephrine & Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor; also weakly inhibits dopamine reuptake. DEXEDRINE: Also known as dextroamphetamine, 10-20mg. "THIS GUY MUST BE MAD!" (you may be thinking)... Well you are right in thinking so...this is a potential mixture asking for trouble. Serotonin syndrome, hypertension, not to mention the potential for possible permanent brain damage, just to name a few. I do have an abort procedure by using an antipsychotic like Haloperidol which as you already know blocks dopamine & norepinephrine (noradrenaline) reuptake thus inhibiting the central nervous system stimulant effects of amphetamines. I take the Dexedrine 1 hour before taking the DXM & an hour after that I take the GHB + caffeine, reason being: Dexedrine (in tablet form) contains povidone, a so-called "inactive" ingredient, which assists in slowing down the drug so peak blood plasma occurs in 2 hrs. DXM (usually) peaks at approx 60-90 minutes. GHB & caffeine kick in almost immediately, thus when I take them in this order I get max EUPHORIA & please note I never use the word euphoria lightly, I would otherwise use such words such as "buzz," "stoned feeling," "rush,"...just to name a few non-specific terms. I mean "Euphoria" in the true sense, as in an extreme psychological & physical sense of well being to the point of wonderful tingling feelings up my spine...hmmm... it's better than sex any day. As far as the Venlafaxine (Effexor) goes I take that 'bout 4-8 hrs before in a very small dose such as 20mg. Sometimes I get bad headaches along with severely dilated pupils, thus serotonin syndrome, but this is rare if I space out how many times a day/ week I "use." This week for example I've done it 1-2 times daily, with a constant underlying low level serotonin syndrome as proved by my diarrhea, pupils looking like saucepans, angina etc...not too good. I have a history of high CNS depressants abuse, such as heroin, large numbers of benzodiazepines & derivatives, such as Diazepam (Valium), Lorazepam(Ativan), Flunitrazepam(Rohhypnol), Temazepam(Temaze & Restoril), Alprazolam (Xanax)... just to name a few, & I've pretty much given them up 'cos I can't feel 'em anymore. For example at a lunch break at work I was bored so I took 100mg of Diazepam with no effect that I could really feel, I worked all arvo no-probs, yes 100mg 20x5mg tabs, with zero other drugs in my system. My tolorence became ridicules to the point I could mix 2-3 benzodiazepines at a time plus every day easy to get (in Australia) drugs such as codeine phosphate with ethanol in the mix. Opium is a good one also.. one of my favorites. Anyways I love your DXM Zine & please correct any info I got wrong. I'm only studying pharmacology\neuropharmachology & as yet I haven't a degree of any sort. THREE TRIPS IN TIME by Innuend0 Dosage: Between 600-700 mgs? + cannabis. "HeSheItTheyWeI", Oct., '97. We put on Clerks at about 10:30, and I chugged some robomax (currently $2 at a local store for 4 ozs!) and some of an 8 oz'r of brand X tussin. I like the taste. I'll pause for you to cringe at that thought. Coricidin brought me to my knees, though. I giggled as I watched him (I'll call him September Alkaloid, since it was the first thing that came to mind now and sounds weird) gag at the taste. About an hour through, Clerks became rapidly more interesting. The black and white was a definite plus. I found myself sprawling in weird positions on the floor. I was infinitely comfortable, but knew I could get just that much more comfy if I sat in so-and-so way. After Clerks was over, we migrated to the basement where I had hidden a pipe. We chatted a bit, I think (can't remember), and then broke out the pipe. We alternated hits more-or-less, and then I took it and got greedy. I asked him to hold my left (pipe) hand in place, because I had lost control of it and it was starting to float away (like my eyes often do while on dxm). Literally...it was extending itself away and up and to the left. He held it in place and asked for some more pot. I got an evil grinch grin and ignored him for a couple seconds, but then he grew an invisible hat that marked him as being weedless, so I decided to share more out of guilt and surprise. We were both satisfied and put it away, and he retreated to the couch. He asked me to get up and turn the light off. I stood up, staggered, and made it to a wooden pillar. The room was 3 feet tall and I was compressed into a fat munchkin, an effect I refer to as Munchkinland. It often reverses soon after to feeling like I'm 12 feet tall and I'm in a big aircraft hangar or something. As I clutched the pillar, struggling to keep balance, I asked him "what did you want me to do again?" He told me, and I forgot again. Everything had split into 3-second frames. It was like I had my brother's attention span. :) Everything happened like it were in a comic book or something, with any dialogue being wiped out as I passed on to the next frame. I couldn't carry over my mission, should've I chose to accept it, to turn off the light. He scrawled "LIGHT" on a piece of paper and handed it to me. I made it to the light, then totally lost track of where I was. The only guiding light was the VCR clock, which had blurred into a blue streamer that chased me back to the chair. A big brown recliner. A vibrating recliner...any remaining discomfort was rapidly shaken out of me. I felt like a happy bubbling blob of psychedelic Cherry 7-Up. What happened next I cannot recall, it's dwarfed by what happened immediately afterwards. I was in the chair, and September Alkaloid was chillin' on the couch, a long time ago in a galaxy far away. I don't know if there was music or not, if there was, it was Tool: AENIMA. I found the chair spinning like it was glued to the outside of a bigass hamster wheel, and I had to choose between jumping (and, in retrospect, almost certainly burying my arm up to my elbow into the TV) or hanging on for dear Kia. I felt like the guy watching TV with colors streaming out and hitting him in the face like hallucinatory bugs on a windshield. Except...I was spinning. My skin was torn from my face and my whole body disintegrated. It was ecstatic, as was I. I found myself floating in an inky void, rather like I was dead and sunk to the bottom of a really deep pool (of LCL, if you've seen Neon Genesis Evangelion), but ribbons of light still came down as they broke the surface. I was still spinning, but I had hit some sort of maximum velocity, and it wasn't just my body that had been shredded, but also any surroundings. I sensed another wheel spinning up on my right, and it synchronized with mine. There was a definite entity present. It didn't have any visible form, but I drew it the next day anyways. It looked like a big polygon, impaling itself and coming out inverted on the other side. Oroborus? We connected into a kind of telepathy, but an entire optical fiber of phone calls instead of one, and there were no words used. I cannot consciously recall it into the confining symbols (eg: English), but I do grok it. The closest I've ever heard is 'As above, so below', and talk of the universe being a fractal. Mix that with a healthy overdose of solipsism and you're on the right page in the dictionary of the unnamed. This was more ecstatic than the chair alone. It went on forever but it was forever bisecting the normal flow of time. For example, time is going from the past (up) to the future (down), and this was a point of infinite length forward, backward, left, and right. I jumped out of there as the connection degraded (which manifested as mental telephone static) and I was left alone in the chair, feeling more alone than humanly possible. HeSheItTheyWeI was gone. "I came here to watch you play, why are you running away?" I turned over and asked September Alkaloid if he had met HeSheItTheyWeI, he had no clue what I was talking about. He said something about watching the present evolve from a bunch of amoebas or something like that. This could have been influenced by the song Third Eye (supreme DXM song, although it's actually from ketamine I'd say), but it had ended long ago. I think. I hadn't understood the song until this happened. The communication could have been something like the "...here's Tom with the weather." Bill Hicks quote, but went a lot deeper. It doesn't fit the timeline I have for it to be going during the encounter, but when I trip it seems like rational time goes to lunch anyways, much like Sunday afternoons...I started coming down, fanatically trying to explain to September Alkaloid what had happened and how utterly profound it was. Dosage: 1600-2000 mgs. "Time-ness", early October '98 I lie in bed and wait for the universe to constrict into my room. It's been about 45 minutes since I had dropped two full caps of 800-1000 mgs apiece (from Wanman), and I was listening to _X_, a Japanese anime soundtrack. It's pretty obscure unless you're already into that kind of thing, but go for it if you can. It's very chaotic, but has a few melodies that spring up from time to time. I was in a meditative state, as I often am after being still for a long amount of time. I got deeper and deeper, and wondered if it's the onset of the DXM or if the meditation has reduced my physical sense. My question is answered a few minutes later, as I feel a definate purple-black web ripple from my brain stem and down to my ankles. I'm a plastic jello mold being filled with liquid nitrogen and maple syrup. I changed the track to the next-to-last, a j-pop love song. A very long one. Long songs are usually better for DXM, I think, because they have more time to envelope you before they fade. My mind became quite fogged. I can usually think fairly clearly up to about 1200 mgs, but this was extremely difficult. I was in bed with a portable CD player, and a stack of a few cds lay at the bedside. Bedside Toxicology. I was trying to avoid making any sound, because I didn't want to deal with anybody waking up. I usually have an awareness, although quite altered. This time, I was often in Void-Mind, technically conscious but without any kind of thought. I listened to a few of my usual trip-time songs (my Static Quality, re: Lila by Robert M. Pirsig), such as ChemBros' The Private Psychedelic Reel (yow!), the Butthole Surfers's John E. Smoke (you HAVE to hear this on DXM, the lyrics almost make sense!) from Hairway to Steven (get it!), Tool, Enigma, PWEI, and a little Psychic TV. I also listened to stuff I hadn't heard dexelated before (Dynamic quality, re: same. It's a good book. Read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance first, though.), such as The Doors: 'The End' (wow...), some of Mechanical Animals, which I was borrowing, and Serenade for the dead by Leaether Strip. I heavily recommend that CD for DXM, too. It's all electronic symphonic darkonic. While listening to Leather Strip, I found myself in a local Chinese restraunt, the booth sunken into the floor, and a bunch of demons were dancing in a circle around me and chanting. I felt like I was in a boiling cauldron or some such, but it was a good thing. With Mechanical Animals, 'The Dope Show' confused me a great deal. I couldn't remember what a drug was. Dissociative was quite flang-y. I don't recall changing many of the CDs, it was more like being suddenly surprised by a new song jumping in to my ears. I found myself thinking about time, the flow of it, bending it, and such. I later came to the conclusion that time is like a 4th dimension, a dimension where we are always falling towards what we call the 'future'. We can desperately flap our arms or try to fall faster. We can also leave time, but it isn't easy... When I trip, my room becomes much larger. It seems like I could put a space shuttle beside my bed...as if I needed one to blast to outer space. I already had enough chemical fuel. Eventually, things started to fade. It was clocked at 3 and a half hours, which would not possibly be right. I did think I had stopped time, or slowed it a great deal. There was a sensation of falling out of time. It reminds me now of Slaughterhouse-Five. So it goes. Also, I had insomnia for about an hour afterwards. No idea why. Dosage: 800ish mgs, a glass of grapefruit juice at T-10 min. Nov. '98 Also, I had about 3/4 of a 2-liter of Kick about 5 hours beforehand. The same person, September Alkaloid, and I were in my basement again. We waited, listening to PWEI (This Is The Day... is a great CD!) and Negativland. After I was sure that everybody had gone to sleep, I took an 800ish mg cap. We killed more time between music, talking, and me playing my didgeridoo. We had a pile of CDs, a CD player, a Boosteroo (a 3-headphones from 1 plug thing + amplifier), a headphones for each of us, sleeping bags, a CD player, and a lot of floor space. We listened to much of the same cds as mentioned before, along with some Led Zep, the Evangelion soundtrack, and a didgeridoo CD. Didgeridoos are those big Australian Aborigine instruments. *Pwuuuuuuwuwuwuuuu*. We were in total darkness, except for the eerie blue glow of a VCR clock. It illuminated the room to make a view a lot like the cover of Rx: Bedside Toxicology (a release with Ogre from skinny puppy and Martin Atkins from Pigface; it's really good, too), but in blue instead. DXM is very blue-grey to me. We used a static TV screen as a light source to find CDs. At one point, I asked him to turn off the TV. "Ok*click*ay." Before he even moved it reach for it, it turned off. "Thanks." Kinda like people turning off street lights while on dxm. I've been able to do it in a non-drug state (I was _really_ calm from having a lazy day, though, so it was pretty similar) 10 times in a row *on* *off* with a little bathroom light, but never seen anyone else do it. I don't absolutely believe in magick and psionics, but I've seen enough to know that a significant amount of both exist and are possible. I'm wondering if it's in the right brain because it seems to always happen outside of language, and language is in the left brain. I'm also extremely left handed and right brained. We tried holding hands while listening to long songs to see if we would enter in one together (I've had a mutual projection with somebody before, but that was in a half-awake state and was more directed). It didn't work, instead it detracted from the trip and the whole body dissolved except for the hands. While I was changing a CD I asked S.A.: "Did you, did you trip like I do? "Have you, have you tripped like I do?" And he told me what had happened to him, and how the long song absorbtion thing is good. "Yes you, yes you tripped like I do," or something came out, although I couldn't talk too coherently and I'm sure it sounded pretty stupid. During "Where Do I Begin ~ the Private Psychedelic Real", the universe started to slowly collapse back into me, like blue-tin-foil-flocked-pudding regressing into a vacuum cleaner in my third eye. My mental radar, which was not noticable until it left me while tripping the first time, and now is slightly usable in normal consciousness, mainly so I don't stub my toes anymore. The whole universe collapsed into me, and then I started to move up and down, like I was being unglued from this universe. Death and The Hermit. I found myself lying on some sort of rectangular platform, being raised through a hole in the ceiling. All the walls were white, everything was white. There was no color, no total abscence of white, just lesser amounts of infinite white for contrast. I was raised to a higher level, where a nonvisual personification of the greek goddess Eris (re: Principia Discordia) was standing. My trips are very rarely visual, more often auditory or only in some kind of higher senses. Now, for this part, keep in mind that I'm an athiest / taoist / discordian, and have a rather deliberately chaotic perspective. I was dumbfounded. I looked around at the white, white everywhere, and finally decided to ask, "Is this heaven?" She looked at her watch. "No, I think it's Ireland." "Ireland?!" "Yeah." I started to laugh quiiite hard. "Well, hmm...looks kinda like Heaven to me. What's the difference?" "No Catholics in Heaven," she said, and giggled. Everything laughed at everything else. I laughed at me, I laughed at Me. There was no emotion but laughter, but the laughter split into a spectrum of everything as light through a prism. The platform started to descend, and I waved goodbye. The platform descended to another area, but I can't remember how that place looked. "Is this Hell?" "No." It was just ennui and regret. I yawned and the platform carried me back up. It would have been pretty fitting to hear a recorded voice telling me how to get off the platform, much like at a roller coaster. But there was nothing, only the tail end of the Private Psychedelic Reel. It's the best song for DXM besides Thind Eye, in my opinion. There was one point (my sequence went out to lunch so I really can't sort out when this happened in relation to everything else) where I decided to trade places with September Alkaloid. In between songs, we switched headphones and positions on the floor. He had big, heavy headphones that totally covered his ears, and I had tiny headphones that went right into my ears. I laid on top of his sleeping bag, about 3 feet to my left of where I had been, and then he was on my right, on my sleeping bag. As soon as I sat in his spot, there was a sense of becoming him. I can't remember that part too well, but I had a sense that I was in 'his' basement, of something having to do with 'my' room, some past memories that must have been his (I can't really remember them, the GFJ also made it far harder to remember things, usually I don't have any problem up to about 1400 mgs). If I could remember them in detail, I would have asked them if they were actual memories. That would have been quite interesting if they were... The GrapeFruit Juice definately had an effect. It removed any tolerance I had (more familiarity than biochemical tolerance) as the situation was *vastly different*. ... Unfortunately, the hangover was also vastly different. Instead of the usual day-long, it lasted for FOUR days. And it faded much slower than usual. The last two days I also had a slight headache, although the connection is only a guess. It was still worth it, though. Anyone who wishes to comment on this can reach me at some-guy@juno.com. "I like days where I have as many teeth in my mouth when I go to bed as I did when I woke up." - Dave Blakeslee CONFUSION ABOUT DXM AND GRAPEFRUIT JUICE by FuzzyCow Through all the hype about the effects of grapefruit juice with DXM, there is still some confusion. In recent Usenet posts in alt.drugs.psychedelics it has become apparent that very few people realize what the grapefruit juice really does. Well, I'll try to shed some light. By now everybody should at least have some idea of the P450-enzymes and the fact that grapefruit juice inhibits it. (Read the GFJ + DXM FAQ in issue 8) These P450 enzymes are the main cause of confusion. The DXM + Grapefruit Juice FAQ says this about the combo: "The Grapefruit juice acts on DXM by inhibiting the activity of cytochrome P450 enzymes of the 3A and 1A groups. DXM is converted to DXO by this same enzyme, only with different groups. Therefore, with enough grapefruit juice, your overall trip should be better. Not only have I tried this and agree that it makes the DXM more potential, but others also agree. Gravol, author of the DXM Zine, has said himself that grapefruit juice in fact increases the potency of the DXM." This is vague and somewhat misleading. If you read this you get the idea that grapefruit juice has something to do with the conversion of DXM to DXO. This is NOT the case. DXM is metabolized in the body into the inactive 3-hydroxymorphinan (3HM). This happens through two routes. The first route goes from DXM to DXO and then to 3HM. The second route goes from DXM to 3-methoxymorphinan (3MM) and finally to 3HM. DXM / \ P450-2D6 / \ P450-3A / \ DXO 3MM \ / P450-3A \ / P450-2D6 \ / 3HM As you can see in this drawing (from the DXM FAQ: www.frognet.net/dxm) the DXM is metabolized by two different enzymes: the P450-2D6 and the P450-3A. This is the catch not pointed out in the FAQ. Grapefruit juice inhibits on the P450-3A enzyme, while the DXM->DXO breakdown is due to P450-2D6. So, what happens when you drink grapefruit juice with DXM? Contrary to popular belief, the DXM to DXO breakdown will proceed normally, since the 2D6 enzyme is unaffected. The breakdown to 3MM, however, is reduced. This is good, since 3MM is not psychoactive. You will thus boost your trip somewhat. Still, this is not the major effect of grapefruit juice because very little DXM (about 10%) is metabolized through this route. The more important effect is inhibiting the DXO->3HM metabolism. About 90% of the DXM you ingest will be metabolized to DXO. The DXO is then metabolized to 3HM, and by inhibiting this you will effectively keep the DXO in your body longer and therefore decrease the DXM:DXO ratio. This makes for a more "stoned" feeling, but since the DXM to DXO metabolism is not affected and the DXM->3MM metabolism is decreased, you will also have slightly more DXM in your system. The trip will also last a little longer. Information about this effect is limited, but it seems that the DXO's effects will last up to about 30% longer. The DXM will also last slightly longer, possibly around 10%. This is because less DXM will be lost through conversion to 3MM. Obviously it all depends on the amount of grapefruit juice consumed. So, in short: If you take grapefruit juice with DXM you will have slightly more DXM effects (stimulation, cognitive alterations, delusions) and a marked increase of the DXO effects (dissociative and intoxicating). The duration of the trip will also increase. On a different note, remember that grapefruit juice also interact with many of the other ingredients commonly found in OTC cough syrups, like antihistamine, which can be FATAL. If in doubt, don't do it. I came very close to making this mistake myself, but luckily the DXM Zine #7 arrived just in time for me to read the warning. References: o The DXM FAQ - http://www.frognet.net/dxm/ o http://www.psa.org.au/qld/grapefruit.htm o http://home.pacbell.net/slamnan/hackyourhead.html o DXM Zine 7 & 8 - http://members.xoom.com/fuzzycow/dxm/ o The DXM and grapefruit juice FAQ Also thanks for Robert F. Golaszewski for helping me out on this issue. THE THIRTY-SIXTH TRIP by Anonymous [Names and a few identifying details have been changed. Aliases are those that we use on the Third Plateau message board]. The evening had come as a small surprise to me in that Play had implied, on the previous day, that he did not wish to trip with me. Hence, I grew more than a little excited about the prospect of taking my highest dose with a friend. I had decided on a dose of just a bit more than my previous highest, this dose being 325mg I had set in my mind but had not mentioned to anybody or myself had kept much concentration on. As it came to be, according to the trip notes, at 9:19PM on the very dark evening of Saturday, the 14th of November, in the year 1998, I began to measure out the thick and nasty grape syrup. In nice orange cups I poured the thick slime, it resting at the bottom of the cup as liquids do under the force of gravity, with a slight fume of grape floating away and catching a bit at my gag reflex. In my haste and with not paying attention to the mathematics I poured us 125ml of the syrup each, actually turning out a dose of 375mg of DXM instead of the original 325mg I had thought. I decided that the dose would be fine, or rather, must be acceptable for I would not inconvience myself with pulling the thick syrup out of the cups. With intent of masking taste I poured a large amount of Sunkist orange juice, it being the orangest tasting of all juices, ontop of the thick clear syrup. Bringing the drinks out to the television room of the middle, or ground floor, I and Play began to drink our drinks at 9:27PM. Myself having developed a pattern of chugging the nastiness down my throat, not wanting to endure the taste for longer than I must, I had the entire contents of the cup in my stomach by 9:32PM. I quickly followed this with another large glass of orange juice, for the evil grape taste in which the heavenly substance hid would not exit my mouth. This orange juice as well as four vitamin C tablets dismissed the taste to my pleasure. Knowing I must be in a good mood to have an enjoyable voyage and being prone to periods of anxiety while on drugs I attempted to engage my mind in the antics of a Jackie Chan movie on the television. [Q], who was not taking any drugs, and Play laughed at the contents of the film, however having only eyes for the film and not the attention of the mind I did not laugh as much. My thoughts turned to feelings of mild anxiety which I gently pushed away, or would be replaced with mild frustration, upon seeing Play slowly sipping at his special beverage. "C'mon Play, chug it down." I said, a streak of pleading being mixed into the tone. "I'm taking it slow. I don't want to upset my stomach." Play replied, possibly referring to the calzone he'd eaten earlier which would make a brief appearance later in the evening. Finally, with a few of my persistent urgings and the passing of time, Play had nearly finished his drug cocktail at the time of 9:50PM. This too being the time at which my vision seems to be a little dreamy and myself feeling an 'odd' sensation, causing myself to realize the drug was oozing into my brain. Eight many minutes later Play had finished ingesting the DXM, and we left the house promptly, giving our "good-bye"s to [Q], who headed toward his own house. We'd left quickly due to my own urging and me mentioning to Play that I was prone to bad trips. Play began relating to me how the purple glow of my fair city of residence, Toronto, was akin to the purple glow he'd noticed in his previous home city. While wandering down the city streets lit by orange street lamps and this newly noticed purple glow I mentioned a few lights that irritated me during my life time. Odd that this purple glow of the city was actually caused by the orange city lights. We began down a long hill, on the paved side of a busy road, towards the entrance to the valley which Play seemed a little disoriented about. Upon entering the valley, a very dark and wet place indeed, we decided to take the path that would incedentally be furthest from the police station and nearest to the path home. Definately within the walls of the forrest along the narrow muddy path I noticed how detatched and simply different everything looked. The forrest, with its intense branches of trees and overwhelming amount of life and hiding places revealed its dark undertones to myself, but not changing my bouncy and happy spirits. The path had its awkward slant for us to negotiate, becoming a slight task as balance started to leave us. Play said, "Ahh, I think I'm starting to get the hallucinogenic qualities of this drug." While proceeding further through the valley he'd mention a few qualities of the drug, such as mild lilliputian hallucinations and balance disturbances. Play spoke slowly and quietly, a sign I took as him coming into a bad trip, as though being disturbed by the setting. Later conferring with Play he told me that he felt as though he were starting to enter a bad trip at this point. "When does the euphoria hit?" He asked me. I answered, "Well, we are in the first plateau definately, so it should have hit us. We may have already passed it but I don't think so. It is setting dependant. We have to be more euphoric." "How do we be euphoric in the middle of a valley?" He asked then, still in the quiet tone, rather unnervingly to myself. "I don't know. Start joking around." As we neared a grocery store at the edge of the valley Play began to speak of how warm he felt and that he'd like to start heading back to my house. I told him I felt warm too but hadn't noticed. I also mentioned heading towards a nearby park because it was my favourite place to visit while dexxed. He wanted to head home so we cut across the parking lot of the grocery store, it seeming much dimmer than it should be and colours being noticeably richer than usual. "I think I'm already hitting the second plateau. It has been about an hour since I dosed." I told Play. We continued gliding back towards my house, feeling irrulevant towards the outside world. Play told me he felt like we were walking through a model town and I agreed, telling him such was the effect of dissociation. Even dimmer and more detatched the outside world seemed, except for those annoying car lights, which seemed very bright and close. Upon the front steps of my house we had reached. Play told me, "I feel like I'm on autopilot." Without thinking I replied, "So do I." As though my body did the work for me, my hands brought my keys out and unlocked the front door. We went into the television room we had been in earlier and I proceeded to set the atmosphere by turning off a few lights, noting to myself how I didn't feel disturbed by darkness but seemed to enjoy it. In the television room, at the request of Play, I opened the doors so the cold November air could come through the screen and cool us off. I entered into the notes that the time was 10:45PM and that setting truly seemed enhanced. With the measuring of my heart-rate I found it to be around 120 beats per minute which caused a slight and momentary anxiety only to be pushed away by my conscious mind. "I feel much more comfortable here." Play told me and I agreed. Now television seemed very interesting and entertaining. I sat and watched the remainder of Duckman which was on. I could perceive each individual frame of animation on television because of the flanging of my vision. The voices of the characters had become flanged as well and seeming detatched. So there I was, I figured, in the second plateau and nothing to do but enjoy it for as long as I would be there, it seeming to be a very long time then. Yes, I thought, 'this is now getting intense', as the time dialation was becoming heavier than I'd ever known from DXM. At 11PM The Simpsons came on the television and was an older episode to the dissapointment of Play, but I reassured him the the episode had its moments. We sat there with that nice cold November breeze filling the room and us feeling quite good. Play now felt as though he were no longer entering into a bad trip and started loosing his memory around here. "Play, I feel so good. I mean if this was like acid I would be pretty nervous right now but I'm feeling so euphoric. The nice thing about this drug is that it's not as intense and crazy as acid but has all the nice mental effects. I feel really good." I said enthusiastically, spilling over my own words and carrying on to the same effect. Play assured me he was feeling good as well. For the duration of the Simpsons Play recalls nothing other than still feeling bad but not bad in the sense of entering a bad trip, simply he had been overcome by a general "bad" feeling. He also remembers, this being the only other thing he remembers from this point, that he felt unable to move but that didn't bother him at all. When I entered another note in the log at 11:19PM Play mentioned how it seemed like we'd been watching the Simpsons for hours. It really did. When we stood up at the end of the Simpsons we both had the oh so standard "whoa" reaction. I felt a bit dizzy and my heavy body feeling from earlier had subsided into a pleasant light feeling. I noted a problem with focusing my eyes whenever they moved, which they seemed to do on their own and a very slight double vision. Then upon walking came an even larger "whoa" reaction, due to the fact we seemed to only be able to do the infamous "Robo-walk" and motion seemed to have an effect on gravity. We grinned as we wandered to my basement feeling very euphoric about the motion and balance distortions. In my basement we put Play's "Aphex Twin" CD on and began dancing strangely to the music. The music had a strange beat with many metallic clashes but all I could notice was its intense impact and warpedness and flanging, as though the music had been run through a long metal pole and then amplified. "I feel like a creature from the dead. Y'know like in 'Night of the Living Dead'? My muscles are all rubbery. I just feel like I'm back from the dead." Play exclaimed while dancing under the bright basement lights. I agreed with him, actually feeling or knowing through some intense pre-sensory hallucination that I were a creature that had just been resurrected an stepped out of a tomb and my basement suddenly seemed like some horror movie basement. No visual or auditory hallucinations occured but it was as though I could see the truth through the setting, which was seeming farther and farther from my mind. Suddenly as a shooting star appears in the night sky Play said, "I think I'm getting the naseau back. Excuse me while I vomit. Don't think I'm panicking because I'm not, in fact, I feel great." I smiled at him as he wandered to the bathroom and began to vomit, myself at first being shy of watching but then not caring at all to see him leaning over the toilet, however not actually watching the vomit spew from his body. "Turn down the music, I don't want to get a bad association." He said and I oblidged. "How's it feel to puke?" I asked, again stumbling over my own words. He puked then said, "I feel great." Then he puked again. This carried on for perhaps two or three minutes as we held a conversation about puking on DXM. Play had actually felt ecstatic while vomiting! Inspecting the contents of the toilet he said, "Ahh it's the calzone!" [Note the reappearance of the calzone.] I then grew somewhat puke envy, wanting to own the same experience but unfortunately not holding the naseau. In the notes, at 11:32PM I entered: "[Play] puked and it didn't even bug us. We're in a great mood!" For an amount of time, seeming like a very long time but myself not recalling much from the period in question we stayed in the basement doing a bit of dancing and talking. "Man, I listened to this on acid and I would sort of get it." Play said, referring to his CD. "But I totally get it on dex." "Yeah the music is really appropriate." I said and then wandered over to the speaker. "I can see that the music comes out of the speaker this far. I don't get it. It's just like I can 'feel' how far it comes out into space." Doing more dancing I noticed the ceiling seemed to be too short to allow me to be standing upright, such was the perspective. At my mentioning of this to Play he instantly agreed. Then he looked at a painting on the wall. "Whoa, look Kid. The water's flowing." He said. I saw it too and said, "I see it too." As I said that the water stopped flowing. "I'm going to try to make it go backwards." At my attempts to mentally control the water in the picture, in the reality seeming so very far away from my mind and soul, I could only get the mouth of the river seem to open up but Play could get it to flow backwards. I beleive at this point Play decided to have a smoke on my back deck but I could be mistaken. We turned the lights in the basement off, myself liking to be neat and tidy, and headed upstairs. On the way up the stairs Play said to himself, "Ahhh, there it is." I asked him what he referred to with his astonished sounding speech. Casually he said, "Ohh I just saw that thing I always see on those TV 'drugs are bad' ads. It's that weird flanging and tracing effect I just saw." I beleive while this being the point we stood on my deck with Play puffing away at a delicious tobacco stick I began to see the deck move, as though pulsing in and out, a common DXM hallucination for me. Then we decided to go onto the Internet so I could show Play the Third Plateau site. Thus the peak of the experience began. Upon entering my room I automatically flipped the computer on and Play loaded his CD into my CD player. I felt as though my room were a room on a spaceship. It was as though I "knew" that outside my windows was a vast starscape and we were here in this spaceship so far away from everything and everyone else. I also "knew" that within my wall were many spaceship technologies such as wires and circuits and such. My room had become a spaceship without any sensory hallucinations. "I feel like going onto the Internet is like we're going really far to like meet all these people." I said, having by then adopted a rather odd stumbly and jittery manner of speech. My eyes, something curious having happened from taking the drug, had to take a while to focus but would focus without common double vision of the second plateau. My room did seem to be on a rather odd slant and I thought it best not to mention my pre-sensory hallucination of a spaceship because I worried about zero-gravity sickness. I beleived, rather lucidly imagining the situation, that if I mentioned the feeling of being in a spaceship then suddenly the spaceship would spin in circles and cause irritating motion sickness. Logging on to the Internet had become a task, quite a suspicious hint to myself that we were fried. Upon reaching this Third Plateau site, which was acheived through the mainframe of my spaceship, Play and I slowly posted a rather silly and somewhat incoherent message to everyone. I began typing and curtiously allowed Play to type. Play began typing and stopped. "I can't type." "Just don't look at your hands. Don't think about it." I instructed helpfully. He tried and failed. "No it's too hard. You type for me." So my body became under the control of his mind which didn't seem too odd because the body I called "mine" was always under the remote control of my own mind, so why couldn't I let Play use my body. However he had the dissadvantage of having to use a vocal link whereas I could think things and my body would obey. He told me what to type, at least some of it and then paused. "I don't know what I'm doing." He said. "I can't remember what I wanted to type." I reassured him, "I don't know what I'm doing either." He looked at the screen, struggling to read, as did I, having trouble discerning what line followed which. Then Play said, "We already typed it." The transmission form being filled out we submitted it and left the Internet via abrubtly pushing my computer off. Then I recalled the trip log so I entered the following, being rather surprised at the time: "12:15PM - feel great! Both of us really enhanced setting. On internet. Feel great." Play began dancing to his music and took of his shirt. Being the protocol he asked if I minded. I repsonded by telling him I did not mind. Next I recall being down in the television room where the good computer is located. I turned it on and Play and I began joking around. We began laughing a lot because Play simply said "dello" instead of "hello" and I proceed to talk and make many jokes and Play and I did laugh a very suspicious amount. Then remembering the notes again, sensing a lot of time had passed, I pulled out the notes and checked my watch for the entry. The time, according to my watch, which was the direct link to time, was only 12:34PM. We stayed on the computer not long at all because neither of us could drive on Need For Speed III. So we immediately went downstairs (it still being around 12:35PM). When we arrived downstairs we turned the television to a 'snow' channel and put Play's appropriate CD back on for us to hear. Upon staring at the television in darkness I began to perceive the at first random dots as actually being three-dimensional diamond shapes. I sat on the couch with Play, his dark figure being oddly cast by the light of the speaker and me being aware of the strangeness of the experience. I knew the situation was that which only occured under a drugged condition but it didn't seem as such to me. My feeling as to the situation swung from feeling like we were simple odd humans who enjoyed watching nothing to feeling as though we were in the future of humanity. These feeling of situation were again accompanied by intense enhancements of setting, meaning many "pre-sensory" hallucinations again. The television dots, actually being black and white, began to shift to colour, predominantly red and I perceived three-dimensional images. These perceived images were not hallucinations as though I'd taken LSD and stared at the television but as though now my mind could truly see a truth. It was beautiful and all this time I beleive I babbled many words to Play who stayed mostly silent. "I think I'm having the most beautiful experience of my life." I exclaimed silently. "Really?" Play asked, not in shock but simply in wonder. I entered the event into the log, the time, to my severe astonishment being only 12:45AM (oddly I entered the first few AMs as PMs in the log). We stayed not long as Play decided to have another delicious stick of tobacco, myself accompanying him on the back deck. We noted that we did not feel cold at all although it very definately must've been very cold. A few times we commented to each other how slanted the deck seemed or how Play looked much shorter than myself, which he is not. Proportions and sizes outside were definately all screwed up, the best of which I remember my house seeming too small for living in from the outside and Play saying it looked very large to him. We headed into my kitchen and discussed how dispite our severe short term memory problems and time dialation and hallucinations we felt that we were still thinking normally, although Play expressed a feeling of having less thoughts in his head. I did not agree, saying that I instantly verbalized all of my thoughts, such was the reason I rambled so much the entire evening and usually rambling of nothing at all (or nothing worth entering into this story). Play complained of being hungry and I gave him peanut butter and jam and bread and pointed him in the right direction for making a sandwhich type tools. We found the jam difficult to open which we laughed very much about. "We should enter that into the log." I stuttered. "Yes, definately." I wondered aloud, "But what do I write?" Play suggested "Write 'too stoned to open jam', and that should be good enough." I entered into the log at 1:06AM: "too stoned to open jam. So silly." We laughed a lot more. In the darkness of the kitchen we both started smelling the peanut butter and noted it had a good smell, much like peanut butter to our extreme amusement. We then proceeded upon a course of action of conversing what what seemed like a very long time in my kitchen. I noted only about ten minutes passed and again we headed into the basement. This time we did not put on the television and instead were detirmined to have closed-eye or in-darkness visuals. I put on my Pink Floyd CD, "Wish You Were Here", and proceeded to play the song "Welcome to the Machine", which started with the intense machine noises as it should. The distortions and enhancement of sound became extreme, to the point where I felt as though this giant machine lived in my entire basement and surrounded us. Play described how the speaker seemed to shift in and out of the corner of the wall, which I always notice but refer to more as a "pulsing." When the actual music of the song started I looked to the darkness of the room and it seemed to get darker, as though my pupils were constricting, then patterns emerged and flowed. The patterns were odd and not very vivid with my eyes open. I asked Play what he was experiencing and he told me that staring at the electronic light on the cable box seemed to move and some patterns appeared and of course, I saw it too as he suggested it. In that beautiful and very strange darkness my mind or soul or consciousness or awareness or all of them together seemed to leave my body and brain behind and merge with the darkness and music. The next song, "Have A Cigar", began which I am very fond of and waited for my favourite part of the song, still being very detatched from my body. As the song came to the part "did we tell you the name of pain, boy? We call it riding the gravy train..." I found I could not sing along because of a sheer ecstasy I felt from the music. After that part I don't recall if we let the CD continue or put a new one on but all I know is I decided to close my eyes because the increasing darkness of the room felt as though it should be disturbing. Eyes closed and suddenly I was no longer attatched to the body I had once known as mine. Rather I seemed to be in another body which I could not feel, very akin to dreaming, and I stood and ran feeling as though in a video game. This "game" consisted of much running through strange landscapes, in which each object were evenly coloured in a brilliant colour, and in front of me was a long toy snake I recalled very well from childhood which for some reason knocked objects out of the way. "I'm having hallucinations." I heard my body say. "They're neat like being in a video game with chain-link snakes." I knew what I said must have sounded as though non-sense but it had simply floated from my mouth and I knew that I could not explain at the moment. Opening my eyes I returned to the basement and brain, and somewhat to body. Play just looked at me as if in response but not vocalising any words. I have only a rough idea that we spent about a half of an hour, based on the trip log, in darkness of the basement. Then we put the lights on and perhaps started discussing our hallucinations. I think we may've put the television back on but I am unsure. I know we still felt very good and the lights of the basement were on by 1:42PM (as my log is written in). We started feeling very good again, in the euphoric and stimulated sense, and I began laughing because Play had a gas problem. At 1:58AM I entered into the log that I felt like I was starting to return to everyday reality and Play concurred. On the television was put before 2:00AM because I recall watching a show about gigantic dumptrucks and other large construction vehicles. In my mind I saw future houses resembling these 24 foot tall dumptrucks, being very luxurious and cool to live in, so being inspired at 2:00AM I entered into the log: "I want to live in a 24 foot tall dump truck, hydraulic, nuclear powered, on wheels house." Following that we watched a live religious talk show where the host wanted people to call in with their personal proof that God existed. I felt indifferent to this show but I think Play enjoyed it so I entered a few things into the log and asked Play a few questions, such as whether he felt the intense empathy I did. Again, at this point, I did much talking as was the trend during the trip. Sometime, I beleive around 2:30AM we wandered up to the ground floor television room and watched the same talk show about God while chatting. Play and I seemed to have an endless reserve of laughs so we laughed some more about how fucked up we'd been earlier, especially about the conversation during Play's vomiting. Vision became less flangy and sound slowly and unnoticedly returned to normal as we watched this talk show, Play also playing Grand Theft Auto at the same time on the computer. One caller phoned in claiming to have been a satanist and having sacrificed an infant and his proof of a God was a slogan that Play and I gave a brief chuckle about. I started to feel tired nearing 3AM but by no means normal. Many psychic disturbances, such as the extreme time dialation, sight and sound flanging, pre-sensory hallucinations and dissociation from body and brain were fading quickly. Other mental effects persisted, including slight problems with balance and gait, thought process disruptions (which I had assumed were not present while peaking), and colour enhancemet. When walking around my house and looking out the window both Play and I noticed how distorted size still seemed. For myself, around 3:10AM, upon looking out a window at a large, leafless oaktree the branches began to move and grow like they were a spider web. I told Play that I was still hallucinating but he said he didn't seem to be and in fact, thought he was not tripping anymore because of how well he'd been playing Grand Theft Auto. I agreed with him, at the time, but no longer do because when he left around 4AM I did a bit of typing, went on the Internet to the Third Plateau and did more typing and began to go to bed. I found myself feeling as though I should feel deep terror and also feel very disturbed but oddly I felt neutral, almost robotic. Laying in the darkness of my room, cozy in my bed, I noted how the walls seemed to still pulse in and out mildly (this was around 4:45AM). When I closed my eyes there were no colourful landscapes as before, just darkness, but my body felt as though it occupied the only existing space, making me feel huge and yet small. Also, I felt my body as being distorted in proportions, and still numb. My mind, the pure thought process that combined with my awareness and soul, to form the "I" was not normal. I thought differently, I noticed, and concluded that I had been thinking differently for the entire duration of the trip but hadn't been able to tell due to the dissociation. Slowly the hallucinations ended around 5:30AM and I found myself on the brink of being all the way back, definately not wanting to return. I wished I could stay at the peak forever and in some way I did stay there permanently but I just couldn't let myself return. Of course, I fell asleep, around 6AM. I woke up at 12PM, a mere 6 hours later, feeling very refreshed and with the intense sensation of having 'returned to myself.' IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED... by Cashmere Dosage: 354mg Subject: Male, 6'2" 210 lbs. I first started taking DXM a couple of weeks ago. I first heard about it when I was reading through some files at a site called Hackers Secrets. It was under the heading of psychedelic. This intrigued me because although I had heard about taking Robitussin before, I never thought it was a psychedelic. The reason I was there, is because I was planning on buying two hits of acid and taking them with my friend. I always tried to read up on any drugs I have taken, which includes marijuana, mushrooms, and LSD. I only read one article on Robitussin, and decided to try it out later. A few days later, I faked sick and stayed home from school. I asked my mom to pick me up a bottle of cough syrup, remembering the article I read. She got a 6 oz. bottle of generic DayQuil. After she left for work, I mixed half the bottle (6 tsp. = 2 tbsp. = 1 oz.) and 4 Alka-Seltzer Plus Cold & Cough with a small cup of ginger ale. The taste was horrible. I couldn't finish it. I decided to dump that out and take the shots of DayQuil. After about an hour, I began to feel dizzy. This feeling lasted about four hours then slowly faded away. Feeling disappointed, I decided to get a 4 oz. bottle of Robitussin Maximum Strength Cough. I went to my Dad's house that weekend, and took half the bottle of Robotussin around 9:00 p.m. I also got a hit of acid (blotter form) which turned out to be fake. After about an hour, I began to feel as though I would throw up. My stomach didn't really hurt, I just had a familiar feeling of emptyness in my stomach and in the back of my throat. I called my friend Eric, and lay on the couch listening to a CD. I was afraid to move, because I thought I was going to throw up. After about half an hour, although it felt like 2 hours, I began to feel better. I told Eric I would call him later and shut every light out in the house. I felt dizzy when I walked, and was constantly bumping into things. I layed back down on the couch, and listened to the music. I began imagining strange things, such as being eaten by the couch, being smothered by the walls, and small devils gathering around me and poking me with flaming pitchforks. They weren't hallucinations so much as extremely vivid thoughts. I could see them perfectly when I closed my eyes. I didn't realize at the time, but I was having a bad trip. This was because my step sister left me alone after she said she would stay with me while I was tripping, which made me extremely upset. I wasn't really bothered by these images, because I knew they were just thoughts, in fact, I thought it was really neat. When my sister finally came home, she found me sitting in total darkness clutching a pillow and sitting in silence. I began to come down around 12:30 a.m. After talking with my step mother who came home drunk at around 1:00 a.m., I finally went to sleep at 3:20. I woke up the next morning at around 11:00 a.m. feeling a bit groggy, but pretty good. That's all for this trip, but I'll be writing again to tell of my other trips. NMDA ANTAGAONIST NEUROTOXICITY AND OLNEY'S LESIONS, PART ONE by William White Note: This is a two-part article. The first part concentrates on background information on NAN, and the second part describes how to prevent and limit NAN. What is NMDA Antagonist Neurotoxicity and How do I Prevent It? When NMDA antagonists were first studied they seemed like a dream come true: here were drugs which could block from part to all of the damage from strokes, head injury, hypoxia, polio, and a variety of other conditions. However, it seems that nature never gives something for nothing, and here too there was another side to the coin. The dream ended when Olney et al. demonstrated that animals given huge doses of dizocilpine (MK-801), a new dissociative used in research, showed curious vacuoles (essentially, tiny holes) in tissue samples in the posterior cingulate cortex and retrosplenial cortex of lab animals. Further research showed that other indicators of damage were present, such as proliferation of microglia and induction of a protein called HSP70 (Heat-Shock Protein 70). Since then, Onley's lesions, also known as NMDA Antagonist Neurotoxicity or NAN, have been discovered with ketamine, PCP, and dextrorphan, all noncompetitive NMDA antagonists. Competitive NMDA antagonists have also been shown to cause Olney's lesions. PCP causes additional damage to the cerebellum and other areas, possibly due to its unique pharmacology. Drugs which bind to the polyamine site on the NMDA receptor evidently do not cause Olney's lesions, although nobody is quite sure why. Curiously, NAN may be worse in females than in males. Overview and Mechanism of Olney's Lesions The mechanism for Olney's damage is still being sorted out, and is somewhat perplexing, since NMDA antagonists generally protect neural tissue from damage rather than causing it. Trying to tie everything together is a little like trying to solve a crime with only circumstantial evidence; there are clues, but nobody's been able to watch the criminal in action. Here is what current research seems to indicate, pieced together into a coherent whole. A simplified explanation is given below. 1. Dissociative anaesthetics activate neurons in the posterior cingulate cortex (PC) and retrosplenial cortex (RC) in lab animals (and presumably humans). There is also secondary, "downstream" activation of neurons in the entorhinal cortex, dentate gyrus of the hippocampus, and olfactory regions. There are two theories for why this happens; either one, both, or neither could be true. One theory is that NMDA receptors are found on inhibitory GABA interneurons, and that when these receptors are bocked, these interneurons secrete less GABA, and thus excitatory pyramidal neurons that normally receive a lot of GABA inhibition are overexcited. The other theory is that the PC and RC are less affected by NMDA blockade than the hippocampus (and related areas), and that these formations serve as feedback to the hippocampus and surrounding networks. As these limbic networks are inhibited, the PC and RC increase thhippocampus (and related areas), and that these forma300). 2. The overactive cells begin to heat up, use up their energy supply generate toxic waste products, and/or let in too many calcium ions. 3. Regardless of the mechanism, or whether the mechanism is none of the above, the overactivity seems to cause intracellular organelles (notably mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum) to malfunction. 4. The mitochondria probably lose their proton gradient and allow their innards to spill into the surrounding cell material, where they cause all sorts of trouble, possibly including forming free radicals which cause further damage to the cell. Another possibility is that the free radicals come first, and they cause damage to the mitochondria and other organelles. Mitochondrial damage can occur within 15 minutes of the drug dose, the endoplasmic reticulum is damaged 30 minutes, and in both cases gets worse as time progresses. 5. The cell responds to this damage with a protein called HSP70. This "heat shock" protein is made and activated when something (such as overheating, thus the name "heat shock protein" or HSP) is causing a cell to mal- function so badly as to be in danger of self-destructing, and its job is to turn the cell off until repairs can be made. Hopefully, the cell will get a lot of rest (about 24 hours) until it goes back to normal. At this point the problem is still reversible and the brain cells have not been permanently damaged. 6. If the cell continues to be overexcited, it eventually burns out completely as the increased temperature, disrupted ion gradient, hypoxia, calcium ions, free radicals, and/or buildup of waste products kill it. At this point, surrounding support cells called microglia are activated and come in and eat the cell (probably under the theory that if an infectious organism caused the cell death, it'd better be destroyed before the infection can spread). 7. Then, scientists come along, freeze the brain, and slice it up into thin slivers. During the fixing process, the disrupted intracellular organelles expand to form vacuoles, the HSP70 shows up with tests designed to look for it, and the dead cells and proliferating microglia show up on microscope slides. 8. The scientists take pictures, publish papers, thank their lucky stars that they aren't the rats who just took ten times the human anaesthetic dose of dizocilpine, and go home and fix martinis, smoke cigarettes, eat fast food, and engage in other sanctioned risk-taking behaviour (that's a joke ... yes I know there's a difference between a behaviour that kills you in twenty years and one which causes immediate brain damage). A layman's explanation of the above: when you take too high a dose of dissociatives, a few parts of your brain become wildly overexcited, the brain cells get damaged, try to shut down, and (if damaged beyond repair) die. Support cells come in to clean up the mess, and you're left with permanent brain damage. Balancing the Risks: Is Olney's Research Relevant to DXM Use? Obviously there are still a lot of questions to be answered. The most important for human users of dissociatives is whether this type of damage can occur at recreational levels, and if so, what can be done about it. Let's review the evidence both for and against Olney's lesions in human users of dissociatives. First, the evidence for. The posterior cingulate and retrosplenial cortex (PC and RC) are involved in skills which seem to be impaired in regular users of dissociatives. Olney's lesions occur at doses several times the recreational dose, but that's at one dose of the drug; repeated doses of lower amounts may cause the same damage. Olney's lesions are also only generally visible when large numbers of cells are destroyed, and they're significant enough to be visible under the microscope. Finally, conditions which increase the likelihood of Olney's lesions, such as less than ideal blood circulation to the brain, large amounts of glucose (like that found in cough syrup), concurrent use of stimulants, physical stress, hypertension, and the like, are all commonly found in drug users, who don't tend to be the healthiest lot (this is a generalization, of course). On the other hand, Onley's lesions have never been found at human recreational levels, and DXM has received little attention. Ketamine users, some of whom have used ketamine for many years, don't typically show mental impairment. Even the few DXM users who do show impairment typically return to normal after staying off DXM for several months, and at least one paper suggests the mental impairment from dissociatives may be caused by depression, not brain damage (355). DXM is typically found in hydrobromide form, and bromide is a CNS depressant and may prevent damage to the PC/RC (incidentally, that's not the reason DXM HBr is used; DXM HBr just happens to be more water-soluble than any other form). DXM syrups usually contain alcohol, which also depresses the CNS. And, the lower plateaus of DXM are equivalent to doses of ketamine and PCP lower than commonly used recreationally. Weighing the two sides I personally believe that moderate use of dissociatives is probably no harder on your brain cells than moderate use of alcohol or amphetamines (I said moderate use, not some five day fry-yer-brain speedfreak binge), and that if you use DXM sparingly (e.g., once or twice a month at lower plateaus, maybe once or twice a year at upper plateaus), you'll be just fine. In fact, I've never known anyone to suffer lasting impairment even after going through a few months of weekly DXM use at upper plateaus. But I could be wrong! Mild brain damage has a nasty way of showing up years later when you've forgotten about the stupid things you did when you were young. Next Issue: Part Two...Preventing and Limiting NAN. I FELT MY SOUL BEING RIPPED FROM MY BODY by Raoul DOSE: 720 mg DXM. Well, I had an experience with some extremely dangerous drugs a few days ago. I used to drink a bottle of Robitussin for fun. Well, I found some concentrated DXM in pill form. My friend, "O" and I decided to have some fun. A bottle like I used to drink had about 220 milligrams of dextromethorphan. We each took 720 milligrams. About two hours later, back at our house it hit us. I started getting some weird visuals on the wall. "O" was zonked out and freaked out lying on the couch. We both started hearing crazy sounds. We had total loss of any motor skills. My friend "R" paged me and asked me to come over to the tavern. I was in no shape to drive and explained this to him and he said okay. I finally convinced O to unfold the couch-bed so that we could both lie down. He did so and I climbed aboard. The entire room was spinning and we could not keep focus on anything. "Just sleep it off, we thought..." I got caught in a nasty time-loop. I experienced Hell. I thought that my basement was the only existent Universe and Jason and I were doomed to live it out in this horrible state for all eternity. God was finally punishing us for our foolish sins. I experienced the same events over and over again. Seeing my legs, leaving the bed, looking at my pager, returning to my bed, leaving my body, and then seeing my legs again. Each time I left my body, it seemed days, years, eons passed, but each time I looked at my pager only one minute had passed. We both thought that we were dying or very close to it. I felt my soul being ripped from my body. I tried to contain it, but my body began to strech and pull and my head started to get yanked from my neck. I could only console myself by assuring myself that we did not do enough to overdose. Intense visuals of torment. I could hear people screaming and dying. I knew my life was about to end. I woke up about six hours later and we were back to the ground. I was wearing a robe and the entire basement was trashed. We were still heavily high, and we spent the next hour talking about the trip. We then cleaned everything up, got some breakfast and headed to work. I am still high as write this now. That stuff makes pure LSD seem like ginger beer. There is no comparison. DXM is by far the most intense shit I have ever done. THE CYCLE OF DXM by Adolf Editor's note: This "cycle" has been reported by more than one user. Below is just a generalization of what is referred to as the cycle of DXM. Hello. I have used DXM for quite some time. In the beginning it was all peaches and cream. One of the most interesting things I noted in my early trips was the fact that I could still see traces and outlines of the room even after I closed my eyes. I found this very fascinating, but this was just the tip of the iceberg. After switching from cough syrup to Coricidin Cough & Cold, I noticed a gradual build-up of CEVs over the course of several months. With each trip, these CEVs would grow more and more intense. At the peak they were so strong that I could not even close my eyes for 5 seconds without being in an alternate reality... and I could create them and control them at will. For instance, say I wanted Cindy Crawford to appear before my eyes. Voila. Next, let's say I wanted her to appear totally nude. Bam! Boom! Bang! There she was... and she was crystal-clear as a TV screen (with a dark background outlined in white lines) right before my very eyes. I could even lay down and "channel" a presence into my room, and at once I'd see all kinds of lights and a rush of adrenaline go through my body as I began to lift up out of my physical body. It was truly amazing, even if I couldn't really remember much of the trip afterwards. These visuals continued but they started to decrease in intensity and frequency... why? I do not know. I just wish I could make them stay as strong as they were just weeks before. Soon I found myself experiencing no visuals at all. It was beyond me how you could take the SAME dosage of the SAME drug on two separate nights after ingesting the SAME food beforehand in the SAME preparation of the drug and get two TOTALLY different results... what was it causing these CEVs? I read that table salt, or NaOH, was found to slightly enhance CEVs but still this did not bring the CEVs back at full force. And neither did grapefruit juice... it was only found to increase the visuals that I already had... not make new ones appear. Pretty soon I stopped DXM for a while, because of the nasty effects that the antihistamine in Coricidin had on my eyes (perhaps the antihistamine also somehow effects the CEVs... as of this point I had not yet gotten anything in the way of CEVs on cough syrup or pure powder that I did on Coricidin... and other effects on my eyes were clearly present with Coricidin as opposed to other DXM preparations... such as the "one-eye-open syndrome"). Close to the time I stopped I did notice one other factor that seemed to generate CEVs. I read from another user how riding the lawn mower could cause an LSD flashback. It works like this: get on a riding mower for a good hour or so, and while you're whizzing around on it mowing the lawn, hit the clutch and just sit there and stare out at the grass. You're vision will start moving "backwards" and it'll appear like you're going directly back and the grass and sky are just streaming out in front of you. Of course, there is no detection of motion except in the way of vision. Anyway, I found that if I did this 12-24 hours before tripping on DXM, I had quite a few CEVs, even tho I was still in an off-period of getting CEVs. Still, what puzzled me was the fact that before, when I was during my peak of CEV-trips, I didn't have to do a thing to get CEVs... they were so intense and frequent that I just simply sat there and got blown away by them. Now, no matter what I could do, I was totally hopeless in bringing them back. Like I said, I stopped DXM for a few months then got back into it, this time doing a mix of syrup and Coricidin. And after a few months of initial usage, I began to notice that my CEVs were once again building back up. And lo and behold, I was again reaching an amazing "peak" of trips where I'd experience massive CEVs nearly everytime I tripped, and nearly everytime I closed my eyes. I got more of them on Coricidin than Robitussin, but I still got them no matter what form of DXM I did. They were quite intense and at times scary... they were again crystal clear and totally breathtaking... like watching TV in your mind. But, just like the first cycle, once I reached the peak they started going away gradually until once again I was getting no visuals whatsoever. And that is where I'm at now... my trips also do not have paranormal overtones like they did when I was at the previous peaks... and I feel they have a paranormal connection about them. Perhaps part of my brain was affected and I could communicate or receive psychic images whereas at other times this phenomenon was totally blocked. But one thing is for certain, and I am absolutely positively convinced that DXM (for me, at least) works in cycles. These cycles last about 6 months of a gradual buildup of CEVs, then all at once they go away and I'm left for at least another 6 months with hardly any CEVs whatsoever. Then all of a sudden, they just start up again and peak 3-6 months later. I wonder if anyone else has experienced similar results with DXM. One can only speculate... DXM POETRY by various authors We're trying something different for the DXM Poetry section. Because of a lack of responses in subscibers' poems, I am including famous poems in this issue where one can find enjoyment reading them while on DXM. Words can capture the soul, sometimes. I hope you enjoy. Darest Thou Now O Soul - by Walt Whitman Note: This poem speaks of the "unknown region"... "Time and Space"... and how we "burst forth"... and "float." Very similar to a DXM trip you might say. Darest thou now O soul, Walk out with me toward the unknown region, Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow? No map there, nor guide, Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand, Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that land. I know it not O soul, Nor dost thou, all is a blank before us, All waits undream'd of in that region, that inaccessible land. Till when the ties loosen, All but the ties eternal, Time and Space, Nor darkness, gravitation sense, nor any bounds bounding us. Then we burst forth, we float, In Time and Space O soul, prepared for them, Equal, equipt at last (O joy! O fruit of all!) them to fulfill O soul. I Sought My Soul - Author Unknown Note: You could say this speaks of the "Brother of DXM." I sought my soul, But my soul I could not see. I sought my God, But my God eluded me. I sought my brother, And I found all three. A Dream Within a Dream - by Edgar Allen Poe Note: DXM itself can sometimes be a "dream within a dream." Take this kiss upon thy brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow - You are not wrong, to deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if Hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream. I stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of the golden sand - How few! yet how they creep Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep - while I weep! O God! can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream? Words of William Blake Note: My favorite poet, William Blake, rings very true in my ears. He not only influenced the movie Dead Man, starring Johnny Depp, about a man journeying with an Indian and experiencing such things as peyote, but if it weren't for Blake, Jim Morrison would've never named his group the Doors, which starts us off with the first quote: Quote 1: "When the doors of perception are cleansed, man will see things as they truly are... infinite." Note: The following quote denotes to me the use of DXM in seeking enlightenment. Using DXM to spiritually advance yourself, for instance: Quote 2: "No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings." Note: The following quote reminds me of my experiences with LSD+DXM: Quote 3: "To see a world in a grain of sand Or a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand And eternity in an hour." Note: What follows are miscellaneous passages: Quote 4: "Children of the future age, Reading this indignant page, Know that in a former time, Love! sweet love! was thought a crime." Quote 5: "God's light when he unfolds it depends on the organ that beholds it." Quote 6: "A truth that's told with a bad intent beats all the lies you can invent." Quote 7: "I have looked death in the face and am no longer afraid. It is for those that remain I weep, for theirs is a solitude and pain like no other. Afterall, I am now free." My Own Stuff Note: Last time I tripped on DXM I wrote some stuff to include in this section. It's nothing great, especially when compared to the above passages, but I highly believe in using your creativity and getting the most out of your trips. Words are chosen Not always carefully, They defy what you believe And vanquish your every need. O, wisely train your tongue To words that are sung, For they convey a message That will always stay young. Note: The last poem I wrote has to do with the statue of a lion at the base of St. Augustine's most famous bridge... the Bridge of Lions. Lion, Lion standing tall, Casting his shadow ov'r all. He watches high upon his throne, For on his heath he stands alone. No one seems him, no one cares, For under Heaven's sultry air, He stands to reason, he is a king - High Protector of St Augustine. For freedom, bravery Ends all slavery. & under valiance, strength The shackles break. Lion, Lion sitting high Upon his throne up in the sky. Resting his paws upon the stone That marks the only home he's known. Maybe someday they'll hear his roar, In ev'ry ear his cry will soar Ov'r all the land & all the sea, stands the High Protector of St Augustine. DXM SITE REVIEW by Gravol This month's site review: The DXM FAQ by William White, located at www.frognet.net/dxm/contents.html. This site now has approximately 125,000 hits... it's come quite a long way. The most recent information posted by Mr. White on the site is the following: READ THIS NOW -- THIS MEANS YOU! I'm putting this in TWICE, yes TWICE, in the website to make sure you read it. The basic story is A) don't take Coricidin because it can fuck you up bad if you take too much, B) make sure you have a sitter and that everyone knows you're taking risks voluntarily. I just got a nice, friendly (yes I'm kidding) letter from someone who bitched because some kids found about DXM on some website (he didn't say which, nice of him that way), took some Coricidin, and ended up in critical because of anticholinergic toxicity. This isn't common, but it's common enough (individual susceptibility can vary a lot, and you're basically rolling the dice every time you take the stuff). DO NOT USE CORICIDIN! If you do, well, first off, I told you not to, and second, please be so kind as to leave a note, or tattoo on your forehead, Yes I know this is dangerous, I'm doing this of my own volition, don't blame anyone else if I fuck up. While we're at it, let's disclaim some more things here. First off kiddies, you're not allowed in here anymore. Sorry, but you're just going to have to learn all your drug stuff from DARE and whispers and rumors and the kid in your class who's been sniffing glue for the past couple years and now has an IQ smaller than his shoe size and that "News of the Bizarre" clip about people huffing cow shit for the methane high. And as for you adults, for my peace of mind, would you please be so kind as to have a sober sitter present who can A) drag your ass off to the hospital if need be and B) explain to everyone that yes, y'all really did know you were placing your sanity, health, and possibly your life at risk and did it anyway? I mean, I know this is America where we like to blame everyone else for our own fuckups, but that sort of stupidity ends when you decide to take recreational drugs. You fuck up, you got nobody to blame but yourself. If you can't handle that concept, go the fuck away. THE DEXTROMETHORPHAN FAQ Table of Contents The complete table of contents is too enormous to list here so I just included the title of each section. This is probably the best FAQ for any drug (or anything else for that matter) that I've ever read, and Mr. White has put in countless effort and time in constructing it. It is definitely the #1 source for DXM-related information, and I highly encourage anyone with questions to check in the FAQ first, because more than likely the answers to any of your questions are there. Once again, I'd like to thank Mr. White for completing such a wonderful FAQ full of factual and useful information! 1 Acknowledgements 2 Preliminary Information 3 DXM QuickFAQ 4 General Information About DXM 5 The DXM Experience 6 DXM Side Effects and Other Things to Avoid 7 Getting the Most Out of DXM 8 Altered States and Paranormal Experiences 9 Physiological Effects of DXM 10 Neuropharmacology of DXM 11 DXM Chemistry and Extraction 12 DXM Drug Culture 13 Mixing DXM and Other Drugs 14 DXM Experiences and Personal Reports 15 Appendices 16 Glossary 17 References Please stay tuned for next month's site. INFO ON ORDERING PURE DXM POWDER from compiled information Currently, there are many DXM suppliers that will ship to private individuals. They do not condone recreational use and will only ship for research purposes. Listed below is some basic information on them taken off the Internet. For a more precise review of these suppliers, see Issue 1. Current prices are listed, and where current prices are unavailable, I posted the old price. Just get in touch with them for the current price. Also note that a supplier who was listed in previous issues, Biogenesis Laboratories of South Africa, no longer sells DXM or Ketamine. They are still selling GHB, however (http://www.pix.za/ biogenesis). Also, these companies are no longer selling DXM: Wanman, Kris Kindell, Softearth, Plateau Labs, DxMan, DXM King, and Zachary Earnest (due to his extremely limited supplies). Biotech International: Prices (current) 10g......$20.00 25g......$55.00 55g......$85.00 110g....$130.00 Make checks/money orders payable to Adriano Sanchez. Shipping and handling is included in the above prices. International orders please add USD $7.00 to the price. We accept (International) Money Orders, Cashier's Checks and COD (Charge On Delivery) orders. Cash and personal check payments are also accepted but not recommended. COD is not available on international orders. Shipping After receiving the payment or placing the order via E-mail, the buyer will be confirmed that the order was received. We will then proceed to dispatch the order within 24 hours of receiving it. If there is a delay for any reason, the buyer will be notified immediately. After the dispatch of the order, the buyer will receive a notification informing him/her of the estimated time of arrival and any other useful information. Samples of up to 10 grams are packaged in plastic bags and dispatched via USPS First Class Mail. Samples of 25 grams and over are packaged in plastic bottles and dispatched via USPS Priority Mail (included in the sale price). Address Biotech International 2221 Saxton Hill Ave Las Vegas, NV 89106 Internet You can reach Biotech via email at Biot3ch@aol.com. MBE Technologies: Prices (current) 15g......$30 50g......$80 100g....$115 Dextromethorphan HBr USP. You must be 18 years of age or older to order from this company. All research chemicals are for laboratory research only. Not for human consumption. Read and know M.S.D.S. (material safety data sheet) prior to use. Shipping No information known. Address No information known. Internet You may reach their website at http://www.mbetech.net/. Robo K: Prices 500mg....$3 (capsule form) 1000mg...$5 (capsule form) Cash only. Each capsule contains 500mg. Two capsules cost $5 total. Shipping and handling included in prices. Shipping E-mail will be sent upon receipt of payment and upon shipping of substance. Address No information known. Internet You may reach Robo K via email at Robo_k@yahoo.com. Sean McKeon: Prices 1-15g....$8.00/gram 16-25g...$6.50/gram 26-50g...$5.50/gram 51-100g..$4.75/gram 100+g....Email for price The powder has already been placed into convenient 250mg gelcaps. Payment in cashier's check or money order only. Shipping No information known. Address No information known. Internet You may reach Sean McKeon via email at n9645852@cc.wwu.edu. SUNSET PH: Prices (current) 15g.....$45 30g.....$75 50g.....$99 The price includes shipping within the US only. Shipping They accept international orders by payment of an international money order only. International orders must add US $5 additional for shipping. Address SUNSET PH P.O. Box 180684 Austin, TX 78718-0684 Please send an email with your address before you send your money so they can have your order prepared beforehand. Internet Contact sunsetp@usa.net for more information. Chemical Resale of Santa Barbara (CRSB): Prices Check their web site for their current prices, since they tend to change from time to time. Shipping No information known. Address Chemical Resale of Santa Barbara 6 Harbor Way, Suite #171 Santa Barbara, CA 93109-2353 Internet Visit CRSB's site at http://www.sb.net/wirehead. Orders can also be emailed to wirehead@sb.net. JLF Poisonous Non-Consumables: Prices (current) 5g......$25 50g....$130 It is best to do business through their website, due to the fact that DXM is just one of the hundreds of products they sell. All products carry a 100% money-back guarantee of authenticity. Orders are usually sent in unlabeled/mislabeled (could say anything from pampers to motor-oil on the box), recycled containers. To order from them, you must call them and read their "Ordering Agreement Statement & Required Release" into a tape recorder. This is necessary to solve any legal problems that they may encounter. More information on this, including the statement itself is located at http://www.jlfcatalog.com/disclaim.html. Shipping No information known. Address JLF Poisonous Non-Consumables P.O. Box 184 Elizabethtown, IN 47232 Phone: 812 379-2508 Internet Visit their website at http://www.jlfcatalog.com/, or email info@jlfcatalog.com DXM MUSIC AND MOVIE REVIEWS by various authors The first section was written by Sckot. Leather Strip - "Serenade For The Dead" The best word to describe this cd, by far, is 'dark'. The title track is my favorite. The music has an incredibly thematic feel, and it quickly fills the room. If you listen to it while on dxm, it quickly pulls you in and becomes your entire universe. There are no lyrics, and the only words are on a sample on the last track. The booklet art conveys the feeling of the entire cd quite well: A partially decayed bird skeleton, a few leaves, and the quote, "Man is no machine, Man is no God, Mankind is, and will always be...a pest". This has a similar darkness flowing through it as much of the better Lovecraftian fiction and some 'industrial' music. The song "Grave Wisdom" from Skinny Puppy's cd "Too Dark Park" comes to mind. The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets - "Cthulhu Strikes Back" This is a Vancouver Cthulhu-Mythos grunge-ish band that I'm quite fond of. Every track on this cd is excellent (except possibly for Hookwork. But hey, 16 out of 17 isn't bad!). The entire cd reminds me of cheesy cheap horror movies, kind of the opposite of 'Serenade for the dead'. There are a lot of samples. It's a very fun cd, and some songs are hilarous...my favorites are Going Down to Dunwich, Yig Snake Daddy, and Burrow Your Way to My Heart. It's available through mail order from http://www.tccorp.com , a Cthulhu-Mythos merchandise place. If you don't know what I'm talking about, read some of the great horror works of H. P. Lovecraft (The Call of Cthulhu, The Dunwich Horror, The Shadow out of Time, ...). "Well we almost all died and Johnny's out of his mind Although we never found Yig we had a hell of a good time." - From 'The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets' Mr. Classified writes: "Days Of The New" is a band that is very strange to listen to on DXM. I listened to their self titled album while on ~450mg (I weigh ~140lbs). It is an experience I cannot shake. It went to almost a subliminal messaging type of music. I almost feel the need to listen to them about 30 min after begining my journey. I have listened to them 3x now while on DXM. While I love the experience I can't help but think that this music (or certain songs) could very well be the background noise if the apocolypse ever occurs. From various authors: Pink Floyd: 25 Years of Brain Damage Twenty-five years ago an album was released that changed the way in which music was written and recorded. With a heartbeat and a scream, Dark Side of the Moon was released and unleashed in March 1973. The product of many sessions at the famed Abbey Road studios and the masterful engineering of Alan Parsons, the album not only broke new musical ground, but sales records as well. It spent a previously unheard of 591 weeks on the Billboard charts in America and has sold nearly 30 million copies worldwide since its release. What has made Dark Side of the Moon so appealing to so many people for so long? If you have never heard the album, then you wouldn't understand how important and incredible it really was. In an era when most bands were releasing albums featuring faster and harder sounding songs or dance music, the slow and steady rhythm of the music on Dark Side was a stark contrast. Another feature of the album was the way in which the music jumped from speaker to speaker and seemed to become larger than life at times. All of this was evidence of the effort and care that the band put into creating an album that pushed the limits of modern music. The theme of the album is madness. Pure and simple. The songs on the album explore different parts of life in the modern era and the maddening effects that it can have on a person. Speak To Me opens the album with the sounds of everyday life: a heartbeat; clocks ticking; people laughing and talking; industrial sounds; and that unforgettable scream. From that point on the album explores life in basic terms: ambition, time, fear, death, prejudice, and insanity. While the lyrics seem to have a simple message when read aloud, once the music begins the depth and meaning behind them becomes more evident to the listener. Dark Side paints scenery that can be easily related to by any listener. The music, which varies between jazz, rock, and psychedelic influences, provides a kaleidoscopic picture of life and madness. This mixture of simple, well-written lyrics and very basic, yet well-developed music is the key to Dark Side's appeal. Just as the sounds seem to echo throughout Dark Side of the Moon, it seems that the popularity of the music and its message is echoed by each new generation that discovers it. At least in this case it seems that sanity has prevailed in a very mad world. The Doors: Tragedy and Poetry During the 1960s, world cultures began to mix as social, political, and sexual barriers were broken or became blurred. In the confusion of the day, music which had previously been divided, categorized and/or regimented began to mix. Performers and influences began to inter-mingle and produce new hybrid sounds and styles. During this time of integration and idealism, one band formed as an amalgamation and incarnation of the era: The Doors. From the flamenco and blues guitar styling of Robbie Kreiger, the jazz and beatnik influence of John Densmore, the classical training and influence of Ray Manzarek, and the blues driven, anarchistic, artistic vision of Jim Morrison, the Doors were born. An incantation of poetic license and musical experimentation, the Doors slowly simmered playing the LA club scene and landing in the famed Whiskey-A-Go-Go. It was at the Whiskey that Jim Morrison was transformed from a shy and brooding singer/poet, to a mythical beast that drove denizens of young worshipers to frenzied heights. While playing in the same scene as bands such as The Byrds, and Van Morrison’s Them, The Doors developed an ability to take their music to the edge and spark a fire within a crowd. Jamming and experimenting with songs, sounds and lyrics, The Doors pushed the limits of their music, their performances, and their own physical agility. Excesses of drugs, alcohol, and sex fueled the band’s ride through both society and music. The combination of each member’s background and influences allowed the band to explore different styles without losing the focus or musical base. The Doors were a psychedelic, blues, rock, pop, and experimental band with classical and jazz tinges. While musically the band created interesting possibilities, it was the lyrical beauty, imagination, and anarchistic of Jim Morrison and his writing that gave life to the band’s music, myth and mystique. Jim Morrison was a poet and an artist. As The Doors’ lead singer, he was able to open his heart and mind to the world. Within the confines of the group he was able to act under the guise of the band and still remain somewhat detached from his actions. In the beginning, this detached persona allowed Morrison to push the limits of his music and society. In the song The End for instance, Morrison explored the taboo theme of the Oedipal complex in an epic style. On stage Morrison would provoke audiences to the edge of sanity and create an almost anarchist state. During this period of experimentation and self-exploration however, the band and Morrison in particular began to become lost in their antics and the trappings of fame. In the end, The Doors and Morrison were to become victims of their success. As the band gained commercial recognition, the demand to hear their hit songs and to play prescribed sets grew. The band that had begun as an experimental jam was being forced to follow a prescribed formula. Morrison was tormented by the adoration of his young fans that did not understand what he was attempting to express. His writing was becoming lost in his fame, and his mind was becoming obscured by his inhuman consumption of alcohol. The band's music suffered. A number of sub-par albums were produced and as a result tension within the group began to grow. Morrison’s condition began to deteriorate. Recording sessions and performances were marred by drunken episodes of destruction and lewd acts. The fans that had previously allowed Morrison an outlet for his art were now trapping him and stifling his creativity. In March of 1969 at a concert in Miami, Jim Morrison’s frustration and sadness came to a head. During an outburst in which Morrison challenged and swore at the crowd, witnesses alleged that Morrison exposed himself and made lewd gestures. As a result Morrison was arrested and charged with "lewd and lascivious behavior". This is considered by many to be the beginning of the end for Morrison and the band. This event would serve to haunt and torment him until his death. Although the band was able to produce the epic albums Morrison Hotel and LA Woman after this incident, Jim never fully recovered from the stress of the public scrutiny. Convinced that his only option was to quit music, he retreated to Paris with his girlfriend Pamela to start a new life in obscurity. On July 3, 1971 Jim Morrison was found dead in a bathtub. Morrison had finally succumbed to his life of excess. The band attempted to carry on and released two albums after Morrison’s death. For all intents and purposes however, the music was over. After producing some of the most influential and spiritual music of the era, The Doors had finally found come to the end of their musical journey. Jim Morrison was at peace after struggling to find the outlet for his art and then being unable to escape once he had found it. The Doors had merged musical genres and broken cultural taboos. They had overstepped the bounds of reality, morality, and society, and had eventually become trapped by the appeal of their actions. As a band they left an indelible impression upon the world of music. As a man, Jim Morrison had left a void in the world at large. A spiritual poet, anarchist, and a shy man trapped in the spotlight. Like most shooting stars he burned brightly, but he could not last long. Movies - Meet Joe Black, starring Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins. I do not recommend seeing this movie, either sober or fucked up, unless you are a teenage girl with a big crush on Brad Pitt. It was extremely long and boring. Of course, it caught me by surprise in the beginning because I had no idea what it was about at first. You've Got Mail, starring Meg Ryan, Tom Hanks. Another movie which I would avoid if you're using DXM. Of course, I don't know why anyone would want to go see this on DXM because the movie has nothing to do with anything remotely interesting. I'm not saying the movie is bad... it was quite cute. However, it just doesn't mix with the DXM scene. Schindler's List The movie was quite interesting on DXM, and I personally recommend it... but if you're a fan of instrumental/classical, I would also highly recommend the soundtrack. It is very deep and dramatic. VARIOUS DXM SOURCES from the Physicians' Desk Reference for Non-Prescription Drugs Note: Acetaminophen is very deadly. DXM products which contain this substance can kill very easily. The original list contained products containing Acetaminophen but in order to shorten the list we have taken those products out and included all other DXM-containing products. This list is (c) 1998 by Jeff Sothen. You may copy without permission. Included below are 48 non-prescription medications containing various forms of DXM. Listed are the active ingredients, any relative notes or cautions, and a rating of the medication. Ratings are based on the amount of DXM in the medication and if any harmful ingredients are available. Ratings range from one * to 4 *'s, with no *'s being the worst rating; if something is rated with no *'s, you should avoid taking it, probably because of the presence of Acetaminophen in the medication or very low amounts of DXM. 1. Alka-Seltzer Plus Cold & Cough Medicine by Miles Consumer Active Ingredients (per tablet): Aspirin 325mg, Chlorpheniramine Maleate 2mg, Phenylpropanolamine Bitartrate 20mg, DXM HBr 10mg. Notes: In water the aspirin is converted into its soluble ionic form, sodium acetylsalicylate. Rating: * 2. Alka-Seltzer Plus Night-Time Cold Medicine by Miles Consumer Active Ingredients (per tablet): Aspirin 500mg, Doxylamine Succinate 6.25mg, Phenylpropanolamine Bitartrate 20mg, DXM HBr 15mg. Notes: In water the aspirin is converted into its soluble ionic form, sodium acetylsalicylate. Doxylamine Succinate is an antihistamine. Rating: ** 3. Benylin Adult Formula Cough Suppressant by WARNER WELLCOME Active Ingredients (per teaspoonful/5mL): DXM HBr 15mg. Rating: ** 4. Benylin Expectorant by WARNER WELLCOME Active Ingredients (per teaspoonful/5mL): DXM HBr 5mg, Guaifenesin 100mg. Notes: Guaifenesin may cause nausea in high doses. Rating: * 5. Benylin Multisymptom by WARNER WELLCOME Active Ingredients (per teaspoonful/5mL): DXM HBr 5mg, Pseudoephedrine HCl 15mg, Guaifenesin 100mg. Rating: * 6. Benylin Pediatric Cough Suppressant by WARNER WELLCOME Active Ingredients (per teaspoonful/5mL): DXM HBr 7.5mg. Rating: * 7. Buckley's Mixture by W.K. Buckley Active Ingredients (per teaspoonful/5mL): DXM HBr 12.5mg in a sugar-free base. Rating: ** 8. Cerose DM by Wyeth-Ayerst Active Ingredients (per teaspoonful/5mL): DXM HBr 15mg, Chlorpheniramine Maleate 4mg, Phenylephrine HCl 10mg, Alcohol 2.4%. Rating: ** 9. Cheracol-D Cough Formula by Roberts Active Ingredients (per teaspoonful/5mL): DXM HBr 10mg, Guaifenesin 100mg, Alcohol 4.75%. Rating: * 10.Cheracol Plus Cough Syrup Multisymptom Cough/Cold Formula by Roberts Active Ingredients (per tablespoonful/15mL): DXM HBr 20mg, Phenylpropanolamine HCl 25mg, Chlorpheniramine Maleate 4mg, Alcohol 8%. Rating: * 11.Children's Vicks NyQuil Cold/Cough Relief by Procter & Gamble Active Ingredients (per tablespoonful/15mL): DXM HBr 15mg, Chlorpheniramine Maleate 2mg, Pseudoephedrine HCl 30mg. Rating: * 12.Coricidin Cough & Cold Tablets by Schering-Plough HealthCare Active Ingredients (per tablet): Chlorpheniramine Maleate 4mg, DXM HBr 30mg. Rating: *** 13.Cough X Lozenges by Ascher Active Ingredients (per lozenge): DXM HBr 5mg, Benzocaine 2mg. Rating: * 14.Dimetapp DM Elixir by A.H. Robins Consumer Active Ingredients (per teaspoonful/5mL): Brompheniramine Maleate 2mg, Phenylpropanolamine HCl 12.5mg, DXM HBr 10mg. Rating: ** 15.Dorcol Children's Cough Syrup by Sandoz Consumer Active Ingredients (per teaspoonful/5mL): Pseudoephedrine HCl 15mg, Guaifenesin 50mg, DXM HBr 5mg. Rating: * 16.Drixoral Cough Liquid Caps (No longer available) by Schering-Plough HealthCare Active Ingredients (per softgel): DXM HBr 30mg. Rating: **** 17.Drixoral Cough + Congestion Liquid Caps by Schering-Plough HealthCare Active Ingredients (per softgel): DXM HBr 30mg, Pseudoephedrine HCl 60mg. Rating: ** 18.Novahistine DMX by SmithKline Beecham Consumer Active Ingredients (per teaspoonful/5mL): DXM HBr 10mg, Guaifenesin 100mg, Pseudoephedrine HCl 30mg. Rating: * 19.PediaCare Cough-Cold Liquid by McNeil Consumer Active Ingredients (per teaspoonful/5mL): Chlorpheniramine Maleate 1mg, Pseudoephedrine HCl 15mg, DXM HBr 5mg. Rating: * 20.PediaCare Night Rest Cough-Cold Liquid by McNeil Consumer Active Ingredients (per teaspoonful/5mL): Chlorpheniramine Maleate 1mg, Pseudoephedrine HCl 15mg, DXM HBr 7.5mg. Rating: * 21.Pediatric Vicks 44d Dry Hacking Cough & Head Congestion by Procter & Gamble Active Ingredients (per tablespoonful/15mL): DXM HBr 15mg, Pseudoephedrine HCl 30mg. Rating: * 22.Pediatric Vicks 44e Chest Cough & Chest Congestion by Procter & Gamble Active Ingredients (per tablespoonful/15mL): DXM HBr 10mg, Guaifenesin 100mg. Rating: 23.Pediatric Vicks 44m Cough & Cold Relief by Procter & Gamble Active Ingredients (per tablespoonful/15mL): DXM HBr 15mg, Pseudoephedrine HCl 30mg, Chlorpheniramine Maleate 2mg. Rating: * 24.Robitussin Cold & Cough Liqui-Gels by A.H. Robins Consumer Active Ingredients (per softgel): Guaifenesin 200mg, Pseudoephedrine HCl 30mg, DXM HBr 10mg. Rating: * 25.Robitussin Maximum Strength Cough Suppressant by A.H. Robins Consumer Active Ingredients (per teaspoonful/5mL): DXM HBr 15mg. Rating: **** 26.Robitussin Maximum Strength Cough & Cold by A.H. Robins Consumer Active Ingredients (per teaspoonful/5mL): DXM HBr 15mg, Pseudoephedrine HCl 30mg. Rating: ** 27.Robitussin Pediatric Cough & Cold Formula by A.H. Robins Consumer Active Ingredients (per teaspoonful/5mL): DXM HBr 7.5mg, Pseudoephedrine HCl 15mg. Rating: * 28.Robitussin Pediatric Cough Suppressant by A.H. Robins Consumer Active Ingredients (per teaspoonful/5mL): DXM HBr 7.5mg. Rating * 29.Robitussin-CF by A.H. Robins Consumer Active Ingredients (per teaspoonful/5mL): Guaifenesin 100mg, Phenylpropanolamine HCl 12.5mg, DXM HBr 10mg. Rating: * 30.Robitussin-DM by A.H. Robins Consumer Active Ingredients (per teaspoonful/5mL): Guaifenesin 100mg, DXM HBr 10mg. Rating: * 31.Sucrets 4-Hour Cough Suppressant by SmithKline Beecham Consumer Active Ingredients (per lozenge): DXM HBr 15mg. Rating: ** 32.Sudafed Cough Syrup by WARNER WELLCOME Active Ingredients (per teaspoonful/5mL): Pseudophedrine HCl 15mg, DXM HBr 5mg, Guaifenesin 100mg. Rating: * 33.Triaminic AM Cough and Decongestant Formula by Sandoz Consumer Active Ingredients (per teaspoonful/5mL): DXM HBr 7.5mg, Pseudoephedrine HCl 15mg. Rating: * 34.Triaminic Nite Light Nighttime Cough and Cold Medicine for Children by Sandoz Consumer Active Ingredients (per teaspoonful/5mL): Pseudoephedrine HCl 15mg, Chlorpheniramine Maleate 1mg, DXM HBr 7.5mg. Notes: In a palatable, grape-flavored, alcohol-free liquid. Rating: * 35.Triaminic-DM Syrup by Sandoz Consumer Active Ingredients (per teaspoonful/5mL): Phenylpropanolamine HCl 6.25mg, DXM HBr 5mg. Notes: In a palatable, berry-flavored, alcohol-free liquid. Rating: * 36.Triaminicol Multi-Symptom Cold Tablets by Sandoz Consumer Active Ingredients (per tablet): Phenylpropanolamine HCl 12.5mg, Chlorpheniramine Maleate 2mg, DXM HBr 10mg. Rating: ** 37.Triaminicol Multi-Symptom Relief by Sandoz Consumer Active Ingredients (per teaspoonful/5mL): Phenylpropanolamine HCl 6.25mg, Chlorpheniramine Maleate 1mg, DXM HBr 5mg. Notes: In a palatable, cherry-flavored, alcohol-free liquid. Rating: * 38.Vicks 44 Dry Hacking Cough by Procter & Gamble Active Ingredients (per teaspoonful/5mL): DXM HBr 15mg. Rating: ** 39.Vicks 44d Dry Hacking Cough & Head Congestion by Procter & Gamble Active Ingredients (per tablespoonful/15mL): DXM HBr 30mg, Pseudoephedrine HCl 60mg. Rating: ** 40.Vicks 44 LiquiCaps Non-Drowsy Cough & Cold Relief by Procter & Gamble Active Ingredients (per softgel): DXM HBr 30mg, Pseudoephedrine HCl 60mg. Rating: ** 41.Vicks 44e by Procter & Gamble Active Ingredients (per tablespoonful/15mL): DXM HBr 20mg, Guaifenesin 200mg. Rating: * 42.PediaPressin Drops by Quintex Active Ingredients (per drop): Pseudoephedrine HCl 15mg, Guaifenesin 50mg, DXM HBr 5mg. Rating: * 43.Scot-Tussin Sugar-Free DM by Scot-Tussin Active Ingredients (per teaspoonful/5mL): DXM 15mg, Chlorpheniramine Maleate 2mg. Notes: This contains pure DXM, not DXM HBr. Rating: ** 44.Scot-Tussin Sugar-Free Cough Chasers Lozenges by Scot-Tussin Active Ingredients (per lozenge): DXM 2.5mg. Notes: This contains pure DXM, not DXM HBr. Rating: 45.Sucrets 4-Hour Cough Suppressant by SmithKline Beecham Active Ingredients (per lozenge): DXM HBr 15mg. Rating: **** 46.Suppressin DM Caplets by Quintex Active Ingredients (per caplet): DXM HBr 15mg, Guaifenesin 200mg. Rating: * 47.Delsym Extended-Release Suspension by Fisons Active Ingredients (per teaspoonful/5mL): DXM Polistirex. Notes: DXM Polistirex is equivalent to 30mg of DXM HBr. Rating: **** 48.Rondec-DM Active Ingredients: DXM HBr, Pseudoephedrine HCl, Carbinoxamine maleate. Notes: No other information is known on this product at this time. Rating: N/R Italy: As far as DXM sources available in Europe, one user who lives in Italy said he used Fluprim by Roche (which should be available all over the European community). It contains 300 mg of DXM per bottle of lozenges or syrup and 327 mg per box of tablets (each box contains 20 tablets), and DXM is the only active ingredient. He also mentions Vicks for Dry Cough but it only has 150mg per bottle of syrup and has a very nasty taste (not recommended). However, another person living in Italy said Fluprim was not available anymore (at least in his area), and to stay away from a similar brand called Formitral Sucrets United Kingdom: Also, some users in the United Kingdom pointed out Vicks Vaposyrup, which contains DXM and guaifenesin, and Robitussin Dry Cough. The other ingredients in the latter are ethanol, disodium edetate, sodium benzoate, and amaranth (not sure if these are active or inactive ingredients). Germany: In Germany, nearly everyone is taking Dr. Rentschler Tuss Hustenstiller Retardkapseln. It's 10 60mg pure DXM HBr tablets, costing 12 DM ($7US). It may be expensive, but it's definitely the best OTC DXM-containing product in Germany. Besides the Dr. Rentschler, they now have another OTC DXM source: Hustenstiller-ratiopharmR. It's 20 30mg pure DXM tablets, costing 10 Deutschmarks ($6US). Many people says the latter brand doesn't cause nausea as Dr. Rentschler sometimes does. Australia: One subscriber in Australia told me that DXM powder and DXM-only cough syrups/tablets are illegal in Australia. Importing it is classed in the same league as heroin according to customs officials. These are all the DXM containing medicines found in Australia, courtesy of Steel: 1. Logicin Cough Mixture For Dry Coughs (*****) Contains per 10ml: DXM HBr 30mg, Pseudoephedrine HCl 60mg. Contents: 200ml (600mg dose). 2. Robitussin DM (****) Contains per 10ml: DXM HBr 30mg, Guaphenesin 200mg. Contents: 100ml, 200ml (600mg dose). 3. Sigma Relief (***) Contains per 10ml: DXM HBr 20mg, Pseudoephedrine HCl 40mg, Guaphenesin 80mg, Sodium citrate. Contents: 200ml (400mg dose). 4. Actifed CC Dry (**) Contains per 10ml: DXM HBr 20mg, Pseudoephedrine HCl 60mg, Tripolidine HCl 3mg. Contents: 100ml, 200ml (400mg dose). 5. Dimetapp DM (**) Contains per 10ml: DXM HBr 20mg, Bromopheniramine Maleate 4mg, Phenylephrine HCl 10mg. Contents: Grape flavour, 100ml, 200ml (400mg dose). 6. Robitussin DM-P Elixer (**) Contains per 10ml: DXM HBr 15mg, Pseudoephedrine HCl 30mg. Contents: Cherry flavour, 100ml, 200ml (300mg dose). 7. Euky Bear Cough Syrup (**) Contains per 10ml: DXM HBr 15mg, Chlorpheniramine Maleate 4mg, Sodium Citrate 250mg. Contents: Honey, Eucalyptus, Lemon flavours; 100ml, 200ml (300mg dose). 8. Neo-Diophen (**) Contains per 10ml: DXM HBr 15mg, Mepyramine Maleate 15mg, Phenylpropanolamine HCl 16mg, Atropine Sulphate 0.2mg. Contents: 200ml (300mg dose). 9. Dimetapp Cold, Cough & Sinus Liquid Caps (*) Contains per capsule: DXM HBr 10mg, Pseudoephedrine HCl 30mg, Guaphenesin 200mg. Contents: 20 gelatin capsules marked AHR-8600, (200mg dose). 10.Actifed CC Dry Liquicaps (*) Contains per capsule: DXM HBr 10mg, Pseudoephedrine HCl 30mg. Contents: 12 gelatin capsules marked C2H, (120mg dose). 11.Actifed CC Junior (*) Contains per 10ml: DXM HBr 10mg, Tripolidine HCl 1.25mg. Contents: 100ml (100mg dose). 12.Cepacol Cough & Sore Throat Lozenges (1/2*) Contains per lozenge: DXM HBr 5mg, Cetylpyridinium Chloride 1.33mg, Benzocaine 1mg, Menthol 5.2mg. Contents: 16 lozenges; Aniseed, Lemon flavours, (80mg dose). Ratings: ***** Worth 5 stars in my book. **** Worth considering. *** Less than 4, but still worth considering. ** Can be as strong as 3, but may contain antihistamines. * Very poor. 1/2* What can I say... wanna stomach 100 cough lollies? :) Note: When considering doses for each preparation, only the DXM was taken into account, and is based on the largest available form of the product. I did not consider any other active ingredients. I am not a doctor, it is up to YOU to learn about the other things. I only omitted the Paracetamol (acetaminophen) preparations as they have no recreational tolerance. Educate yourself, and take care! - Steel If you have any information on any other DXM cough preparations please let me know and I'll include them in this section. VARIOUS DXM INTERNET SITES Listed below are several Internet sites containing useful information about DXM. Special thanks to Greendrag for help with compiling this list. The DXM FAQ - Highly recommended http://www.frognet.net/dxm/contents.html The Third Plateau - The most definitive DXM site there is http://www.third-plateau.lycaeum.org/ The DXM Appreciation Page http://www.ugmadness.com/Ledderson/DxM/ Chris's Web Page - Home of the DXM calculator for windows http://advicom.net/~chris/ Erowid's DXM Page - Another good source of DXM information http://www.erowid.org/entheogens/dxm/dxm.shtml Sputnick's DXM Page - Another DXM archive http://hepenthes.lycaeum.org/Drugs/DXM/ Hyperreal's Dissociative Page - Dissociative and DXM information http://www.hyperreal.org/drugs/psychedelics/dissociative/ The Lycaeum's DXM Page - More on DXM http://www.lycaeum.org/drugs/synthetics/dxm/ Medline - Search this for information on studies done on DXM http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/ Infomed's DXM frame - Information regarding low doses of DXM http://www.infomed.org/100drugs/dextfram.html DeeXMan's DXM Page - Has a big collection of trip stories. http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Venue/3391/dxm.htm Old reports on DXM abuse (circa 1993) gopher://hemp.uwec.edu/00/drugs/misc/robo/ Deja Vu: Confessions of a Serial Robo Killer - Highly recommended http://www.wideawake.org/robo.html Dev/Null/The Happy Place in your Brain - various DXM information http://www.kelani.com/hull/ Microsoft Dextromethorphan Experiments - Bill Gates's use of DXM http://sefi.satelnet.org/~ccappuc/rants/msd.html Lycaeum Trip Stories - DXM trip reports http://www.lycaeum.org/drugs/trip.report/dxm.shtml A Night in DXM Space http://www.julian.org/journal/100597.html Poor Man's PCP - An article about DXM taken from Pills-a-go-go magazine. http://hepenthes.lycaeum.org/Drugs/DXM/poormanspcp.html The Rave Zone Drug Archive - DXM information in German http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Club/6549/ Liber DxM: The Cough Syrup Hypothesis http://www.brotherblue.org/csh.htm Tussin Space: Transdimensional Emergence http://www.unc.edu/~veritas/dissoc.html DXM Page from the Motacracy Homepage http://pw2.netcom.com/~nickc/dxm.html Plateau Sigma - A DXM-related band; you can download their MP3s. http://kelani.com/sigma/ Official DXM Zine Web Site Mirror - includes Issues 1 - 6 http://www2.1starnet.com/dominion/ Another DXM Zine Web Site http://phun.dreamhost.com/dxm/zine/ Usenet - drug newsgroups on the Internet alt.drugs hierarchy, rec.drugs hierarchy, talk.politics.drugs DXM EFnet IRC channels - DXM chat IRC channel #high, #dxm, #uaf, #robo, #syrup, #dex DXM DALnet IRC channels - DXM chat IRC channel #dxm If you would like to get your site added here, just email Zine@dxm.net with "Web" in the subject line and your site name with a brief description in the body of the email. VARIOUS TRIP REPORTS from Internet reports There will be no trip reports in this month's issue, due to space and time limitations. If you'd like to contribute your own experiences, please feel free to do so by emailing Zine@dxm.net. There will be more reports listed in the next issue to be released in January of 1999... Thanks for your patience. --- DXM PERSONALS Greetings! This is a new section added to the zine for you to post information about yourself, such as your age, your hobbies, where you are from, what you do when you trip, or any questions you might have. I hope you will send in information to Zine@dxm.net with "Personals" in the subject line, and I will be happy to post it. If you wish to remain anonymous, simply say so in the email. --- From Chimera42: Anyone have any suggestions? Next time is on an empty stomach, for sure. Should I not take polistirex? What would be different with 900mg at once instead of 2 doses? What else is available in Canada? Also, I was wondering if anyone experienced in Delsym would share info with me. Any help at all is appreciated. (To reply to this personal, email Zine@dxm.net with "P001" in the subject line. Thank you.) --- From Proffwak: My name is Dan (we'll leave it at that). I'm 21 years old. I live in a suburb of Philadelphia, PA. I play the drums in a band called SINCH. I also play other instruments besides tha drums (guitar, keyboard, synths, bass, samplers). I run my own website about our band and many other things I find to be worth sharing with other people. The website is http://members.xoom.com/sinch1. We also have a page with links to drug related information all over the Internet at http://members.xoom.com/sinch1/links3.htm. Thanks. (To reply to this personal, email Zine@dxm.net with "P002" in the subject line. Thank you.) --- From Dextro: I have been using psychedelics and entheogens for the past two years. I have used DXM even before that. I admit I use DXM sometimes by using it 3-4 times a week. (To reply to this personal, email Zine@dxm.net with "P003" in the subject line. Thank you.) --- From Wavrider: I've been doing DXM for two weeks now. I started with Coricidin and Vicks 44. I stopped taking the Coricidin tablets because I was warned that the antihistimine would cause brain damage. I just do the Vicks 44 and other syrups. I'm open to any help or suggestions from fellow DXM experimenters. :) (To reply to this personal, email Zine@dxm.net with "P004" in the subject line. Thank you.) --- From Sexpot: I've discovered DXM can come in very handy for sex. For one thing, it's a good substitude for stuff like Stay-Hard. It takes longer to reach orgasm, but has no real effect on maintaining an erection. Also, and this may be too detailed for some readers, but I noticed an INCREASED production of semen in the period of 24 hours following a moderate DXM trip (not too high of a dosage, only 2nd plateau)... so high of an increase that it shot out quite a distance. It also went back down to normal after not doing DXM for quite a while, but always increased shortly after a trip. And now, what can I say... the women love me! (To reply to this personal, email Zine@dxm.net with "P005" in the subject line. Thank you.) --- COMPLETE LISTING OF DXM ZINE PAST ISSUES The following is a listing of all past issues and their contents. To read the actual issues, go to http://www.alaska.net/~zorak/dxm/ or http://www2.1starnet.com/dominion/. Issue 1 - November 1997 o DXM and Creativity o Streetlights and Other Electrical Phenomenon o The Nightmare of Coricidin o Recipe for Getting Pure DXM Powder o Info on Ordering Pure DXM Powder o Delsym...A Whole New Trip o DXM is Here to Stay o Schering-Plough's Reply to a Consumer Complaint on DXM Abuse o An Ode to DXM o DXM Music Reviews o Various DXM Sources o Various DXM Internet Sites o Various Trip Reports Issue 2 - December 1997 o Letters to the Editor o DXM...The New Wave o Extrasensory Perception (ESP) and DXM o DXM Withdrawal o My Third Trip o The Trip From Hell...Punderson Manor o The Effects of Smoking on DXM o Material Data Safety Sheet on DXM o The Doors of Perception o LSD vs. DXM o My Experiences with DXM o DXM Writings o DXM Drug Culture and the Future of DXM Use o Beware of Bromide Poisoning o DXM Extraction...A Method That Works o Moron of the Moment...And My Response o Tips for Downing Cough Syrup o Info on Ordering Pure DXM Powder o DXM Music Reviews o Various DXM Sources o Various DXM Internet Sites o Various Trip Reports Issue 3 - January 1998 o Letters to the Editor o Out-of-Body Experiences and DXM o Brain Wave Stimulation and Inducing Paranormal Events o DXM Addiction o A Day in the Life of DXM o Nitrous Oxide and DXM o How DXM Compares to Other Legal Highs o DXM Nausea...And How to Prevent it o The Fifty-Trip Limit o Never Again o The Dangers of Redosing o Measuring DXM Powder o The Ouija Board and Other Supernatural Phenomenon o Lilliputian Hallucinations and Other Uncanny Occurrences o DXM Hangovers...Avoiding and Alleviating o The Writings of a Madman...DXM Writings o Info on Ordering Pure DXM Powder o DXM Music and Movie Reviews o Various DXM Sources o Various DXM Internet Sites o Various Trip Reports Issue 4 - June 1998 o From the Editor o The Road to Insanity: DXM and Salvia o Tripping in NYC o Conspiracy Theory o Media Blitz o Trip Back In Time o The Day the Music Died o Purple Haze o DXM and Antidepressants o How to Know When You've Done Too Much DXM o Cosmic Coincidence Control o The Day DXM Came to Town o DXM on Television o Smoking DXM o Operation Agent Lemon o Info on Ordering Pure DXM Powder o DXM Music and Movie Reviews o Various DXM Sources o Various DXM Internet Sites o Various Trip Reports o Credits/Zine Information Issue 5 - August 1998 o From the Editor o Letters to the Editor o DXM News o DXM Survey o Break on Through (to the Other Side) o DXM and the Out-of-Body Experience o Side Dishes: Other Substances that Go Well with DXM o My Experiences with DXM o DXM Chemistry Lesson o DXM and Drug Screening o The Cord of Life o DXM Poetry o DXM Made Simple...DXM Humor o Robo Journey o DXM Replacements o DXM Site Review o Info on Ordering Pure DXM Powder o DXM Music and Movie Reviews o Various DXM Sources o Various DXM Internet Sites o Various Trip Reports o Credits/Zine Information Issue 6 - September 1998 o From the Editor o Letters to the Editor o DXM News o DXM Survey o The Power of Astral Projection o Returning to the First Plateau o A Complicated View as to How DXM Works o Hallucinogenic Drugs for Inner Space Exploration, Part One o Nightmares and Paranoid Delusions o Tripping at Virginia Beach o Redosing in New Zealand o My Theory on Life, Existance, and the Universe o Space Alien Conspiracy o A Fishy Experience o Cough Syrup Extraction o Miscellaneous DXM Tidbits o How DXM Affects the Stomach o Background Info on OTC DXM Manufacturers o DXM Drug Combos...DXM Humor o DXM and Hypnosis o DXM Poetry o DXM Site Review o Info on Ordering Pure DXM Powder o DXM Music and Movie Reviews o Various DXM Sources o Various DXM Internet Sites o Various Trip Reports o Credits/Zine Information Issue 7 - October 1998 o From the Editor o Letters to the Editor o DXM News o DXM Survey o DXM Breakthrough...Grapefruit Juice and DXM o The New DXM o The Living Dead o I Should be Dead o Hallucinogenic Drugs for Inner Space Exploration, Part Two o Tripping in Tampa o The Time I Ate 60 Coricidins o Life and Death o Across the Universe with DXM o Another Moron, Another Moment o Mixing DXM with Hallucinogenic Mushrooms o Why Recreational Drugs Have Made the World a Better Place o The Time I Saw God o Serotonin Syndrome and Other Conditions o DXM and Antidepressants...the Bottom Line o Coricidin May Be Deadly o Sigma...A Not-So-Fun Trip o DXM Poetry o DXM Site Review o Info on Ordering Pure DXM Powder o DXM Music and Movie Reviews o Various DXM Sources o Various DXM Internet Sites o Various Trip Reports o Complete Listing of DXM Zine Past Issues o Credits/Zine Information Issue 8 - November 1998 o From the Editor o Letters to the Editor o DXM News o DXM Survey o Another Breakthrough...Delsym with Grapefruit Juice o The First DXM Baby o More on DXM and Grapefruit Juice o A Near Death Experience o My Sled...and the Atomic Bomb o Life Goes On o DXM...A New Religion o Believe Nothing o New...The DXM and Grapefruit Juice FAQ o DXM and LSD...Two Opposite Drugs that Lead to the Same Conclusion o Info on Ordering Pure DXM Powder o DXM Music and Movie Reviews o Various DXM Sources o Various DXM Internet Sites o Various Trip Reports o DXM Personals o Complete Listing of DXM Zine Past Issues o Credits/Zine Information --- Credits: I wish to thank everyone who either contributed to the zine or helped provide information on DXM. I also would like to thank IRCers in their endless efforts to shed light on DXM use and experiences, along with their help and cooperation in putting the zine together. I especially wish to thank William White, Greendrag, and BlackFury. Without your help, this zine just wouldn't be what it is. And of course, the love of my life... my girlfriend. :) Next Issue: LSD+DXM Experiments, DXM+GHB, Tripping on New Years Eve. About the Editor: Gravol, also known as Jeff, is 20 and works on the zine in his spare time. Born in Phoenix and having lived in Akron, Ohio, for most of his life, he has recently moved to St Augustine, Florida. He is also the author of the Dramamine FAQ, found at lycaeum.org. * If you'd like to contribute an article or any information to the DXM Zine, email Zine@dxm.net. The Zine is free, but any contributions reduce the tremendous amount of time it takes to complete it and would be helpful in maintaining its free distribution. Thank you and have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! *