I thought I would post a followup to the thread, since everyone was so generous with thoughtful replies. I also hate when people ask questions and then never tell what happened.
We went ahead and shared some on Saturday, and the whole experience was A-MAZ-ING!
Words can't do the experience justice, but basically, we laid around the entire time, listened to our mutual favorite music, touched and had profound conversation.
I was super nervous before we took it. My friend was kind enough to read out loud all the side effects on Erowid, from positive to negative. "Eye jiggles" were listed as neutral and the mention of that gave me severe pre-flight anxiety.
The comeup was weird and fluttery, but not untolerable. It was a bit delayed because we had dinner right before. I did not want to move while coming up until I knew what my body was doing, because the weird flutters were similar to weird harmala head flutters that start to come on right before Caapi peaks and makes me spin out. The MDMA flutters, however, just presaged intensely euphoric feelings.
My friend's body was feverishly hot, except for his feet, which were ICE cold, and I thought that was odd. I was nervous about weird body temperature fluctuations but mine seemed tolerably regulated. I was very thirsty.
I noticed my speech changed and became very simplistic, but straight and to the point. We talked mostly about our interpersonal dynamic, including some things neither of us voiced before, and it was intensely therapeutic... we've shared some weird times, some bad times, and went through a lot together. Also lots of good times!
Sometime around the halfway point we left my room to whip out our LED poi and dance. After about ten minutes of dancing, which we normally love to do together and do all the time, we decided it was so lame and went back to having a cuddle puddle.
As someone who came to MDMA looking for an entheogenic experience, I personally (and this is my opinion) do not see the value in this compound outside of an intimate or cuddle puddle situation. It was ALLLLL about the opening up and bonding for me. I would still much rather eat mushrooms to dance. (*More about music in a second.) My friend had also never taken it in an intimate setting, only in a party setting, and he said the one on one experience vastly trumped every other roll.
But the beauty of music was incredible.
As soon as it wore off, we smoked a tiny bowl and passed out.
Almost more interesting than the actual roll itself were the three days to follow. It wasn't a hangover and it wasn't an afterglow, but it was something totally unlike I've ever experienced that I decided to call a hang-glow.
I felt relatively functional during the day, not tired, not depressed, not anything that I expected to feel... For negative feelings, however, I had these brief fleeting moments of dizziness, fluttery chest, body temperature changes, and a general sense of feeling like I was going to die. They were little pangs that did not last long (otherwise I'd never want to touch the stuff again), but they were grotesquely uncomfortable. They happened on the first day when I felt overstimulated (when I first got to work... ugh), and around waking and sleeping.
I also had intense but brief surges of euphoria and emotional clarity. I would do yoga and get into my body and it would feel SOOOO good. I had spells of totally body-positive moments.
My sense of touch, connected to my sense of music was also heightened. I normally struggle with volume dynamics on the piano, playing very softly or emotively, sometimes I whack the keys and am generally a loud psycho... but my playing was incredible. The way I touched the keys and controlled volume and emotion was incredible. I need to carve out time to play in my next recovery period. It also half tempts me to take some by myself someday and make sweet love to my piano.
During the hang-glow, I had insanely vivid dreams, I felt relaxed during the day, and felt like my speech was still simplistic for a day or two. I was thirstier than normal.
The communication between my friend and I also flowed after and it's still really good. We're talking about all kind of deep stuff. It was such a positive experience and such a beneficial thing to share.
I woke up this morning, finally, and knew the second that I woke up that I was back to normal. The process of realizing I was normal again was also interesting, because I became immediately aware of my usual, deeply unconscious fear of expressing myself. I started feeling anxious about some of the more intimate things I said to my friend, and (here is the moment of deep learning), I realized that anxiety came from a fear of rejection. It's a general thing, why authentic self-expression is always scary. Having that contrast of experiences, waking consciousness vs. total openness changed the context in which I view my waking consciousness, and now that I understand yet another facet of it, I can hopefully direct it to grow into something even better.
All in all, I'm bummed Shulgin says once per season, but I would totally do it again. Next time, I just have to make sure to take it earlier (we waited until 11pm... bad idea), because I'm sure the sleep deprivation exacerbated the negative effects I felt the first day, and also, I need to make sure I'm not working the day after, either. Nothing bad happened and I didn't wreck my life, but it would have been preferable to let my body rest and get some extra extra sleep. We also didn't take 5-HTP (thought we had some, realized we didn't) the day after, which would have probably helped. We did take magnesium and vitamin C beforehand.
Anyway, that was my experience, for anyone who was wondering, and possibly for anyone who reads who was wondering if they should ever try it or not.
It was so strange to have a drug experience that did not involve tryptamine sickness. I've unintentionally conditioned myself to expect that from all altered states of consciousness, so it was a baffling, pleasant surprise to become so intensely altered with no rough feelings (until the days after... but the bad moments were fleeting, and the gains totally outweighed the costs).
Some things will come easy, some will be a test