MDMA: experiences

This section is for first-hand accounts of MDMA: what was taken, in what setting, what happened — during, and in the days after. Honest reports, including the ones where nothing went wrong and the ones where everything did, are worth more here than any summary of them.

How to read an experience report

An anecdote is one person, once. With MDMA there is a second problem stacked on top: a report about "ecstasy" or "molly" is a report about an untested product. Pressed tablets and powders sold as MDMA routinely contain other substances entirely — stimulants, cathinones, dissociatives, and sometimes far more dangerous adulterants — so an account of a bad night may describe a different drug than its title does. Reports that mention a reagent or lab test are telling you more than reports that don't. Setting matters too: the same dose reads completely differently on a dance floor at 3 a.m. than on a couch, and heat is part of MDMA's danger, not a side note.

How to write one worth reading

Dose in milligrams if you know it, whether you redosed and when, whether the material was tested and how, the setting, water and heat, what other substances were anywhere near it — including alcohol and prescription medication — and how the following days felt, not just the night. The comedown days are half the MDMA story and most reports leave them out. Skip anything that reads as instructions; describe, don't prescribe.

The archives

• Erowid's MDMA experience vault — thousands of reports across every category, including combinations and difficult experiences.
• Erowid's MDMA vault — the surrounding reference: effects, chemistry, health, law.
• PsychonautWiki's MDMA article — a community-written description of the subjective effects. Collected experience, not a checked source.

For the pharmacology, the interactions that actually kill people, and the legal picture, see this area's other sections — that is where the evidence lives, with its citations.