Before one should even consider the use of diphenhydramine, they should read these recommendations:
1. Start with low dosages and work up. People often have drastically different reactions to the same dosages. While reading experience reports may give an idea of what dosages produce what effects, there is no guarantee they will translate to you.
2. Use a sober trip sitter if possible. At high dosages, the delirium produced by this drug may make it impossible to differentiate between hallucinations and reality. People have been known to reach into a burning fire, thinking they were grabbing a pencil off of their desk.
[top]Dosages and Timeline
Diphenhydramine and its counterpart, dimenhydrinate (see the “Different Forms of...” section) can be bought over-the-counter at a pharmacy or grocery store almost worldwide in pill form. These dosages should give one a rough estimate of how much to take.
Note that it is possible one may have an allergy to this drug. One should never take a large dose before having tried a very small dose on its own previously.
Diphenhydramine usually comes in 25 or 50mg dosages. The following table should give an idea of how many pills one should take depending on the effect they are looking for.
Diphenhydramine Dosages
Light: 25 - 150 mg
Medium: 150 - 350 mg
Strong: 250 - 500 mg
Very Strong: 400 - 800 mg
Dangerous: 800+ mg
As far as dosing and effects go,
100mg: sleepiness, maybe some
audio hallucinations. It'll be tough to stay awake.
200mg: sedation and mild delirium, mild hallucinations like bugs flying across visual field and things of the like. They'll pop up and be gone before you really catch whats going on
300mg: Same as 200mg except more intense. Definite delirium and difficulty motivating yourself to stay awake. Visuals are more present. You might see bugs crawling in your skin and be able to comprehend some things like bugs before you fall asleep. Things that are really there might have different facial expressions. Audio hallucinations. Intense drymouth and uncomfortable.
400mg: Intense delirium. Symptoms are very similar to schizophrenia. You'll see people pass by that don't exist. If you close your eyes you'll think your in a different place. Difficulty speaking and restlessness occurs. Heart rate increases and it's difficult to get comfortable. Staggering and depth perception will occur
500mg: Very intense delirium. Walking is increasingly difficult. Walls will have patterns, random things will pop up and fake people will be seen and will converse with you. Speech and motor function is extremely difficult, and not much more than mumbling will come out at most. You will think your in one place at a different time of day, then quickly flash to another place. Staying at one place at a time for roughly a minute. It becomes very uncomfortable and falling asleep will be difficult. You won't know if your awake or dreaming, and if not lying in bed "sleepwalking" may occur, but you'll be bumping into walls and cannot comprehend where your going. Drymouth seems uncurable, no matter how much water. Possible sickness
Anything over 600mg may cause blackouts and dangerous for the heart, especially without a tolerance. Although people have taken over 1g and have survived, but remember very little of their trip, and cannot recall what was reality or hallucinations.
Note: The aforementioned list are general effects. Everyone reacts differently to diphenhydramine, but after reading multiple trip reports these are the most common effects.
Effective dosages vary greatly from person to person, based on factors such as body weight, tolerance, and other unknowns. There have been people taking doses higher than 800 mg and have been fine, but once someone gets to dosages that high, it begins to put strain on his or her heart. Some may take 500mg one night and not reach the desired effects, and then on a different night take the same dose and become overwhelmed. This chemical tends to be on the darker side and extremely random and is part of the reason why its popularity is low.
Tolerance develops extremely fast for diphenhydramine and seems to disappear slowly, so it is a good idea to space out diphenhydramine trips rather than increasing one's dosage to compensate for this tolerance. Compensation can become dangerous, because it is impossible to tell at exactly what dose diphenhydramine will become dangerous to one's health.
Dimenhydrinate dosages are roughly twice those of diphenhydramine dosages, as there are 29 mg of diphenhydramine per 50 mg of dimenhydrinate.
Dimenhydrinate Dosages
Light: 50 - 300 mg
Medium: 250 - 650 mg
Strong: 450 - 900 mg
Very Strong: 700 - 1400 mg
Dangerous: 1400+ mg
The timeline of diphenhydramine can vary greatly depending on the same factors as dosage. It can take anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours to completely come up, so one should be very hesitant to redose if they are not getting the effects they desire. The full experience usually lasts 4 to 8 hours, but in cases of tolerance, drastically different effects can occur. For some users, they may find themselves back at baseline within two hours. There has also been a case where a subject took 600 mg of diphenhydramine, felt nothing for a few hours, redosed another 600 mg, and then woke up to find themselves in the hospital, having almost died of heart failure. It is clear that this is not a drug to be taken lightly.
Also note that dimenhydrinate has a slightly slower timeline than diphenhydramine, as one's body has to separate the two parts of the molecule (diphenhydramine and the weak stimulant).
While a user may feel at baseline after five or so hours, very subtle effects often persist for as long as 24 hours, and in rare cases even for a few days.
[top]Effects of Diphenhydramine
Positive Effects
- Muscle relaxation
- Music appreciation - This effect varies widely from person to person, but it is generally agreed that diphenhydramine does enhance music. Some various comments include "listening to any song sounds like you are listening to it for the first time, it is never boring," "it smooths out music and makes it more enjoyable." Some people say it gives a darker and creepier edge to music.
- Mixture of dreaming and reality - Perhaps the most interesting effect of diphenhydramine is that it causes people to dream while they are awake. This can be a very positive experience, but also a very negative as dreams are well known to be. Users can often have much more vivid dreams after the intoxication is over. Here is how one user described the dream-reality blending: "All of his thought patterns would turn into conversations with himself, or other people. Some conversations were actually reproductions of real conversations he had had in the past week. These thought-conversations would slowly get more and more real. Eventually, he would always feel compelled to say something out loud. He would struggle for a while, not sure if he really wanted to, but would always eventually say it. This would suddenly bring him back to reality, he would realize that there was no one in the room he was talking to, and his voice would sound foreign and distant."
Neutral Effects
- Time dilation (one minute may feel like 20)
- Extreme short-term memory impairment (at higher doses it becomes difficult to even finish sentences)
- Extreme sedation at higher doses, difficulty staying awake
- Flushed skin
- Feelings of intense gravity or extreme heaviness, feeling like one weighs thousands of pounds
- Unusual thoughts, speech, and behavior
- Visual and auditory hallucinations - This is one of the most sought after effects, and it can range from seeing simple patterns on the walls, to having conversations with people that are not there. This can be pleasant, interesting, terrifying, or even dangerous, because at high enough doses it becomes impossible to distinguish hallucinations from reality. A very common hallucination is seeing small insects that do not exist. Perhaps a small speck on the wall will be interpreted as a small fly. Many people see realistic spiders everywhere and proceed to get extremely terrified. Some have scratched nonexistent bugs on their skin to the point of bleeding. Because what someone will see is so unpredictable, one should be extremely careful using this drug.
Negative Effects
- Dry mouth
- Frequent urination, or possible urinary retention
- Sexual dysfunction (though there have been a few cases of sexual enhancement reported in low to moderate doses)
- Blurred vision
- Confusion
- Discomfort, dizziness, loss of coordination
- Uncontrollable muscle twitches or cramps, restless leg syndrome (less common)
- Nervousness, anxiety
- Nausea (at higher doses, less common)
- Vomiting (very rare, in fact most users would have trouble vomiting if they tried due to diphenhydramine's antiemitic effects)
- Amnesia, loss of memory of the experience afterwards
[top]Combinations with Diphenhydramine
Diphenhydramine has been combined with other drugs by many users, this article will try to cover most of the combinations and point out which are dangerous.
Marijuana - Anecdotally, marijuana seems to alleviate some of the unpleasant side effects of diphenhydramine (although certainly not dry mouth) while slightly enhancing the visual and auditory hallucinations. It is possible that marijuana could increase one's heart rate further than what diphenhydramine does, but unless a very large dose of diphenhydramine was taken, this will probably not be dangerous. Most agree that this is a good drug to combine with diphenhydramine.
Stimulants - Many people have turned to stimulants to attempt to combat the strong sedation caused by diphenhydramine. This is generally not recommended, because it may stress the heart to dangerous levels, however something mild like
caffeine will probably be fine. Avoid stronger stimulants like
cocaine or amphetamines.
Alcohol or other sedatives - Generally not recommended, the sedative effects of each drug will compound the other, being possibly dangerous, and most likely very unpleasant (excessive dizziness is a likely effect).
Opiates - Small doses of diphenhydramine combine very well with opiates, as they reduce the side effects of opiates such as itching and nausea, as well as potentiating the opiates somewhat. Bad reactions can occur taking more than about 125 mg of diphenhydramine, or 200 mg of dimenhydrinate.
DXM - Medium or high doses of diphenhydramine should never be combined with DXM, as diphenhydramine has weak
SSRI activity and this could lead to the unpleasant and potentially deadly
serotonin syndrome. Also, combining these two drugs would likely create an extremely terrifying and unpleasant trip mentally, with the user begging to come down. Very small doses of diphenhydramine might alleviate some of the side effects of DXM, however, such as the robo-itch.
Psychedelics - Not recommended, the possibility of a scary trip is almost assured. One user took just 50 mg of diphenhydramine during a mushroom trip and very quickly descended into a confused and scared mental state. However a smaller dose, perhaps just 25 mg could relieve the nausea caused by some psychedelics.
[top]Different Uses for Diphenhydramine
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