Precation: This trial was done in a safe and controlled environment with careful attention to possible contraindictions between foods and other chemicals. This is NOT THE LAST of testing for this chemical, this is just one of the newest notable trials of interest. Please do NOT recklessly ensue in trying new chemicals simply because one person provided an interesting report on it, your body is different from everyone else, so be safe.

I have no notable place to publish this and the Nexus is the best open-minded community to accept this so I will present to you my largely qualitative bioassay from a recent experiment. I am fully knowledgeable in my actions and what I did so this was not a mistake. I am open to critique and curious to see what other's have knowledge of this substance. Excuse the length. Beginning here...

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

==A Brief Background on Phenylethylamine==

Phenylethylamine or phenethylamine (PEA) is a natural monoamine alkaloid, trace amine, and also the name of a class of chemicals with many members well known for psychoactive drug and stimulant effects. It is sold as a dietary supplement for purported mood and weight loss-related therapeutic benefits; however, orally ingested phenethylamine is usually inactive because of extensive first-pass metabolism by monoamine oxidase (MAO) into phenylacetic acid, preventing significant concentrations from reaching the brain.

Note: This is the reason for doing this trial; it is rendered inactive because of first-pass metabolism, but what if I took enough that my body couldn't metabolize it all before it passed through? That's the basis for this.

The background information presented was obtained from Wikipedia.

==Preparation==
Nine (9.00) grams of purified solid phenylethylamine HCl salt(abbreviated as PEA from now on) was put into gelatin capsules, amounting to a total of 23 capsules. This was all done with proper weighing techniques on a scale (specificaly, weighing by subtration.)

Nothing was eaten at least 6 hours beforehand to ensure maximum effects.

My goal in this trial was not for fun random testing. I have microdosed my way up on PEA and this is, in my best hypothesis, the final trial for getting worthwhile effects (both psychoactive or physical) from PEA without any form of an inhibitor.

==Experience==
All of this experience was written as it was happening.
2:42AM - All of the 23 capsules were just taken with water. The capsules tasted similar to pretzel salt and so do my burps. I've tasted PEA before so I know it's kind of bitter and odd tasting. This is where my story begins. I hope I can survive this. I am listening to epic trance music right now with lots of anthems so this is going to be my coming up music.

2:45AM - I feel a slight cold rush through my body, interesting... my stomach is also a little nauesous right now. I'm assuming as more capsules break open the feeling will increase. Whoa, I'm definitely feeling something weird right now but can't pinpoint it. It's growing as I type this. Wow, this is constantly slowly growing stronger by the second.

2:50AM - Stomach still hurting a bit but it is bearable. I don't know whether those effects are placebo or not but I am definitely feeling a cold neutrally enjoyable feeling in my head. To clarify why I took so much, I have done microdosing before on this substance, starting with 250mg, then moving up to 500mg, 1g, 3g, and then ~7g. The seven gram experience...whoa, I just got a warm shiver tingle up my neck! OMG! My whole body is warm!! That flowing euphoria glow is present throughout my head! Ahh, this is great! I've never taken ecstacy before but I hope this is what it is like. My whole body feels very light and I am getting warm waves of tingles throughout my body. I am laughing from joy1! MY HEAD FEELS SO LIGHT AND FUN! I want to finish what I was saying. I tried the 7 gram and it was quite enjoyable! I had a very euphoric feeling and although short live..shit...this feels so damn good! The grams was very good and I wanted to try ten grams finally but I saved one gram.

2:55AM - I'm not even at my peak yet and my hair feels good. Oh my gosh, I have found my drug. I've always known phenylethylamine can do something! I assumed because the enzymes in your stomach metabolize it fast, what Iif I cave my body mor phenylethyamine [post-edit: "if I gave my body more"] that my body could metablize. Then the drug would absorb before my enzymes could eat up all the PEA. And it worked! I am so happy right now. It's a tad difficult to type but I am trying my best. My body feels like it is floating so much even though I am seated at computer. I am a little dizzy but it feels very very good! I love this feeling. It's like as if my whole body is hollow and a warm covers me, like a flannel blanket is enveloped over my skin. Oddly, my heart rate is slow, that is a weird symptom. My body is vibrating with this extremey beautiful every. I am glad I was brave enought to try this. I feel like puking from excitement. Now I actually feel like puking...

3:01AM - This is fucking intense. I know that MDMA has neurotoxicity, but this doesn't have the methlyenedixoy group, so I assume it doesn't have the neurotoxic aspect. [Post-edit: this is probably not true at all]

3:02AM - This is just too intense. I...

3:06AM - I just puked. I can tell I lost a lot of PEA because the puked tasted very much like it. I can tell I didn't absorb it but even with this amount the feelings are intense. Currently. I I feel extremely warm throughout my body, general euphoria, and I feel like puking again. I have no visuals but it is still and intensely good body load. This still works pretty fast if you take a lot, though it makes me nauseous. I just took a peptobismol. Everything seems surreal. My eye focus is a little difficult but that's just the PEA. Music doesn't exactly seem much better but at the same time, it is. I feel like the pioneer of bravery with PEA since I have never heard of anyone taking as much as me. I feel like puking stuff but I can't. I am quite nauseous right now.

3:19AM - The amount I took is a lot because I constantly feel like I need to puke. I am sure that if I took less then it would probably feel the same, just less puking. I am coughing with phlem. I do have some bruxism.

3:22AM - I am still feeling nauseous. This is not a substance to be underestimated, it is very intense. I also am clenching my teeth and feel euphoric; I've got a big smile on my face.

6:55AM - I ended up falling asleep. I'll talk later. [Post-edit: I was still feeling some of the drug at this point but wanted to sleep since I was already sleeping.]

10:55AM - I have just woken up, not groggy and there is no negative comedown/feelings associated with it, however my eyes are a bit dry. When I went into the bed, my intent was just to lay down and enjoy the rest of the experience with my music since I had only woken up two hours before. My whole body felt heavy yet light and I was satisfied doing nothing although I did have an urge to do more things.

==Results==
This is definitely an empatheogenic drug. Minus the intensification of senses (except for touch) and markedly less visual/audio distortion, I would very much compare this to a weaker (but still very much working) form of MDMA. With that said, I did not even absorb all of the 9 grams of PEA (when I threw up which I assume was about a half but cannot be sure) so I can only imagine that the effects would have been stronger, possibly comparable in full strength to MDA. I may note however that I didn't not feel mentally stimulated or have evolving thoughts of intensity, nor completely absent in mind; my mind was sober-ish, erring on the happy side. I may try taking a couple of bismuth subsalicyclate tablets or calcium carbonate tablets for next time to reduce the nausea. I rate this a ++ experience.

A nice thing to note is that:
1. This was done without an MAO inhibitor which makes for a much more readily available experience and proves to all of my colleagues and mates who doubted me that this does work.
2. The availability of this chemical to be freely bought on many sites for very low prices I believe makes it the cheapest empathogen/entheogen, though not the mast attractive.
3. My predictions that this compound would turn out to be entheogenic seems to show that the conclusion is true. The similarity between MDMA, MDA, methamphetamine, and amphetamine make it difficult to initially conclude how PEA will turn out since it is the base for all of these structures yet there are both stimulants and entactogens in this group.
4. This could be a hard-to-abuse drug and deter the average person from taking it because of it's dosage amount. This seems to be a good thing because it will prevent people from depreciating and giving bad publicity to PEA.
5. Shulgin, you are not completely right in claiming "It is without activity in man!", but then again, you were hoping for people like me to help prove you wrong and I am glad to do the honors.

(Note: This was also posted on Erowid but the approval procedure would take extremely long before it got through approval.)

What an interesting (and risky!) project! Thanks for sharing your results

very interesting, thanks for sharing. wonder if the same technique could be applied to a tryptamine molecule?

Interesting, have heard about this stuff... Some people like to combine it with selegiline, which is itself a member of the phenethylamine family, an MAO-B inhibitor and in high doses a MAO-A inhibitor.

PS: could you link to this epic trance with lots of anthems?

I'm confused about the thread title, it let me down. Can you please describe the effects that would quantify PEA as psychedelic? I hardly consider MDMA psychedelic, it is only slightly so in my opinion, so I am just curious as to what you consider psychedelic. I generally associate euphoria with non-psychedelics, but there is always that potential.

Very interesting though, thanks for sharing!

Well there's definitely heavily altered head-space but I don't think it can qualify at psychedelic... there's definately an abuse potential with a MAOI(such as Selegiline, beta-carbolines might work too) because you can pop like 100mg every half an hour and stay high for days straight. Similar to meth-amphetamine at higher doses(200-500mg under MAOI) although watch out for blood-pressure that might land you in a hospital. Also like a minuscule amount of alcohol(higher can result in hospitalization/death) has an interesting effect, 1 sip of beer can knock you out straight for hours with weird euphoric effect. Also SWIM burned his stomach lining a bit after days of abuse, PEA powder is quite corrosive. Be very careful with this substance.

I dunno..this does not sound healthy..I cant see how ingesting 9 grams of some alkaloid like PEA can be good for the stomach lining..I would not do this. If at all I would use an MAO-B inhibitor with low ammounts of the PEA..

Inteesting experiment though. You might like working with higher doses of raw cacao..it contains PEA and theobromine and number of other phens and some MAOI'S..has an empathic phen vibe at large doses.

or...mescaline.

Mescaline is the true grandfather of all phen psychedelics.

Thanks for the guinea pig experiment sharing. Indeed it doesnt sound healthy to ingest that much PEA, but i dont think we have much experiments on toxicity published? Might be worth to make a google scholar search.

In any case what IS very interesting is if we consider that some acacias have phenetylamine and substituted phenetylamines, mixed with dmt and other tryptamines and beta carbolines. These cocktail of chemicals quite possibly will have a distinct psychoactive effect than pure or nearly pure dmt such as extracted from mimosa.

I want to look into acacia now...

lysergify: I wish I could but it's a mix I recorded from an internet radio so it's not something I could link unless I put it up.

damon: Maybe I should have said psychoactive, that's probably what I meant.

jamie: I was sure that it was in no way healthy. I also was trying to achieve an effect without an MAOI or MAO-B I. And I agree with the grandfather mescaline, I just figured it's the originator would be the grandfather.

I know your intentions are good, but what you did sounds reckless and irresponsible.

Hopefully you won't inspire other Shulgin-wannabees to take chances with their health and possibly their lives by flooding their bodies with chemicals that are potentially toxic in large doses.

I said I responsibly worked my way up from 500mg to 9 grams so I know it was not a completely "reckless" decision.

Interresting. Makes you wonder; Could Phenethylamine also be active if
other routes of administration are taken? What about vaporising it?
What about snorting it? Or taking an enema of it?

For these ROA's you might not need high doses at all. These routes all
largely bypass the MAO system. The same might be true for Tryptamine.

Has anyone ever tried vaporising or snorting Tryptamine?
I'm sure TIHKAL & PIHKAL have answers. Worthy of investigation I supose.

http://www.erowid.org/ps...qs/faqs_tryptamine.shtml
"tryptamine: severe physical symptoms"

i've had a similar thought about dmt. would it work orally if you ate so much that there wouldn't be enough mao to destroy it? obviously would be a waste of dmt though

..very interesting, MMPA, thank you for the report (and associated risk of guinea pigging)
there are a few australian and US acacias which contain primarily simple PEA and related PEAs..very little is known in reported literature regarding their toxicity...

Vaporising it could be more effective, though the effects would probably last shorter.

I think it would be wise to add, that even endogenic substances can be (neuro)toxic when they exceed certain levels.

..extracts of A. harpophylla (PEA + hordenine) have been vaporized..described as 'psychoactive' without further detail..duration approx. 2hrs..
..regarding safety, this is a tricky issue..while MMPA's experiment had risks, without such efforts new discoveries would not be made..i think there was enough prior evidence to suggest 500mg may be safe, but 9 grams..wow..
working gradually up through doses, as MMPA reports, would be the safest proceedure..

I considered the different routes.

-Intraveneous: Uncertain + never done anything intravenous before so don't want to try that yet. Would basicity affect veins? Also, would metabolic acidosis (lower blood ph) be a problem?
-Insufflation: It burns according to many and would take too much to snort; produces bad chemical burns in nose.
-Sublingual: Unenjoyable burning/tingling sensation, so no.
-Vapourising: MSDS says it's a lung irritant? A small amount was smoked once but that did nothing nor was it enjoyable and vapourises very fast.
-Intramuscular: ?
-Subcutaneous/Transdermal/Rectal: It's a skin irritant so that's a no; kind of like soap.
-Oral/Gastrointestinal: Safest known route as of currently.

Seeing as it worked with PEA, I don't see why not. I think we can make a hypothesis that if the substance ingested outnumbers the enzymes available to break it down, then inevitably some of the substance will bypass first-pass metabolism and/or be absorbed without destroying it.

...Which gets me thinking, if you could (hypothetically) use something like PEA to saturate the enzymes in their work, then take DMT shortly after, would the DMT work without an MAOI because you're technically inhibiting the MAO's by saturating them with other work? Just a thought, it would probably be difficult to do that with good timing and is not a very ideal approach.