Phenethylamines The Small & Handy 2C-EF Thread

[Kaleida]

Lambda:

Sounds great, man, can't wait to hear what else you have to say about this and your subsequent doses as well as any future attempts. ?

 

[Xorkoth]

That was such a fun night. I took notes up until my 4th of July party guests arrived. Socialization was super easy but there was also a lot of introspection. I drank a lot by the end of the night and stayed quite coherent and aware but I'm pretty hung over this morning. Next time I'm going to take a large dose without anything else and try to explore inward probably. This was supposed to be a test dose but I redosed small amounts a couple of times and it ended up being a full trip for sure. I'll post a report sometime soon when I get a chance to finish it up.

Suffice to say, great drug. Most pleasurable body feeling and smoothest/easiest come-up of any 2C-X I've tried.

 

[cj187]

Yesterday I took a 12mg dose of 2C-EF. The come up was extremely slow. After 3 1/2 hours, the effects were still not too strong and I felt like it wasn't going to get much stronger, so I vaporized a small unmeasured amount in an oil burner. That got it up to a moderately strong level.

2C-EF is decent stuff. I think it's hyped up a lot because of its rarity, but it's not bad. Does it leave 2C-E and 2C-B standing in the dust as F&B said? Haha, no. Not even close. I guess it must be a lot more interesting when you combine it with MXE. 2C-EF is basically a less visual 2C-B. If you get some hoping it will be like 2C-E, be prepared for massive disappointment.

One of the nice things about it is that the hangover is not bad compared to most other 2Cs. Usually after I take a phenethylamine I feel completely miserable for the next few days, but today I don't feel too terrible.

 

[Xorkoth]

I had quite a different experience. I think you should try it on an empty stomach next time or maybe plugged. Either that or there is strong variability in how it affects people based on individual chemistry.

I was getting pretty moderate visuals from a lower dose than you and I felt first alerts in like 20 minutes. I feel like if I had taken a hihgher dose all at once (I started with 3mg and had 2 redoses) it would have been exploding all around me. Also the smoothness and euphoria was greater than with any other 2C-X. Though the one thing I'll say is there was nothing too deep, but I did have some serious introspection along the lines of 2C-C.

 

[Kaleida]

Kappa:

I'm just going to quote Lambda from the last page again really quick.

I don't want to detract from the excitement about this molecule, I feel it too, though personally I'm waiting until there are more than just a few reports of mostly only first times (and even combinations with methoxetamine) before expecting too much from it. As far as I can tell there's a pretty good amount of variance in how people react to individual phenethylamines, perhaps meaningfully more so than tryptamines or lysergamides, and I won't be surprised if this one is no different.

That being said, cj187, I also think you maybe should give it another try before saying too much if it really took that huge amount of time to fully come up, we've had huge delays in our psychedelics coming on for various probably stomach-related reasons too and the trips were generally always less remarkable compared to when the same drug comes up faster and more in line with what is generally expected, and particularly when no redose is required. But, you do you of course.

The notes are very highly appreciated from both of you either way.

Looking forward to the report, Xorkoth!

Also, cj187, you said somewhere before that you're not normally that much into phenethylamines, didn't you? Or was that someone else I'm misremembering? I'm just curious either way, what exactly do you think of 2C-E and 2C-B specifically?

 

[cj187]

I do intend to try it again, and I wouldn't be surprised if my next trip ends up being very different from this one. I'm pretty sure the potency was diminished because of my stomach not absorbing it properly, and it's possible that the trip would be qualitatively better if it entered my bloodstream more quickly. Hopefully I'll at least get more visuals next time. This trip was more body high than anything else.

That's true, I do generally prefer tryptamines and lysergamides. They make me feel so alive and inspired and aware of everything, and just feel so right, while phenethylamines tend produce more of a drunken state and feel physically unhealthy. 2C-E is the one phenethylamine that has really impressed me more than any other. It's a very powerful psychedelic and produces amazing visuals, but it also has an awful body load. Some of my most memorable trips were on 2C-E, but I haven't used it in years because the body load is unbearable. The main reason I wanted to try 2C-EF is because I thought it might be similar to 2C-E. I'm not a big fan of 2C-B. It's enjoyable but not worth the hangover, and I prefer psychedelics with a deeper headspace.

 

[Xorkoth]

I don't get hangovers from phenethylamines, fortunately. My 2C-EF trip reminded me of 2C-B in the body feeling except it was lighter and better, and it reminded me of 2C-C quite a bit in the introspection and overall mental state, but it also kind of had the peacefulness of mescaline. I felt like everything was in its right place, and it felt 100% at home and lovely in my body, the come-up was absolutely transparent and seamless and the body feeling was clean like LSD for me. It was euphoric through my limbs and almost felt like a post-orgasm glow, physically. The visuals were very unique and kind of reminded me of 2C-E a bit but I don't think they were fully developed, however if I stared at surfaces they would start crawling with fractals, and the CEVs were quite unique. I didn't get the sense it's a drug that goes to anywhere near the depth of 2C-E, which I was also hoping it would. But who knows, maybe in a different setting, at a higher dosage. I guess I'll find out. It was highly recreational for me and it may be that that's what it's good for, or perhaps there's more there.

I'm going to try to finish writing my report.

 

[Xorkoth]

Okay I posted my report, here it is:

2C-EF - First Time - Smooth As Silk and Warm Like Sunshine

2C-EF - First Time - 7-4-2019 - "Smooth As Silk and Warm Like Sunshine" By Xorkoth **NOTE: I later discovered via GC/MS confirmation that this was actually a blend of 2C-C, 2C-T-2, and 2C-T-7, being sold as 2C-EF by an unscrupulous longtime vendor. It is not actually a report on 2C-EF** I've...

www.bluelight.org

 

[Kaleida]

Kappa:

I do intend to try it again, and I wouldn't be surprised if my next trip ends up being very different from this one. I'm pretty sure the potency was diminished because of my stomach not absorbing it properly, and it's possible that the trip would be qualitatively better if it entered my bloodstream more quickly. Hopefully I'll at least get more visuals next time. This trip was more body high than anything else.

That's true, I do generally prefer tryptamines and lysergamides. They make me feel so alive and inspired and aware of everything, and just feel so right, while phenethylamines tend produce more of a drunken state and feel physically unhealthy. 2C-E is the one phenethylamine that has really impressed me more than any other. It's a very powerful psychedelic and produces amazing visuals, but it also has an awful body load. Some of my most memorable trips were on 2C-E, but I haven't used it in years because the body load is unbearable. The main reason I wanted to try 2C-EF is because I thought it might be similar to 2C-E. I'm not a big fan of 2C-B. It's enjoyable but not worth the hangover, and I prefer psychedelics with a deeper headspace.

That is some very interesting insight either way.... We'll definitely be looking forward to what you have to say about future trials too, particularly now to see how it compares to this. As mentioned (twice now) we have noticed that there is quite a bit of variance between peoples' responses to phenethylamines, and what you say here reminds me of what we always found to be the most mind-blowing one yet: a dosage of 2C-C that for us is honestly one of the most (raw) visual trips we've ever had produces literally nothing except its signature headspace and body high for a friend of ours. I really, really wonder just how exactly these tiny phenethylamine molecule changes can alter the way the molecule intereacts with different common 5-HT2A receptor variants, it would be fascinating to see if it actually does come down to an interaction like that for why people can get such different responses to them.... Obviously there are a million other possible explanations too, but I am particularly curious about that one because I think it's just plain logical that tryptamines, being serotonin-like, may have relatively more consistent binding and functional interactions with the receptor than phenethylamines do. In any case, of course it could be that your response is not so different after all too, and I am wondering how it'll be for you if next time it actually kicks in as surprisingly fast for a phenethylamine as it seems to for Xorkoth, as I would imagine that would probably affect it a lot too.

That's for the clarification too. It sounds like the way you experience phenethylamines and compare them to tryptamines and lysergamides may be relatively different from ourselves, but at the same time, I do find what you said to be in some notable ways relatable, especially in some ways that I feel are probably still valid but that I would generally have described with different wording perhaps just from focusing on different points of it from our relatively different perspective. For example, I would never describe phenethylamines as making me feel drunk, but we have in the past described them as feeling more dissociative than tryptamines and lysergamides in some significant ways, and also find alcohol to feel significantly dissociative (which it technically literally is underneath the GABAergic effects). Unlike that comparison though, we don't a hangover from phenethylamines like you mentioned before that is in any way comparable to intensity of what we get from alcohol or any other drug that would give us what we would generally call a hangover, but we do still get a little bit more of a draining crash from them usually than from tryptamines and lysergamides, but it's just enough that we tend to call it a "recovery day" like we used to after MDMA, and generally we find that it is also quickly bulldozed over by the rapidly developing afterglow and trailing positive imprint of the trip. As for the tryptamines and lysergamides, they are generally much, much more stimulating for us than phenethylamines (in defiance of all stereotypes) and that's what I can particularly relate to how you say they make you feel "alive" and "inspired" and "aware" and such, but phenethylamines honestly generally make us feel all those same things too, just with far less pushiness that we're actually starting to very greatly appreciate more and more as of late. They feel perfectly healthy and healing to us just like indole psychedelics, and largely easier to take aside from the fact that they often last much longer, though I also feel expanding our experiences with them may change this perspective (DOB was a fucking monster of a trip, for instance, though still fantastic from start to finish). It really is incredibly interesting how differently everyone can respond to the same molecules, but obviously we are all remarkably different animals despite sharing 99.9% of our DNA with one another.

We've only had one experience on 2C-E so far, at 8 mg, but it was pretty wonderful, probably the most readily emotionally cathartic psychedelic we have taken yet and honestly probably the most synesthetically visual too, though still extremely easy to handle at that dosage for us, no real mindfuck or anything, but definitely that aforementioned feeling of dissociation. We did get the body load too, but luckily not very much, less than our first time on DOB and our second time on DOB involved learning how to "turn off" the body load and not get any for the rest of the trip, so we're now really hoping that that lesson will carry back to the 2C-E with us too.... We only ever got to try 2C-B two (maybe three) times and only at small dosages and only like a decade ago so unfortunately can't say too much about it, but I remember it being pretty fun and easygoing and totally lacking in body load, but most things were for us when we first started getting into drugs. I'd love to have it again but I can understand how it might not appeal to you much if you want a deeper headspace; that being said, I honestly don't think there are any psychedelics that don't have a headspace that would qualify as deep to us anymore, we used to think that things like the halogenated 2Cs were lighter in that way but these days just perceive them as being more subtle but no less profound, just different.

Something that occurs to me to say based on what you said is that within the context of obviously still relatively similar tryptamine derivatives, we find the propyls and their corresponding allyls, which are at least as similar structurally one another as 2C-E and 2C-EF if not more so depending on how you look at it, are almost not similar at all except in their most superficial qualities, which basically feels to me to be the same kind of claim Xorkoth is now making about the visuals of 2C-E vs 2C-EF despite the other significant effect differences. I'm willing to bet (and we pretty much always have been) that the unique visuals of each psychedelic are in some ways very directly related, probably more so than all the other effects I mean, to the very specific molecular shape and design of that psychedelic, hence why the propyls are visually similar to the allyls and 2C-E to 2C-EF and such, but the actual more functional effects are just working through a different sort of structure-activity relationship. We were actually just I think yesterday or the day before looking over the PiHKAL entry on DOEF because we thought we remembered reading this fascinating nugget somewhere and probably there, which I will now quote:

"But, if you put a fluorine atom on a drug, it becomes a totally new drug and, quite reasonably, a pharmacologically different drug. However, a body of evidence is being accumulated that if a halogen, such as a bromine or an iodine atom, is replaced by a beta-fluoroethyl group, the electronic and polar properties of the drug can be pretty much the same. So, what psychedelics have a bromo or an iodo group? Obviously, DOB and DOI. Thus, DOEF is a natural candidate for fluorine-18 positron emission tomography, and also a natural candidate for clinical trials. And, voila, it is an active material."

Basically, the man himself thought DOEF is likely to act more like DOB and DOI, and he then went on to suggest that 2C-EF would probably be comparable to 2C-B and 2C-I. There are no mentions of 2C-E anywhere on the page or DOET anywhere except once in the sentence "...why would anyone just happen to place a fluorine atom at the end of the 4-ethyl group of DOET?" Of course, while not making the 2C-EF himself, he had taken the DOEF to try it too, and one of the comments listed (not necessarily his own of course) specifically compares it to DOI. So, as far as it seems like this brilliant chemist was concerned, the fluoroethyl will probably act more like the simple halogens than it will act like the ethyl or other alkyl groups on the phenethylamine molecules. Based on your comparison to 2C-B and Xorkoth's comparisons to the same and 2C-C, I would suggest that he was probably right on in this assertion after all, and again, maybe the superficial comparison to 2C-E is simply more about the different sort of visual-specific psychedelic-5-HT2A receptor structure-activity relationships.

So that's what I've got to say about that for now. Thanks again for the insights.

By the way, this has nothing to do with anything here but just randomly remembered to say you're right, we tried smelling our MALT and it stinks like shit lol.

I don't get hangovers from phenethylamines, fortunately. My 2C-EF trip reminded me of 2C-B in the body feeling except it was lighter and better, and it reminded me of 2C-C quite a bit in the introspection and overall mental state, but it also kind of had the peacefulness of mescaline. I felt like everything was in its right place, and it felt 100% at home and lovely in my body, the come-up was absolutely transparent and seamless and the body feeling was clean like LSD for me. It was euphoric through my limbs and almost felt like a post-orgasm glow, physically. The visuals were very unique and kind of reminded me of 2C-E a bit but I don't think they were fully developed, however if I stared at surfaces they would start crawling with fractals, and the CEVs were quite unique. I didn't get the sense it's a drug that goes to anywhere near the depth of 2C-E, which I was also hoping it would. But who knows, maybe in a different setting, at a higher dosage. I guess I'll find out. It was highly recreational for me and it may be that that's what it's good for, or perhaps there's more there.

Sounds wonderful to me, and for a little more commentary on the matter I would refer you back to the above response too.

We'll check out the report soon and thanks again for it! ☺

 

[cj187]

That's an interesting idea about less serotonin-like psychedelics having a less consistent interaction with serotonin receptors. I never thought about that before, but now that you mention it it sounds pretty plausible. I do know that the exact structure of a receptor can vary from person to person. I remember reading about a study that found that some people have a mutation that causes a variation in one receptor subtype that results in nBOMes having a drastically reduced affinity, something like 100x less than normal. It wouldn't surprise me if future research found variations like that to be common, especially with psychedelics that stray further from the structure of natural neurotransmitters more so than with tryptamines.

It's hard to describe how psychedelics differ from one another. One can try to describe what they are like, but descriptive words can never properly express the peculiarities of what an experience is like to someone who hasn't experienced themselves, and you never really know how similar your subjective experience is to someone else's, especially with drugs that have such a complex action. So perhaps phenethylamines don't quite do the same thing to me that they do to you because of the variance in biochemistry between different people, or perhaps how we react to a drug is more a matter of taste, just a result of differing personalities (thought it's probably a mix of both, and in fact the two concepts aren't entirely distinct from one another). There's no way to know. I guess you have more insight into that than I do as you've mentioned that your identities have differing taste in drugs to some degree.

I think there's more to how I feel about phenethylamines vs tryptamines than how stimulating they are. Maybe that's part of it. But phenethylamines just feel so much simpler and less meaningful, they seem to be missing some of the richness of tryptamines. I don't think there are words to properly express their differences, at least not words like "stimulating" or "dissociating". Some people describe tryptamines as being more spiritual than phenethylamines, and though that's not exactly the word I would use, I can't think of any better way to describe it.

I really don't feel like there is a huge distinction between the alkylated 2Cs and the halogenated ones. One thing that I didn't mention before is that 2C-EF really reminded me more of 2C-P than anything else. And while 2C-P feels to me like a middle ground between 2C-E and 2C-B or 2C-C, it can have quite a bit of mindfuck, closer to the 2C-E end of the spectrum, while 2C-EF is much more clearheaded, which is what lead to me to compare it to 2C-B.

Yeah, MALT is really nasty smelling. I'm hesitant to ingest things that have a weird chemical smell. A few months ago I got some MET, which I had smoked a few times previously, and I was really looking forward to trying it orally, but I ended up throwing it away because it smelled like pool chemicals. You haven't tried MET orally have you? If you try it I'd love to read a trip report about it.

 

[Xorkoth]

Really interesting theory about how effects of psychedelics differ more and more between individuals the farther they stray from neurotransmitters in structure. It does seem that reactions to DMT are quite consistent overall compared to pretty much any other psychedelic I can think of, and DMT is an endogenous neurotransmitter. And substances such as NBOMes, 4-HO-DPT, and the 2C-T-X series seem to vary wildly in both potency and subjective effects.

Yeah, MALT is really nasty smelling. I'm hesitant to ingest things that have a weird chemical smell. A few months ago I got some MET, which I had smoked a few times previously, and I was really looking forward to trying it orally, but I ended up throwing it away because it smelled like pool chemicals. You haven't tried MET orally have you? If you try it I'd love to read a trip report about it.

To me, all the freebase unsubstituted trytpamines (maybe substituted too but I don't think I've ever seen a substituted tryptamine in freebase form) smell really foul. DMT is the best of them but it's still really intense, a lot like mothballs. AMT smells like
chemical fertilizer to me but it's a fantastic substance. MET, MPT, MALT, and MiPT freebase all smell like something on the spectrum between DMT and AMT. I don't find the smells appealing at all, but it doesn't give me cause for alarm either.

I really don't feel like there is a huge distinction between the alkylated 2Cs and the halogenated ones.

Interesting, for me, the halogenated vs alkylated 2C-Xs and DOXs are very distinct, though of course there are also similarities. It's especially apparent with the DOXs. DOET and DOiP feel very different from DOC and DOI (though DOF is similar to DOiP), and DOM is a little closer, but still very different, more natural feeling and transparent, less body presence. Also, the halogenated 2C-Xs have a much warmer, more euphoric and recreational feel to me, with a different style of visuals, more of a persian rug sort of effect, vs 2C-D and 2C-E that are more classically psychedelic with perspective shifting, large-scale morphing, and fractals.

 

[cj187]

MALT smells much much worse than the other freebase tryptamines I've smelled. I'm not sure if it's the MALT itself or an impurity. I actually like the smell of DMT. The first time I smelled it I thought it smelled like mothballs, but now I love the smell of it. Sometimes I'll open up my vial of DMT just to smell it. DPT freebase kind of smells like DMT but it doesn't smell very good, it's a less earthy smell, more pungent and chemically. I've converted 4-HO-DPT to freebase before, and I don't remember it having a smell, or at least not a very noticeable one. The DALT I just got, which I think is freebase, doesn't resemble other tryptamines at all. It's rocky, like pictures I've seen of meth or MDMA, and barely has a smell.

 

[Img_9999]

Jealous about you guys trying this rare psychedelic
So exciting ! Thanks for your reports

We were actually just I think yesterday or the day before looking over the PiHKAL entry on DOEF because we thought we remembered reading this fascinating nugget somewhere and probably there, which I will now quote:

"But, if you put a fluorine atom on a drug, it becomes a totally new drug and, quite reasonably, a pharmacologically different drug. However, a body of evidence is being accumulated that if a halogen, such as a bromine or an iodine atom, is replaced by a beta-fluoroethyl group, the electronic and polar properties of the drug can be pretty much the same. So, what psychedelics have a bromo or an iodo group? Obviously, DOB and DOI. Thus, DOEF is a natural candidate for fluorine-18 positron emission tomography, and also a natural candidate for clinical trials. And, voila, it is an active material."

Basically, the man himself thought DOEF is likely to act more like DOB and DOI, and he then went on to suggest that 2C-EF would probably be comparable to 2C-B and 2C-I. There are no mentions of 2C-E anywhere on the page or DOET anywhere except once in the sentence "...why would anyone just happen to place a fluorine atom at the end of the 4-ethyl group of DOET?" Of course, while not making the 2C-EF himself, he had taken the DOEF to try it too, and one of the comments listed (not necessarily his own of course) specifically compares it to DOI. So, as far as it seems like this brilliant chemist was concerned, the fluoroethyl will probably act more like the simple halogens than it will act like the ethyl or other alkyl groups on the phenethylamine molecules. Based on your comparison to 2C-B and Xorkoth's comparisons to the same and 2C-C, I would suggest that he was probably right on in this assertion after all, and again, maybe the superficial comparison to 2C-E is simply more about the different sort of visual-specific psychedelic-5-HT2A receptor structure-activity relationships.

Awesome contribution, Kaleida, very interesting stuff (I'm confused, is you account being used by two people ?)

 

[Xorkoth]

Read this, it'll make sense: https://www.bluelight.org/xf/threads/dob-1-4-mg-second-time-just-relax.875154/

 

[Kaleida]

Zeta:

Img_9999, the link Xorkoth graciously posted does address this situation fairly thoroughly, but I will also give you a more straightforward answer that isn't buried deep within and spread entirely throughout a nearly forty-hour trip report.

We have what they call dissociative identity disorder, previously known as multiple personality disorder. While it might seem so from the story in the trip report, this isn't a self-diagnosis, we caught on to it around when we were last active here and then took our concerns to a therapist who validated them and who we have been seeing for such ever since. That being said, now that we have fully realized it and know how to recognize it for what it is, it is blaringly obvious to us regardless of what anyone else might think about it.

We didn't immediately say anything about it when we returned here around a month ago because we decided to slowly roll out the information about it through a small series of trip reports for the four trips we had left to enjoy throughout the month before going on a break from all drugs (which we are now on) through the rest of the year, starting with the DOB trip report, and revealing more about it in parts through each subsequent one. There is still a lot that we haven't said about it.

Now that we have all those initial reports out though, we've decided to simply start actively labeling all of our posts with who is talking, especially since typing the reports got some of the alters to start posting here more regularly, and figured we could just answer any questions about it as they came along, such as yours. We are still in the process of figuring who exactly among us was posting regularly before we recognized our individuality, though we think Lambda was a particularly big contributor, and that I may have been as well at times. Probably some others too, but we're still unraveling this all ourselves, partially through just going for it here and being open about it.

Additionally, we switch who is talking even through a single conversation (such as now) because even though we feel as though we are individuals on the inside, we have only one shared external life to follow, and we switch between each other largely involuntarily and experience significant physical distress (up to the point of total incapacitation) if we consciously resist the switches, so passing the baton back and forth between us seems to be the most efficient way to live a consistent life.

Is that succinct enough? Feel free to ask more, of course.

And thanks a whole lot for your compliment as well.



cj187 and Xorkoth, we have more to say in response to what you said above as well, but not the time to get to it right now, I just wanted to respond to Img_9999's confusion really quickly while I could. We will get to it as soon as we have the chance as this is a fascinating discussion. ☺

 

[Img_9999]

Wow, that sounds intense. I do have questions, but preffer not to derail this thread and also fear being too intrusive.

Anyway, thanks for clearing that up for me.

 

[yepyepwoah]

That sounds cool Kaleida. Do you have any postulations on "why?". Past live selves all together, "cosmic" conciousness gone "wrong". Seems exciting.

 

[Kaleida]

Zeta:

Wow, that sounds intense. I do have questions, but preffer not to derail this thread and also fear being too intrusive.

Anyway, thanks for clearing that up for me.

Happy to clarify. I respect your caution, but know that you are welcome to PM us at any time if you would like to ask something anyway and would feel more comfortable doing so a little more privately. We historically have a horrible record of responding to PMs in a timely manner I will say (and some people in this thread already know that), but will gladly answer any questions if and when we can if you're willing to be patient with us. I will say that we think part of the reason we have always been so bad about it specifically relates to our dissociative symptoms, and we're hoping that this baton-passing will help us start to overcome that more thoroughly.

That sounds cool Kaleida. Do you have any postulations on "why?". Past live selves all together, "cosmic" conciousness gone "wrong". Seems exciting.

I also would like to not derail this thread too much, but will gladly answer your question a bit here especially because I would like some of my response to this to be publicly visible. If you'd like to have a more thorough discussion on the matter, again as above you should feel free to PM us about it at any time too.

First and foremost, after reading your post I have three separate initial reactions, and I don't mean from three different alters, it is just my own psychological conflict personally, though others in here also agree with it and support this response. Before getting into this, I want to preface that I am in no way, shape, or form faulting you for anything you said, so I ask that you please bear with me here through this explanation.

The first reaction comes from knowing how dissociative identity disorder generally seems to emerge and then affects the lives of those who have it. The current most accepted scientific theory that is increasingly supported by evidence is that it is in at least almost all cases (some would simply say all but I have my own thoughts about that as well) connected to significant and extended physical, emotional, and/or sexual trauma occurring at a very young age when a child's brain is still developing, seemingly requiring it to happen some time before the age of around six to nine depending on the brain in question and the natural variances between them, or else it will "only" lead to PTSD instead, and for the record, a sentiment I see often repeated, including in the scientific literature and supported by individual studies, is "There is no DID without PTSD." It is largely believed that, in the more immediate sense of the word, dissociative identity disorder is caused by the permanent structural and functional changes produced in the brain by this early life uncommonly high and sustained excitatory stress system activity, essentially causing the brain to wire differently from how it would otherwise as it develops its self-related networks, and particularly in such a way that is in response to the natural dissociative experiences caused by such stress system activation, the same sort that we experience when we stimulate this activation from outside sources such as drugs. While this does essentially appear to absolutely require this to specifically happen in early life during brain development, the permanent changes to the brain then also appear to produce a lasting dissociative condition where acute dissociation and even the generation of new alters can and do continue to readily occur throughout the life of the "system" (the collection of alters, basically the name for the entire human being as distinct from the individual members of the system) even into adulthood, thus amounting to the name dissociative identity disorder.

A very, very, very large percentage of people with dissociative identity disorder, probably more so than you will find in any other clinical population if I had to guess, seemingly have the condition specifically because they suffered horrific atrocities on a regular basis as defenseless children, things like child sex trafficking and ritual abuse ceremonies and purposeful brainwashing and mental manipulation, and so on and so forth. These are the people who, basically, have had the most disturbing and heartbreaking lives of anyone who has ever lived. Furthermore, those who have gone through things this bad tend to have expressions of dissociative identity disorder so severe and debilitating that it has the capacity to and often does essentially destroy their lives all over again repeatedly as they try to manage and cope with it, even long after they have escaped their truly horrific early life circumstances. Be fairly warned now: more than likely, if you approach any of these people saying that dissociative identity disorder and specifically their own system sounds "cool" or "exciting" or any other similar descriptors, they will be extraordinarily offended and react as such. They will likely feel as though you are diminishing their crippling handicap and the genuinely nightmarish circumstances that gave it to them, as well as missing the fact that most of them have spent and will continue spending the rest of their lives wishing that they did not have dissociative identity disorder and could live a "normal" life free from the scars of their tragic childhood, and, understandably, they will be quite upset about it. This is of course not to generalize, and anyone of any life experience in any place at any time may still respond in a more levelheaded and understanding way that appreciates the fact that others who might say these things about them and their situations are simply looking at them from an outside perspective and don't yet fully grasp the magnitude of what they're saying, but if it were you in that situation, don't you think you would still feel the emotional sting of it anyway? This is the nature of my first reaction to what you said.

For the record, we are, very fortunately, not one of those on the particularly extreme end of traumatic childhoods, and we also do not have nearly the most debilitating expression of dissociative identity disorder that we have ever encountered. All things considered for people with this sort of life, we actually got off pretty easily, and that may contribute significantly to why I am able to respond to this now in a more calm and grounded way. Nonetheless, the emotions are there, and I feel that this is particularly important to cover for those who are unfortunately much deeper into this sort of situation than even we are.

The second reaction relates to the fact that, like many of those in other relatively unknown or diminished groups of people, there is also a growing population of people with dissociative identity disorder who have responded to these things and their own success in overcoming their challenging life experiences by developing and actively supporting the development and widespread awareness of a sense of pride about being the people we simply are and did not choose to be and celebrating that fact. Even just in the past year and a half or so as we have been actively researching these things and familiarizing ourselves with the communities of people with this condition, we have already seen multiple movements attempting to start and continue things such as a "System Pride Day" and we see an increasing number of systems, and particularly younger ones, exposing themselves to the world through media like YouTube (as always with human nature, surely some people are simply exploiting the sense of fame too, but some of the accounts are very real and done in good faith) in the hopes of educating others both with and without this condition and showing that it is possible to live happy, functional, and fulfilling lives with dissociative identity disorder. In this case, these people are probably significantly less likely to immediately take offense to the suggestion that it is "cool" or "exciting" or again whatever else similar to be the way that they, and we, are. However, the situation is, essentially, equivalent to if you went to a gay pride parade, walked up to someone who was openly and enthusiastically expressing and highlighting their homosexuality, and then told them you thought it was "cool" or "exciting" that they are gay; they may not really find the comments offensive because it's clear that you don't have any problem with who they are and just want to show your support, but they would probably find them to feel somewhat awkward and misinformed, because to them being gay is just normal and part of who they are, not something they're getting into or choosing to do at all, and while they are excited to be prideful, that excitement comes more from the fact that they are revolting against all those who in the past have told them not to be prideful, rather than because they are simply inherently excited to be different from what others have become accustomed to. In response, they may be very happy to see you being so open and accepting to who they are, but also wishing to expand your awareness of the situation so that you understand that they are truly just trying to live their lives normally, not to stand out as different except to anyone who has already gone out of their way to try to suppress them. This is the nature of my second reaction.

These first two of my three reactions are the ones that I feel are particularly relevant to the dissociative identity disorder community at large, and thus, for both those in the community as well as yourself and anyone else who might be reading this, I would highly encourage you to take them to heart. Again, I do not wish to fault you in the slightest for saying those things to me, but only to hopefully provide you with some further insight into the situation and prepare you further for any potential interactions with people who have dissociative identity disorder in the future, including ourselves.

The third reaction comes from the part of me that, unlike most people in general and that includes (though I would bet on a different percentage) most people with dissociative identity disorder, I am, and our system is full others who also are, a lifelong dedicated and obsessed psychonaut and amateur philosopher. From that perspective specifically, I would agree that yes, it is absolutely cool and exciting, and frankly has probably provided me, and us, with more insights into these subjects than anything else we have ever experienced or encountered. Because of this part of me, I completely understand why you would say what you said about our situation, and again only wished to expand upon the first two perspectives to further your awareness for your own good and those of others in this sort of situation that you may ever deal with from this point on, and to highlight the fact that even though we are able to appreciate our situation in this way, it doesn't change the fact that we also see this as simply being normal life for us and can also understand and relate to those who would be insulted by those who did attempt to appreciate it in this way, so it truly is an enormously complex subject and I wish to be entirely upfront about that fact.

As for your question, "Why?" Well, in one sense I have already given my best and I feel most likely and scientifically supported answer to this: stress system activation. Please note that I specifically said this rather than "trauma" and will now briefly expand upon why I did so. As I mentioned earlier, some people are of the belief that dissociative identity disorder must relate to early life trauma, no ifs, ands, or buts. However, as a psychonaut, I, like many others here, am well and fully aware of the fact that if the brain can do something "naturally" on its own for one reason, there are a thousand more reasons it could do the exact same thing or sort of thing "unnaturally" with some extra help. For example, if dissociative identity disorder is caused by a certain threshold of high and consistent stress system activation being reached in early childhood, then sure, legitimate trauma could be one potential cause of that, but if certain hallucinogenic drugs like psychedelics and dissociatives also specifically produce acute dissociative effects through activation of this same stress system, which all current scientific research on the subject that I'm personally familiar with suggests that they can and do, then theoretically it would be entirely possible to produce dissociative identity disorder simply be administering the correct threshold of these types of drugs to a young child whose brain is still developing on a regular basis, wouldn't it? (Of course, this would basically also count as child abuse and probably be additionally traumatic in a real world setting, but just work with me here.) In either case, how could the brain tell them apart, if truly the only thing required to produce the condition was to have that certain threshold of activity passed? For the purpose of general psychonautics, we tend to focus on how these brain activities can be stimulated "unnaturally" by drugs, and particularly the drugs we actually like taking, but they're far from the only way to achieve this sort of activity outside of the most "natural" and trauma-related contexts; there are in fact several other already recognized brain conditions that do not necessarily have to be related to trauma at all that have already been specifically linked with potentially high and in this case pathological activation of these very same or same sorts of excitatory stress system pathways, such as schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder, and we have also seen studies suggesting that dissociative experiences and disorders occur to a significantly greater degree in these clinical populations than in people who don't also have such conditions. So, while I'm not saying that I don't think early life trauma is likely overwhelmingly the indirect cause of dissociative identity disorder, it does lead me to suspect that it is, again, simply more accurate to say that a certain level of high and sustained stress system activation, regardless of what produces it, is the direct cause of the condition.

Something I will very briefly touch upon that directly relates to this is the concept of "endogenic" systems and other potential forms of multiplicity such as tulpas and soulbonds, which are generally all considered highly controversial in the dissociative identity disorder community and have led to some pretty heated and emotional arguments. Personally, I think my above argument, even just the comparison to how drugs can activate these same brain systems as trauma in and of itself, demonstrates beyond a reasonable doubt that it is entirely possible for these non-traumagenic systems to exist, for any number of reasons, because again, there could be thousands of different ways to activate those "stress system" pathways that may or may not have anything to do with actual stress. I do not wish to upset anyone who may be reading this who might hold a different opinion the matter, but it is simply the way I personally recognize the situation at hand.

That being said, I feel I have answered your question "Why?" with respect to why I think it emerges in general but not "Why?" we specifically have dissociative identity disorder, and I want to make it clear that we do consider ourselves a traumagenic system and have specific traumatic memories to which we can in retrospect clearly connect certain dissociative experiences and the initial appearance of certain alters, but at the same time, some of the potentially traumatic experiences we know we had from a very young age occurred before we were old enough to have formed any memories about those events, so it is not possible for us to try to consciously fit them into our own dissociation-related life story, and furthermore, we and other family members of ours have also had a lifelong history of displaying not the most severe but also not insignificant OCD-like symptoms, even though we haven't bothered to get them diagnosed because they're not debilitating enough, so I think it's quite possible that the answer to your question is rather complex in our situation.

Finally, I will add that I also do have some thoughts about why our system specifically is organized the way it does and in relation to how dissociative identity disorder works in general, but at the moment I feel that they are a bit too highly speculative to comment on, particularly given that this is a more open and public space and I don't want to take any liberties too quickly. At some point, the further down the rabbit hole you go, the question of "Why does dissociative identity disorder work the way it does?" becomes inseparable from the question of "Why does consciousness work the way it does?" That is something I do not feel sufficiently qualified to answer. (Yet....) On top of that, I feel that it would be inappropriate for me to say too much while simply jotting my thoughts down now without having more of an internal discussion with the rest of the system first, and while that is something we are actively interested in doing, I feel it goes beyond the scope of what I would like to capture in this post. Nonetheless, we will continue to update you and everyone of our perspective on such things if and when they continue to develop. I will just say tantalizingly for the moment, I do genuinely think that there is an underlying connection to the workings of the complex experiences elicited by deeper levels of exploration into psychedelic and dissociative drugs, as suggested by your questioning.

I have sadly run out of time to continue typing this post once more, but, as enjoyable as talking about this all is to me, it is my sincere hope that our next post in this thread will be largely on-topic, including getting back to the responses we have already twice now left hanging. If you or anyone else would like to continue talking to us about this publicly or reading more about what we've already had to say, I would encourage that you read our four trip reports that we've published over the past month, the first one of which Xorkoth already posted, which I will shamelessly plug now.

1. (DOB/1.4 mg) - Second Time - Just Relax, by Lambda

2. (Myristica fragrans/3 mL essential oil) - Third Time - For When Life Ain't Spicy Enough, by Delta

3. (4-AcO-MALT/100 mg) - Fourth Time - Luxurious Probably Says It Best, by Kappa

4. (5-MeO-MiPT/10 mg) - Third Time - Break On Through, by Omicron

These are standalone reports, but will flow better, especially with respect to understanding what we have to say about our dissociative identity disorder and how it relates to our hallucinogenic drug experiences, if read in order. Because these are our own threads and just trip reports ones, feel free to ask questions there to your heart's content. However, we still reserve the right to use discretion with regards to what we are willing to speak about publicly as of yet.

I hope everyone is having a tremendous day so far. ❤

 

[Xorkoth]

Thanks for that thorough and enlightening post, Zeta. Really fascinating and thought-provoking.

 

[sin_is_synthetic]

Really glad to see more reports. I need to jump back in on it-Im probably going to go a little higher from my last which was around 14 mg. Feeling it out it was definitely gentle and gave me no impression that increasing a few more mgs will be problematic. Will definitely post findings.