		 DOSE:

		 oral
		 LSD

This report is for those of you who are using psychedelics for their 'spiritual' properties, but haven't quite made the breakthrough you are seeking yet.  Other curious parties may be those who wish to augment their spiritual practice with psychedelics or vice-versa.  This is a long-winded account that may only be of interest to those who are trying to put the theo- back in entheogens.

The premise here is that use of spiritual techniques such as meditation and yoga can greatly aid in psychedelic research, giving one a surfboard to ride on the sea of mind instead of being tossed around to and fro, the waves of thought crashing down on your head time and time again.  They give you a true path to keep you grounded during the experience and provide a more spiritually useful context to the whole idea of 'tripping'.

Having first tried LSD for its alleged mind-expanding qualities, I was eager to see if I would be one of the lucky few who have a bona-fide mystical experience through psychedelics.  Even that first trip changed my life and outlook thereon forever.  Upon repetition however, it became clear that I was only sinking more and more deeply into internal confusion and becoming even further separated from my fellow earth citizens.

A simple lack in my community (N.America) of an honest, sacred context for using (not abusing) plant teachers forced me to go to the subculture.  There I found disease, depravity, death.  After several years and several hundred psychedelic trips, I realized that I was only making baby steps in the right direction with the occasional two steps back.

The raves, the house parties, the weekend-long acid tests in nature... none of these environments nurtured the spiritual longing that originally called me to psychedelics.  Everyone just wanted to party, so I partied with them.  For my troubles, I afforded myself many opportunities for guilt, and a marijuana habit to boot.

The spiritual texts I had been reading throughout these years pointed to an experience that was out there...out there somewhere, but I sure wasn't having it.  I was putting some of the world's finest chemical in my body, but I just wasn't getting it.  I knew the goal was real, but I felt that I was at a dead end.  It was time to stop, 'At least for now,' I told myself.

So I meditated and did yoga every day for six months while managing to put together some length of relative sobriety.  For the first time in my life, a new peace, calm and centeredness descended on my being.  School, work and relationships were still a challenge, but they were no longer the weary loads I could hardly bear.  They became opportunities for me to practice my patience, mindfulness, skill and compassion.  Things seemed to have never been better and I was honestly thankful of my station in life.

That's when the thing happened.  An accidental trip.  I was struck by lightning.  Not literally; what I mean is the trip chose me this time, instead of me hunting it down.  I had moved into a new house, and had been living there for a week or so when I opened up a cabinet to get some item or other.  I looked in the cabinet and perfectly at eye level I spied a little glass vial with just maybe one half milliliter of liquid in it.  Knowing that the previous occupant traded in lots of acid, it occurred to me that maybe she left some behind.  This would not have been surprising since she left so much other stuff behind as well, an understandable oversight.  To make sure it wasn't just some essential oil or perfume or whatever, I opened the vial and smelled it: nothing.  Then for some reason, without really thinking it through, I put my finger over the open mouth of the vial and turned it upside-down, then put my finger in my mouth.  I guess I was thinking that I could tell by the taste if it was really acid.  Then it hit me, 'You just dosed yourself.'

Instead of freaking out, I just rode it nicely, using my meditative and yogic techniques, alternating between the two.  It all fit so well together!!  Instead of paying attention to my thoughts, I focused on breath; visions resulted.  Yeah, yeah, acid is supposed to give you visions.  But this was different.  It cannot be described in words because It is beyond words.  I was getting worldviews and vistas unlike any at my previous high-dose experiments, and this was low-dose.  It was only the one little circle on my finger, not even a full drop (I did remember that batch from when it was fresh, it was just normal strength stuff, not the concentrate designed for transport and dilution).

It was such a great little trip.  I got over an invisible hump in my meditative path that I wasn't even aware existed before, to a deeper level of inexpressible truth.  Even my yoga changed: it transformed from fixed postures and stretching into a fluid-in-motion expression of tangible energy.  I could touch it.  I could feel it.  I knew energy.  my universe gifted me in a way that no one can ever take away.  I cannot express it.  If you know, then you know what I mean.

Suffice it to say that this propelled me powerfully on my spiritual path and lent a more sacred context to my psychedelic 'research', which I had temporarily put on hold for the purposes of meditation.  This led to another experiment two months later with two hits of blotter.  It is hard to talk about such things in words, but I can say that I learned to 'let go'.  I had been clutching and grasping for this spiritual truth, trying to grab it, hold it and contain it.  It had finally become clear that I had to cease grasping, let go, empty myself and let It flow in.  Yes that sounds very Buddhist, and I guess it is.  My experience was beginning to confirm the things I had read that sounded so vague and abstract.  The words of the Masters came back to me time and again as I saw the Truth manifesting itself before my eyes (eye).

These two experiences affected me so much that I'm still spinning (literally) off of them today, but all this was just setting me up for what was to happen Halloween night 1996.  Taking a break from work, studies and meditation I decided to go out and party.  We hopped around from house to house until we got to a party where they had Kool-Aid acid.  It was said that one cup (the little paper kind you find in the bathroom), equaled three hits of average blotter.  For some reason, maybe it was the few beers I had, I quickly downed four cups.  Lots of other cups sat out on the counter there, with a little left in the bottom; I hungrily downed these as well, many of them containing pieces of the shredded up sheet. (that's how they made the stuff: one 100 hit sheet shredded by hand and left to soak in one pitcher of Kool-Aid for a few hours)

Five minutes later I'm starting to feel a major change in perception, and realize that I need to get to a safe place.  The walk home had me vacillating between self scorn for stupidly ingesting somewhere between 12 and 20 hits in a thirty-second period and realizing that 'what's done is done, just surf it correctly'.  So by the time I got home +15min, I was zooming hard, shaking.  I tried to smoke some herb to calm myself down, but I could not load the bowl.

So I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing and not my thought-stream running wildly out of control.  That was when the thunderbird revealed itself to me; over the red desert, the blue bird manifested.  Before I realized it, I was on my feet in excitement.  Thoughts had returned and the vision had vanished.  So much energy coursed through my body that I needed to do some yoga. Instead of the traditional postures, I began to spontaneously move in the fluid way I had been practicing since that last trip.  I began to vibrate and move in a way that might have been described  by an outside observer as break-dancing.  Thirty minutes of this stuff had me mapping out every possible position of my body.  That first 'accidental' trip initiated me into it, but this experience sealed my union with what I have heard referred to as The Flow, Liquid and spontaneous yoga.  Much more could be said here about this part, but that is one for another report.

Channelling all that energy enabled me to take to the cushion again, where I used another technique I had been trying: listening to the ringing in my ears.  This helped me normally in sober meditation to let go of thoughts; much like breathing, it gave me something else to pay attention to.  But unlike the state of neutrality and emptiness that resulted from doing it sober, this again led to a striking vision, only this time it was purely audio.  Ringing became buzzing became whirling became screeching became clanging became hissing and on and on.  The addition of each new sound did not mean the departure of the last, they all stayed in focus and gelled together in a harmonious cacophony that was at once beautiful and delightful, if not a little scary.  It finally crescendoed in an audio vista that seemed to include every possible frequency that my ear can detect all resounding at once.  it sounded like Om.

Eventually, my focus came to rest, once again, on my internal chatter.  It was now more than ever before clear to me that my focus was the main factor.  Not focusing on thoughts seemed to be a requirement for having these 'true hallucinations.'  At any rate, this type of thing went on all night and into the morning.  Some of these closed-eye visions lasted hours while seeming infinitesimally short; many lasted mere seconds but yet seemed to last forever.

A common theme was that at the beginning of each vision, fear tempted me to go no further, but if I saw the truth for myself, it was liberating, bringing in more light, allowing me to sense a higher Love.  At each turn the viewer can bail out and return to normal thought by taking the bait.  In the beginning, the bait is fear ('don't look at this next thing or something bad will happen') later the bait is an egotistical excitement ('Wow!.._I_ am finally seeing the Truth, Me, Me, I, etc).  To maintain the states one must not take the bait and instead focus on what Is.

The most compelling part of this experience and the part that has had the longest-lasting and most important impact on my life was a direct result of inner stillness.  Lying on my mat, letting IT take me over, I was taken into hell-realms.  I'm sure many of you know of what I speak.  The most excruciating physical pain combines with utter terror in what seems like you are being psychologically gang-raped by demons while insects devour you from the inside out.  Instead of squirming in the face of this horror however, my inner stance was one of stillness.  To approximate this posture with words:  'ok...what's next?'

Well, what was next could still have been termed as very uncomfortable, but everything went up a notch.  By up I mean from the fear end of the spectrum towards love.  I was still in pain and scared but it eased up somewhat, so at least I felt a little gratitude for that.  But instead of thinking about it too much or looking for something to cling to or something to save me, I maintained.  'ok...what's next?'

It got better (to use a dualistic word), but still I did not move internally:  'ok...what's next?'  Gradually, the feelings moved up, up, up the spectrum, all the while, I remain a rock.  Before my naked eye was laid as if in pages of a book what seemed on the order of 10,000 different thought-emotional states.  These ranged from the lowest fear up to the highest joy, and they came in order.  At the end it felt as though bubblenergy was expanding through every cell in my body (much better than the disco-biscuits of old).  Everything was perfect and I had once again reached harmony with All That Is.  Still I did not move.  'ok...what's next?'

What was next is obscured from my current human vision.  I can comment however on the lessons that that final moment imprinted on me.  Everything is love and fear.  but since fear is a lower form of love, then everything is love.  god is love.  everything is god.  one cannot point at something that is not part of god.  god/devil, love/fear are only creations of our limited thought-state.  in the world beyond our dualistic logic, everything is what it is.  everything is everything.

This non-dual mindset gives us the ultimate gift:  freedom.  Your reaction is truly your choice.  That is what makes us human.  The input you receive can be of the highest amplitude fear frequency but you can still choose to output love.  I later learned that this is called transmutation.

It is the most selfless, compassionate gift you can give to your universe, your planet, your fellow people.

In the 7.5 years since this occurrence I’ve only used psychedelics a handful of times.  Now I need it much less frequently and on the occasion that I do feel it might be helpful, I can get so much more out of the experience by taking so much less. By turning off my internal chatter (by which I mean not pay attention to it) I can download all this information from what can rightly be termed the Other Side (of Self).

It's actually been a couple of years since I’ve had a proper trip.  The experience and its impact are so great that I feel it would be sacrilege to use it when unnecessary.  Besides, the calm waters of my mind may be disturbed by turbulent forces.  Meditation has focused my awareness to such an extent that it carries over into my dreams, providing me with many opportunities for what you may call lucid dreaming.  And if I ever feel the call, the peruvianus out in the back yard will provide nicely  =)

So to give some advice, if I may, to those psychedelic researchers who are seeking but not finding:  slow down, use less frequently and when you do use, do so in a sacred context.  Don't drop at a keg a party and then expect a merger of creator and creation.  Don't trip and smoke pot staring at each other dumbly thinking, 'Who's going to show me The Way.'  Don't waste your trip watching the Matrix or listening to your roommate talk about her asshole boyfriend and her crappy job.  believe me, seeing how far you can obliterate your mind while staring at the walls trying to 'get visuals' is unlikely to facilitate a re-Union of Mother and child.

while these situations may provide you with some room in which to enlighten yourself, it is less likely than when you set up a safe, sacred space in which to explore Self.  I highly recommend tripping alone if you are experienced, or with a sitter if you prefer.  trip partners can work too, but often they only provide each other with distraction from The Work.  If you plan to do a high dose experiment, be it acid, shrooms, cacti or oral DMT (debatably the most useful of earth's compounds) you may feel more comfortable having someone else within reach.  But make sure it is someone who will stay out of your face and just sit quietly on the other side of the house and let you trip.  They will be there if you think are dying and need to go to the hospital, or if you think you are permanently insane.  They will silently check up on you from time to time to make sure everything is within normal limits.  Their job is not to keep you entertained but to keep you physically safe while you explore the depths of consciousness.

The most useful advice, I believe, is to develop your skill with 'normal' spiritual practices and then once you feel comfortable with them, try doing it while tripping.  Learn at least one form of stillness (emptiness) meditation and one moving form (yoga, tai chi, etc).  some types of meditation are hindered by psychedelics; some seem to be aided by them.  most however are simply different.  If you are really interested in subjects like these, check out Zig Zag Zen: Buddhism &amp; Psychedelics. (Badiner/Grey,Chronicle Books 2002)

Ultimately, psychedelics seem to me to be helpful in showing the Way, but not taking one there.  If I may dust off an old chestnut: 'The map is not the territory,' as one finds out after traveling the road for awhile without psychedelic aid.    These plants/drugs are undeniably useful when used with skill in a spiritual context.  However, when used in ways less mindful, they can hinder our spiritual growth at worst and at best it's still a roll of the dice in a game where the stakes are high.

Exp Year: 2003	ExpID: 25635

Gender: Not Specified

Age at time of experience: Not Given

Published: Oct 2, 2003	Views: 86,479

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Meditation (128), LSD (2), Yoga / Bodywork (202) : Various (28), Mystical Experiences (9), Retrospective / Summary (11)


		 DOSE:
 T+ 0:00
		 1 hit
		 oral
		 LSD
		 (blotter / tab)

		   T+ 1:30

		 smoked
		 Cannabis
		 (plant material)

		   T+ 2:45
		 1 line
		 insufflated
		 Ketamine
		 (powder / crystals)

		   T+ 0:59

		 smoked
		 Cannabis
		 (plant material)

           BODY WEIGHT:
	   135 lb

Eric sent me a message on ICQ around 10:30.  His messages were strange, and after a minute he confirmed my suspicions that he was on acid.  He offered me the other hit of acid that he had, and I accepted it.  I left my house with my bag.  My heart raced with anticipation and anxiety.  I was wearing jeans, sandals, and a plaid button-up shirt.  I arrived at his house; Eric was outside on the street walking his dog.  He called to me.  We went inside and, after a short time, I took the acid.  We sat on his couch talking and listening to music for a little while before deciding to go out for a walk.

We left Eric's house.  Eric asked if going for a drive would be good, but I insisted that it was too dangerous to drive while on psychedelics.  Eric had also taken some ketamine early on, and when he thought about that he realised how dangerous it would have been.

We walked down to a street right along the railroad tracks.  We began walking beside the tracks in the unused land which lined them.  It was rough; there was lots of undergrowth and I was very conscious of the limitations imposed upon me by my sandals, which truly were not designed to function on such terrain.  We walked on for a while.  Eventually, the path disappeared.  We continued walking along beside the fence separating us from the tracks.  Eric brought me to a place where he had put some pennies on the track.  Unfortunately, they could not be found.  We walked on.

We had to climb over some fences and onto people's property to continue on.  All this time I was holding the joint that we had rolled before leaving.  I began to notice the little lights which cover everything in the dark; it was as if they were overpowering my normal reality.  It was now dark outside.

After climbing more fences, we found ourselves straying from the fence.  Strange things confronted us on the ground -- fallen trees, sticks, mud, etc.  I had to get my lighter out to help us see where to go.  We kept on moving.

Eric was certain that we were almost out.  Suddenly, we came to a steep hill.  I did not notice it at all.  It was way too dark and my mind was beginning to get messed up.  Eric kept us both from rolling down this steep hill and being moderately injured.

It was at this point that the sweat all over my head caused the coefficient of friction between my head and my glasses to drop below the necessary threshold.  My glasses slipped off of my head and fell to the ground...somewhere.  I cried out for Eric to help me, as this was not something with which I could easily deal.  Eric brought the lighter around and I searched the ground.  I couldn't find my glasses.  Eric realised that the task was impossible; the glasses had probably fallen down this big hill we were on, and there was no way in hell that we were going to be able to find them in the dark while on acid.  I had to leave my glasses behind.

Eric turned and brought us out of the woods.  The railway bridge crossing over a large ravine was right there, only ten metres away.  We carefully found our way down the hill at the site of the bridge until we reached the path in the middle of the ravine.  We were both elated, though I was also upset that my glasses had been lost and that I could no longer see properly.

After walking up the ravine for a little while, we decided to smoke the joint.  I fumbled around in my bag until I produced it, and we smoked that joint.  It was nice to have some pot, finally.  It relaxed me.  Eric's presence and the knowledge that nothing really bad had happened was enough to keep me happy from that point on.  We walked until we arrived at an exit from the ravine, where we left and began walking to Eric's house.

Once we had arrived at Eric's house, I could finally relax somewhat.  My glasses were gone, but everything else was still there.  We sat down and listened to some trippy drug music.  We had some pop to drink and then ate some sorbet.  Eating the sorbet made me think of kissing.

I thought about a lot of things while I was sitting there with Eric.  I thought about my 'spiritual journey,' so to speak.  I thought about the choice of the right path.  I thought about the light beings and the darkness.  I thought of light as a controlling power and I thought of music, it's total opposite, as the only thing with the courage to openly resist the light.  I then thought of how light was the tool of the establishment, that establishment and anti-establishment were the two overriding powers beyond the light and the music.  Then I began to think of nature as somehow being behind that, as if at every step, some greater controlling power would emerge.  These ideas that I was having were instantly visualised in very trippy ways inside my head.  Total abstractions suddenly formed into concrete shapes.  The barriers of classification which allow us to make sense of our world melted away, and I was left with no knowledge whatsoever.

I tried to think of it in terms of a fundamental question, a fundamental definition for existence.  I searched for words to describe the thoughts I was having, but I realised that it was an impossible task.  Belief was a concept I could not accept, but at the same time there is nothing else in this world besides that in which you believe.  As you can see, it was just impossible for me to make sense of the world.  That isn't to say that the sense which one makes of the world when one's mind is not being stimulated in strange ways by powerful entheogens is at all natural.  The baseline by which we measure our world is totally contrived.  The way we interact with the world is totally based on assumed principles, and that knowledge, the knowledge that nothing could be known, permeated my consciousness.

Well, I've been going on a bit of a tangent.  This is what I had begun to think about.  Eric and I went upstairs and smoked more pot.  After looking at some trip art on the crappy computer downstairs, Eric had decided that we needed a computer without such a messed up video card.  We went upstairs and smoked pot.

Eric then wanted to have some ketamine.  We reflected on how ghetto it was to do what we were about to do.  Ketamine, for those of you who don't know, is a chemical injected into animals to make them unconscious.  It comes in the form of a white powder.  I first found that revolting, but then I realised that any solid formed by a commercial chemical process is going to be a precipitate, so unless it's otherwise altered, it would come out as a powder at the end.  We rolled up a twenty-dollar bill and snorted these tiny little lines of ketamine.  There was something a bit gross about that.

The ketamine made me quite relaxed, but it didn't dull my thoughts at all.  In fact, it made them more intense.  I left Eric's house because he wanted to clean himself.  I can't blame him -- we were filthy.

As I was walking home, I had crazy thoughts about the nature of __________.  I'm sorry that I can't put a word to it, but that's what it was.  It was that which was and yet was not.  I first thought of it in terms of the question of existence.  Everything formed this shape, like the shape that a dividing cell makes with the highest concentrations of chromosomes at each end, but all the stretched out chromosomes in the middle.  This bulb with two poles was the visualisation of the idea I was having.  I imagined that all of reality could be reflected by this shape.  Here's how the shape worked: the two poles were yes and no.  Everything between them was competition between those opposites.  This was the continuation of the idea I had been having before.  I asked myself if the question 'Is there existence?' could have caused this thing, this reality which is before us.  As much as everything was real, it was also unreal.  Nothing was certain, and my brain was caught in a feedback loop trying to process this paradox.

I believe that the origins of my being able to think that way came from the acid while the ketamine just made it more intense and connected.

When I got home around 2 in the morning, my mother was watching TV.  I decided that going in and possibly interacting with her was a perilous thing indeed since trying to bluff my way through the acid would have been impossible.  I imagined my mom asking where my glasses were.  Then she might have seen my dilated pupils and it all would have been over.  That's the sort of thing which could have turned my trip bad; I couldn't risk it.  So, I walked away from the house.  I had been writing on my palm pilot (I'm a geek, a technophile -- that's why I have one) while walking home, as you saw above.  I sat down near my house and thought about it all.  I began to see this as the latest challenge -- going home and just getting in.  There was nothing I could do but go.  I walked home.  Thankfully, my mother had by then gone to bed and I was able to sneak upstairs without a social collision.

Once I got to my room, I felt the need to document everything as much as possible.  I began writing about my experience (which was continuing).  I felt acutely alone.  I chatted a bit with a friend over the internet to try and keep my mood swings, of which I was becoming more conscious, in check.  I watched some TV on my computer and I listened to a little music.  Typing, after a while, became emotionally painful after a while.  It got to the point where I could only type for a minute or two at a time before being overwhelmed.  Watching TV gave me stability and happiness, though.  I felt like I was walking the line between a good trip and a bad trip, though.

After a while, I decided to have a shower.  It had been quite some time, and I was definitely coming down off of the acid.  My mind began to return more to normal functioning, and I felt more in control of the situation.  I recoreded a video of my sleep, just for fun.  Sleep was strange.  Everything was strange.  I left the trip-world when I woke up at 12:15 pm with James calling me, asking me where I was and whether or not I was going to come and get him to go play D&amp;D.  Well, I was back to normal by then, but my task of processing the previous night had just begun.  I don't know if it will end anytime soon.

What have I decided so far?  Well, acid is good.  Acid is powerful and must be handled carefully, but overall it's good.  We took as much care as we could, never having tried acid before.  If I ever do acid again, it will be safer.  Ketamine, at least for me, should not be taken while on acid.  I found that too intense.  Ketamine is a more fucked up drug, in some ways; apparently, it can be physically addictive and will probably fuck up your mind if you use it regularly.

Eric told me that a trip would change who I was, and that I would go wherever I wanted to go.  I went where I wanted to go; I feel as if there has been continuity between my acid trip and my other spiritual experiences over the past few months.  It was a little difficult at times, especially when I lost my glasses and we were in the woods in the dark, but even more so when I was at home, essentially alone, trying to make sense of it all.

I really enjoyed pot.  I believe that pot is a universal thing which everyone can enjoy.  Acid is a little different.  I think more people should try acid, but anyone wanting to try it has to be sure that he's up to it.  I'm glad to know that my mind is strong.  I was afraid that my mind would not be strong enough to get through being on acid, but it was, and I believe I am better because of it.  I do not know whether or not I will do acid again, but it will probably be a while before I do, if I decide to do it again.

Exp Year: 2001	ExpID: 9174

Gender: Male

Age at time of experience: Not Given

Published: Dec 5, 2003	Views: 192,360

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Ketamine (31), LSD (2) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Glowing Experiences (4), Difficult Experiences (5), First Times (2)


		 DOSE:

		 3 hits
		 oral
		 LSD

		 Pharms - Fluoxetine
		 (daily)

           BODY WEIGHT:
	   190 lb

It was a beautiful summer day.  I was camping with my best friend, J,  and we each dropped three hits of some pretty strong acid.  She was a much more experienced tripper;  I had only done it once before and only one hit.  However, it was such an enjoyable experience, I thought “triple the acid, triple the fun….” .  Wrong.  That way madness lies.

The visuals were intense to say the least.  We spent the day hiking and tripping and having a hell of a good time.  We hiked down a long trail toward a waterfall.  The waterfall and the lake at the bottom were full of people, and it was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen.  There were people of all races and nationalities just being together in nature.  J and I made our way to the edge of the falls and met a couple there.  I remember J telling them that we had just gotten engaged (!?) and they congratulated us.  That was weird, but I just figured J was off in her own lala-land, and decided to file that information away for future digestion.

Things started to get weird.  The visuals stopped.  Dead.  All the swirlies and tracers and fractals.  Gone.  Everything was silent except for a very low humming or buzzing sound that seemed to spring from the very fabric of the Universe.  The people were still there, but I barely noticed them.  They weren’t real anyway.  They were just a part of the fabric of reality that I had constructed to hide from myself the awful truth that I was, and always had been, God.   My entire past life, I now realized, was only a shadow, just a story that I had been playing out for eternity.  The job of God is lonely.  The sole being of the Universe has no one to talk to.

I had no concept of the fact that I had done drugs.  I knew that I had been awakened to perform some task.  I then realized that I wasn’t alone in the Universe.  I was only half, the other half was feminine.  I remember seeing her (not really seeing with my eyes, but with LSD goggles, I guess) standing above the waterfall.  She was old, terribly old, and brown.  I then knew what my job was, and how I played into the cosmic order.  My job was to die.

I realized that it was the summer solstice (it was, actually) and it was time for the Earth to end the birth process and begin preparing for death to occur in the fall.  Energy flowed from Me that kept the plants and animals alive and the Sun warm.  On this day, I must shut down the flow of energy to keep the natural cycle of the world flowing.  To do this, I had to die.  I would be reborn again on the Winter solstice to bring life back, and then die again next summer.  This was the way it had always been.  I looked at Her (the old brown woman) and asked (not verbally, but I asked somehow) if it had to be this way.  Yes, it had to be.

Ok, so I’m the dying God.  Birth and death.  She remains constant, the passive force, but I was the active force.  She never experiences great suffering, but never great joy either.  I am free to feel both.  I realized that my past life that I had constructed had been foolish.  There had been so much suffering.  Why do that when I could construct any reality I want.  I asked Her if I could enjoy this (my constructed reality) and she said (again, not in words) “I don’t care as long as the cycle continues.”

Well, ok then.  I can do whatever I want.  I then realized how silly it was that I was wearing clothes.  Off with them, then (anyway, those other people around the pond aren’t real).  I can dance and sing and shout.  Naked.  In a public park.  Why not?

A ranger, notified by some of the other pond people (maybe they were real after all), took offense at my joymaking and suggested that it would perhaps be a good idea to consider replacing my clothing.  I have no idea what time it was, but it was starting to get dark, so it had probably been six or seven hours since dropping the hits, and I guess I was coming down a little.  Anyway, I remembered that I had done drugs and had taken all my clothes off and scared the hell out of a bunch of people.  I didn’t realize that the man was a park ranger.  I thought he was a cop coming to arrest me for killing J (!?).  Somehow, I had gotten it into my head that I had pushed her off a cliff during my stupor (I hadn’t…she had just wandered away somewhere).  Suddenly, my life was over.  I was going to jail for the rest of my life.  All my big dreams and plans….gone.  And my parents, god, I didn’t want to think about them.  This was going to kill them.

The ranger escorted me up to the office (I was now properly clothed) and asked me if I was on drugs.  Yes, I said.  No point in lying, I can’t make it any worse.  He asked if I was ok and if I needed to go to the hospital.  Shock.  So, I thought, maybe I’m not being arrested!  Maybe I didn’t kill her…..I just didn’t know.

Well, I eventually met back up with J (fully alive) and we made our way back to the campsite.  The ranger was a very cool person, and could have easily called the cops.  Lucky me.  Even though I didn’t hurt J or myself or anyone else, I could have and I am very fortunate that I did not.

I’m not convinced that my experience was entirely a drug crazed hallucination.  I sometimes wonder if I didn’t tap into something very deep on that summer solstice at the base of the waterfall.  I’ll never know, because I’ll never do acid again.  I tripped a few more times, and always came back to the God story.  Fortunately, I was able to keep enough of my sanity to not act out anymore.  I’m just not the type that can handle it.  I see things that I don’t want to see.

As an end note, I was also on prozac at the time.  I wonder if this is what caused my incredibly unusual tripping behavior.  Considering how prozac affects the brain, I think it is very likely.

Exp Year: 2001	ExpID: 13206

Gender: Male

Age at time of experience: Not Given

Published: Dec 15, 2004	Views: 75,444

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LSD (2) : Combinations (3), Train Wrecks &amp; Trip Disasters (7), Nature / Outdoors (23), Entities / Beings (37), Small Group (2-9) (17)


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

		   T+ 3:50

		 smoked
		 Cannabis
		 (plant material)

		   T+ 0:00

		 smoked
		 Tobacco
		 (plant material)

		   T+ 11:30
		 1 cup
		 oral
		 Caffeine
		 (liquid)

           BODY WEIGHT:
	   68 kg

I decided to give acid another shot - to say goodbye. Maybe for good. I had a lot of previous experience with psychedelic drugs, and this one specifically was one of my favorites. I had reached a place in my life when I thought that I need to get on with my life, and that maybe this substance doesn't have a place in it. So, for all the good memories and wonderful experiences I owed, I felt this one was a necessary celebration of a period of time. A celebration of the free spirit.

The first thing I did was to get my music ready. I had picked 6 CDs of music that I wanted to hear during this experience. Aphex Twin - I Care Because You Do was the first choice, since his music gets in touch very deeply and very fast with my psychedelic side. The second choice was Shiva Chandra - Gecko, because this album is pure acid music, very minimal, very psychedelic, very powerful. The third album was The Mystery of the Thirteen Crystal Skulls - a compilation by TIP World, one of the veteran labels of the psychedelic trance genre. The fourth choice was Ozric Tentacles - Floating Seeds Remixed, a deep psychedelic electronic journey. The other two were just a few tracks I collected. In short, very visual and very powerful psychedelic and electronic music.

I got some of that popping candy, that you put in your mouth and it explodes. Just for the experience of feeling it inside my mouth. I like it when acid touches all of the senses and makes them become one, and this is very strong on the touch/taste department. Water was not necessary, since I wanted most of the trip to be in my living room, and had easy access to it. Some cigarettes, a nasty habit but one that helps keep a good sense of focus through the trip, some marijuana for the explicit purpose of making the acid jump back into full blast when I'm between peaks and want to rush it forward some more. No chewing gum, to prevent grinding my teeth in excess of what would normally happen, and to keep my concentration on my trip.

I already had 3 big and powerful blotters of acid, with an estimated 350 micrograms each (from previous experiences with these blotters). [Erowid Note: Claims of measured microgram dosages for LSD are usually unsupported. Quantitative measurements for LSD are very difficult to do and cannot be done casually. Without further detailed information about how the measurements were derived, it is reasonable to assume that most statements of microgram dosages of LSD on blotter or in microdots are either misinformed or overstated.]  My previous experience with these type of blotters was emotional and deep. And this time, I didn't forget my wristwatch, so I can keep track of time somehow. I wanted to document this experience. I guess this text is in a way the sum of the experience while it's still fresh in my mind.

00:00 - I just took the acid. I'm psychologically in a great mood for the trip, my anticipation knows no end. Something that I gained through practice - now I had not only setting, but a good set as well. I put Aphex Twin on my system, I kept the volume not too high, in order not to wake anyone up.

00:35 - I feel weird. The first waves are starting to hit me. Wave after wave after wave of this substance is working into every bit of my conciousness. I turn on the TV with no sound, and press play to the X-Men DVD that was inside the player. I was a huge comics fan when I was 13, and the X-Men were one of my favorites. I feel Proffesor X and Magneto clashing head to head, I see Wolverine turning from a simple good man into a ferocious killing machine and back in seconds. I can't follow what's happening, I'm too busy analyzing. Visual flexing of the stereosystem is extremely appearant. Things are starting to get extrememly distorted. Aphex Twin's unstable logic is starting to play with me. I must replace music while I still can. I feel the power of this trip starting to course through my body. Shiva Chandra with his acid friendly music is my choice.

01:15 - Shiva Chandra is definately getting me into this. I'm dancing around, in a wierd tribal pattern adapted from the music. Visual distortion of everything becomes more appearant, everything is twisting and my the colors split - there is no longer pure black over white, but rather colors on the edges. Wolverine keeps on looking younger and then old and angry and then innocent and good and ping pongs between these emotions. It was amazingly impressive seeing Mystique change shapes and stuff. Wow. Shiva Chandra - Vierenkrach is a track that's divided so well into different parts and cycles. I can feel the crazy grooves of the music pulling deeper and deeper. Not one sound is out of place. This guy is a genius at telling acidic stories with his music. I notice only 2 minutes of the track have gone past me. How can he fit so much into so little? It never ceases to amaze me - the way acid makes the music dominant.

Is it the other way around?

What's happening here? My hand is starting to grow bigger...  as I move it around and enjoy some wild tracing. I took off my shirt and started moving with the music again. The whole room is pulsating, everything is melting into each other. All my senses are mixed together, sound, sight, my perceptioon of time? How long have I been here in this trip? Hours?

01:45 - One of my rare looks at my watch. Must stop the music, let my brain rest from this intensity. I go and have a smoke. I try to make a phone call to someone, but I can't find the use of it, who would understand the place I'm in anyways? Can I communicate? My mind is swimming from idea to idea to idea to idea, I look around my room. I put on the Ozric Tentacles remix album. Get a more calm and tribal feel. I notice I've taken off my shirt some time ago... When was that again? Time to pick a new shirt. One of my bright rave shirts. Ohh well, I go outside to the garden. Now, my neighbor's house looks like it came out of Shogun. I can see the trees I have outside growing and dancing. I feel the energies swimming around me, I'm not sure what I'm stepping in (it's my lawn, I know this, but how come I'm sinking into it? Why is the ground so unevennnnnnnnennenenennnenn) but I'm barefoot, and I feel a strong connection with the dew on the floor ground, I loved the tingling sensation. The music is calling me now. I must leave, can't run away from something that's stronger than me.

02:15 - My sense of time is totally distorted. All of my senses are blended together. Sight and sound and time become one, and within a second I can see a lifetime of temporal revelations. Time is looping around me, everything is going in slow circular cycles. I don't know what's happening, but it's something wonderful and amazing. A man on the moon amazing. A man reaching the sky and grabbing the stars to swallow them. Why is this not exciting me though? What is this entity called time? Why is it looking at me? I think I may be getting the fear. I know this has been there before. I switch my mind to a differnt line again. This revelation is too dark for me.

03:00 - Another cigarette, wow, I have no idea what reality used to be like. I've been living in the moment forever, and the moment was a spiral forward - not a straight line. My living room just melts into the background while I have a complete visual melding of everything. I need to go to the toilet. Pissing never took me so long, and the colors of everything never seemed to change so much during this action... Wait, my toilet never changes color. Oh well. I can see the entire glowing colors around me twisting and twisting. Color is the music. I need something else now. I go to my computer, and start playing some of the music I have there. Hallucinogen - LSD was my first natural choice. Starting with Ken Kessey's long speech about how acid develops new thoughts, and then deeply into the music. Time is going around me. I think the acid is dropping from one of its main peaks. I try and communicate with the world through an IRC chat. A bad connection to the internet and my thought process is too mixed up for this. I can't communicate with people from this world properly. I haven't felt the richness of the music like this for ages. By the end of each track, I feel like I just lived through an amazingly intense story, not of sound, but real life in different places. I'll always be amazed at the effects of psychedelic trance music on acid. I take some of the popping candy, and let it pop in my mouth. The sensation is that of soft explosions in my mouth. I don't feel the taste at all.

03:30 - back to the living room again. Better sound system, I change the music to some Vangelis, but his sea of calm is not interesting enough for me. I want something else. I decide against The Doors, for reasons of self preservation I guess. I put on some Green Nuns of the Revolution (green nunions) and then ManMadeMan - Desire (Bumbling Loons remix). I'm seeing the sink... Maybe I should drink some water. Interesting how things like thirst seem insignificant until I can solve that problem.

03:50 - I can finally return back to our reality enough to find a movie on DVD... My little brother's Pokemon is still hanging around in my living room. Hmmm, never saw it on acid, let's see if the stereotype is right. After 12 minutes of this insanity, I just thought 'this is stupid'. I ended this chapter. I wanted the acid to kick back to full strength, so I took out my bong, filled it with water, and put some of the premade mix I had with me (added some tabacco to the weed in order for it too burn better). Thank god I had made the bong and the mix earlier, or there would be no way I would have been able to do this in the state I am in now. I looked for some matches, and ended up looking at some Chinese art I had in my bedroom. The Chinese artwork I bought in Sydney is amazing. A picture becomes a protecting spirit, captured in one moment, but alive all the less. My carved wood dragon is communicating with me, moving around in my hands, glowing. I don't hear him, but he's very alive. Very small chimes start pulsating in and out. Eventually, I put everything on the floor. I feel I'm ready to do something. Ohh yeah, I wanted to smoke weed.

Since everything is basically ready and I found my matches in no time at all (well, time is insignificant anyways, but it's a nice sense of accomplishment). Why did I lose my lighter? Well, I accept that. I'm calm. I smoke a head and a half. The taste in my mouth is disgusting... My sense of taste is back. More water.

04:15 - The Magical Mystery Tour. I owed it to myself to see it at least once on a high dosage of acid. I take some popping candy, try and pour some on my hand. It spills a bit. The tingling in my mouth has no place. I don't know where I'm feeling it, there is a huge space in my mouth now. Ohhh, the movie is starting. For an hour, I was on that bus, driving around with everyone there, living through the whole time. The entirety I felt, being a part of that journey, it was such a big feeling... Every time I'd look at the time of the DVD it would have moved forward a minute or two, my brain is processing information at incredible speeds. Pokemon was just way too simple. But the tour, it was ridiculous, marvelous, living it, being it, the chase, the scenery, being a part of everything, the range of emotions that passed through me, it was beautiful. With the tour guide saying 'but on this side' and then the music kicked in, I was completely swallowed. I was for that one hour, another man on the bus, invisible but seeing it all happen. Living it all. Wow.

05:15 - Shiva Chandra again. The Magical Mystery Tour is over. It seemed to fade into its own compartment. This time, I know what I want to hear in the album. Man, this guy just keeps you so deep in his music. THIS, is music for acid. I'm beginning to sense time returning back to normal, which is good, because I need to clean up the mess I left of my place. Luckily, I'm a very organized (well, about as much as possible) person on acid (I'm a pretty experienced tripper, I just toss things where I'll look for them), and I didn't lose anything. Not even the keys. I see all kinds of things from my trip thrown around. I notice the floor is still distorting. I go back to the toilet, look into the mirror. I see myself as a rather good person. Beyond all of the layers of thought that I pealed today, I found myself needing this trip to sort myself out. It worked, at the moment.

05:50 - I read all kinds of memories, the way they affected me, how blind I was not to allow myself freedom from them. Loops in time, looping back into the past, pictures of pokemon and magic busses somehow meld themselves into 'now', everything is as it should be. I became Buddha for a moment, not the actual person, but the idea. Freedom through acceptance of my surroundings, only much deeper. I went outside to the garden again. This time, I can see flower pedals all over my lawn from a plum tree. These flowers will become the tastiest plums I will ever taste. The sun is in its rise, and the warmth of the day and the beauty of the surrounding swamp me. I do some yoga outdoors, focusing all of these energies for fun. I open my eyes, and I'm ready for the rest of my life.

06:20 - The visual distortions are nearly all gone, from time to time I see a vortex distorting in a wall, but not nearly as intense as it was half an hour ago, and much less so than half an hour before that. Time is still speeding up somewhat, back from spiraling into the orderly line of day to day life. Still not near normal though.

07:00 - I get some order into everything around me, I go into bed. I'm having bizzare dreams (wait, I'm awake, or not... My eyes are closed, I know this) and revelations (or dreams?), but spiritual calm has already been achieved. These can not take me away from the warm feeling of the bed. Have I vanished somehow? Am I still here?

Does it matter?

no.

11:30 - I'm wake up... Everything is the same, but I'm not nearly back to baseline. I drink a cup of coffee, read the paper (well, I stay away from the ugly bits of humanity and stick to sports, my home team had a good game). Nothing interesting. I'm going to call a friend on the phone soon. Maybe I should eat something? Not yet.

12:00 - I call a friend of mine. He tells me he's waking up. I'm already babbling about what a cool experience I had, when I notice that right now I'm feeling about 100 micrograms in my system. It isn't much compared to what happened earlier, but it's still there. He wants to go back to sleep a bit more. I decide just to chill out some more.

13:00 - there's still a strong sense of coming back to the acidic reality. I have to write this down. I start trying to remember all of the things that happened tonight, but well, I didn't even scratch the surface of it. This has been a powerful experience. I start writing down the experience. That brings us up to date, and I'm happy I didn't wait before I started writing this. It's still coursing through my system now, but now it's at a stage I can communicate with the outside world properly. This world is once again my playground.

18:20 - Here I am, adding finishing touches, clearing my memory paths and looking back into the reality. I'm not at baseline. I'm at around a 40 microgram feel now. I refrained from smoking any more pot throughout the day. Maybe later, in a different environment. Is this the end of my affair with psychedelics? It would be a beautiful end to the story. Only time can tell.

I lived through time. Saw past it. The stable unstability is starting to fade in my mind. This wasn't a deep trip compared to a few others I had, but it was one of the most intense. Was it my best trip ever?

... who knows, but it was one wild magical mystery tour.

Exp Year: 2002	ExpID: 13448

Gender: Male

Age at time of experience: Not Given

Published: Mar 4, 2005	Views: 101,136

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LSD (2) : Alone (16), General (1)


		 DOSE:

		 1.5 hits
		 oral
		 LSD
		 (pill / tablet)

		 0.5 hits
		 insufflated
		 LSD
		 (pill / tablet)

		 200 mg
		 smoked
		 Cannabis - Hash
		 (tar / resin)

           BODY WEIGHT:
	   200 lb

If LSD or another Psychedelic has left you dangled, confused, afraid and tormented;  … Breathe…  In time the trauma will unravel…

You have found a difficult path, but you are OK.  Living will still have beauty.  You are not alone.  I have seen total eclipse without hope of day.  It took years but I am happy with a loving partner and a healthy sane life.  I am a better,  more aware, more caring and happier person than I would have been without these experiences.  I would not change the choices I’ve made:

It started with 2 hits of Blue Microdot.  The 16 hours or more of tripping was only the beginning.  It took years for me to stitch myself back together.

I ate 1 and a Half hits of LSD, and I insufillated another half.  Then I smoked about .2 grams of Hash.

All ready I felt uneasy, that something wasn’t right.  It didn’t take long before nothing was right.

It is unexplainable…  Beyond a thought, or feeling, or sense.  A door opened…  I was flooded with a new “seeing”.  I was unprepared and resisted.  This is when I met with insanity.

I won’t go into the details of my complex and confused mind.  It still give me shivers.  I’ll just say that without a doubt that I was now insane, and going to stay that way for the rest of my life.

Metaphors grew out of nothing.  A string of strange coincidences and some strong acid made me believe that I was suddenly in on some syndicate that operated on a psychic level., through metaphors and “feelings”.  I was being welcomed into the circle.  Insanity was a network.  I didn’t want to be a part of but it was too late.  Then I “realized” I wasn’t insane but “dead” I had Overdosed on LSD (I now know this is impossible) and I was riding in limbo needing to choose heaven or hell. My cousin who I was close to all my life was cool with smoking cigarettes, weed and was high on the same LSD(having a great time with it I might add) became to me, a manifestation of Satan.

My older brother who was as clean as they come and totally naive to drugs became to me a manifestation of Jesus. Of course I followed him around all night bugging the shit out of him to take me to heaven.  This scared the ever living shit out of him. At one point I pissed my pants on purpose to try and convince myself I was still alive… But the trip had roots… and that was not enough to snap me out of it.

I was willing to do anything he suggested… However with his inexperience he would tell me to do things like go to sleep…  Go lay down in my room with the lights off.  There my body would feel as though it was disappearing.. That I was slipping into hell. (I wish now that I would have let go and experienced my inner workings). I lept out of bed and did anything I could think of to get to heaven. I even tried calling my parents who were away on vacation. I went through my peak doing these random and frantic things as I was certain I was going to fall into hell at any moment.

That night was long.  As my cousin and I came down from our trips he ultimately talked me into finally going to bed and getting some sleep… I don’t recall if I actually ever slept.  He left the next afternoon.

What is most formative and important is the week, and then, years afterward.  A journey few people will ever make in this life.  The first week I spent afraid, confused, unable to eat or sleep.  Alone in a true dementia.  I’d watch Television and it would be spewing messages directly to me.  EVERYTHING was a metaphor for heaven or hell, or a message from this syndicate.  I began to believe this blanket of metaphor was a secret code that the world spoke and I was getting hip to it.  Going down to Strawberry fields.  Still, nothing really made sense… all a jumble.

One night that week I went to a friends house and believed every sentence they said to one another was linked to my dementia.  Another close friend, who definitely knew I was in trouble said that he believed life was a test… and that everything had a reasonable and rational answer.  Dunno if that’s absolutely true, but it snapped me into my first taste of reality in over a week.

I decide it was time to drive home to my parents house to reconcile my mind.  I entered the house not really knowing what to say or do…  I began telling them about this experience I had… Telling them that I had achieved a higher state of consciousness… etc.  They looked frightened and confused.  I realized that so was I. Suddenly I broke down…  Began telling them about my use of LSD, Marijuana and other  Drugs, how I was out of my mind, paranoid and afraid.   Just the facts.  My mother cried and my Father listened stone silent.  That night was the most relieving and uplifting of my life.  Likely the most difficult for my parents… all they could do was listen and hug me…  This ladies and gents was way out of there league.  I knew it… I knew I was teaching them.  What mattered was that I was in a place where I was loved and accepted.

I was 16 years old and I slept on the floor at the foot of their bed. I released all my secrets.  If there is a sacred confession. This was it…  I was cleansed by fire.  I felt as though I rose from ashes…  and I did.  That night I was utterly humbled and humiliated by existence.  I was a child again but also evolved.

The next week I didn’t leave my parents house I helped them with various jobs and house projects… If I found spare time, I’d find something to fill it.

It was like every day I died.. and re-awoke.  Every day I teetered between heaven and hell.  Small decisions like “Which juice shall I buy and drink?” were wrapped in meaning and metaphor that extended beyond daily life, seemingly deciding my eternal fate.  Just under everything was a mechanism, a test or a plot…  Unraveling.  I saw powers that we are all capable of…  The power to live or to die any moment… I began seeing through the facades of judgment and morality.  My learned belief systems eroded and were replaced with experience.

I’d raise my concerns with a close friend who had had similar experiences.  He would console me, encourage me to believe in what was in front of me, work with what I knew and be wise not to open up these thoughts to the wrong people, as most would just label me insane and become afraid of me.  He was of course totally right and a good friend for his patience and protection.

For a time I lived my life shadowing my true thoughts and feelings about daily situations.  I made some stunning life decisions.  I traveled overseas alone to search my soul and mind.  I shed all my addictions, tobacco, TV, caffeine, sex, all drugs, and even meat/processed foods.  This was all between the ages of 16 and 23. It took me over a year till I could even talk to my cousin again.  Many more till I could truly trust him.

I wish that databases such as Erowid, The Shroomery etc. existed when I went through this journey.  Their help could have turned this vicious, horrific and difficult experience into something meaning full and useful from the beginning.

Much of my “delusions”  weren’t so at all.  This life, this existence is a blanket of meaning and metaphor.  Everything we see, touch, hear is a creation of our own perceptions.  This can drive you mad, or make you powerful, exalted and blissful.

I am 27 as I write this.  The lessons and impressions left by the LSD trip, the full week of dementia and the years of re-evaluating evolved me to a state of consciousness few ever reach.  I am at peace with myself and my existence.  I don’t want to die, but I am virtually unafraid of it.  I see through the bullshit of war, violence and destruction.  I seek and participate in peace.  I believe we all wish to.  LSD helped push these to the front of my consciousness.  I had to go through hell.  But these moments I now live are truly awake and free.

To this day I wonder if I'm actually “alive” or if  I’m alone - A drifting consciousness lingering in an endless construct of my own imagination - It doesn’t matter really.  I found peace.

Exp Year: 1995	ExpID: 43800

Gender: Male

Age at time of experience: Not Given

Published: Jun 25, 2005	Views: 99,976

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LSD (2) : Post Trip Problems (8), Bad Trips (6), Small Group (2-9) (17)


		 DOSE:

		 3 hits
		 oral
		 LSD
		 (liquid)

           BODY WEIGHT:
	   130 lb

So, well, I guess I'll start from the begining and tell this whole tale in a linear sort of way, complete with numbers on a clock, distances, and so on. This is how I remember it all, and it's surprisingly fresh in my memory too. Be forewarned, however, that it probably won't make much sense to the outside observer - you had to be there. But back then in the heart of the immense maelstrom it made perfect sense, the bizarre logic was pure and simple and undeniable. It was, as I would say near the end of the ordeal when I began to regain my grip on reality (or rather normalcy), as if someone had stretched reality - space and time - to the size of the entire Universe while at the same time crushed it into something the size of a marble, and then, in the end, obliterated it all completely. But it was more than that. It was a journey into my inner-universal depths where I was taught, firsthand, lessons of a lifetime. It was as if someone froze one millionth of a milli-millisecond of time in my brain and one millionth of milli-millimeter of space in my brain and crushed it into a miniscule bubble where I could explore freely, all while they stretched it out across the entire cosmos. And it was all in my mind all along. This whole affair didn't really teach me anything new, it just let me experience the knowledge of my brain first hand.

It was decided, T and I would take the acid on Saturday afternoon. We'd talked about it for a while and concluded that it was worth a try. So we made our intentions for the journey clear and awaited whatever it was that would greet us on the other side of the drug we slipped into our tea. I must say that is was both nothing what I expected and exactly what I expected at the same time. My intentions, though, are what made it what it was.

~part1~

we drank our tea spiked with three sugarcubes of LSD and waited. At first I wondered if it would work at all. Maybe the sugar had broken down the chemical already, making it useless. Maybe the sugarcubes didn't really contain any LSD at all, although I was pretty convinced against that idea recalling the strange undefinable  taste the tainted sugarcubes left in my tea. Time passed anxiously with no signs of what was to come. I took off my watch, not wanting to be bothered with the analytical thoughts which usually fill my mind. Time still crept slowly on. I began to see reflections in T's glasses more clearly; was I beginning to trip or was this me being hypercritical of my thoughts, overly aware due to the anticipation of real visions to come? The candle on the table flashed out of the corner of my eye and when I looked at it directly it seemed somewhat brighter, more luminous. I got up from my seat on the floor feeling strange sensations in my body, mostly my legs and an upset stomach, and decided that a chair with some back support would be desirable. I sat across from T and we talked. She seemed miles away, though there was probably only five feet or so between us. She had an upset stomach as well, so she put her hand upon the disturbance, claiming that her hand felt incredibly warm. I decided I had to go sit with T on the couch.

Moving my legs to walk over felt somehow foreign, but I bridged the gigantic gulf between us with relative ease quite quickly. We sat together and hugged. T put her hand on my stomach and it felt incredibly warm and comforting, 'like a heating pad' I mentioned. Nikido, T's cat, wandered in looking for some affection. It rubbed up against us and wanted to stand on my knee, but I soon became anxious with the cats presence on my body, in my energy field, and had to shoo it away. It stood for a while at the end of the couch and eyed us curiously, obviously knowing something was up. We told Nikido it was okay, we were just experimenting. She seemed okay with that. I began to see T and Nikido and I as living beings. Yes, I could instantly tell the living beings in the room apart from the inanimate objects; there was a strange aura around us three, a faint grey shroud covering our bodies. I watched the ceiling for a minute, the patterns from the paint moving slightly, a queer optical illusion. We sat together for a while but I began to feel antsy, my body was bursting full of restless energy. I stood up and walked around the living room. 'My legs alternatingly feel weightless and then all of a sudden leaden like they're made of sand,' I told T.

I began noticing ever so slight changes in perception. I remember wondering if this was it, thinking I had expected something far different, something more, and I began to desire a deeper experience - I wanted it to be more profound, not just some silly optical illusions. That's something I grapple with in my real life too, the desire for more more more, instead of simply relaxing into the present experience and enjoying it for all its beauty and magnificence. T and I got thirsty and headed to the kitchen for some water. We both held our water glasses tightly, and I over the sink. 'I feel like I'm gonna drop this glass,' I told T. She laughed and held her glass tight. We talked more about this and that as the visuals became stranger. T said she saw some sort of mask in the window across from hers. I couldn't see the mask but I could see the bricks in the adjacent building moving in and out of the wall. I suddenly had to pee. I left the kitchen and headed down the hall. I was only gone for a minute but it felt much longer and I was very anxious to get back to T. Washing up I saw my face in the mirror and it appeared much more round than usual, a great sphere. I saw every pimple on my face magnified and some began to erupt like volcanoes. The same self-consciousness (though even more intense) from my everyday life hit me, but, thankfully, it vanished after I looked away and headed back to the kitchen.

I suddenly felt extremely cold and had to put on my sweater. T began explaining something to me which I cannot now remember and, in fact, I don't think I was listening very well. It was becoming increasingly difficult to consciously focus my attention on any one thing, though when my attention was focused it was my full attention and I could observe things more thoroughly in ways I never could before. A half opened cupboard door looked like it was swinging towards me from out my peripheral vision. I turned sharply and it stood still. I closed it tightly. 'It's getting kind of hard to speak straight,' I told T. 'It's getting tough to turn thoughts into words, the ideas all get jumbled up in the process.' Then, 'it's quite a process turning abstract thoughts into concrete words. Thoughts and words are so totally different but they need each other for the sake of communication,' (though probably not quite so wordy). T had to go to the bathroom (I think) and I decided I liked the living room a bit better than the kitchen so I sauntered on in there. The happy birthday balloon I had picked up earlier became a great toy, bouncing it off my hand, observing its weightlessness. ‘Every time I hit this up in the air its a new feeling,' I thought.

Someone walked outside for a smoke and I saw them through the window. I watched her go about her business, this strange human ghost of reality, and felt as if I had to hide, she could see me through the window. I ducked into the corner and marveled at her wordly confidence mask as she acted out her life. After she went back inside I watched another person brush the snow off their car while they pretended to be confident, self-assured. T came back into the room and we bounced our blue balloon back and forth. I explained the incident with her neighbour to her. 'That's kind of like me in my life.' she told me. 'Both literally and figuratively.' 'It's funny how we all hide within ourselves sometimes and are scared to let others see what's inside,' said I. We discussed this fear, this self-doubt, for a minute and it felt like we were really resolving these issues within ourselves; dissolving our fear. We soon decided we should go outside; we were starting to get quite high and quite restless, and besides it was getting dark out. We went to get our jackets and shoes on. I began to see Nikido out of the corner of my eye wherever I went. Really it was just shoes and socks and backpacks and various other inanimate objects scattered about the floor but in my peripheral vision it looked like T's cat. Then I'd turn and . . . socks, just socks.

I wanted to find the real Nikido though and went on a mission to do that, finding her on the corner of T's bed, just where I thought she'd be; almost like I already knew. We conversed nose to nose for a moment then it was back to the mission - get on warm winter clothes. The sun was beginning to set and we wanted to get outside quickly before it was dark, but that was not such an easy task. My perception of time was beginning to become skewered but it must have taken quite a while to get dressed and ready to go. I had made a great friend of our blue balloon, which seemed to grow and shrink as I held it in my hand, and I realized that I had become quite emotionally attached to it. It was something that gave me comfort and, much like in real life, I had great difficulty giving it up. T giggled at me trying to put my socks on with the balloon in my one hand and then in my lap, sitting. Eventually I decided the balloon must go and with a substantial amount of difficuly I set it on the floor, forgetting about it almost immediately. I grabbed some granola bars and oranges for our journey into the outside world (unneeded where we were going) and got dressed with surprising ease. Even my shoelaces were a snap. T packed a backpack full of stuff (water and who knows what) and took a considerable amount of time longer than I did.

I began to get somewhat frustrated with waiting for her, another cross-over from regular life. I need to be more patient with her sometimes I think. Even though I don't often show signs of my impatience and frustration on the outside I tend to internalize it and that's probably even worse, building up resentment and more and more frustration. But at the time it really didn't bother me too much for I had plenty to keep me occupied. She finally got ready and I felt like we were going on a long journey, which I related to T. 'We are,' she told me rather matter-of-fact-ly. And we two brave inner-universal timespace explorers set off. T worried that Nikido had somehow gotten out of the apartment but I knew just where to find her - on her throne at the end of T's bed, 'her center, her place of power' (T's words) - right where I had left her.

~part 2~

outside we went. T was shocked at the temperature change when we first stepped outdoors, but I didn't even notice it. It seemed where my attention lay was from where my experience would manifest itself. My attention was on our space (and  time) explorers theme and as we walked down the alley I felt as if we were walking down a launch tunnel of sorts. 3. 2. 1. Blast off! and out into space we dived. A one way roadsign pointed us in our direction, though we soon passed another which pointed the opposite way. I began thinking of these white arrows as guide signs between two realities. T and I started talking about how much power we have to create our own lives, our own realities. I became a touch spooked as we passed by a busy parking lot. T mentioned some metaphor about vehicles and our lives which slips my mind. Soon we were crossing the bridge by the museum. Cars buzzed by to our left, headlights blurring. 'We're on Broadway,' I told T. I felt like an old fashioned gangster, no better yet, mobster, like in Dick Tracy, and I began to swagger. 'Just stick with me doll,' said I. Then 'I feel like I should be smoking a big cigar here. I should be wearing a tuxedo and you should have a long evening dress.' 'And a string of porls,' T added in her best New Yawk accent. Me: 'We're on broadway doll. . . .'

Across the bridge and we wanted to cross the street now; better go to the crosswalk, our judgement quickly becoming severly disabled. 'Now I feel like we're in a comic strip. An Andy Capp comic,' said I, still walking with my same swagger, now more pronounced. As we crossed the street I bowed comically to the cars stopping for us. I suddenly felt T's embarrassment as if through telepathy. She might have said 'B, don't' embarrassed but maybe I just heard it in through our sudden ESP connection. 'Who cares?' I wondered aloud, 'who cares what these people are thinking for one milli-millisecond of their passing lives?' 'Yeah . . .' T seemed to agree. 'You're right . . .' telepathically. We walked around by the museum, marvelling at the Christmas lights and trees. 'Look at the trees,' T said as we stood beneath two massive firs. 'They're so beautiful and huge and old. Just like those other ones over there,' pointing at some smaller trees across the road. 'They're just alike.' 'Cause they're all exactly the same,' said the Buddhist in me, referring to the interconnectedness of everything. We stood beneath some flagpoles and I listened to the sound of the flags flapping in the eastwind which made me kind of disoriented. We stopped for a moment and talked about who knows what, I don't remember.

But I soon felt very antsy again and wanted to keep keeping on our inner-universal timespace journey. T stood while I explored the environs. Sliding on a patch of ice I felt like I slid forever but looking back at my tracks it was only a few feet. I slid around on the ice for a minute dancing a wonderful moonlight ballet and wrote 'Love' in the fresh snow. Then I rushed back to T shouting 'mission complete space commander T, let's go!' and off we went, although I knew somehow that T wanted to stay still for a little longer. There's that impatience again. But I just felt the need to go go go, I burned like a candle. I began dancing slightly as I walked now, prancing maybe is the word, hyper, giddy, completely mad. I leapt up onto the edge of what in the summer is a water pond and almost cracked my head open slipping on the slip-slidey surface but managed to land upright. Okay, then, my motor skills are still functioning well enough. We passed some old-fashioned streetlights and they riveted my attention, but, like anything else I lent my attention to, only for a second. 'I feel like Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas,' I told T looking at the old rickety fences and old-fashioned streetlamps at our side. 'First it was a mobster, then a comic strip character, now The Nightmare Before Christmas.'

We stopped in a mostly empty parking lot and I heard a loud, screeching, catlike sound. 'That's the electricity,' T informed me. 'You heard that too? I thought it was some crazy cat woman over there.' I said. T laughed. 'Nope. Sometimes I hear the electricity when I'm sober.' I doubt it's so loud though. My ears had definitely perked up. Which direction now we weren't so sure with no signs to guide our way. 'Sometimes I feel stuck, like I'm waiting for something,' T communicated. I thought about our relationship and how sometimes I'm scared to take the lead for whatever reason. 'Waiting for what?' I asked. 'I don't know, like life. For the fear to go away,' and we continued on this train of thought until suddenly I had a grand realization, I had to reach out and grab life; I had to take the lead, both in this situation and life, forget fear. And I did. 'Let's go.' I decided and off we went, probably when T again needed more time. But again, I had to go go go . . . I had somehow become the default leader of our litle expedition. We walked down a little gradual hill. 'This feels like a movie, or a book. I feel like were in a book. Or a movie, the movie of our lives,' I said. I was Willy Wonka and the whole world was my chocolate factory and here I was guiding the little golden ticket winner on through this psychedelic madhouse.

At the bottom of the little hill we met the top of a massive hill, snowy and slippery looking and quite a daunting slope in our inebriated state. Neither of us wanted to go down, or rather we were afraid of the big hill which in our normal state we had tramped up and down numerous times. In this dream it was scarier though. But with my recent realization that I had to grab life by the balls without fear I said fuck it and threw myself on the mercy of the hill.  T followed. This kind of became the starting point of our true journey. Down the hill, down the rabbit hole. We weren't getting high, we were going low, or rather deep; deep into our dreaming awake minds. Out into the great non-timespace of our internal universe.

~part3~

down the hill I flew. I noticed to my left a long narrow patch of snow reaching all the way to the bottom of the hill and I decided that I could simply jump upon this and rocket my way sliding to the hill's base in an instant. I jumped on prepared for a wild ride but was unfortunately surprised by the stickiness of my chute. It was dirt underneath the snow. The long grass beside me, on the other hand, was quite slippery as T found out. We stopped about halfway down and T said 'I thought I could just slide down the whole hill like a ski jump.' So did I. 'You can,' I told her, just realizing myself that, yes, you could. And so T took off running, flailing, quite comical. I laughed, I thought it was beautiful. For a second I wanted to help her, thinking that she might fall and hurt herself, but some voice inside of me told me not to worry, T can handle herself. I ran down the hill after her and transformed into a gazelle as I ran. I actually had four legs and kind of trotted-ran, moving faster, I'm sure, than I ever had before in my life, lightspeed. I bumped into T trying to slow down as I reached flat ground. 'Whoops, sorry.' 'No don't worry.' I looked up at the big, once scary hill and laughed. 'I feel like I could just run right back up that hill right now and not even be out of breath,' I said. 'We are mighty gods T.'

Then, not wanting to make the mighty gods angry, 'but really we're just tiny little lost human beings.' True. We walked. We headed for the trees; the talking, swaying, breathing life trees. I kept thinking there was a car behind us, shining its headlights on us, and I kept turning to check; nope, nothing. But the ground at our feet looked bright like a light shone on it from above or behind. I heard helicopters and it felt like they were beaming their searchlights down on us two inner-universal timespace fugitives. We walked in the snow looking down and it seemed as if we were walking on cracking eggshells which covered the neverending void; naught but blackness below. We two courageous explorers found our way down near the river and followed a path as the helicopters followed. Soon another timespace explorer approached, although for the longest time, indeed until he was almost right upon us, I thought he was a trailmarking signpost. 'No, it is a person,' T said. 'You're right,' said I, 'and he's crossing some sort of a bridge.' Funny though, I never remembered a bridge being anywhere around here. It was short and had guardrails on one side. I couldn't tell how far away our visitor was; distance was now impossible to gauge.

He approached and I realized that it wasn't a bridge with guardrails at all but rather two dogs (huskies maybe?), whom our visitor was walking. I tried to be calm, pass by nice and slow, nice and easy, but all that failed and I said 'good evening fine sir,' in a strange tone and laughed. The one thing that got me though was how real this queer eskimo timespace astronaut seemed. 'How did that real person get into our dreaming dreamworld dreams?' I asked T. And T: 'Yeah, he did seem so real, hey?' Our eskimo friend seemed the first real thing I had seen in hours, years, millennia, who knows, for time had stopped having meaning, as had space, and the numerals we give to those two abstract concepts. 'Thank you O indian, O real life eskimo in our dreamy dream world,' I called out to our eskimo timespace friendly fugitive after he had passed. T laughed. 'This is great,' she said. 'Yeah, this is great . . .' And suddenly reality returned. No, maybe I just calmed myself down for a minute, because the sky was still brilliant purple-orange, the hills and trees still had ancient carved faces, the helicopters still followed . . . but I thought to myself 'this is it, the trip's over.' and I walked calmly now beside an ever calm T.

We walked in silence and I gazed around serenely. The hills seemed to speak to me in their ancient way, through their stillness. I was lost in the barrens, far, far from the world, but not scared at all. T and I talked about how we felt we were on a different journey, but together. We were like anchors for each other, keeping ourselves from going off the deep end, but still helping each other to explore on this great psychonautical inner-universal journey into non- timespace. I didn't want the trip to end, there was still something I was looking for; I still wanted more more more. An airplane flew overhead and I ducked, it was sooooclose to the ground, the noise was intense. Moving my head made the noise alter too. Maybe I still was tripping. 'We are still so high B,' T calmly reminded me. Oh, yeah . . . We found a patch of ice on the trail which we ejoyed slip-sliding on. T slip-slided away but I became a bit confused with what was going on, where we were going, where I was going, both in life and on this journey.

I wandered in circles, a lost little human figure in the confusing wilderness of life - whatever that was. Time didn't exist. If you would have asked me right then how long we had been out there, or in here, I would have probably said about six years, or seven maybe . . . minutes ; ; ; who knows . . . now, with my logical mind back intact, I could estimate from the amount of ground we covered, et cetera, et cetera. but right then time really didn't exist. And it wasn't that I couldn't keep track of it, no, it really didn't exist, and I knew this in my heart, from this universal perspective I then had. And neither did space. Just an optical illusion. We create our reality within our mind. Our poisoned mind of the time created this bizarre, illogical, reality, but it was every bit as real as our normal reality, because we were really experiencing it. We, therefore, have the power within ourselves to create whatever we want out of our reality, our lives, our existence . . . existence . . . 'existence . . .' I murmured circling around T as we discussed this. Just get out there, quit waiting or hesitating, quit walking up this backwards escalator of your life, grab life and make it your own, whatever you want it to be. And ‘I wish I had taken a typewriter into this dream with me to write all this down, later it will probably be forgotten, or just somewhat illogical.'

But these things still do make sense, as they did before the trip ever began. See, I knew all this already, or at least I thought I knew; the drugs didn't teach me any new knowledge. But knowledge and wisdom are two different things. Then (during the trip), I really knew all this deep in my heart, now (back in normal life), I just know it, but don't feel it. I've lost the universal perspective I had during my mystical journey. LSD expanded my mind so I could see my own internal universe, there's no doubt about that, but unfortunately it was a temporary glance; I'll have to do with waning memories of this experience, for now. But me and T were truly enlightened beings just then, two inner-universal timespace fugitives exploring this pyrotenknik outer world from our self-created universal center. Just then the helicopters spotted us. I grabbed T and hugged her tight, knowing this was the end. 'I feel like we're Bonnie and Clyde right now ol' T,' I said as the helicopters aimed their guns, ready to take us out. But then I remembered that, oh yeah, we create our own reality and I bade the helicopters goodbye, good riddance, piss off! and away they went, simply vanished . . . All of these realizations had come to me periodically and repeatedly, as reoccuring themes, throughout the evening, as they had to T as well.

We had somehow reached the same conclusions while on two seperate trips (though the same trip); perhaps through our psychic connection. And perhaps that is just what we unconsciously (or not so unconsciously) intended; the power of our intentions was supremely strong. All of this wisdom was just read, contemplated knowledge kicking around in our heads that we didn't know how to apply to our reality, but this crazy drug solidified these beliefs by actually letting us experience it first hand. This was experiential wisdom, experiential spirituality, rather than just vicarious knowledge. But while tripping I fully created my reality and I realized just how easy it can be, I just have to control my mindful mind in each decision-making moment. Even now that I'm back to normal reality and I can't see so easily, so shockingly clearly, this first-hand wisdom, I still know it's there. I can still create my reality, my life, however I choose. There's nothing to fear, nothing to doubt, I just have to quit waiting, hesitating, walking up that backwards escalator of life, and reach out and grab life!

So, with helicopters gone and the trip is definitely not over, T and I continued on. We walked along the path which became increasingly icy and I became increasingly lost. I looked at my feet and at the asphalt and snow speeding past. Bicycle tracks in ths snow became tank treads, footprints the boots of marching soldiers, I was in a war zone. As I focused my attention solely on the ground I found that I lost complete knowledge of where I was, I could have been in Russia for all I knew or really cared. But looking up I discovered that I was just in Edmonton, in the river valley, with T, going for a delightful evening stroll. Lightning began flashing in the sky for a few minutes. We stopped again, slip-sliding on the ice, and noticed someone behind us carrying a light of some sort. A bicyclist. 'Don't tread this way, ‘tis too icy for one on a bicycle,' I warned our new friend. They stopped, surveyed for a less perilous trail, and continued on foot along a trial just up a small hill from us. 'What is someone doing way out here in the middle of nowhere at this time?' I wondered aloud. The cyclist walked past as we whispered. 'I wonder if they can hear us,' I whispered almost inaudibly, although I'd bet that the cyclist heard everything we said loud and clear; my perception of distance and volume were lousy.

We got cold - ah, yes, we must be coming down (or going back up, as it were) if we're starting to complain about the weather. But my mind wouldn't buy that. My hands would though as I suddenly noticed how painfully cold they were, my face too. How could I have ignored that for this whole trip? We turned back, straight into the wind (of course), heading for T's apartment, warmth. I was mostly lost but knew to head for the bright city lights - oh how they radiated their seductive glow. The wind whipped at us and instantaneously the trees began to bend in towards me, try and grab me. For the first time in the trip I was truly frightened. Fortunately, it only lasted a second as I took control and snapped myself back into safety, into my own secure, stable psychedelic reality. We walked into the wind and talked increasingly about seemingly trivial things - I'm cold, I'm hungry, I've got to pee. Hmm, are we coming down? Yep . . . no way . . . maybe . . . Then T mentioned something about 'work', that hideous, awful word, and I knew that we were on our way slowly back to earth, out of our deep inner-timespace universe that was always there to begin with.

~part4~

we stood, still quite high, at the bottom of the hill we had come racing down earlier as gazelles in the snowy ski jumping alps, and got ready to walk backwards up that escalator. It took us quite some time to get up that hill, and I know this because time was beginning to seep back into my consciousness as neat little numbered units again. I was okay now with the thought of coming down and almost looked forward to greeting the normal world again, however bizarre and backwards it seemed after having been away for so long. We slowly weaved our way back into reality as we climbed that hill, discussing our trip, sharing insight. 'This has changed my life forever' I remember thinking. Halfway up the hill and normalcy took charge more and more. Three quarters up and if I focused hard I wouldn't feel high at all. I was somewhere between two worlds and I could make complete sense of the things I had learned in my dreamscape and apply it to normal life situations; that was a great feeling, though passing. We reached the top and kept walking, freezing cold, tired, hungry.

I felt almost entirely sober by the time we crossed over that Broadway bridge again. The weave into normalcy continued 'like one of those old-fashioned phone operators. All our normal plugs were disconnected and reconnected somewhere else, now they're all getting switched back again, back to how they normally are.' We finally reached T's house and after a hell of a time turning the key in the lock with our frozen hands we found warmth again. I had to pee, I had to eat. My left hand thumb wouldn't work and I wasn't sure whether it was because of the cold (our hands were bright red and white knuckled) or because of the drugs still at work in my mind. We sat in T's kitchen and talked, ate some veggie lasagna (which I could vaguely smell! for the first time in my life!(I have no sense of smell)), and drew pictures of The Pyrotenknik Lightning Bubble!  I noticed that as time passed we talked more and more superficially, or maybe just more confined, less universal. I found myself at times getting annoyed at the turns in the conversation. Both of us had troubles with keeping a train of thought together and we'd dart from one topic to another, I think often not really picking up what the other person was saying with their words (though we still did have that psychic connection somewhat).

My back hurt, I grew confused at what had just happened as many of the millions of thoughts I had had began to escape me in the mish-mosh of words words words. Patience B . . . T and I took a bath together and eventually went to bed at about two in the morning, approximately twelve hours after our inner-universal timespace journey had begun, though it seemed longer. I slept well, though T complained about her thoughts keeping her awake most of the night. We parted ways in the morning and I felt kind of crappy, confused about what I had learned, what it all meant, how it applied to this reality that I must occupy in order to live. So when I got home I sat down and started writing. This scrawl has been therapy for me, it's helped me work through this whole crazy experience. I get it now, I think . . . I am in control of my reality. I can do whatever I choose with my life, my reality. I just need to stop walking up that backwards escalator of life, quit waiting, hesitating, and get out there and grab what I want. And I suppose I already knew that before LSD, but that crazy trip has really solidified these beliefs in my mind, really given me the motivation to create my reality. Now, how to actually manifest this creation is another matter altogether and I do feel somewhat confused as to how all this wisdom can be applied to my everyday life.

Being mindful, making wise choices, taking risks and overpowering fear, and so on, I suppose . . . The bottom line is that when I look deep inside of myself I do know what I have to do, I always have really, and after yesterday's brilliant inner-universal timespace voyage I feel as if I'm finally ready.

Exp Year: 2004	ExpID: 39028

Gender: Male

Age at time of experience: Not Given

Published: Oct 27, 2005	Views: 58,348

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