I took speed and ecstasy. The latter preferably. It put me in a state of bright alertness, a happy-go-lucky mood that lasted for hours and hours and made me dance. One was happy with everything, even if one decided to retreat to a quiet corner instead of dancing.
They say it's a very social drug that makes you overcome any inhibitions. I can confirm that.
Alcohol has a similar effect, but you can't maintain the happy level as well, and it probably often puts you in a situation where you feel sick or the effect is too lukewarm. Apart from that, you get hungry from alcohol, but ecstacy makes you forget about food completely. But you should drink a lot of water.

I remember my first time and I said after about three quarters of an hour that I wouldn't feel a thing, the others smiled knowingly. But by then I jumped up and said, "Dance!" and off I went.

The after-effect though was less nice, like a kind of tired question mark hovering over your head, an empty feeling, showing you the contrast to the formerly felt experience, and the sleep was rather restless and not particularly restorative. But if you went about your normal daily routine, it went on without a hitch. I wouldn't recommend it for many years, though, even though we spent about five years of our lives alternating between a proper work identity and partying at weekends.

I've heard people say that it's very "bad to get on drugs", i.e. you fall into a dark mental situation. So I thought: can I put myself in a dark mood? I tried, but the half-heartedness of my attempt made me laugh and I thought: "What nonsense!" and went back to the dance floor.

Nonetheless, I once had a very exhausting trip that I would rather have ended sooner than later, but I had to wait for the effects to wear off first. While I had to hold out desperately on a hotel room bed, haunted by images and sensations of an almost intangible kind (space images and stuff). Actually, though, part of me remained fascinated by it, while the other begged for mercy and an end. I attribute it to the unusually concentrated dose that, when your limit is exceeded, confronts you with yourself and, if you are not ready, you can get quite scared by it. However, I have read and heard from people who have taken bigger risks than me that this is the threshold that you can cross willingly and with good company to make it more than a fun experience.

It's possible that this somewhat frightening experience on my part has taught me a little respect, which is not a bad thing, but without at the same time demonising the stuff and acting as if I now have to warn or inspire everyone else. Neither the one nor the other can be a mandate.

In any case, an Ayuahaska ceremony has as much to do with fun as the sermon in Sunday church. As I learned, it is probably more about reaching out to one's dark and unexplored sides and taking a journey that shows one the afterlife. Because we modern city people are so disconnected from traditions and journeys into other consciousness, we don't connect this with anything deeper, but unfortunately just retain a fear of it. I have never tried it myself. It's difficult, if not impossible, to pull over a different culture without having the right community and settings for it.

I think, what critique people have with drugs is, that they are taken widely without a spiritual context and just for the fun of it. I would say it's a considerable critique but only then when one is over-doing it and gets greedy. Otherwise, fun can be also spiritual, can it not?

Anyway, my high dose of pure MDMA got me into feeling helpless and overwhelmed. But I don't consider it an experience I wished I haven't had. I am satisfied with what I thought of it later.

I can laugh about it now, the Indian taxi driver who drove me back to the hotel with his eyes threatening to fall out of their sockets and looking like a frog behind the wheel to me. I must have looked at him as if he was from a foreign star. The corridor of the hotel that stretched out in front of me as if for all eternity, offering a visual distortion that irritated me deeply, just like the clubbers before, whom I felt were too close to me with their sweaty and sticky bodies that became too much for me without warning. The bar "behaved" in the same way the corridor did, it stretched itself out, no end in sight.

All of a sudden I felt annoyed by my very best friend and thought it would be wise to retreat instead of giving her names.

Here, you can read a story which is related to my personal experiences:) The beginning of the story is written by someone else, I finished it in my style. I bet, you'll like it.

Now, enough for now. Gotta go and prepare dinner.