		 DOSE:

		   repeated

		 LSD

		   repeated

		 Cannabis
		 (daily)

		   repeated

		 Pharmaceuticals
		 (daily)

           BODY WEIGHT:
	   180 lb

Ok so here it is.  Fifteen years of mental psychosis and non-stop tripping summed up in a few paragraphs.

When I was sixteen I was bored with smoking pot everyday so I gave in to the mystery.  The entertainment industry was making it look like harmless fun and all my friends were doing it so being an impressionable kid I tried it.  I bought a tiny piece of paper with a blue sperm cell printed on it from some cool kid who sold drugs.  I had seen 'The Doors' recently so I was expecting a cinematic experience of ego deconstruction and deep revelation.

I was sitting on my friend Steve's couch when I first felt it.  I somehow had managed to isolate myself, as I always do, in the living room while they sat in his room and smoked pot.  The initial effect was a physical euphoria unlike anything I had felt before.  'I like this', I thought to myself.  Steve's dad was coming home soon and he was worried that I would get him busted because I was saying strange things and my eyes were nothing but pupil.  He kicked us out and we wandered through the graveyard where I was convinced I heard people talking to me from inside their coffins and on to my dude Sam’s house.

So two hours later I'm on top of my friend Sam's house barefoot singing some re-worded version of the Star Spangled Banner (it was the 4th of july by the way).  The whole night was politically themed.  I was giving speeches to all my friends about how horrible capitalism is and stuff.  A negative experience for all those involved.  I went home because my friends were tired of hearing my uneducated ranting.  I sat down in front of the television and watched fireworks with my parents.  They were flying off the screen and exploding on the walls and ceiling.  My mom asked me what I was staring at, as my dilated eyes were fixed on the ceiling.  'The fireworks' I said.  'Are you ok ?' I decided that being around my parents on acid wasn't a very good idea so I went to my room and listened to music.  It was more like participating than listening, which is one of the things that I've always loved about acid.  One of the few things.

A year later I was taking acid every weekend and I was starting to develop some depression.   Another year goes by and I start having paranoid ideas that cops are watching me and everyone around me is judging me.  Year three, I was tripping three times a week at large doses.  I went to a psychiatrist because I was disgusted with the world around me.  I felt somehow omnipotent.  Nothing seemed real and I decided that I would like to kill myself because life wasn't real anyway.  I was admitted into a mental institution because I was always talking about death and couldn't motivate myself to do anything but smoke pot and do acid.  I was diagnosed bipolar and put on Prozac and Depekote.

Once the antidepressants kicked in my lsd trips became much more intense and unbearable.  I soon was in a constant state of tripping.  I didn't even need the acid to get off anymore.  It started scaring me because I couldn't look at a painting flowers without seeing them wither and thrive simultaneously.  Everyone I looked at had a pulsating skeletal look to them, as if I was seeing past their skin.  Voices had a flanged space - echo effect to them.  Anarchic ideas flooded my mind and dominated my subconsciousness to the point that I was convinced that I was going insane.  My psychiatrist's answer to these problems was always trying me on some new medicine.  I was put on dozens of pills to no avail.

By the time I was twenty one I couldn't smoke a joint without triggering a full blown acid trip.  I was a devout pot smoker who smoked at least five times a day, so basically I was always tripping.  The tension was physical and mental.  My muscles were always sore and I had become 50% grey headed.  My entire being seemed to be defined by lsd.  I'm not talking flashbacks, I'm talking always tripping.

At twenty five I hadn't tripped in years but the effects hadn't subsided.  My doctor finally introduced me to antipsychotics such as Haldol which gave me severe dystonic reactions. He switched me to Mellaril.  The Mellaril stopped the HPD symptoms but it killed my sex drive and made me lose my creativity so he continued to experiment on me with different drugs.  He also diagnosed me with HPD and ADD to complement my bipolar disorder, which meant nothing to me.  I just wanted to stop tripping!  Finally I was put on Carbatrol which curbed the HPD with low side effects and I was able to focus on life again.  I was also given the laundry list of benzodiazepines, which I became hopelessly addicted to.

I remember speaking to an old hippy lady in rehab one time about being permadosed.  She said time is the only cure.  'Be patient and don't pick your scabs .'  In other words, don’t take acid and stay alive until you come down.  I guess she was right.  I've adapted to the residual effects of half a lifetime of tripping.  A constant trace on moving objects, especially against a dark background), little paisley looking things that crawl in and out of everything I see, paranoya, etc.  I'm actually on no medicine now.  I still smoke cannabis all day every day, but I don't really trip from it anymore.  I'd say it took about five years of total abstinence from lsd for me to finally stop feeling it.  I don't plan to ever do it again.

I researched lsd before I tried it.  I prepared myself.  I was still dominated and turned out by this drug.  I don't even consider it a drug anymore.  It is a being.  Some sort of extraterrestrial ally/enemy that stands in narcissistic and unforgiving judgement of all who embrace it.  It has become a part of me.  I am no longer the person I was before that little blue sperm cell.  I'd like consider my experience a right of passage.  Although the reality is that it was a needless personal hell that has played a large role in the amputation of my destiny.  I have completely ruined my life by using lsd, I'm certain of it.  I had some bad experiences with datura, liberty caps, amantia, morning glory, ayahuasca, ibogaine, and dozens of synthetics, but lsd has remained the root of my psychosis.  No other known substance on earth can effect me negatively like lsd.  None.

My problems with lsd were quite possibly because of my underlying pre existing psychological problems.  The thing I wonder is how much better or worse they would have been had I never done lsd?  Half of my life has been a hideous experience of unrelenting fear and confusion.

Exp Year: 1991-2006	ExpID: 56838

Gender: Male

Age at time of experience: Not Given

Published: Jul 9, 2007	Views: 30,455

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LSD (2) : Retrospective / Summary (11), Health Problems (27), Music Discussion (22), Sex Discussion (14), Depression (15), Post Trip Problems (8), HPPD / Lasting Visuals (40), Addiction &amp; Habituation (10), Not Applicable (38)


		 DOSE:

		 4 hits
		 oral
		 LSD
		 (blotter / tab)

We were four explorers. Each one of us had a different responsibility. One held the beat, the other thudded along, the other soothed the soul, and then there was me. We were in a band, at this time. The four of us played little gigs here and there. We just enjoyed the music and didn't fantasize about making it big. We lived in a nice, hip little community and people were all very nice and happy there.

We usually didn't play while we were tripping. The lights, the crowd, the energy, it could lead to a pretty bad trip or a pretty bad show. But that October night we decided to drop 4 tabs each. Now, these tabs were quite strong. 2 hits was quite sufficient for a fun little foray into uncharted territory. So, 4 hits was a pretty heavy dose.

About 30 minutes after we dropped those polka dotted doses, the show began. We started with some blues covers while we waited. Into the second song we could feel it working its magic.

Now let me just explain, the people who come to see our shows are usually partaking in the psychedelic fun. Whether they were smokin pot, or trippin balls, these weren't square crowds we were playing for. So when we started acting strange and when we started saying some really bizarre shit in between songs, they were pretty large as to what we were on. After a couple more songs we were flying. This part gets kinda fuzzy, as it's been awhile, but I will relate as much as I can.

The stage went off into orbit. The music was the force that propelled it through the cosmos. We landed on Pluto to regale the ice people with the strangest music ever and then we went to other planets I've never seen before. All the while the music had the momentum of a comet. When I would look at the amplifiers they would ooze and green jelly poured from them. My guitar seemed like it was an extension of my being. The music took on angelic and demonic aspects at the exact same time. Sometimes we would be floating past the beautiful planet of Venus and other times we'd be standing on the sun itself! Letting the flames torment every fiber of our being.

Then there was nothing. No stars, no earth, the guitar and drums were gone. My body had crumbled into asteroids and smashed into the moon. There was nothing. And from this nothing came the most beautiful sound I could have ever imagined. It sounded as though god was speaking. And all this nothingness quaked and evaporated, and there was life! The music WAS life. Everything that is and was was right there! In the air. All my fear and love and hate and joy, it was all right there in the air. We were all cosmically linked into the same vibe and we were all playing as one. No...the music was playing us. Ecstasy and joy on every level. Life was everywhere and in everything!

That night was truly amazing. To be able to control your own trip so much like that and to know that you're controlling others' is truly a mind blowing experience. I felt so alive and whole that night. It was without a doubt the most magical night of my life.

Exp Year: 1998	ExpID: 41794

Gender: Male

Age at time of experience: Not Given

Published: Jul 11, 2007	Views: 6,855

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LSD (2) : Large Group (10+) (19), Music Discussion (22), Mystical Experiences (9), Glowing Experiences (4), General (1)


		 DOSE:
 T+ 0:00
		 5 hits
		 oral
		 LSD
		 (blotter / tab)

		   T+ 3:00
		 4 hits
		 oral
		 LSD
		 (blotter / tab)

           BODY WEIGHT:
	   201 lb

My parents took a long 3 week vacation to Paris (which was coming to an end in 3 days) and the house was under my care.  My brother left for school and this was a perfect time to start tripping.  My brother didn't really care so it was free reign.  Our house was located out of the city, deep into farm country.  Luxury homes surrounded by forests and private lakes.

I've tripped before a couple of times.  My first trip being not so strong and my second one being intensely powerful.

So I began the day.  Woke up, ate a small cheese sandwich and took at first 5 hits.  Blotters.  The trip crawled up on me as usual.  When I felt its effects I took another 4 hits right after.  I can't really say how strong they are but they were stronger then the last blotters I bought.

I made some tea, something I do one too many times when I'm tripping for some reason.  Perhaps it was to see how I would fair every time I try to take a piss in the elusively rotating toilet.  The house was quiet.  I never tripped with anyone out of fear of what I might say or do.  But I didn't mind.  A lone trip is keeps it under my control.

So there I was, sitting outside in our huge backyard on our swing set, aviator glasses on, enjoying the sun beating on my freshly shaved head (thanks to the last trip).  A hot cup of tea in one hand, a joint in the other waiting to be smoked.  I reflected on how much I truly loved nature.  Not to run or hike in nature.  Not to do intense sports but to just enjoy it in all its splendor.

Just as the thought was concluding itself I hear sounds in front of the house.  I stand up to see what the commotion is about when I see both my parents in the hall way, door wide open, their luggage still on the driveway.

They've come early.

An array of emotion raped my body.  First confusion as I tried to remember what day it was fearing I did too many drugs that I blacked out a big chunk of time.  Then fear as I had too many articles of evidence (ie drugs, clothing of other women, ash trays loaded to the top, etc.) all over the house (and kitchen table which is where they were heading) and the need to somehow gather everything and stash it all before noticed.

I used my parents house to host a few evenings.  With friends, random sluts from bars, drug days which I would skip work for.  Aside from having the mentioned articles above I also had a few other articles which would have landed me in jail.

The stress levels in my body rose exponentially.  I could feel it.  A bad friend who won't go away.  Although my mind began to think it was a dream, my senses told me it was not.  Now I don't judge those that tell me of such an experience.  It was confusing, tricking me into believing the problems in front of me were nothing but a daze I could wake up from.

Back to my parents.  I almost broke down.  The idea of coming clean to my parents emerged one to many times.  I just stood in the hallway, frozen in absolute fear.  I couldn't think, I couldn't move.  My glasses began to fog from the extreme amount of heat my body was making.  My father is not a forgiving man when it comes to drugs.  He turns a blind eye if I fail in university, in life, in relationships, in everything but to fail at the fight against drugs was not allowed.  He would've, without a moment of hesitation (the old school type of father) stripped me of the shirt on my back and kicked me out of the house with no food, money, or anything to survive.  Everything that I bought with his money would be returned to him and I nothing.  I would no longer bare his last name and call him father no more.  At that moment he would only have one son.

Those ideas came to my head.  This was happening in mere seconds as I stood in the hallway.  My father and mother began to laughing, thinking I was stumped and truly surprised by their early return.  My mind clicked in a more survivalist mode.  It continued to beat my more honest side.  I called it the beast.  It instinctually forced me to hug my mother and with haste grab the bags from the drive way. I paid no attention to the fact I bruised myself bumming into the door knob.  Pain at that moment was a luxury and the beast has no time for this.

I put the bags at the front door and watched my mother shreek to how dirty the house was.  She was appalled at how the house looked.  Instantly she began to clean, telling me that if she did not clean now she'll have no spirit to clean later.  My father quickly ran to the kitchen, I in front of him picking up random things off the cluttered kitchen table.

Somehow the mess in the house was a savior.  With my mother occupied in her cleaning duties and my father...well...he too had an addiction of his own.  The need to smoke the hookah.  He loved it.  And when he stepped through that door it was the first and only thing he had his eye on.  Like a race horse.  God threw me a bone.

My worry shifted from my father to my mother.  My father sat in his kitchen chair and smoked the hookah but my mother was the one moving around.  My mind focused on her.  Stress levels still high I can see my heart beat exaggerated through my shirt.  Her eyes caught attention to too many things.  Questions arose that I had to intercept quietly as to not let my father hear us.  I had to admit to the friends and women over at the house.  At that moment my head told itself its better to say the truth on that aspect then to have her think you're a cross dresser.  The beast was right.  As for the cigarette butts, it was once again pushed onto my friends shoulders.  I felt like a weasel, but then after words felt childish for feeling such things.

Barely an hour has past and my mind is tired.  My body is tired.  The levels of stress in my body were enormous.  The beast inside of my laughed, taunting me by telling me how I enjoyed two weeks of pure sin.  That was the word it used.  Sin.  And now I must pay up.  I tried to fight the thoughts but they just became stronger.  The word sin haunted my head.  My leg was shaking and my hands refused to stop sweating.  The idea of coming clean once again popped up.

My mother while cleaning served us tea.  She cleared out the table (which I did help for the ample opportunity to displace anything into my pocket).  I poured the tea, to my amazement without spilling it.  My father took a sip of his, as for me...I looked at it, watching the sugar melt in this beautiful transparent golden red liquid.  As if miniature streams inside the cup.  I had no stomach for it unfortunately.  The effects of the drugs were distorting time too much.  I looked at the clock and saw how just a mere hour passed.  A long day ahead still.

My father was hungry and asked that food be served.  In our house my father is king.  So we were raised and so he has set the family.  My mind began to question his methods as a father.  He would never lay a hand on anyone.  He never laid a hand on any of us in the past but yet there is a fear of him.  A genuine fear that would force my mother from vacation to clean the house so my father would have a clean place to rest.

At this moment I began to wonder where the beast was.  My father once again asked that food be served but my mother continued to clean relentlessly.  He began to yell.  I was still seated and just froze as I felt drips of sweat roll down my temple and down my face.  A screaming match broke out.  The noises echoed in the room.  The beast once again laughed.  I wanted to cry for some reason but fought it with every last muscle.  To the point where I held my breath just to stop the motion of tears.

My mother, having her hand forced (again without physical violence) began to cook.  She served a quick dinner which I had no appetite for.  They both ate.  I watched them scarf the food.  I felt disgusted.  A hate boiled in me as they stuffed their faces.  Both with greedy mouths constantly needing to be fed.

My brother came home from school.  It has now been 2 hours after I took in the last four hits.  He sat with us.  He immediately saw I was tripping.  He was younger than I, still fresh in his life.  He knew what he must do.  He too added to the chaos in the room.  He continued to move and make noise.  The more chaos there was the better I felt as then I can hide things.  He didn't stay long.  Said hello, ate a quick bite and disappeared.  He would call me away from time to time to help him with his homework which would give me valuable time to recollect my thoughts.  He was reading a short story for school.  The Tell-Tale Heart.   Somehow I managed to help him find three character traits for the unnamed murderer in the story.  I wanted to read the story but my eyes could not focus on the words.  I had him tell it to me.

That’s besides the point.  Now came the pictures on my fathers digital camera.  I wanted to occupy my hands which were fidgeting more then they should.  I browsed through them casually.  I saw one picture of a twisted building.  I ignored it, believing my trip warped the picture.  My parents however asked if I saw that one specific picture of the 'weird building'.  I gave them the digital camera as they scrolled to the same image earlier.  I was confused once again.  Too many things happening too fast.  I had to look at the camera and compare lines to understand that the building was twisted and not my vision.  Apparently the building was painted in such a fashion.  That was a daunting task alone.

Then came what I thought to be was the hardest part.  The gifts.  My parents bought me new glasses.  Of course they wanted me to try them on and tell me if the prescription is okay.  With the way my eyes are I put them on, faked an act of how they are amazing and clearer then before and kept my mouth shut.  The beast told me I don't deserve to see.  It began to taunt me again telling me how my father brings you sight and you insult him by bringing drugs into his home.

I began to hate how I used his house, his car and his money to project how I was a man to other people.  The beast's attack on me didn't stop.  It continued to tell me of how I was not a man, I was nothing, I was still a child, a failure, a pathetic excuse of waste.  A waste.  I felt like I was a child again, hiding something bad from my parents.  It's been so long since I've done such a thing.  Memories of my childhood surfaced.  Memories of punishment when caught doing something bad.  I looked up at my father and saw the judge.

After they finished eating they both began to smoke the hookah.  I continued to sit there.  They asked why I did not eat.  I had to lie and say I ate earlier.  My mother kept giving me a suspicious eye.  I would meet her eyes and then look down in shame.  The beast laughed every time I did that.

I know I wasn't a stable individual.  I was heavy into BDSM, fetishes and other stuff that makes most people’s skin crawl.  Usually I don't tell people stuff like this.  As I grew up in life I believed I was two people.  Me and the beast.  The latter being that which tricked me into a sin filled world.  Psychological connections were easier to see for some reason at that moment.  Everything my father told me was forbidden, everything he denied me I in the end have done.  The advice he gives me I would spit on and never listen to.  It was as if my nature was to go 100% opposite to my father's wishes but never truly confront him.

My dad continued on about the beauty of France.  I tried to stay calm and keep a decent conversation.  I replied to something he said and from his mouth all I got was 'What's wrong with you?'.  I quickly snapped with a sharp 'nothing' and forced a sip of the cold tea that was served hours ago.  All I could think of is if this whole act if working.  I was lucky.  Although my mother was suspicious they both tired themselves out and both went to sleep early.  I went to the office and sat on the computer, still on edge.  I tried to watch an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (I'm late to the whole thing).  I couldn't focus as the characters for some reason were very bright and their skin tones almost shifting in different shades of beige.  I closed it and put my head in my hands.

My brother came in the room, told me that he knows I was tripping and just left.  I cursed the world.  I cursed myself.  I begged a higher power to save me.  I walked to the kitchen and talked to my brother.  I think he sensed the fear in me.  I told him how much I took.  He gave a somewhat surprised 'wow'.  I couldn't find a topic to talk to him about without shattering his image of who our father was.

Night was approaching and I can feel the drug winding down.  The muscles in my body were sore.  Apparently earlier I burnt myself but I don't recall how.  I went to bed early.  I moved all the incriminating evidence to my room in the closet.  I would dispose of them in the garbage over the next few days.

I tried to fall asleep but through all that pain and fatigue my body and mind refused to shut down.  I tossed and turned.  I slept on the floor, on the small table, on a chair, I opened the windows, I tried pacing back and forth to burn any extra energy.  Nothing was working.  I cried.  I laughed.  I smiled and frowned.  I felt intense guilt at what I done and intense pride on how well I managed to hide it.  Trying to piece myself together in my dark room.  I stood in front of the window and watched the quiet neighborhood.  I learned our neighbor goes to work around 4 in the morning and that raccoons tore up our garbage in our garage (which I forgot to close, can you blame me really?).

I watched a raccoon trip one of our light sensors.  I whistled at it through the window and it looked up at me.  For two minutes until he scurried off with its pals to raid my garage for more chicken leftovers in the garbage.

I felt my body slowly relax its constant pumping of adrenaline.  The beast was no longer there but I knew it was still around.  I cried again, this time longer, at how much of a mess I was.  How I would throw free shelter, food, education, entertainment and money for nothing but a 10 hour trip.  The sorrow turned into hate.

I began to hate my parents.  For the way they raised me.  The way they pretend to be the greatest parents alive, as if they are the only people in the world that understand.  They judge other people's parenting skills and capabilities when they refuse to look at how they've destroyed their son.

Hate turned into understanding.  I realized I shifted blame once again.

I sat down and slept for about 30 minutes.  I woke up to the early calls of birds.  I sighed, went to the bathroom and continued downstairs.  The house looked different.  I didn't notice it till now but it was clean.  It was clean for the first time in a long time.  I flushed the blotters and weed.  Then I took the car and threw out the clothing, the pictures and videos and all that of which would remind me of the three weeks.

When I came back I turned up the lies.  Now that my mind was more clear I began to make more intricate lies.  I told both my parents that I was drunk yesterday and that is why I was acting strange.  They both accepted but still reserved some suspicion.  I didn't care.  I had no evidence and even if they believed I was a liar, I was through with this.

My resolve strengthened.  I cleaned up my act.  Got a job.  Quit all my habits.  I quit smoking.  I left my girlfriend.  I stopped seeing my friends.  I relentlessly worked out.  Worked on my art.  Worked towards my school.  I left home the minute I was able to.  Working two part-time jobs and a full-time weekend construction job I was able to move across the country without needing to ask a dollar from my father.  I sent him money to his account for the money he 'lent' me.  The education.  The plane tickets to China, Russia, Europe, South Africa, etc.  I continue to send him money for the food over the years and the money I blew in those three weeks.

I'll admit I may have finally become a man, but at the cost of constantly fearing anything mind altering.  I fear to even touch Advil or Aspirin or any pharmaceutical drug.  I refuse to take pain killers when they operated on my knee last month.  I feel the pain every god damn day and I know this is the price for those days of pure sin in that mans house.

Knowing that someone out there read this makes me feel better.  This is for those that had their parents ruin their trip and faired less lucky than I. Thank you for your time.

Exp Year: 2007	ExpID: 63834

Gender: Male

Age at time of experience: Not Given

Published: Jun 19, 2007	Views: 17,467

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LSD (2) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Train Wrecks &amp; Trip Disasters (7)


		 DOSE:

		   repeated
		 oral
		 Mushrooms

		 oral
		 LSD

           BODY WEIGHT:
	   230 lb

Right around when I graduated from high school, I also graduated from the world of pot to psychedelics. I love smoking weed, and while at first it was really psychedelic and fun, after a while as it becomes more routine, its more relaxing and mellow. I still love it, it makes day to day life much more enjoyable without too much damage done, but when I want to get that new experience again, but in an even more powerful and thought provoking way, I eat mushrooms.

The first time I ate mushrooms, I ate only one gram, as the three of us decided to split an eighth because we’d rather all trip together than leave someone out. It was fun, a little trippy, very positive, but nothing major. I would continue to eat small amounts the next few times, 1.5 grams, then a half eighth, 2 grams. I was really frightened by the concept of ego loss at first, and I wanted to very gradually build myself up for it, because at the time, I feel I had significantly lower self esteem than I do now, and for some reason, I thought I wasn’t mentally stable enough to go through a real psychedelic experience.

I’ll add that I think my boost in self esteem has a lot to do with my recent experiences. After messing around with less than 2 grams, getting very trippy effects but keeping it to a level where it wouldn’t get out of control, I decided to eat an eighth. My good friend would also be eating an eighth, and the two girls that were with us would split an eighth. We were at my (parents’) house, nobody there but us. We have a nice trail that goes down into the closest thing to “woods” around here, and also connects to a city park, which is awesome at night.

This was my grounds a couple years back for just about all the pot my friends and I smoked. It’s a perfect design for a suburban neighborhood – a trail that goes down into the trees and shrubs down the hill, where the kids can sneak off to smoke weed and drink unnoticed. Anyways, I’m really comfortable down there, and nature is awesome, so it’s the perfect place for me to be on mushrooms.

The trip got very intense, to levels that I never had imagined, I ended up finding a bench to lay down on and look at the stars and moon, and I held everyone up there for like an hour, they all wanted to go but I thought they were insane, I really wanted to stay there until the sunrise. I saw no reason to leave. Although it was freezing cold and I was wearing a t shirt, it didn’t bother me. I just could not understand how they could want to leave this. I came to the conclusion that in my state of mind, I was allowed a chance to stop all the running around in circles, and look at the stars. Nobody ever stops to look at the stars, because they’re in too much of a hurry. I thought surely my friends, in the same state as me, would see the beauty of the sky and want to stay as well. I tried to explain it to them, but they didn’t see it like I did, so we left. Maybe it wasn’t an hour. It could have been 20 minutes for 4 hours for all I know, we didn’t really keep track of time the whole night, so certain parts seem to have happened really quick, and other moments, the really amazing ones, seem drawn out in my memory, hours long.

When we arrived back, we got into a rediculous situation that was driving me insane. One of the girls had taken an extremely large bong hit that made her cough and cough and continue to cough for fucking ever, at least 15 minutes, really loud. Water didn’t help, and eventually she started hyperventilating. She said she needed air, and she walked out. 5 minutes later when we went to find her, she was gone. My friend and I were pacing back and forth in my front yard at 4 in the morning, praying that this situation would not involve police. It was driving me insane, and I felt the complete opposite of the powerful feeling I felt looking at the stars. Suddenly I felt useless, confused, hating myself, my mind racing on everything anyone said or did. My friend finally found her laying on the sidewalk behind her parked car. She swore he saved her life, and continued hyperventilating for the next half hour or so, until she forgot to breathe heavy, and started laughing because she realized she was just tripping and she was going to be fine.

After this trip, I had a very different perspective. Life was very beautiful for the next few days, and I was refreshed, renewed, and my brain had been loaded with the wisdom of a hundred years but no way to translate it into anything very useful, except to be a more positive, confident person. Well, that actually is very useful.

I probably ate mushrooms one or two more times after this before I stumbled across the opportunity to take LSD. I had always said to myself, I’m not going to try acid until I’m like 25. But after my mushroom experiences I was pretty confident that I could handle a hit. My friends and I each ended up taking 3-4 though, because it was extremely week and took about 4 hours to kick in.

But the most important thing about this experience was the setting: we had borrowed a friend’s chevy suburban, loaded up our camping gear, and headed off to a campground in a very remote area, with really secluded campspots if you know your way around, so it was perfect. We had intended to start the trip early, so by dark, it was at least past the peak, but the shit took about 4 hours, maybe 5 to kick in, and by that time, we had eaten all of it, because we were getting worried it was bunk. But surely enough, when it really started getting pitch black, I started to notice trees dancing, lights flashing in the sky, and a very mellow body feeling, not at all like mushrooms.

I was experiencing awesome visual effects, but for the most part I felt really normal. This probably means the acid was really weak, but I don’t know, it got pretty insane. We all got scared by 10 or 11, after we had been using the suburban’s headlights to frequently light up our surroundings because we were all freaking out. When I think back on it, its hilarious, but at the time, it was absolutely necessary to start the car up every 15 minutes to recharge the battery and turn on the headlights and make sure the pitch black around us was still real.

Our backup plan in the beginning was to put the back rows of seats down in the suburban, lay our sleeping bags in there, and smoke pot and listen to music if the outside got to be too much. I guess it was inevitable, because it sounded like a really good idea once we were all hallucinating out in the dark. So we hop in the suburban, and put on the 10 cd changer, that was loaded up by the dude we borrowed the car from. He must have known we were eating acid or something, because the line up was fucking awesome, and it was my first time hearing any of it: Pink floyd’s Dark side of the moon, wish you were here, both sides of the wall, echoes, and then some led zeppelin, which was very relieving after the psychological breakdown we all experienced listening to floyd on acid.

It was nothing short of completely amazing and beautiful, and I had a new found love for pink floyd. I saw on the run, in the form of bright colored patterns superimposed on everything. It was the song, I saw it moving and making the sounds, it was incredible. The airplane crash at the end had us all shaken – every moment of it was incredible. We were all peaking out the windows, watching faces in trees, watching this huge tree up the hill grow, watching the scary night on acid from the protection of our big steel box, to a soundtrack. My friends and I would all get nervous and tense as a song was ending, wondering what insane sound effects pink floyd was going to use to distort my perception next.

The trip was entirely formed on pink floyd. I feel that if we had never smoked weed and listened to this incredible music, the trip would have stayed simple and mildly visual like it was at first. The intense moments of my trip were the intense moments of the music. I remember holding my hand up in front of my face, and watching all of the skin turn grey and decay, right down to the bone, then after a blink it was normal again.

Acid is the holy grail. Acid is life changing experience, acid is the definition of psychedelic, of hallucinogen. Acid is perfect. Mushrooms make my body feel out of proportion, weird intestine feelings, strange and scary thoughts that race by so fast I can’t escape it, it becomes a loop of negativity that I dwell on until something very positive can snap me out of it. I got this to some degree on acid, but overall it was much more happy, and the mellow body feeling made me feel much more comfortable with my tripping mind. It seemed a lot less stressful than the usual mushroom trip.

This doesn’t really make sense though, because for the next few days afterwards, I felt entirely depressed and ‘hung over’. I just wanted to sit there alone with silence. I didn’t want to go to work, I didn’t want to smoke weed because it made me hallucinate, I didn’t want to watch tv, or write about my amazing experience, because in comparison, life seemed very boring and routine. I wanted to go back to that state of mind, total vacation, out in the woods without a worry except what the next pink floyd song would be.

So I have come to the conclusion that while acid is probably a lot more fun, mushrooms are much more valuable, as visuals are trippy but what I really get insight from out of such an experience is my new perception of reality, and my new consciousness, my new and very alien but also very familiar thought process. It reminds me of being a kid. It is very uncertain, I never now if your going to go up or down next, but when I do, I go way up, or way down.

Later I moved out into an apartment with too many people probably, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. I was always the first one to suggest mushrooms, and always the one who pushed it to the point where we all bought them and ate them together, and the experiences really brought us together. For a while we were all hippys, living in a flashback, eating mushrooms and listening to good music and that’s was all life was about. I think I ate mushrooms like 5 times in one month, it became too much. The experiences got routine, overall pretty negative, and the environment of our tiny, cramped messy apartment became very depressing in the long run, and it led me to become introverted and self conscious on all of my trips.

I finally realized that I just need to go see nature, fresh air, perceive the world, not a tiny apartment with black lights and posters and some insane mind-bending music. On one trip, my friend showed me one of his favorite bands, the butthole surfers. The cd was called ‘electric larry land’ and had some strange scribbly drawings on it. The 6th track, ‘my brothers wife” is the first thing I ever listened to that alone could scare me. I felt it coming out of the speakers and creeping up on me, drowning my brain with unnatural sounds that made just sitting there and listening to it confusing. This routine use of mushrooms in the same place was doing the same thing to mushrooms that it had done to marijuana, except instead of becoming mellow and enjoyable, the trips were weird and without any of the profound insight that had made me fall in love with mushrooms in the beginning.

So here I am and I haven’t eaten a psychedelic in a few months. I’m craving another trip. I want to go to the woods again, or the desert. I am very serious about this concept, I want to go do it right now. But my friends are a little less enthusiastic about it. Whenever we eat shrooms, we all love it, but it seems strange to them to go out of the way collecting some money and making plans to take a little trip out to nature to trip and find something. I think it is necessary for me to do this once in a while, as since I’ve become an ‘adult’ and left high school, every trip has been a significant step forward in my psychological growth. I know people change a lot in these years, but for me, these changes seem to be defined by my psychedelic experiences. I really am renewed, and changed, after each one. Every time I suddenly ‘figure out everything’ in the middle my peak while listening to dark side of the moon, I really do bring something good with me, that I will hold on to for a long time in the future, something that will define a part of who I am, when I finally figure that out.

It’s a beautiful thing. Psychedelics for everyone.

Exp Year: 2004	ExpID: 46499

Gender: Male

Age at time of experience: Not Given

Published: Jul 9, 2007	Views: 17,309

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Mushrooms (39), LSD (2) : Nature / Outdoors (23), Music Discussion (22), Hangover / Days After (46), Retrospective / Summary (11), Various (28)


		 DOSE:

		 1 hit
		 oral
		 LSD
		 (blotter / tab)

           BODY WEIGHT:
	   11 kg

I’m 17 and live in England and about 2 days ago I tried acid for the first time, and it was amazing! I have done a few other drugs before such as MDMA, marijuana, mushrooms and salvia. I generally tend to take it easy though when I take drugs by not taking them very often and taking them with good friends in good situations. I’ve wanted to try acid for about 2 years now ever since I was still in high school, simply for the experience. It has been ever since then that I have been researching LSD and its effects to better prepare myself for the trip, which actually helped quite a bit.

Now, I received a phone call from my friend Z a couple of days before we did it asking if I wanted to do it with him and some of our friends and of course I right away said I would. The plan was that we would camp out in some woods near home for the night and take a tab each. It would be me, Z and E taking it for the first time. I don’t really know E very well but he’s a well nice guy and I was happy to do it with him. Someone else who I don’t really know called H was doing it with us but he’s done it a couple of times before so he was a little more experienced in this drug than we were. A load of H’s friends were joining us this night as well but they never did take it that night with us.

So anyway, we set up camp ate the tab of acid, which was tiny and plain, and me, Z and another friend S (who was taking MDMA for the first time that night, but no acid) went for a walk through the forest to explore. It was about 20 minutes into this walk that both me and Z started feeling the effects of the acid very mildly. Things began to look out of place and a little brighter and clearer. Objects began breathing and crawling and we sat down on a hill and really started noticing the effect come on, it was when we started heading back to camp about 30 minutes into the trip that this section of the trip leveled out and we got used to it. On the way back we sat on a hand carved bench with two bears carved onto the arm rest and I had my hand on the bear’s head which again seemed to be crawling and my hand was doing much the same. Me and Z started looking at this tree in front of us and noticed it swaying, however according to our friend S it wasn’t. As we walked down a set of stairs coming closer to camp the steps seemed much larger drops than usual and when I turned around after going down them I found they were in fact very shallow steps.

Now back at camp, roughly 1 hour into the trip things really started coming on. Our friends at camp had set up a huge fire in the center and everyone was stood around it doing their own thing. Walking around the site I began becoming really confused and unsure of what I should be doing. I had a strong feeling of anxiety throughout the trip, not sure whether to be sat down, stood up or walking. Some more of my friends had turned up now and I tried talking to them but with great difficulty, I struggled to find words to say and to say them. I remember a general feeling around the camp of a sort of 60’s theme and very tribal atmosphere. I saw my friend stood over the fire with a large stick and thought he was some tribal man, even though I knew he was my friend. Soon after I got the stick which as I mentioned “is the single greatest stick ever.” I waved it and saw blue, green and purple tracks coming off it.

I had an overwhelming desire to keep this stick with me at all cost. At one point in the night someone actually threw it in the fire and burned it which was a very difficult experience yet quite amusing at the same time. However when I still had the stick I saw a guitar and dropped the stick without even noticing it and went to the guitar. As I tried to play the guitar I noticed the stick and felt nothing for it anymore, all my love was now focused on the guitar. Trying to play was unbelievably difficult. The strings were hard to find as I could see them and the guitar seemed so much smaller (I later found out it was a ¼ size guitar).

I went to look for my friend Z so I went over to one of the tents and shouted for him. I heard his voice from the tent so I attempted to go in. On the outside the tent had flowers all over it and these flowers were growing, shrinking, crawling and shifting all over the surface. I found the entrance of the tent and waited for someone to open it as I had no idea whatsoever where the zip was. Someone managed to open a small hole which I somehow crawled into with great trouble. As I got inside hands were all over me helping me in and arranging me into a position suitable. Before I knew it I was sat down inside with about 4 other people. There was one small light inside the tent which was flashing everywhere disorientating us all. This tent felt as though we were in a ball of silk completely unaware of where the sides, top or bottom was. I wasn’t even sure if we were level. At one point I thought we were upside-down. As far as I knew this tent was all there was, there was absolutely nothing on the outside, and it was just the tent. This was probably the most extraordinary experience I have ever had.

After this we decided to head to our friend B’s house. He was a little drunk but very capable of taking us there so he led the way. We went across a small patch of forest which seemed like an endless plain with random trees dotted around, this walk seemed to take hours. The whole journey took around 20-30 minutes but honestly felt like 14 hours! We walked along a footpath surrounded by trees when suddenly one of our friends shouted “look at the sky” we had been looking at everything but the sky all night and when we looked up we were amazed.

It was like looking through a diamond, the stars were fantastic, there were shades of blue, red, orange purple and any colour you could think in these little lights. They were all connected by lines of red and there was a purple glow to the surrounding sky. It was simply the best thing I have ever seen. When we arrived at Bs house we went to his living room which had photos all over the walls. When we looked at these photos it looked as if they were 3D holograms which were all moving inside the frame, they were absolutely fascinating and we ran around the entire house looking at these amazing moving photos. One of them was of a horse galloping through water, me and Z were both looking at it and both seeing it actually running in the picture with the water spraying up.

There was a clock on the wall which I couldn’t help but look at every 2 minutes, time had seemed to slow down so much. Throughout the entire trip time felt as if it slowed down 100 fold! This was a slight annoyance but quickly passed my mind when I found something of interest.  Me and Z left B’s house to head back to camp which we found surprisingly interesting. By this point we were roughly 4/5 hours into the trip and slowly returning to reality. We were still extremely high still but things made much more sense though the visuals were still going crazy. On the way back we watched the sky and a plane flew across the center of it, it seemed as thought the plane cut the sky into two, and Z began explaining how he could see colours like a prism coming from the smoke trail left by the plane. As he mentioned it I could see it too. We watched this and talked about our trip for the rest of the night and eventually when the sun rose we left the camp site to explore our tracks that we made that night. Walking this journey flooded so many memories and seemed a good way to finish the trip.

I’ve not explained everything that had happened, just the best bits and what I could remember. This trip that I experienced was the single greatest thing I have ever done and I plan on trying acid some time in the future, however I am in no rush as I have seen it, done it and enjoyed it.

Exp Year: 2007	ExpID: 63699

Gender: Male

Age at time of experience: Not Given

Published: Jul 20, 2007	Views: 6,116

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LSD (2) : Nature / Outdoors (23), First Times (2), Small Group (2-9) (17)


		 DOSE:

		 1 hit
		 oral
		 LSD
		 (blotter / tab)

		 2 hits
		 smoked
		 Cannabis
		 (plant material)

           BODY WEIGHT:
	   185 lb

It was my first dance with a synthetic psychedelic. I stared at the small, questionable perforation in front of me, wrapped tightly in foil, where it remained for an occasion such as today. As I slipped the blotter onto my tongue, I began preparations for the night.

Still absorbing the effects of the LSD, I ran downstairs to begin filling up a gallon of water. The paper in my mouth was drenched, and I waited for what seemed like five or six minutes for it to dissipate. I told a few close friends to come by if they felt so inclined, and as I waited, I began to feel a bit of a shift. I've taken psilocybin before, but this was different. The LSD seemed to stabilize itself far more quickly than the varying degrees one feels when on mushrooms; The drug also showed signs of a longer trip, and although a bit tired, I could tell sleep would be out of the question for countless hours.

It was at this point that I received a phone call from some friends of mine. They entered my room and proposed that I take vitamin C, which supposedly enhances colors, and visuals by proxy. Without fully understanding the make or meaning of the encapsulated vitamin, I took it, and could have sworn it was boring a hole in my tongue. In retrospect, obviously the acidic qualities of the pill were irritating my tongue, but I wasn't sure what I wanted. As time passed, I realized I wasn't sure what I needed. Do I want water? Am I thirsty? Is my mouth dry? Is my stomach full? Too much or too little?

My guests wanted to give my bong, The Smoking Barrel, 2.5 feet of uninhibited contraband, a test drive. As I pulled the bong from my room, I began to question whether I should smoke. In the past, when I had smoked on psychedelics, it seemed to intensify the trip, yet at the same time it somehow took a bit of the edge off. The bong went around the room, and finally after everyone had passed the glass, it was my turn. I took it not only once, but on its second time around as well. It was time to play the waiting game. Suddenly, nothing looked familiar. All previous memories seemed insignificant, almost non-existent.

'Oh man, I've been HERE before'.

I could answer simple questions in my own mind, such as my friends' names, and who everyone was and their place in my circle, but only if I decided to fixate myself on the answer. I grounded myself and walked to the other side of my room, where I proceeded to flip a quarter. I swear I flipped it three times before I finally saw that it wasn't a double headed coin, and at this point, I decided it may be time to stop standing at a fork in the road.

It seemed like the best possible time to make a phone call and help make a decision as to what to make of the bounty on my plate. It was settled that the best possible decision was to go outside. Each tree, plant or star seemed to be the physical expression of its mathematical algorithm, as if somehow, programmed into reality. It was blistering cold, and all I could think was, 'This is the worst mistake that could turn into the best decision I've ever made'.

Once I melded into ego-death, I lost everything, including my identity, my mind, and my old set of eyes. What I gained is questionable. It's a shame, I had the answers, and I understood the questions, because I was one with a core singularity of sorts. I'd like to explain, but first I need you to strap on your boots, because the high road isn't paved. The sound of the natural world around me seemed to reverberate with an odd electronic sound and sensation. Since I had experienced ego death, I was walking around in this dark, cold abyss, with the innocence of a lost child.

Two mindsets were fighting over control of my mind. One fundamental idea was, that I was a human being with 18 years of memories and experiences that had consumed a psychedelic substance. Obviously this part of my mind seemed to be undergoing renovations. As I now saw it, the psychedelic seemed to be a mnemonic device placed within reality to wake me up, but not me in the ego sense, me as a nameless singularity.

My feet felt as if they were magnetized, as the concrete seemed to pull me at its own discretion. I began to think of my previous trips, and I realized, that fundamentally, returning to center was the rationalization of the journey. A single word needn't be uttered or written, and in retrospect, the experience is always pivotal to mental, emotional, and spiritual faculties. Just as I had said this to myself, I looked up, to find myself standing in front of my house, with the door open and the lights on. The sun was beginning to come up. I entered my home, locked the door behind me, and as I entered my room, I 'fell asleep', only to fall asleep.

Exp Year: 2006	ExpID: 50994

Gender: Male

Age at time of experience: Not Given

Published: Jul 20, 2007	Views: 6,433

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LSD (2) : First Times (2), Mystical Experiences (9), Small Group (2-9) (17)


		 DOSE:

		 1 hit
		 oral
		 LSD
		 (blotter / tab)

           BODY WEIGHT:
	   150 lb

It is very difficult to find the words, or metaphors to fully describe my LSD experience. Like many who have experimented with acid, can hardly believe that such a phenomenon could take place in my head all because of a tiny piece of paper. The duration of my trip was very positive, in fact I consider it the best thing I have ever experienced in my entire existance..

I had wondered about the 'mysterious' LSD for sometime before I actually decided to try it. I had been very into the pyscadelic scene from the 1960s, and in love with the music. Bands that stood for peace, and spiritualism were my cup of tea. I knew that there was a better way of enjoying them, and enjoying life. The answer lied in a tiny piece of blotter paper, no bigger then the size of my pinky, with a picture of spheres imprinted upon it.

The Experience

About a week ago I was over at my friend's house on a Saturday night. It was supposed to just be another night drinking to the point of no return, but a buddy of mine told me he could get me a 'double-coded' hit. He came over with what appeared to be a nickel with a bump on it's face. It was the hit wrapped in aluminum foil to the loose change, how clever! We decided since I had to go home that night, that we would split the hit since it was so strong. I got the bigger half and we placed them in our mouths around 9: 30 pm. We walked around looking for a warm place to go, since it was about 20 degrees outside. We stopped at another guys house and sat in his basement. An hour or so had passed and I became frustrated that no effects had taken place. We had declared it a dud when all of a sudden it kicked in.

pHase 1

Suddenly everything became humorous, and I became the new comedian in the room. I laughed so hard that I fell off of the couch onto my knees. Colors became intensified meaning they became louder and brighter. I picked up a can of gasoline while no one as watching me and began pouring it out because the smell was so intense, it drove me wild with interest. I ended up drenching my wrist, gloves and cell phone in gas. Some one called my phone and it began to vibrate in the puddle of gas. I could see the vibrations floating in the air and my hand felt extremely lubricated even when wiped clean with a towel. The whole night my hand felt soaking wet.

pHase 2

Because I was making so much noise in his basement we had to leave. When I walked outside I felt no different in temperature wise then I did inside. I became very happy and excited. I took a look at the clouds which began to dance in unison. Taking shapes, first a dragon, then an alligator, and then a pelican. These shapes were very defined, and were perfect silouettes. The grass turned neon purple and then neon green. The colors would vibe like a beating heart. Then the landscape took shape. As far as the eye could see, gargoyle type figures emerged from the ground in a perfect patterns for acres. The gargoyles resembled the King himself, Elvis Presely. I became very cautious of stepping on Elvis. As we walked down a cemented path the trees, all at once, warped from oak and pine trees into very distinct Palm Trees with a glistening to them. I thought we were in Florida. We stopped on a bridge over a pretty sad little creek. But after a few seconds it turned into the most gorgeous animated stream like the one in pochahantus. I could barely see an object for what it actually was for more then half a second, and it changed shape, color, or texture.

pHase 3

I began to realize that I had to go home soon. My father was going to be picking me up in the next hour or so and I was about as loony as Charles Manson. A little bit of fear began to kick in but more so confusion. This is what I like to call the confusion Era, bc it felt like for ever. All of a sudden everything became confusing. Statements made towards me, or about me became awkward, with no meaning. We had to find another place to get out of the cold. So we stopped at a girls house. Her parents were upstairs so we had to be quiet. But I could barely stop talking. Every time I was told to shut up I wanted to know why. When I was given a reason I became more confused. And I asked why her parents had to be here in a very sincere way. The great thing was that we were in a small art gallery where her father kept 10 to 15 paintings. The paintings were coming alive acting out the scene, or warping, or coming onto the wall. Both previous phases 1 and 2 were going more strong then ever and I was trying to explain to the group of what was happening to me. But I was repeatedly hushed and then kicked out into the cold.

pHase 4

Now with all the phases going strong I became SLIGHTLY depressed and sad. I didn’t want my dad to pick me up, there was no way in hell I wouldn’t get caught. I could barely have a conversation or concentrate on one thing for more than half a second. My dad was on his way and I was screwed. My friends wished me luck as I tried so hardly to act straight. My dad picked me up at 12 am.

I tried not to converse much, but my dad likes to talk alot. I just mostly said yes and no and looked away from him as I was told my eyes were extremely dialated. I ended up giving him my cell phone telling him the gasoline just appeared on it and that I was sorry. He was so tired he didn’t even go further into it. I was lucky! I went into my room very happy about not getting caught. I locked myself in my room for the remainder of the trip, bc of fear of getting caught.

When I tried to close my eyes, visions of mysterious shapes, and geometric patterns decorated my mind. Physcadelic colors and back drops filled my mind. I put headphones on and listened to about 6 whole albums that night. Pink Floyd, CSNY, Incubus, Jimi Hendrix, and more. I became very lazy! When a cd ended, I didn’t have the energy to change it, so I would just let it play and listen to the whole thing again. The images of friends, family, and familiar things danced upon very pyscadelic lights and colors. I had a 5 hour light show in my head. It doesn’t let you sleep. The clock seem to slow down. My stomach began to hurt bc lack of eating, but I wasn’t hungry. I became dry mouth and thirsty, but had no desire to drink. I had a slight headache. These symtoms were bc of entrapment in my room.

The next day I felt like I did the night after I lost my virginity, free in some way. I felt refreshed even tho I was walking around without sleep. I felt very happy and was extra nice to everyone that day. I was very struck and excited and felt I had to tell everyone about my experience!

Exp Year: 2002	ExpID: 20621

Gender: Male

Age at time of experience: Not Given

Published: Jul 20, 2007	Views: 8,868

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LSD (2) : Various (28), First Times (2), Music Discussion (22), Nature / Outdoors (23), Glowing Experiences (4)


		 DOSE:

		 insufflated
		 LSD
		 (powder / crystals)

           BODY WEIGHT:
	   125 lb

Disclaimer: I don't advocate breaking the law. I certainly don't advocate the use of psychedelics by kids and teens, whose still-forming personalities can be severely damaged by such use. I wrote this mostly to finally come to terms with a particular trip 35 years after.

Hunter Thompson once wrote that LSD, like a motorcycle, was a means to an end. In my case, LSD became a journey to the very end of the world, a journey that I still haven't made sense of.

It was 1970, I think. My friend, Jim, scored some acid, but it was powder or crystal LSD, a form we'd never seen before. We didn't know exactly what to do with it or how much to take. Jim and I finally and foolishly decided to snort the drug, apparently taking in much more than we should have. I was sixteen, and although I was experienced with LSD, sixteen is much too young to be taking acid, let alone to be experiencing extreme tripping. Ego loss is horrifying when one has a not-yet-fully-formed ego. Our friends Brad and Toni declined to trip that night and so they served as guides, or, according to their accounts, our restraints.

I only remember bits and pieces of the resulting trip, which was episodic and dreamlike, but it was the first time my trip took place separate from my actual physical surroundings. Sure, I'd seen trails and colors before, but I always pretty much knew where and who I was during previous trips. But this trip took place completely out of the space of the house in which it occurred, in a separate time and space.

There was an intense rush immediately after snorting, which was rather like a psychic and physical rocket launching.

I was Adam in what I assumed was the Garden of Eden. Bunny rabbits hopped around a very English garden and I made love with Eve on a dark-green carpet of moss and fern. God was there and he was straight out of central casting, I remember, with a white robe and long, flowing beard. He looked like Mr. Natural, an underground cartoon character of the time. God dug the action for a while, but He was more like a detached observer. After my tryst with Eve (who looked suspiciously like Toni), I asked God if He knew where I was. He got angry and ordered me to leave the garden.

I was in space floating to Earth inside a blue, glowing, translucent prism. I was an infant, wrapped in a blue blanket, and I could see our planet from inside the prism. I vaguely remember being born and seeing my very young looking parents.

After that I believe my entire life flashed in front of me, especially the bad parts - the abuse and stuff. I was crying when I got to the present, which was me at age sixteen, but the review of my life went on. I remember seeing my adult life and death, but have no recollection of the details and no sense if what I saw was accurate or at what age I died. When the review ended, I simply died, an unemotional event, a process of passing between different stages, like walking through psychic curtains. I wasn't afraid and I wasn't holding on to my past life. It was simply time to go.

After I died I found myself on a plane made of something like grey, swirled marble, stretching out in all directions to a dark horizon. There was a night sky with stars. I couldn't walk, but I could crawl. I became very afraid because I didn't know who or where I was. I think I was crying again. Finally a huge, monolithic set of stone letters began rising on one of the horizons, kind of like a cold, dead sun. When the letters had risen completely, I could see that they spelled out 'L S D.' I remembered briefly that I was tripping and I felt a bit better.

I was given a riddle to solve. I have no idea how the riddle was given to me, but it was there and I had to solve it. The best way to describe the riddle is that it was non-verbal and not linear and had to do with discovering who or what God was. It was some sort of paradox and eventually I figured out how to solve it. To solve it, I had to envision the paradox as a physical shape -- a figure eight -- and then travel (flying?) along that shape so rapidly that I was physically on all points of it at once. Then there was a flash of white light.

A voice let me know that I had solved the riddle. I can't really describe the answer, but it has to do with a feeling of unity with everything and an understanding of the reason for the existence of life and consciousness  . It felt really good, but it didn't last long. Then I saw scientists working in a lab and the voice said that once those scientists solved the riddle and figured out who or what God was, the Universe would come to an end.

In a flash, I was shown the end of the Universe. It wasn't pretty and it was the Earth covered in a kind of liquid suspension of garbage and sewage, blood and pus, brown and smelly. I was floating in it. And then I saw the Garden of Eden forming again, forming from the awful mess that had covered Earth.

____________________

That's all I remember. I came to, or re-gained reality, on the floor of the house, with Brad and Toni asking if I was OK. The intense part of the trip had lasted about four hours, they said, and all I did was lie curled up on the floor, occasionally rolling around whimpering. They kept me from rolling into stuff, but were not able to get me to acknowledge them. They were worried about me.

Jim, who had taken the acid with me, was never able to tell us what he experienced. He had spent his trip on the couch but was able to talk to Brad and Toni occasionally.

Exp Year: 1970	ExpID: 39125

Gender: Male

Age at time of experience: Not Given

Published: Jul 25, 2007	Views: 9,950

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LSD (2) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Mystical Experiences (9), Guides / Sitters (39), Entities / Beings (37), Difficult Experiences (5)


		 DOSE:

		 6 drops
		 oral
		 LSD
		 (liquid)

		 smoked
		 Cannabis
		 (plant material)

           BODY WEIGHT:
	   120 lb

Setting:  My apartment, all companions on this trip were well prepared for the trip, spending the previous week getting pumped for tripping, feeling good about life, and allowing every other complication to leave our minds. This was my second experience with LSD.  My first was 1.5 hits and it took 2 hours for me to start tripping, so this experience, while vaguely familiar was much stronger.

Four friends, A, C, R, and Q, and I were tripping.  Hits were administered around 1:00 pm.  A was on a lower dose than everyone, 4 hits.  C, his first trip, was also on 6.  R and Q were on 8 hits.  The dosage had been doubled without the knowledge of all but one who was tripping.  When I found out, I realized that subconsciously I had known already, and was very happy about the chance for this experience as was everyone else.

I took my hits and went to take a shower before the trip had truly started.  Before I was able to finish my shower, I felt the initial body sensations.  It took around 10-15 minutes to start tripping. The come up was very enjoyable, yet insane.  Within 20 minutes, I had surpassed my previous trip.  The intensity of the visuals was quite dramatic.  The walls were breathing in their usual fashion, the trip film had appeared over everything, making things appear wet and dripping, and the ceiling was flowing with complex patterns, some lines chasing and coursing around the ceiling, some parts of the ceiling completely loosing place with reality and seeming to expand into the universe.

I passed through ego loss relatively easily, I have always found it easy to let go and experience what there was to experience. C, as far as I knew passed through easily, and R and Q had no adjustment problems either.  A had slight difficulty.  It may have been seeing the complete change of reality from a more normal perception, but A was scared for some time.  Though he also passed ego loss eventually, he never felt completely comfortable on the trip, but he enjoyed it.  Time left at this point, by our best estimates we imagined 4 hours had gone by, but only 45 minutes had and it seemed like 4 days.  My fellow trippers and I talked and laughed for quite some time.  C had very little to say at this point, he forgot he was tripping many times throughout the trip.

After what I estimate was an hour of tripping, I came across the most horrifying experience.  I was smoking bud with my friends.  Then, for no true reason, my mind shifted into a private reality.  I could see what was happening, but in the back of my head a reality started to unfold, half overlaying what was happening half a completely separate existence.  In this existence, I saw my fellow trippers wielding knives, stabbing each other, killing each other.  I couldn't tell the others, I believed that if I did, somehow what I was seeing would come into reality.

I had the strong urge to talk to someone not tripping, to ease my mind.  I left my companions and went to prepare for my journey to find my sane friend, to talk.  I was freaking out and the others were concerned for me. A came in, we talked and I told him what I had been experiencing.  This eased my mind, and as with conversations on acid, the topic changed easily.  I was out of this bad experience, back to enjoyable reality shifting.

Throughout this trip, we experienced many hallucinations, and amazing closed and open-eyed visuals.  Throughout this time, I locked onto something I came to call the 'spiral.'  It began when I was sitting on the floor, leaning against a wall.  Down my back ran a pure feeling of delight.  I closed my eyes and saw an amazing spiraling vortex.  This felt amazing, but I didn’t think of continuing with this, I continued on to other experiences.

Eventually, I was standing against a wall.  The feeling ran down my spine again, this time stronger.  It felt like amazing energy was escaping through every joint in my back, this feeling spread all over my body, almost orgasmic pure ecstasy of feeling.  I felt a fluid motion coming over my limbs, causing me to start moving with this feeling.  I closed my eyes and embraced this feeling.  With my eyes closed, I once again saw the spiral, this time more vivid, more intense.  I realized that this spiral was surrounding me, my limbs and head had melted into the spiral, torso faded into the spiral, my spine aligning with the motion of the spiral.

I decided to allow the spiral to carry me, I allowed my limbs to flow with the motions, and soon had some control over the spiral itself.  It was amazing, the others were watching me in this, in my head I knew they were thinking I had lost myself, and no longer knew what was happening.  I explained to them what I had experience.  No one else felt what I had and mostly blew it off.  Throughout the rest of the trip I continued to come back to this spiral.

I found a second place where the spiral existed, and found other places that caused nothing or negative feelings.  I found the first location to be my favorite.  The trip continued and years seemed to pass, Q threw up chips from overeating, a very frightening thing, though passed quickly as Q showed no signs of agitation and even said that it was amazing to feel.

After around 10 hours, R found the spiral.  He had discovered it at the second place I had found it, the exact same place.  He described to me the same sensations I had experienced.  I had him try the other places I had tried, and he came to the same conclusions about each spot.  The only difference that was described by him was his ability to see the spiral with his eyes opened; I believe this was because of the higher dose he took.  It seems amazing to me that he, on his own accord, had found the same experience I had.  I watched him find it as he was smoking a cigarette, and I knew what he was seeing.

This trip was my best and worst.  The good defiantly overpowered the bad though.  At points in the trip I saw the words people were speaking flowing in front of me, other times I saw a grid appear over everything and geometric reasoning seemed to take over, and at other moments I forgot reality and embraced what was happening.  Time became nonexistent, and perception became completely nonlinear.  On subsequent trips, I tried to find the same spiral but have since not been able to; although I have never taken a dose over 4 hits since, but hopefully soon will.

Exp Year: 2005	ExpID: 50583

Gender: Male

Age at time of experience: Not Given

Published: Aug 14, 2007	Views: 7,274

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LSD (2) : General (1), Small Group (2-9) (17)


		 DOSE:

		 1 hit
		 oral
		 LSD
		 (blotter / tab)

           BODY WEIGHT:
	   145 lb

I picked up a new batch at the dead show and took 1 hit as a test dose. The show was almost over and by the time I made it to the bart transit I was tripping heavily, quite impressed with the new batch. Things got intense and I decided to walk instead. I walked for a coupla hours through Oakland and Hayward in the early morning with with lots of lsd and a big sack of kind herb. I'm assuming that I must have looked like a crazed maniac which probably saved me from getting robbed and my ass kicked. When I finally made it to the wharehouse I was so relieved. I thought to myself, I can relax and enjoy it now.

I went to my room and sat listening to the music on the radio. It was beautiful, but then I started to sense something peculiar. It was as if the music which normally was a harmonious pattern started to twist and turn in a certain place within the music. I shoke it off, and once again was enjoying the smooth pattern of music, but then it happened again. I shoke it off once more, and it returned yet again. By this time I was concerned. I was a veteran tripper when it came to lsd, having had hundreds of experiences, and I had never ever felt this sensation.

Naturally I decided to turn the music off. Ahh, finally, I sat relaxed once again, looking at the amazing fractal geometry on the wood table. Smooth, harmonious. and then it happened, the same sensation, the same twisting and turning of the pattern but now with my eyes. at this point I was quite frightened. I felt a presence, trying to push through to get to me, I just about shit my pants. I shoke it off, it returned, I shoke it off again, and it returned once again. Something was trying to get through to me and twisting and turning the pattern of any sense I was currently focused on. I had never hallucinated in this fashion before. Sure, I was used to ego dissolution, getting it ripped to shreads and scattered across the cosmos. Still, hallucinations for me were always reasonable. I understood why I was seeing the walls breathing due to light and shadow, etc. This was very new to me.

So naturally, I decided to close my eyes, try and shut off all external senses I suppose, and just as soon as I had closed my eyes, kaboom! A white ball of light comes bursting through the door. I wasn't sure if my eyes were open or closed at this point. It immediately said, 'What are you going to do? I could squash you like a bug!'. I had never been that scared in my life, seriously, it was the most shockingly intense feeling I've ever encountered. If I had eaten that day I surely would have shit my pants. Well I might have peed my pants, who knows. I was freaking. Holy shit, a white ball of light is hovering in my doorway a few feet away.

Without even thinking, my mind went to 'Control the situation'. That's what I'm gonna do! Haha, the white ball laughed, you know that's not possible! and I did, I knew I was no competition for controling this white ball and this situation I was in. So naturally, my mind being dualistic and all, I went to surrender. I normally wouldn't surrender to anything, but then after all, there was this white ball of light telling me it could squash me like a bug. It said that surrendering wasn't an option either, for I was not-less-than it, and nor was I more than it. At this point I was outta options, I saw no alternatives other then to control or surrender, such a dichotomy.

It said I have 1 option, I could 'flow' with it, precisely because I wasn't more-than or less-than it. It was utterly profound to me. So I flowed, but it certainly wasn't pleasurable. I saw a metallic-looking cylinder, it was both in my head and at the same time between me and the white ball in the room, they were one and the same. The white ball started spinning around the cylinder, up and down, around and around. It urged me to join it. I didn't feel forced but I certainly felt pressured, plus I was in no state of mind to be making any decisions.

I joined it and I saw myself as another white ball. I slowly started circling around this cylinder. The speed grew and with it intensity. I couldn't handle it, it was just too intense. It would encourage me to join it again, and then it would grow in intensity until I would jump off. I begged for mercy. I started to think that I really went off the deep end this time and there was no coming back. The on and off the cylinder thing repeated often. It gots to points where I actually felt physical pain, not to mention the mental pain. It was the most painful experience I've had, hands down. But I also felt I had to.

And then finally, during the most intense mental and physical pain, the 2 lights joined and the whole cylinder lit up as a white cylinder of light. And then the cylinder disappeared and it was back to just me and the white ball. Things get vague here, but it's with the feeling that I had intense teachings. Mostly lessons on duality and relativity, the changing variables dependent on what perspective your looking from.

I'll mention again that I was still begging for it to leave me alone and go away. The intensity was overwhelming but apparently still mentally and physically bearable. My brain felt overloaded, I was a sponge begging for mercy. And just like that it said it was done and I could now ask any question I like. I felt so innocent, so simple, and the only question that came up was, 'What's the point of my life?', which also contained, why am I here, what's my purpose, etc. They were all the same question, the same concept, multifaceted.

It showed me an old wooden wagon wheel with a wooden arrow attached to it. It started to slowly spin, and then it stopped. Ahh, I thought, that's the point of life. But then it said hold on, and the wheel started turning again. And it stopped. Confused, I thought, those are the points of life. And then once again, the white ball of light said hold on, and then wheel started turning once again. Faster until it stopped at another point, then faster and faster until another point. Until it was stopping at every point possible. And then it went 3rd dimensional, stopping at all possible points. And then the ball said, 'But don't believe me, I am the trickster, you owe it to the truth to prove it to yourself'. Then it flew out the door and disappeared.

I was so relieved that it was gone and finally over. I looked at the clock, it had been over eight hours since I had gotten home, which meant that I was on around the 12th hour of tripping from just 1 hit of lsd. I was exhausted, I felt like I had the shit beat outta me physically and mentally. I started to get concerned about what was left of me, my condition. I didn't think I would be able to mingle with society again. I thought I would be put into the insane catagory and that I would no longer function in society. I thought I had gone mad with knowledge and that was all she wrote. Somehow I fell asleep for a few hours though my mind was still racing along. In the morning I felt better, but still concerned about my condition.

This experience remains my most spiritual, intense, learning experience over 14 years later. I consider myself somewhat of a hardhead and have experienced many hallucinogenic plants and chemicals, ibogaine, salvia, ayahuasca, etc., and it still baffles me that my most intense trip was on 1 little tab of lsd when at the time I had a 20 hit minimum dosage vow. And to this day it's the only time I've ever seen, with my eyes, in this dimension, an entity, in the true sense of how we use the word 'hallucination'.

Exp Year: 1991	ExpID: 39696

Gender: Not Specified

Age at time of experience: Not Given

Published: Aug 1, 2007	Views: 7,648

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LSD (2) : Alone (16), Entities / Beings (37), Mystical Experiences (9), Difficult Experiences (5)


		 DOSE:

		 6 tablets
		 oral
		 MDMA
		 (pill / tablet)

		 2 hits
		 oral
		 LSD
		 (blotter / tab)

           BODY WEIGHT:
	   130 lb

 [Erowid Note:
The dose described in this report is very high, potentially beyond Erowid's 'heavy' range, and could pose serious health risks or result in unwanted, extreme effects. Sometimes extremely high doses reported are errors rather than actual doses used.]

It was my 18th birthday and I was extremely intent on making it one to remember! Thinking back it was silly idea. We went clubbing, where I took six tablets of ecstasy. Everything was going well until 4am when we left the club to go home. Whilst waiting for the taxi to arrive me, C and H took two hits of acid each. We had planned to do this and then go for a walk in the park/forest. At around 4:30am we rolled out of the taxi and started walking randomly around the dales. Sitting on a rock whilst my friends attempted to skin up out of the wind, I could see thousands of birds of varying sizes swarming all over the skyline in the distance. I thought it was quite funny, as it looked like the bit from the film “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”. These creatures got closer and closer until it seemed that I could reach out and touch them as they flew past!

Feeling a little unnerved at the apparent realness of the animals and the speed that they had appeared I managed to convince the other two that we should move somewhere else. Our new spot was sheltered and cosy but almost pitch black, which definitely played havoc on my mind! I was convinced there were people all around us, not moving just watching us, like something out of a Steven King novel! Although my friends had not taken as many pills they were starting to get very nervy and jumpy as well. We decided to make a run for the beach, surely that would calm us down.

First problem, we had to get there! The walk to the road proved to be almost impossible. This particular forest we were in was quite remote and we rarely venture up there. To cut a long story short we got lost straight away. C was freaking out. I was keeping my terror to myself, which probably made things a lot worse for me, and H didn’t seem too phased. Whilst walking down a path it appeared that there was nothing either side of us, just scrub and small bushes as far as the eye could see, which admittedly was not far as it was still pitch black. Then I noticed, whilst turning round to mumble something to my fellow trippers, that the path we were following looked exactly the same in both directions. We weren’t getting anywhere and hadn’t been for some time!

After what seemed like too long we arrived at a junction in the path. Now it looked exactly the same in all directions, a mirror image in every path! We had arrived at the centre. The centre of what I wasn’t too sure. Then a horrifying realisation began to creep over me. I had arrived at the place known as “West”. To you that probably means nothing, but if something is really odd or strange, especially whilst on drugs of some sort, then it known as west. And here I was standing in the place known as West. It was quite frankly west!!!!!

This was too much for me to handle. I now believed that I was going through the stages of paranoia. First was ‘west’, then came ‘fear’ then came ‘terror’ which was surely to be followed by death or coma or some other horrible thing. Eventually we found our way to the road, which wasn’t much comfort. The long road that leads down to the beach is almost always deserted, especially at 5/6am, but low and behold there was a car right at the bottom driving very slowly towards us! That was enough; all three of us dived into a bush and cowered. Eventually the car rolled past, the road being about ½ mile long! Back onto the road we came.

From here onwards is where I really started to freak out! The road appeared to be covered in ball bearings and because of the slight hill in the road, the ball bearings were rolling down but leaving a pattern of balls that appeared to be stuck to the tarmac. I grabbed onto C for support who thought I was going mad jabbering about ball bearings and slipping over! Very soon we reached the beach. Its not a beach, its an estuary but we call it the beach. Once again the sensation that we weren’t getting anywhere took over. No matter how fast I walked the scenery did not change! Water on my right and a bank on my left.

C and H decided to stop for a reefer, not something I wanted but I couldn’t persuade them to keep going. Whilst sitting on the bank looking out over the water a number of odd things happened. Taking a quick toke on the reefer little flies seemed to come off the end as it burnt down. Then, looking at myself I realised I was covered in millions of these little flies. And I couldn’t get them off me. Then, it being around 6/7am a jogger ran past us closely followed by a dog walker. C and H found this hilarious but for me it was too hard to mix the acid fuelled background and the reality of these two innocent bystanders. They looked real in every sense except that they looked like they had been super imposed onto my vision by some higher being who was controlling what I saw.

I was convinced this higher being was ‘Acid’, not the acid I had taken but all acid all over the world, some God like demon who was there to torment me. I began to believe that C and H were not actually my friends but were all part of this so called Acids plan to teach me a lesson about taking drugs. Brought on by the fact they weren’t that fucked any more. I couldn’t take this, I was close to tears it was so scary. I had convinced myself that H could read my mind. In my head I asked him if he could read my mind. He looked at me and said yes, then started to chuckle. I thought that there was something I had to say or do that would make all this stop so I kept asking them what it was they wanted me to say. They thought I’d gone mad. Then, in a fit of insanity I grabbed the remaining pills we had and flung them into the sea. Spouting stuff about drugs being evil and that I was going to quit everything, even smoking! After half an hour or so of not saying anything I came to the conclusion that what I had to do was tell my mum exactly what had happened and what I’d taken and all this would stop. My friends laughed and told me to stop being stupid but how could I believe anything they said!

Eventually we started to walk again, we were very close to my house by this point and I started to recognise the buildings along the waters edge. Although not from living in the area, but from some early childhood memory of the visions a man sees before he dies! I can’t explain it fully but I was now sure I was just going through the motions before I died. But not died, just never existed, I was being wiped from the history books in some way. Although I knew my parents would be there at the end to look at me sorrowfully and watch me disappear.

By now the buses had started running and we walked towards the bus to go into the town centre, as going home now would have been a very bad mistake. As we drew closer it seemed to get darker and by the time I reached the door of the bus it was almost pitch black again. The only thing I could see were the driver’s eyes. He never spoke a word, just took my money and watched me slowly walk to the back of the bus. We were the only three people on the bus. C and H sat next to each other behind me and I knew they were discussing how I had performed on this little test that Acid had set me up for. In the centre of town, things started to calm down a little except one instance of seeing the ‘things you see before dying’ series of images again. This was further made worse by meeting someone from school in town and him saying to me “have a nice life %$£&amp;*” Apparently because I refused to say a word to him. And another incident of going into a shop to buy fags, being unable to speak to the woman behind the counter and after a few minutes of horrible confusion just walking out again.

Luckily when I did get back home I didn’t tell my mum, although there was an incredibly scary moment when my mum said as soon as I walked through the door, “Have you got something to tell me?” Shit I thought, she knows, she’s part of it! All she wanted to know was where had I spent the night. All I could manage to say was “The beach”. The fact that she was rippling and the walls were shifting didn’t help.

A long sleep, or should I say a long time spent in bed followed by a long sleep calmed me down. Although for about a month after that event I was literally scared of going outside and had to think twice before taking anything anyone said as real.

Conclusion: I'd never had a bad trip before this so was in, what I thought to be, a perfect state of mind. I had no worries and no anxiety before the events. I think I took too much over too long a period of time. But who can say what with drugs.

You would have thought I had learnt from this experience but sadly no, I did it again, but involving no acid (because I never took it again after my  birthday!) but lots of ecstasy and a gram of cocaine. This happened 4 months later on new years eve. Since that episode I’ve taken tablets etc a couple of times, acid never, and stopped smoking hash! Lifes a lot less interesting, but at least I know I’m living in the real world now.

Exp Year: 2000	ExpID: 18225

Gender: Male

Age at time of experience: Not Given

Published: Aug 23, 2007	Views: 21,672

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MDMA (3), LSD (2) : Combinations (3), Entities / Beings (37), Bad Trips (6), Small Group (2-9) (17)


		 DOSE:
 T+ 0:00
		 2.5 hits
		 oral
		 LSD
		 (blotter / tab)

		   T+ 0:45
		 0.5 hits
		 oral
		 LSD
		 (blotter / tab)

		   T+ 1:15
		 1 hit
		 oral
		 LSD
		 (blotter / tab)

		   T+ 8:00

		 smoked
		 Cannabis
		 (plant material)

           BODY WEIGHT:
	   140 lb

Introduction

This is a description of my first LSD experience, in 1988.  It was the second time I tried consuming tabs of LSD, but my first real experience with the chemical, as the first time, nothing happened. It would prove to be a major turning point in my life, a test that I felt that I barely emerged from alive and human.  I certainly hadn't ever been so close to total insanity before.

Background

The first time I tried LSD was when I was 17.  Either the paper was bunk or else it was an *extremely* low dosage; I ended up taking 8 hits without feeling anything. This is relevant in that it led to my liberal estimation, during my second attempt, of how much LSD was acceptable to take.

Set and Setting

When I was 18, I was in a depressing situation.  My girlfriend of one year moved to a different city for college, and I was missing her greatly.  It was the first time I'd lived away from home, and my apartment was a complete and utter pigsty.  I'm talking empty ice cream cartons left on the floor, along with slimy silverware, next to piles of shoes, dirty clothes, and some left-over lunch from three weeks ago in a bag.  I didn't worry about the mess, since I had nearly one hundred CDs to listen to, and music was my thing. I wasn't on any medications, although I was quite dependant on marijuana psychologically, smoking every day.  I was extremely excited about my first LSD trip, having just read Storming Heaven (evidently the information on the importance of set and setting didn't reach me). I took the LSD alone at night.

The Drug

I obtained four hits of LSD from some strangers at the park, who claimed that each tab was double-dipped. I assumed that they were just attempting to sell their product (as they say, never ask a barber if you need a haircut).  It wasn't until later that I learned that they had most likely been telling me the truth. The tabs cost 4 dollars each.

The Trip

I started off by taking 2 and a half hits.  After 45 minutes, little seemed to be happening, so I took another half hit.  Another 30 minutes down the road (T+1'15''), I was only feeling slightly unusual, so I took the remaining hit.

The trip started nicely, with the voices of Crosby, Stills, and Nash sounding like angels.  I smoked a bowl and felt the acid kick in more and more. Then I made the mistake of putting on Pink Floyd's first album - Piper at the Gates of Dawn.  It is extremely different from their later work, in that it is completely insane music, although it is depressing, just as their later stuff.  I started to get the idea that Pink Floyd had driven me mad.  My mind recorded a half-second interval of music, and started playing an approximately 4-second loop, with most of it 'empty', but that half-second filled-in each time. Every 5-10 minutes, it would record another half-second interval of music or noise, seemingly randomly, and soon it filled in the entire 4-second loop, which was playing in my head repeatedly.

From t+2 hours on, for the next 6-8 hours, time became meaningless, and so I don't have any sense of the chronology of the trip. I got the idea that my parents had driven up (an 8-hour drive) and were looking in through the peephole in my apartment door, and that they could see me. I felt an overwhelming feeling of disappointment that they had for me, since I had taken LSD.  I knew that they had stopped trusting me.  I then knew that if I opened the curtains, I would see, literally, all of the people in the world standing on bleachers that extended into infinity, and that all of them would be looking at me, disappointed in me. It made sense that I would be kicked out of my apartment, and would have to go live as a homeless person.

I put on my bathrobe over my clothes, in order to look the part, and picked up a teddy bear, for comfort, and wandered around my apartment for the next 6-8 hours, without the ability to focus on any one thing for more than one second.  The repeating loop was still going, at full strength.  This 6-8 hour period seemed to take more than a week to me, although even that description is inadequate.  This was the worst hell I had ever experienced in my life.  I claimed afterwards that, if I had to endure the same torture for an entire week of real time, I would prefer to die.  The directness of the experience has faded with time, but I think that I might still be of the same opinion.

During this time, my roommate, who was very anti-drug, called.  I answered the phone, for some reason, and he asked me for a friend's phone number.  I had to tell him that I'd call him back, since I couldn't even really figure out where the number might be, or what he meant, or how to talk on the phone.  I continued my wandering, and some time later, I happened to see that friend's number on a piece of paper.  I put it in my bathrobe pocket, thinking that it might come in handy.  Later, maybe a universe or two later, I saw a telephone in front of me, and picked it up and dialed some number. I do not know how I knew my roommate's girlfriend's phone number, but when my roommate answered, I simply read him the number in my pocket, and he never knew that I was located in another plane of existence, and that my tenuous grasp on his reality could have easily been lost if he had asked me any other question at all.

It was music that destroyed me, and it was music that saved me.  In the midst of my wandering, I happened to pick up my guitar, and to play a few notes, each sound was like a raindrop falling and spattering, flowing musical beauty.  The sounds took me back home, somehow, and comforted me.  I began to relax, and realized that I wasn't about to become homeless after all.  I spent the rest of that night playing guitar, and enjoying the night air.  I smoked another bowl of marijuana and felt wonderful, although I still was very much shaken from the intensity of my bad hours. Eventually, I went to sleep, but the next day I was scared to leave my apartment, for fear of not knowing how to interact with strangers.  This fear slowly diminished over three or four days. I was not back to normal for months, in some respects.  Actually, this trip still influences me.

Despite my horrible trip, the ending was amazing enough that I tried LSD again on many occasions, and enjoyed almost every minute of almost every trip.  After approximately 20 trips under my belt, I quit, and switched to natural alternatives such as mushrooms and mescaline.  My bad trip has affected my life ever since - that's more than 15 years.  It gave me strength, as I knew that since I had survived such a tremendous horror, I could survive almost anything. It also made me take less LSD after that - I never took more than 3 hits at once again, and I was more cautious in waiting for what I had already taken to kick in before taking more.  It was the bad music choice, as well as my bad emotional state and physical situation (set and setting!) that caused this bad trip.

Exp Year: 1988	ExpID: 43407

Gender: Male

Age at time of experience: Not Given

Published: Sep 2, 2007	Views: 14,208

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LSD (2) : First Times (2), Bad Trips (6), Music Discussion (22), Hangover / Days After (46), Difficult Experiences (5), Alone (16)