		 DOSE:
 T+ 0:00
		 0.3 g
		 smoked
		 Cannabis

		   T+ 0:00
		 0.5
		 oral
		 LSD
		 (edible / food)

		   T+ 5:45

		 oral
		 MDMA
		 (powder / crystals)

		   T+ 0:00
		 1 glass
		 oral
		 Alcohol

           BODY WEIGHT:
	   175 lb

I am not an inexperienced drug user, though I like to think the majority of the time I am a responsible one. I have taken LSD probably 25 times in the past 2.5 years, and “ecstasy” 3 or 4 times. I have no idea how much MDMA was in the shitty pills I had taken when I was younger, but I am relatively confident there have been only 3 times that I have taken straight up MDMA. There have been 3 occasions where I combined LSD and MDMA, although the first experience is null because of the stupid amount of other substances I ingested that night. The second and third times were magical. Candy flipping has become the most beautiful chemical combination I’ve ever experienced.

This story is about the third time. It had been about 5 weeks since I had taken LSD, and 4 months since I had taken MDMA. It was December and an uncharacteristically beautiful, sunny day, and I had just written my last exam for the semester. Happily, I decided to pop into one of my partner‘s houses to pick up a few grams of weed (he sells it) so that I could finally just sit and smoke my face off and relax. While I was there, I ending up chatting to one of his roommates friends about various festivals and eventually the topic moved onto substance use. He told me about how proud he was of his product, which I was curious about. He ended up showing me the clear, beautiful crystals he was selling (MDMA), insisting that crystal form is the only form he would ever sell. I casually inquired about his price and fate was smiling on me that day, and I bought half a gram. I don’t trust most “M” dealers in my city because I find darknet sources to be much more reliable and trustworthy, but I got so many good feels from this guy, and all the people that were hanging out there vouched for his product. I smoked a bowl with my partner, and went off on some errands with him before arriving home with my new goodies around 4PM. I was stoked!

Apparently at some point before I got home I decided I was going to candy flip and go to a show tonight. After cleaning up a bit and making sure my space was cozy before I became too high to do anything about it, I popped half of an acid gummy (which are supposedly 150-180ug each, though they feel much much stronger… so I’m just going to average it and assume I took around 90ug), which is a light dose for me. I checked, and it was 4:15 when I dosed. For the next 20 minutes I made myself some toast, fed the cats, and got some of my favorite music ready. I’m not sure if it was because I was already a bit stoned from earlier, but I started feeling it earlier than I normally do.

I’m not sure if it was because I was already a bit stoned from earlier, but I started feeling it earlier than I normally do.

 Music was a bit distorted, sounding ethereally far away and pleasurable. I was elated! I decided before things got too far I should shower. It was without a doubt the most intense shower. I have some pretty thick dreadlocks that I usually tie up in the shower to avoid getting soaked (washing the roots instead) but the water felt so good on my skin, I just wanted my entire face and head to be in the magical stream of water. I scrubbed my skin, washed off, and ran my fingers against my hypersensitive skin, noticing the closed eye visuals I was experiencing from the sensations of the shower. It is worth mentioning that I identify as a masochist; this is not usually a form of self harm, but rather an exhilarating test of my own strength and determination. Pain perception on LSD is fascinating. I can feel the sensation I would normally feel, but my pain receptors don’t seem to register it as painful enough to avoid the stimulus. I turned off the cold water and stood back as the increasingly hot water pelted my skin. It was delightful. I could see the steam clouding around the water, and realized my skin was starting to feel somewhat itchy. I could feel the hot water but I simply didn’t feel the pain. Fascinated, I decided I should probably stop burning myself and get out of the shower.

I got out and realized just how high I was as I tried to find clothes to put on back in my room. Fuck it, I thought, my roommate is away this weekend. I spent 2-3 hours just wandering around naked trying to get dressed. Unfortunately, because I had become so overheated, I seemed unable to regulate my temperature. It was somewhat uncomfortable. I decided it would be a good idea to take some ibuprofen (prevent headaches), drink water, and eat a banana.

The next 4-5 hours progressed in an exciting yet somewhat confusing manner. I would get lost in the middle of tasks and spend long periods of time immersed in music, or staring at my body in the mirror. When I finally put clothes on, it was time to leave my apartment! It was 10:00 PM, I needed to take the MDMA now before I started noticing the acid comedown, and I needed to meet someone in 20 minutes. I struggled trying to figure out the dose of the MDMA (now in powder form), and ended up parachuting somewhere around 100-150mg. I put on a knee-length dress and a thin shirt, my jacket and boots, frantically trying to beat the clock and grab everything I needed before the MDMA kicked in. I stepped outside and almost turned back around. It was cold! But hey, I was positive I would not be able to choose a new outfit, so I shrugged and just walked through the cold mist down the deserted street. I was meeting a friend of a friend who had messaged me online saying he’d be up for hanging out that night, and I decided while high that having someone to hang out with was a good idea.

I met him and as I started talking I realized “WHOA. I am way way high”. I apologized to him (let’s call him G) and said that I might not be able to hold a stimulating conversation as I was tripping pretty hard. He was cool with it, and we made our way down the street so I could go to the bank and he could get some water. I decided I wanted to spread the goodness and gave G a small container with probably 125mg of MDMA. He took most of it and chased it with his juice and asked me if I wanted the rest. I smiled and poured some juice in the vial and shot it.

Rolling is such an interesting feeling to me, and it seemed to amplify the dosage of the LSD. We walked by a moonlit fence and the shadows on the ground moved in waves, it was beautiful. I realized that I felt confident, attractive, and incredibly relaxed as I chose my deliberate steps down the street. I tried speaking but my words came out comically slow and I realized how high I sounded. It was about a 40 minute walk to the show, and on the way we smoked a bowl, which just furthered my relaxed body. It was around this point that I started wondering if G was going to stick around the whole night; he was talking about how he hallucinates without drugs, and the way he was talking about it came off as bragging, which I was unsure how to respond to. My legs were itchy. I have cold induced urticaria (literally a cold allergy), which results in me breaking out in hives after prolonged exposure to cold stimulus. Once again, I couldn’t feel the pain associated with cold, but I could feel itchiness and I realized that I was super underdressed (it was around 3 degrees Celsius).

I don’t remember much until we got to the bar. I checked my coat and went to stand by the stage to watch the openers. People were having a blast and it was such a fun venue, colourful lights and interesting pillars and wooden benches strewn about. G approached me and pulled me over to the bar and bought us drinks. I wasn’t particularly interested in drinking, but I figured one drink would probably be okay. I thanked him, and went back to the sensory feast that was happening around me. I was beginning to feel uncomfortable with G. He was kind of awkwardly standing there trying to figure out how to talk to me (which was pointless, as it was really loud and I was really high) while I just wanted to relax into the scene and enjoy my psychedelic roll. As the set changed I made my way over to a bench and sat down, propping my legs up on the rail in front of me. G followed, which was unfortunate as he wanted to continue talking about something that wasn’t especially interesting. I was feeling so in touch with my body, and running my fingers against the smooth wood of the table was pleasurable. Out of nowhere G leans into me and nudges his leg against mine. I startle and abruptly shift my body posture to be facing away from him.

This is a heavy side note. Over the past year and a half I have been struggling with how to come to terms with being sexually assaulted. I have written a lot about it and spoken to counsellors, and started volunteering at a local women’s centre. This is something I feel passionately about, and the fire inside me is easily lit when triggered. There were several people who had assaulted me, but something they all had in common was that they had acted without my enthusiastic consent. They acted on assumptions that they were entitled to my body, and they laughed my “no’s” and “don’ts” off. They took away my autonomy and my right to choose who I share my body with. When people touch me without making it either verbally or nonverbally agreed upon I am triggered and pushed into an extremely uncomfortable space, and it essentially brings me back to the feeling and memory of someone raping me. It wasn’t a big deal at this point in the night, but I still wasn’t sure how to articulate “don’t fucking touch me” to G without coming off overly rude. I excused myself and went to the bathroom and took down my hair, running my fingers through it, staring at my face. My body felt so good and I still felt euphoric and confident even if I was anxious. I recognized the feeling of anxiety and instead of suppressing it. I melted into it. I became warm steel. I realized I love myself and it is up to me to choose how I handle situations and what I want in life. I smiled at a girl entering the bathroom and went to sit back down. The next half hour was enjoyable. There was a guy at the other end of the table who noticed me staring at the lights and gripping the wooden table, and we made eye contact several times. He was gorgeous and I wish I had talked to him.

Finally, the band I had really wanted to see was on! They are a local band that is a sort of jazz-reggae fusion that is perfect for people on drugs. I was ecstatic, and I jumped up to feel my way to the stage area so I could dance and feel and hear the energy they were putting out. I don’t even think there is anything more satisfying than dancing on MDMA (especially in a delayed candy flip); my body is literally an instrument being tuned by the rhythm and sound of the setting, and it feels so right and perfect, there is no anxiety or discomfort. I share myself with this band, and give all of my attention and love to them as they make my body move in the most wonderful ways. Then all of a sudden someone grabs my side, I am startled and  raise my fist but it is G. I am still bothered so I mock punch my fist, but make no effort to apologize. He appears surprised that I responded this way, and nervously laughs and takes off shortly after. Yay! I am free again. It is orgasmic. After some time I go to the bar and pour myself some free water, and it is delicious. I am still overheated so I go outside to cool off. I don’t feel the cold. I see G but I go back inside because I know he will never understand why I respond the way I do at his hopeful advances. As I go back inside I lose my shit as I recognize friends that I had tripped with at a festival a few months previously. I felt love for them and I felt safe, and it was so reassuring to be with people who are awesome. As I was talking to them someone behind me said my name, and as I turned I shrieked and embraced him; it was my partner’s roommate who had been there as I purchased the MDMA earlier, and he was all smiles as he realized just how good I was feeling. I thanked him profusely, and was once more overjoyed to be with people that I like and know. It was a good moment, and I exchanged some somewhat intelligible dialogue with him before I went to dance for the remainder of the set.

I was in such high spirits, and felt at ease and beautiful and loved and loving. Moving to the natural rhythm once more, and that’s when I am snatched out of my blissful state as someone’s hands appear out of nowhere to slide along my hips. Typically  when I am groped when dancing it is so sharply unsettling that most times I will freeze, angry, but unsure how to respond other than by coldly ignoring the touch and moving away. Not today. I am done with this. I am surrounded by a beautiful crowd and it moves me to see so many happy people, and I care about my fellow human beings. But when this random guy that I haven’t even seen or acknowledged just pulls my hips into his grasp, I am startled and saddened. It is the most glorious time and I don’t want to be reminded of people thinking they are entitled to my body again. I look at him and just grab his hands and place them back on his abdomen, tapping them lightly in a disapproving manner. He is obviously rejected in a “wtf bitch” sort of way. I turn around and feel the music tune my body again and I almost burst into joyous tears.

I turn around and feel the music tune my body again and I almost burst into joyous tears.

 I can take care of myself! I am OK! I can be loving and open while roaming through a glorious psychedelic state, and I realized that I love myself and no one is going to make me feel bad about my body and my needs as long as I am not silent, as long as I let them know this is not okay. I am empowered.

The rest of the night passes by and even though I am coming down I still feel so fucking good, it doesn’t even matter. Around 2:30 the show ends and I spend some time moving against pillars and touching the bar before I leave. I make my escape and do the 40 minute walk home through a sketchy part of town but I don’t give a fuck because no one is fucking with me. I am so strong. When I got home I just took off my clothes and put on a setlist from that band and spent time dancing and moving, because I could, because it felt amazing.  I had a smooth comedown and fell asleep around 7AM. I had to wake up around 10:30AM as I was meeting my sister to help her buy shit for the consumerism season, and I felt very tired but nowhere near as drained or terrible as an average alcohol hangover.

This is really drawn out, but it is so important to me that I write it. This experience was both recreational and therapeutic (and even spiritual to an extent) and I have learned a lot about myself that brings me to tears. It’s my mind, my body, my soul and I get to choose who I share it with.

-In a few months I would like to try increasing the LSD dosage and taking the MDMA sooner, maybe 3 hours in. But overall I liked this timing/dosage.

Exp Year: 2014	ExpID: 105122

Gender: Female

Age at time of experience: 21

Published: Jan 22, 2019	Views: 2,332

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LSD (2), MDMA (3) : Various (28), Sex Discussion (14), Glowing Experiences (4), Combinations (3), General (1)


		 DOSE:

		 oral
		 Mushrooms
		 (dried)

		 smoked
		 Cannabis

           BODY WEIGHT:
	   130 lb

It was winter break and I had left minnesota to take psychedelics in Arizona with my friends Tony and Landon. We were surrounded by desert in all directions. The only safe haven within a mile was Tony's camper and his parents house a couple blocks away.

Tony and I ate the mushrooms in his camper. I munched on a large handful of mostly caps. Then we left the camper and brought LSD to a walled off generator, which supplied the electricity to the surrounding residents— all 4 of them.

The come up was euphoric. I wanted to avoid weed because it gave me anxiety, but I gave into the pressure and smoked it anyway. The rest of the trip is being recalled years after and is only revealed to me in random fragments which I must piece together on my own, therefore the timeline is probably not 100% accurate.

I was experiencing immense bliss, and all of my social defenses were dismantled. I was singing loudly, laughing uncontrollably, and for the first time in a long while, I was content just being myself. This may sound trivial, but for a teenager who was riddled with avoidance complexes molded by an upbringing of emotional abuse, ‘being myself’ was a moral feat beyond triviality.

Then, like the end of a great movie, my perspective expanded; I was outside of my body looking down at the beautiful scene. Landon, Tony, and I were all sitting against the wall laughing, at peace. The light of consciousness began to dim; Darkness encircled us, and the curtains fell. That’s all folks.

My self was no longer, for literally all intents and purposes. And it is for this reason that recalling what happened after is so difficult. My self was not there, but instead 'I' was a sort of gradual becoming— a sort of continuation of residual propagation. I had no self-referential awareness because there was no reference to a before or after this residual propagation. Before the lights went out I was definitely propagating somewhere; there was, in a sense, some symbolic quanta contouring and molding my constant propagation towards becoming something. That is, I was a conscious human self living within the confines of social order: before/present/after, in/out, up/down, left/right, me/not-me, etc... But now I was just pure propagation, with nothing to propagate. An unstoppable force in a universe void of any moveable objects. I was nothingness, timeless, existing always and never. A kind of consciousness that is always there, but without a reference: dreamless sleep.

However, this empty propagation was still tethered to the previously propagating Symbols. The Symbols with the most weight— which I shall label my ‘Self-Symbols,’ were the ones tethered to the empty propagation. Perhaps ‘empty’ is an inadequate word to describe it. It was more of an expanse beyond all previously understood blueprints of reality; whenever previous blueprints attempted to contour the expanded propagation, they would stretch and contort, then fracture into oblivion. Only the more ingrained Self-Symbols were able to reserve a fragment of their previous symbolic contours long enough to be felt by the whole.

That is, when memories of my Self-symbols spontaneously attempted to propagate in their previous manifestation, they pulled on the tethered rops, and fragments of my life came fracturing back into consciousness, but never in their totality. For instance, I would sometimes remember the concept of parents, and that I had them. Then the realization of my life came fracturing back into an amorphous awareness-- a sort of liminal space phasing between annihilation and becoming. There was no body, only understanding and darkness.

In order to continue my journey, I needed to jump into the abyss completely naked, stripped of all things known. I needed to say goodbye to my previously propagating Symbols— to terminate the maladaptive blueprint that had been confining my propagation. Sadness was then thrown into this fractured memory storm, and I eventually let it all go. I said goodbye to my to my parents, I knew this journey would require the annihilation of those fragments.

I looked towards Tony at one point, and saw instead an infinite array of connected particles. The specific matrix of particles that took the form of Tony proceeded to laugh at my attempt to individualize myself within this infinitely connected array— as if to say “well hello again, going somewhere?” I was in fact trying to go somewhere, but why? Why would I be so foolish again?! I am constantly trying to go somewhere, to propagate something-- the irony of this realization tortured me. I felt it. The familiar terror and awe of this place overwhelmed my entire being. I was unable to make my perspective known to others, because they were not there. I was an arbitrary static array attempting to take shape, to tear myself off from the totality of this matrix. I was trapped in an infinite web of being, but unable to speak, move, or express my terror.

The next fragments of the trip involve the motif of humanity’s contact with the unknown. Fully aware of the consequences of making an error in the face of the unknown, we have to overcome our fear of the ‘dark’, to face the terrors that might lurk just out of sight, abstract and physical. I saw this, I lived it out in the desert.

I had a brief return back into the orbit of consensus reality— to my body— but it was only partial enough to play a song on my iPhone requested by Tony— ‘divine moments of truth’ by shpongle— then the lights faded out again. Apparently we then decided to take LSD, which “I” could hardly consent to at the time.

Apparently we then decided to take LSD, which “I” could hardly consent to at the time.

 I was in the midst of dying and becoming, my physical life was but a brief moment in between these two eternities— it made no difference what happened in-between.

There were moments where I’d come back to the inbetween— this odd manifestation of human being— and saw more arrays of particles inextricably connecting everything together— the stars, my phone, the ground, my Self. I then blacked out completely for the next couple hours or so.

Due to the extraordinary scale of this next experience, only surreal and visceral fragments can be recalled. My being was in a different realm, crawling forward towards the divine totality, towards a sort of existential climax. I was drawing nearer to this climactic end. It was nostalgic. ‘I’ve been here before.’ It felt as if I met entities on the way who knew the answer and almost told me to turn back. I felt terrified, but I kept going. This is where I begin to completely forget. But I do remember a visceral feeling of terror, awe, and absolute ineffability which could never be understood within human manifestation.

I was blacked out for a while. Long enough for me to become good friends with Tony's family and Landon's girlfriend— however, I had no recollection of this. The only reason I assume this to be the case is because when the lights turned on I was greeted with goodbye hugs from everyone. They all seemed to love me, but I had no recollection of their existence.

I went into the camper and my stomach dropped. Something catastrophic was about to occur. Something horribly catastrophic. It was ineffable, but I understood it on a visceral level, as if what I had just experienced foreshadowed what was to come. Impending doom. I rushed to my laptop on the table in the camper, hoping to contact a loved one, then I looked at Tony, and he said something along the lines of “what’s up dude?” then Landon walked in. This scene repeated for eternity. The despair I felt was indescribable. I would have screamed for help had I not been locked in the manifestation of the loop. Running to my computer, Tony questioning me, Landon walking in. Over and over this continued. The reason the loop was so terrifying wasn’t because it wouldn’t end. That was a given. It’s terror was implicit in the endless realization that this has always been. I have always been here. The life I had lived up until this point was a mere facade, a nice ‘story’ to distract myself from this strange existence I found myself in. There was no before this loop, no after.

There was no before this loop, no after.

 Something deep began to propagate me forward— a sort of ancient will— as if to say, “MERCY, TAKE ME BACK!”

Eventually, the scene played out, and Landon walked through the door and said, “what other people?” “There’s no one else.” I forgot that I had asked them to invite other people over before the loop began. I needed reassurance that I hadn’t died. But they told me there was no one else. My suspicion had been confirmed, I was trapped in this reality forever. Suddenly my consciousness expanded far beyond my conceived universe, and there was an entity waiting there which had always been. I had hit rock bottom. There was nowhere else to go. No forward, no backward, no up, no down, no in, no out. The lifeline connected to my body and world had snapped. There was no mercy this time.

I was greeted by an entity composed of an infinite matrix of worm-like creatures, all of them laughing at me with a mocking tone. “How foolish you are to think you’re controlling it all, that you can leave— HAHAHAH— oh you poooor thing.” I fell for the joke. The joke on those who attempted to propagate— to individualize. The further you propagate, the funnier it is on the cosmic scale. The joke which has always been. It was truly the biggest joke in existence. A sort of cosmic rick roll awaiting all entities who attempted it. In Kierkegaard’s Sickness Unto Death, he explains this predicament most distinctly:

It is as if an error slipped into an author's [God's] writing and the error [my attempt to keep propagating within my individual perspective] become conscious of itself as an error [my attempt to keep propagating as individual perspective]—perhaps it actually was not a mistake but in a much higher sense an essential part of the whole production—and now this error [my attempt to keep propagating] wants to mutiny against the author [God], out of hatred toward him, forbidding him to correct it and in maniacal defiance saying to him: No, I refuse to be erased; I will stand as a witness against you, a witness that you are a second-rate author [God].

The only difference was that there was no hatred in my attempt, only a realization of ignorance, terror and humility (However, perhaps my mutiny/resistance to the totality is in a sense what caused my terror and humility).

There were moments when I’d come back to earth and Landon was standing in front of me. He pretended to punch me in the face to get me to move. I saw it and felt the energy exerted in the punch. I felt his fist get inches away from my face, but I didn’t care. I didn’t even blink. The pain I was feeling far exceeded physical pain. I was then transported back to the place-that-has-always-been— the entities all waiting for me to remember. The torment I felt was unbearable, but there was nothing else to bear it but the individual entity being laughed at. For a brief moment, after eternity had past, I looked upon my individual point on this infinite array, and then I let it go. In turn I let go of not just my Self-Symbols but of the whole repertoire of Symbols that composed the blueprint of my life, and of existence itself. I realized that I was also one of the worm-like entities, the same as the ones who were laughing at me in the cosmic play. I let it all go-- the shame, humiliation, terror, sadness, and I felt a faint bliss begin to pour out. It was beautiful, but distant, then I woke up. I was laying on the couch inside of Tony’s camper.

And just like that, everything was back. I was fully being-in-the-world again, and was more myself than I had ever been. It took a trip through hell— to the final rung— to cry, to break down the defenses of my persona. The absolute hilarity of holding back tears, or of holding back words I was too worried about saying. With that being said, I was also absolutely terrified of what the world could be, and was hesitant to go to sleep in fear that I would just be brought back to that place.

Exp Year: 2015	ExpID: 112217

Gender: Male

Age at time of experience: 19

Published: Feb 18, 2019	Views: 1,637

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LSD (2) : Difficult Experiences (5), Entities / Beings (37), Combinations (3), Small Group (2-9) (17)


		 DOSE:

		 oral
		 LSD

		 oral
		 Alcohol
		 (liquid)

           BODY WEIGHT:
	   85 kg

I should preface this with a bit of background on myself. It might seem needlessly wordy, but it's kind of important to understand my own mindset and background to understand the significance of some parts of my experience I think.

I've always found myself a bit different than others growing up. In hindsight, I've come to realize I probably have some degree of undiagnosed high-functioning Aspergers - something psychedelics have helped tremendously with in terms of its accompanying social anxiety, but that's a story for another time. INTJ personality. Generally pretty 'serious'.

I grew up in a conservative Christian household, and while I do respect my parents for trying to provide me with what they felt was the best possible upbringing, I never really believed it. I always loved discussing and reading philosophy. In college, I got pretty enamored with Marxist Dialectical Materialism as a worldview, and I still maintain it today; despite the experiences I'm about to relay, I don't believe anything other than a chemical acting on receptors in my brain was responsible for the experience I had. Nevertheless, it was one of the most intriguing experiences of my life, and one I have and intend to repeat many more times. It's shown me that the brain is clearly capable of producing a much wider variety of states of consciousness than most people realize. And that's a true pity.

After university, I moved to China. It was something I'd always wanted to do really. I'd always been infatuated with the culture, and I felt in a number of ways my outlook on the world probably would make me feel less alienated here. For the most part, this has been the case. I was borderline depressed before coming here, and definitely have gotten a lot better, and still very much love the culture.

Prior to this experience, I'd had some experience with THC and MDMA. Both were interesting enough in their own way, but nothing on this level. For about a year, at this point, I'd been interesting in trying more 'serious' psychedelics, but never really knew where to acquire them. Then kind of out of the blue, my usual hookup for marijuana offered to sell me a sugar cube of LSD. I was kind of intimidated, but definitely intrigued.

It was about a week or so before I actually took it. I wanted it to be the 'right' time. I'd done enough preliminary research to know the importance of 'set and setting'. The day I chose was in early autumn. The leaves were just starting to change, I think, but it was still decently warm out. My favorite time of year actually.

I took the sugar cube out of its hiding place, and with admittedly little ceremony (and strangely little apprehension in the moment) put it in one of the insulated bottles for making tea that are so popular here in China and proceeded to mix it with a nice chai tea in hopes the soothing flavor would gently drift me into it.

At first, of course, I felt nothing. A slight pang of anxiety, the realization that the LSD was now in my stomach and soon enough would start to enter my bloodstream and thereby exert its effect on my brain, and there was nothing really I could do now to prevent that. I tried my best to pass that away and look forward to it with excitement. I went into the shower and let the warm water fall over me - a ritual I still do most times when I dose to help deal with any potential anxiety. At the time, I had the song 'What a Wonderful World' playing on my phone. Not my normal taste in music, but I figured it had a positive message and calming vibe; should help to avoid any potential freakouts.

Maybe twenty or so minutes after dosing, I still didn't particularly feel too much of an effect, as was to be expected. I was kind of torn between staying inside (not knowing what to expect, this seemed more prudent) and going outside and seeing the full effects of how my perception of the world might be changed. I decided for a sort of safe middle ground: there was a pretty nice garden area in the apartment complex I lived in. I figured I could walk around it a bit and see how I felt, and if it got too bad, presumably I could retreat back to the safety of my apartment.

I walked around outside for maybe fifteen minutes or so - a bit past the 30 minute mark - when I began to feel the first effects coming on. It was subtle; no visual distortion really. I just got this sort of subtle, but strong, urge to sit down at a certain bench. Not really knowing how a psychedelic state was 'supposed' to feel, I tried to focus my mind on some problems I'd been having in a few social relationships at the time, thinking perhaps the substance would in some way 'talk back' to me and give me some sort of insight that my sober mind couldn't reach.

I did indeed start to receive 'thoughts' back, thoughts I wasn't consciously generating, or so it seemed. But rather than dealing with the problems, these thoughts seemed to basically say 'Now is not the time to worry about such things. If you stress out about them in this state, you'll end up in a very bad state.' After 'receiving' that thought several times, I decided to trust whatever it was that was sending me such an intuition and stop focusing on such matters.

The comeup was actually quite quick from here. Before I realized it, my thoughts were going in 'loops'; mercifully something in my brain had had the foresight to warn me of this chemical's effects and the potential for freaking one's self out before I'd gotten that far. Not knowing how 'high' I would end up, and wanting to avoid any possibility of freaking out in public, I quickly made my way back to my apartment.

Returning, I felt a lot more calm, but my mind was still going in all kinds of directions. There was an anxious energy to the chemical itself, but paradoxically a much stronger sense of calm. If anything, I felt a bit jittery, but not necessarily in a bad way.

The first visual effects started to kick in here. I like to collect historic Chinese posters; one of them I had on the wall was of Chairman Mao addressing a large crowd with an uplifted arm. While the borders of objects remained quite distinct, I could perceive his facial expressions changing. While the poster depicted him with a more-or-less stoic expression, I saw his face seem to be 'squished' a bit vertically (without the actual borders between objects seeming to be altered at all, oddly), this having the effect of him seeming to have a somewhat unnatural smile on his face. In turn, it would shift back to normal, then to the 'shrunken, smiling' form many many times.

Outside the window there was a large billboard advertising toothpaste on an opposite building. A man was smiling with really white teeth. No real visual changes to his form, but ever time I looked at it, I also smiled and laughed kind of giddily. It was like looking at that picture gave me the expression of the man in it, but only superficially. I didn't feel the sort of extreme artificial happiness one tends to experience on say MDMA; just for whatever reason compelled to mimic that man's expression.

For a while I kind of chilled, listening to some music I liked and glancing back and forth between the Mao poster and the billboard outside.

After a while I decided to go into the bathroom and stare at myself in the mirror to see if I could get a depersonalization effect. My pupils were a bit wider than normal; noticeable to me, but I doubt strangers would have thought anything of it. Nothing too extreme. I again had the same sort of urge to laugh kind of giddily, deliriously, and think I said something to the effect of 'Wow, you're really high now, you motherfucker'. It was kind of interesting, but not particularly more trippy than staring at one's self in the mirror while sober already is for me, so I got tired of it after a while.

At this point, more than 90 minutes had passed. I remembered reading that peak intensity of a trip is reached at about the 90 minute mark, from which point it's a very long, gradual, decrease in intensity (further trips have more or less confirm this to be the case for me at least). I figured since I didn't seem to be going outright insane or seeing things that absolutely weren't there - basically I could still functionally interact with reality even if my mind was still in 'loops' - it was probably 'safe' to go out again.

I called a taxi to a park I quite liked downtown. Parks in China are actually really big; to the point that even though you're physically in the middle of a city, you don't really notice; it's basically a world into itself. Lots of traditional style buildings, tea houses, a small lake in the middle. I figured it'd be a nice place to chill for a while. A part of me thought it was foolhardy to go out in public alone on a substance I was trying for the first time. Technically, that probably was a very valid point to have made. But in the state I was in, I decided to go for it.

I grabbed a few bottles of water and the philosophy book I was reading at the time and headed out. I sat in the back of the taxi, listening to my music. Normally I like to talk to taxi drivers to practice Chinese, but I was worried he would be able to tell I was in an off sort of state if I talked to him, so I just showed the location on my phone, and off we went.

I remembering noticing how different the motion of other cars seemed to be. Again, they weren't physically in places they shouldn't be at any given point; they never took up more or less space than they should. Yet, the motion itself seemed far more “fluid”, more like the way that water moves than solid objects. It's an effect I've noticed again on subsequent trips.

At some point through the drive, we got stuck in bad traffic, and the driver turned around to talk to me. He seemed a good natured fellow; mid 40s probably. Quite friendly and seemed to assume I was a tourist. He suggested some other places I could visit in the city nearby. Unfortunately I was in such an odd mental state that there was something of a “mental lag”. I “realized” he'd spoken probably about 10 seconds after actually hearing him, meaning in effect I'd stared at him all that time without responding. He probably thought I was insane or something. I tried to play it off as simply not knowing Chinese. He smiled and told me to listen to my music. Don't think he suspected psychedelics, but probably thought I was a bit “off”. Oh well. At the time I didn't much care.

It was only slightly later, on the way to the park, when it happened. The “other” voice – the one that had “talked” to me back outside my apartment – started speaking to me again. Only it wasn't in audible sound; it was in the form of a thought, but a thought I myself wasn't consciously generating. I felt a great sense of love – maternal love. And the thought repeated over and over in my mind “This is the very beginning; you can always return to this state.”

I felt psychologically “pure”; like a child just born without all the ingrained prejudices and unfounded assumptions society forces into us.

I felt psychologically “pure”; like a child just born without all the ingrained prejudices and unfounded assumptions society forces into us.

 Over and over again, softly, it – no She – it definitely had a feminine persona, despite being generated by my own brain told me “You can always come back to this state.”

I felt a great happiness at this revelation. No matter what happened in life, no matter what troubles lie ahead, no matter what mistakes I might make, there was always a chance to return to that pure, innocent, childlike state. This was a feeling, a realization, that remained with me for the entire duration of the trip actually, and something that continues to give me solace to this day.

On some level it took my thoughts to ideas I'd already contemplated. Nietzsche's idea of “Infinite Return”. Poincarre Recurrence. I might literally have that experience and every other an infinite amount of times, even in a purely material universe, and THAT itself was amazing.

Arriving at the park, I was almost at once struck by a sort of child-like curiosity. Everything was simply fascinating, especially natural things. Every flower seemed beautiful, and I wanted to study and learn and understand each. There was a dance going on with dancers in traditional Chinese clothing. I'd seen similar performances before, but in this state it seemed to be the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. Actually, anything remotely beautiful did for as long as it held my focus.

I saw a mother holding her baby. She saw me, smiled then turned to her baby and talked to him in the sort of childish language that mothers naturally do to their children. In the mindset I was in, it seemed “right” to me as well. It was strange; my intellectual capacity was as normal. My memory more or less intact, my thoughts just fine. I felt at once an adult and a child; having all the capacity of the former, and all the wonder of the latter.

I felt at once an adult and a child; having all the capacity of the former, and all the wonder of the latter.

I walked around a bit. From time to time paranoia seemed to creep up, and I feared others might know I was out in public on drugs. To more or less satisfy my paranoia, I walked around constantly fake-texting on my phone, to give myself an excuse not to have to make eye contact with anyone. I wondered actually how much of the social phenomenon of people overusing cellphones was due to social anxiety.

I finally made my way to the lake. It was early afternoon, and the sun was reflecting off it. The reflections were amazing. It's hard to explain. Physically it looked more or less the same. But I perceived it as more …. “shiny” I suppose. As if the light was somehow brighter than it actually was, in a soft but sharp way. Brilliant, but without glare.

I tried to read the philosophy book I'd brought with me. But it seemed that instead of being able to read it in a linear fashion, I would get “stuck” on each sentence or idea. As I read any particular such sentence, it seemed in that moment the most profound thing I'd ever read, but I'd be unable to connect it with anything else – even the very next sentence. After some time, I gave up on trying to read anything coherent.

Probably for the best. She returned then. She told me she was my mother; my true mother. She was the universe itself, causality that had led to my existence. Yet she had personality. She was full of love, but not weak. No, she was strong, brave. A heroic revolutionary, at every moment fighting and sacrificing herself for a better world for me, for all her “children”. She took the archetype of a particular revolutionary woman I quite admired.

My “father”, so she said, was the philosophical spirit I'd embraced, guiding me but respecting me enough to allow me to struggle to get there, for it was the struggle that made me stronger. He too took the archetype of a revolutionary man I admired, but never addressed me directly. No, I knew him well enough through the words he'd left behind for me.

I was as a child then, full of curiosity and wonder in a perfect garden, under the watchful care of my loving, and yet, pure, proud and strong “mother” and “father”. They would always be with me, She said, watching over from afar. I asked Her many questions, about suffering in the world, what might be done to reduce it to its lowest possible value. She told me that was hard to answer – even for her. Society was a system of so many humans interacting together, all with their own goals and intentions and faults, and so even with the best of intentions, it was difficult to achieve such a thing.

Yet I would try, She told me. She was proud of me for that.

I then brought up a different question, one I feared, but needed to ask. What about those who start off with good intentions – or at least seem to as far as one's motivations can be determined by their actions – who risked much to advance the cause of liberation, but in the end pervert the cause to self-serving ends. I brought up a case of a person I felt had done just that.

She was saddened, I could tell, a bit at the mention, but obliged me. It is a dark world we live in with much unnecessary suffering. Many start with pure intentions to reduce this, but the struggle is not an easy one. It's so easy to lose one's way, compromise one's purity. She told me a story to illustrate:

There was another boy like me, raised by Her and Him. They raised him to love science, investigate and question everything; to strive to do everything in his ability to help the oppressed. And as he grew, he did just that. And yet in doing so, he gained fame – fame in association with his father's and mother's deeds which he feared he could never amount to. It was sad, She told me, because he might have done so much more than either of his parents if he had forged his own path without looking back, without comparing himself to them. This constant comparison to his parents in his own mind eventually drove him to all of the behaviors I saw as corrupt and evil. It was not so much that he desired to do harm from the start, as it was a compulsion deriving from his own internal feelings of fear, weakness, and inadequecy. Feelings I too had struggled with all my life.

“But you have not done as he has done”. She told me. “Not so far, certainly.”

She showed me parts of my life where I'd done things I have to admit were harmful to others in nature. As much as I strive for a certain ideal to change the world for the better, I don't always live up to it. But I'd yet to do anything so harmful to others to lose my “purity”. Merely those were inclinations I'd best try to conquer before moving forward in life.

I was a boy, in the garden, full of curiosity. Just like the “fallen” boy and so many others. Like all of them, I held potential to effect society in innumerable ways for better or worse. But again, She reminded me, I could always return to this state of innocence. So, too, She reminded me, could even have all of those I judged as having betrayed the cause. I was no “better” or “worse” than anyone else apart from the choices I made; but even then, even if I truly messed up and made a disaster of my life – something I dreaded – She would always welcome me back to this state if I was willing. I promised her I always would be.

I left the park and started walking. I felt the sudden desire to get a milk tea. I hadn't really eaten at that point, and while not particularly hungry, I figured it would be good to get some nutrients in the system. By now the feelings of love from Her were so intense, I could barely keep my composure. Using my status as a foreigner to my advantage, I just pointed at a milk tea on the menu to avoid having to talk to the cashier. In that sort of state I doubted I could have had anything resembling a conversation with anyone but Her.

The décor of the cafe itself was quite fitting. A cartoon of a young, scholarly looking man reading a book for the logo, but with very childish anime-esque aesthetics that the rest of the cafe seemed to match. I was on the verge of tears, but in a very good way. Tears of joy, of feeling acceptance by Her, the universe itself. Knowing that reality, causality itself accepted me, approved of my “quest” in life, offered Her moral support. It was wonderful.

I struggled my best to keep a normal composure outward. I drank the tea slowly and pretended to read the book – again, I couldn't focus on more than a sentence or two at a time. Mostly She had stopped “talking”, but the feeling of peace and innocence and love was stronger than ever.

One thing I do remember Her telling me in that cafe though was something along the lines of:

“Be good to the woman who has been your mother in this life. She's tried so hard to raise you well, and she's had such a hard life herself.”

I don't think I actually believe the metaphysical implications of the statement in a sober state – but at the time it seemed to make perfect sense. The fundamental level causality – Her – was of course my TRUE mother. The woman who physically gave birth to me was a much lower level of causality. That actually jived with materialism just fine. But she seemed to imply that both my physical mother and myself had had many experiences prior to our current lifespans.

I'd generally scoff at anything so idealist, but this was coming from Her – taking the persona of one of the women I most respected in history (and a devoted Dialectical Materialist herself) – and in such an emotional state, it made perfect sense. Given that She told it to me, and gave me such good advice on so many other matters, I've tried to see if I can synthesize the statement with materialism in any way (the idea of “Infinite Return” comes to mind, admittedly). But I think it was a deeper meaning than just literal She was getting at:

I realized that even though my parents and I had our differences of opinions on politics and religion and other related things – differences that had definitely strained our relationships – they really did mean well. They really did love me. And while I'd never FELT that love in such a strong way as I did in that moment, their love for me as their son was just as strong; if anything, my parents struggling with their own issues and still having love for me despite our differences, were all the more commendable.

In the next few days after the trip, I decided to try to resolve some of the underlying issues between my parents and myself. It still isn't fully resolved; human experiences and relationships are rarely easy. But She gave me a new motivation to try.

She told me a few other things I think, but I've since forgotten some of them.

At this point, I felt quite calm, and ready to move on. It was getting near sunset, so I decided to take a taxi to a bar that was opening for the first time that night, knowing a lot of my friends would be there. There were similar visual effects of other cars seeming to “swim” by us. Otherwise just a calm feeling; thoughts were still racing from all the new experiences and ideas, but by now it was more of me trying to analyze what had happened than talking to Her. Unfortunately Her voice was gone (and wouldn't return until several trips later), but She'd left me a lot to think about.

I arrived at the building the bar was at, and walked in pretty much on autopilot. In China, a lot of bars are on the top floors of apartment buildings, so I took the elevator to get up. Another foreigner got in with me, and started talking to me; he could clearly tell I was in a pretty out-of-it state and asked if I'd been smoking weed. I was pretty much just staring at things, probably looked like a psycho. I just nodded yes, still not really able to talk much. I figured it was easier than explaining it to a total stranger.

Turns out he ended up going to the same bar as I was. It had a pretty chill vibe. It was fully evening by the time I turned up, and there were lots of colorful lights out that looked really pretty. I took a seat on a beanbag chair outside and got a nice glass of cider. I still figured I wasn't in much of a state to talk to people, and just kind of chilled, staring at the lights and grinning kind of childishly.

A friend of mine was working there, came up and gave me a hug. She too could tell I wasn't in a normal state. She's pretty psychedelic-friendly, so I think she figured what was up, so gave me some space.

After about an hour or so, I'd come down even more. By now, it started to resemble MDMA without the physical stimulant effect. Instead of being unable to talk to people, I became VERY talkative, and started wanting to talk to just about everyone. I properly introduced myself to the man I'd met on the elevator, explained what was up. He found it kind of funny; he was high on weed himself and said he didn't judge, but wouldn't touch LSD. I told him he was really missing out.

Beyond that, I had a lot of conversations with a lot of friends for about two hours. Felt great.

A friend and I went back to my home to watch a film together – Interstellar. I still felt vaguely “trippy”, but more or less normal, just a little “happier” and more curious than normal. The film seemed to fit perfectly with the revelations She had given me.

I went to sleep blissfully that night. I often lucid dream by keeping my mind awake while my body physically falls asleep, and tried to do that then. I had lots of very interesting visuals, but eventually ended up sleeping normally. I woke up the next morning feeling more refreshed than normal. I had to go to work, but there was a subtle good feeling to life all day.

All in all, LSD has changed my life for the better I'd say. It's definitely a chemical that should be treated with the proper respect (or more so, as She told me in a later trip which I might publish later – it's not so much the chemical itself as one's own brain that one needs to be treating with the proper respect, as the seat of one's mind), and with the right set and setting in mind.

Exp Year: 2016	ExpID: 111186

Gender: Male

Age at time of experience: 26

Published: Mar 16, 2019	Views: 2,273

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LSD (2) : Various (28), Therapeutic Intent or Outcome (49), Nature / Outdoors (23), Mystical Experiences (9), Glowing Experiences (4), First Times (2), General (1)


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

		   T+ 4:00
		 1 hit
		 vaporized
		 DMT
		 (freebase)

		   T+ 4:00
		 1 hit
		 smoked
		 Cannabis

           BODY WEIGHT:
	   165 lb

My only experience is with DMT freebase. The MAOI in ayahuasca typically leads to severe gastrointestinal distress, pain, diarrhea, and vomiting are typical of the experience, and I’m not all that interested in shitting and puking my brains out as they are simultaneously sucked into the interstellar vacuum. There are multiple “levels” of the DMT trip, the most intense being what’s known as a “breakthough” dose, which is said to be the most powerful experience a person can have, after having been through it, I’m inclined to agree.

I want to note that I did not undertake this experience as a rank amateur. At this point in my psychedelic journey I was smoking DMT at least once a week and had well over dozen trips under my belt, as well as several acid trips, mushroom trips, mdma, and 2cb. You could say I fancied myself a psychonaut who could handle his shit. I have since been humbled.

I fancied myself a psychonaut who could handle his shit. I have since been humbled.

I was having no luck actually breaking through, I would get close, but never actually to the point of a full breakthrough experience. I thought that maybe I had broken through a couple of times, but one thing I’ve since come to realize is that there is no “maybe” to a breakthrough experience, if you have to ask upon exiting a DMT trip, “Did I break through?” the answer is no.

One thing that I feel obligated to get out of the way now is that this effort of mine, to describe my experience, will be a colossal failure. I will do my best, but I will fall short, language is simply insufficient to convey a breakthrough experience to someone who hasn’t had the experience. I like to think of describing a breakthrough as trying to describe a 3 dimensional object you’ve never seen by a memory of its shadow. That being said, there will be no hyperbole in the following paragraphs, everything will be described to the best of my abilities. The gravity of the situation cannot be overstated, this is an experience that changed me at my core, an experience that shattered my perceptions of the universe and scattered the powdered remnants into the cosmic wind. The report will be split into two parts, the first will entail the experience as I remember it, not necessarily in the exact chronological order in which they occurred, time is a bit strange in the DMT world, and I’ve pieced what I can remember into a series of events that to me makes sense. The second part will be about how I have processed this experience over the past couple of years (yes, it has taken me that long to finally feel comfortable writing up a report), and how it has changed my core beliefs involving religion, consciousness, and indeed existence itself.

Part One: The Experience

It was a hot summer Saturday, my wife was at work and I was home alone with nothing to do, so I decided dropping some acid would be a good way to spend the day. I had recently gotten some 120μg tabs and I decided 2 would be a good dose, as one never seems to do all that much to me. One thing I love doing while on acid is listening to Terence McKenna, his way of speaking, the lateral thinking he displays and the novel ideas he puts forth are always more entertaining and inspiring to me while on acid. On this fateful day I happened to come across a video in which he describes smoking DMT while peaking on acid, and it seemed to make breaking through much easier, and I happened to have a stash of DMT and was nearing the 4 hour mark of my trip. In hindsight the hubris that follows is almost comical. I nonchalantly got my bong out, spread a layer of cannabis in the bowl, measured out 50mg of DMT, and put another layer of cannabis over the DMT. For any not in the know, the purpose of the cannabis was less to add to the high and more to protect and absorb the DMT, DMT is destroyed by open flames and becomes liquid when heated, so the bottom layer absorbs the liquid and stops it from just running into the water while the top layer keeps the flame from directly contacting your expensive DMT.

I looked at the clock on my stove, which I can see from the living room, 4:32. I flicked my bic, placed the flame to the bowl and inhaled as deeply as I could. One hit. One hit is all I was ABLE to do, as before I even remember exhaling I was gone, I don’t know if I coughed, I don’t know how long I was able to hold it in. Fast is an entirely insufficient adjective to describe how fast freebase DMT hit me, especially already peaking on LSD. It doesn’t seem physically possible how fast it hit, it’s as if my brain started dumping it endogenously in preparation for the freebase that’s about to hit it, it’s the closest thing to an instantaneous effect I’ve ever felt.

I just messed up, bad. This is something entirely different from the experiences I’ve known to this point, this was somehow REAL, this combination had done something to alter the very fabric of reality, and I knew immediately that I had made a huge mistake. I remember looking at the purple and orange, sun and moon tie-dye tapestry we have hanging on our wall (yes we’re hippies, get over it) and having the colors and spiral shape spread across the entire room, with every piece of furniture taking on orange and purple colors, and then distorting and spiraling upwards as if I were about to receive a visit from the Cat in the Hat. The visitor I actually received was far less pedestrian than a talking cat from a Dr. Seuss story. This orange and purple spiraling was the only open eye visual I managed to see, as immediately after taking the hit I fell back on our old futon and was no longer able to hold my eyes open. Eyes closed, mind opened.

Everything was black and eerily silent at first as I felt myself begin to be pulled/pushed upwards, away from my body. Looking up I saw blackness, with a pinprick of white, this white was what I was floating towards, slowly, and inexorably. I looked down, I could see… myself, my body, the crappy futon that had long outstayed its welcome, there was a hole in my ceiling through which I could see myself getting smaller as I moved upwards towards the waiting unknown.

That’s when the real terror began. I knew I was never coming back, that my wife was going to come home and find me comatose, and that old futon that I hated so much would be where I died. I was going to leave my wife alone, forcing her to find me in that condition, scarring her for life because I had thought myself capable of concomitant psychedelic use when nothing was further from the truth. I felt powerless, stupid, selfish, I hated myself in that moment. This was terrifying, because I knew it was real, there was no doubt in my mind. As I continued being pulled from above and pushed from below, getting further and further from my body the layers of myself began peeling away. Slowly, every aspect of me that I could call “me” was being discarded, the last part of myself that I desperately clung to was my wife, the memories of her, both of loving tenderness and bitter arguments, I didn’t want to lose her, she had to be forcibly torn from my grasp, and it wasn’t a pleasant experience. This was ego death, this was me dying, and from this point on I didn’t really consider myself to be myself, there was no ego attached to me with which perceive the event. I will continue to use “I” and “my" but that’s only because that’s how our memory works, I wasn’t me anymore, I understand the confusing, and unintuitive nature of this perspective, of being conscious, of witnessing, participating, thinking, reacting, and feeling without an “I” to be.

With the fading of my ego came the fading of my resolve to cling to myself, and with much fear and trepidation of what was to follow, I finally let go of myself completely, I allowed myself to die. Once I let go, and accepted my dying, an overwhelming calm swept across me and the pervasive blackness all around began teeming with activity, light, and voices. These voices, singular in tone and pitch and yet innumerable in repetition and seeming sources were feminine in energy, maternal, and loving. The love I felt from those voices, the care, the worry for me, I’ll forever hold onto that feeling, there was a genuine, unabashedly accepting quality that left no doubt in my mind that the amount of love they felt for me was complete. The voices kept repeating the same mantras “We just don’t know, we don’t know, we just don’t know.” And though the words were vague, the meaning was crystal clear and unambiguous to me. They didn’t know what was on the other side, and they were sending me to find out, they were worried about me, they loved me and didn’t want any harm to befall me, but they were grateful that I was going to find out, that I had volunteered. For some reason I have always attached the name “Gaia” to these voices, they seemed to belong to the earth itself somehow.

As I looked down again I could no longer see myself, instead what presented was ethereal, green, verdant energy in wafting tendrils like a kelp forest composed of light, swaying gently in calm sea. There were spots of light in all colors, photons slowed to crawl so that I could examine them, appreciate them, name them individually. I then turned my attention upwards and the pinprick of white light had grown exponentially and was now a shimmering white wall, pulling me towards it, beckoning me to enter it and behold the majesty within. There was a voice on the other side, masculine, less kind and loving than the one that had ushered me to this point, but far from malicious.

As I came to the wall the light that had surrounded me again faded to blackness and the loving voices stopped. What I could hear now from the wall was a continuous, low humming sound that didn’t grow louder as I neared it, but somehow fuller, more complete, as if it were a frequency that had begun resonating inside of my mind. As I neared the wall I began to feel a tingling sensation from being near it, as if it were composed of a static electric charge. I entered the wall, it didn’t open for me, but I was able to pass through with no resistance. As I did there was a crinkling, crackling noise, reminiscent of a potato chip bag crumpling. My vision was entirely white, I passed through it.

The sight I was confronted with directly on the other side should have left me mortified, but it didn’t. There, suspended in space was my own decapitated head, but it wasn’t macabre or gruesome in any sense. My head was being used as a projector, images beaming out of my eyes showing my life playing out, the stresses, pains, and pleasures I’ve enjoyed and endured. Then the voice spoke up, there was no body to this voice, it was a calm, masculine, objective sounding voice, no love, but no malice either, it said to me “This is what it took” and a set of images played out that he seemed to control. These images were my own memories, of times I’ve displayed curiosity in the face of adversity, how I’ve shown courage, made sacrifices and refused to believe what I was told, choosing to find out for myself. Simply in getting here I had to make myself an enemy of the culture in which I live, a criminal, ostracized and having to keep who I truly am under wraps from family and coworkers. I am brave, perhaps a bit foolhardy at times, but I have shown a sense of courage that most are unwilling to match.

It should be known that I have severe depression, and don’t often think positively about myself. I considered myself a coward, weak, and deserving of the ostracism I fear. Being shown all of these things that are undeniably true, and also positive, filled me with a heretofore unknown sense of satisfaction with myself, who I am, who I am becoming, how I think, and how I think about my thoughts. I’ve never had myself shown to me in such an objective light. He wasn’t trying to make me feel good, he was simply showing me who I am, who I was in life. Indeed if I were a different person, with a different set of experiences, if I were an abusive, Machiavellian, greedy, and all around shitty person, being shown my life’s actions without the filter of my ego would have been hell. Bad people aren’t bad in their minds, they have justifications for their actions that allows them to hold onto the myth that they are decent people. This entity’s purpose seemed to be to show those who come to him who they are, objectively, without emotion, without justification.

When he was finished there was a loud, echoing snap noise, someone snapping their fingers in a cave. At this sound, I dissolved. Each and every molecule and atom of my being separated and dispersed throughout the universe, I was nothing, I was everything. “I am God.” Just like that, with three tiny, prodigious words, everything I knew as a devout secular atheist vanished. How can I say there is no God when I AM God? What is God? God is existence, God is consciousness, and I am God. Before my eyes was laid infinity, the scope, the scale, the grandeur of the universe, it was too much to handle but I had no choice, it was there and so was I. This is the part of the trip that sadly has lost the most detail, I’m left with more of an absolute impression than the individual details. I recall traveling vast distances, visiting distant worlds and observing alien life. I saw the Mandelbrot of existence in its entirety all at once, viewing every individual fractal spire in intimate, individual detail while simultaneously marveling at the beauty and immensity of the image as a whole. I was pervasive throughout the Universe and could travel wherever I wanted at a whim, instantly. I knew everything, I watched stars go from disparate gas clouds to supernovae, seeing every second of their lives in an instant. This was pure happiness, knowledge on a scale impossible to contain in a human mind. I then began falling, slowly at first, accelerating constantly.

I didn’t pass through any of the “levels” I had crossed when coming, instead I fell into blackness, but I was falling from every direction, the atoms composing my being returning from their cosmic diaspora, coalescing back into myself, and as I fell I became myself again. Piece by piece I began to remember who and what I was, I looked down and I was falling towards the Earth, I could again see my body through a hole in my roof, I was falling towards it with the acceleration of gravity. I passed through my roof, then my ceiling, I landed back inside of myself and immediately opened my eyes and inhaled deeply, awake, aware. I looked around the room, everything was tinted green, the walls were covered in impossible constantly transforming opalescent geometric patterns, I looked at one of my dogs, Spicy, a short, squat bulldog/pitbull mix, someone had clearly been having fun in photoshop with her, colors and contrast altered unnaturally, her brindle pattern fuzzing into the air itself, she was a spectrum of matter fading into nothing at the edges, and I said out loud “Thank God, everything is back to normal.” Compared to where I just was this was normal, this was the reality I know, just altered somewhat. I looked at the clock, 4:37. 5 minutes. All of that happened in the course of 5 minutes, coming out it felt like literal weeks, while I was there time seemed not to exist at all, or at least not in the linear way we know it. But I was back, after knowing for sure that I wouldn’t be, and I was happy, I couldn’t wait for my wife to get home, to hug her, to know for sure that I came back and everything was the same.

But nothing has been the same, how could it be after what I’ve experienced? I truly see the world differently, my core beliefs, altered irreparably by a 5 minute experience. This was by far the most terrifying event in my life, I died, that’s not hyperbole, I lost who I was and thought I would never get it back. Scary though it may have been, it was also by far and away the most powerful experience I’ve ever had, this is an experience that redefined the words “power” and “awe” for me, I didn’t know what those words meant, the true definitions aren’t to be found in a dictionary, they must be experienced to be  comprehended. Do I regret my irresponsible actions, putting myself into a situation I wasn’t ready for? Absolutely not, I can’t say this experience was one I necessarily enjoyed in the moment, but I haven’t regretted doing it for even one second. Would I have done it if I had known what I was in for? Absolutely not, I haven’t repeated this combination because every time I think about doing it I’m viciously aware of what I’m likely to go through, that kills the desire outright, it’s scary as hell now that I know. Do I recommend anyone else combine LSD and DMT? Absolutely not, I only say this because of how immensely terrifying the experience was, I’m not going to stop anyone from going down the road I went down. but I cannot in good conscience recommend someone else repeat my actions, this is a decision to be made by mature adults, for themselves, you are the master of your own destiny and will reap what you sow.

Will I do it again? I’d like to think yes, but not anytime soon I’m honestly scared of DMT now

Will I do it again? I’d like to think yes, but not anytime soon I’m honestly scared of DMT now

, it was my favorite drug from the moment I got my first good hit (despite the taste) I’ve now done it 3 times in the past two years, despite it being right there, beckoning. Was this an overall positive experience? Absolutely, no single experience has changed my thought processes and opened my mind more than this one, I really think I learned more about this universe in that single trip than in all my years of school.

If you are thinking of trying this combination, it’s imperative that you have ample experience with both LSD and DMT separately, and remember that it’s not LSD *plus* DMT, it’s LSD *times* DMT. One piece of advice for anyone embarking on this journey, just let go, you will come back, don’t cling to yourself, your loved ones, or anything in this world that you deem important, you’re leaving all of that behind when you agree to take these molecules into your body, it’s not a decision to make lightly.

Part 2: Processing

It’s now been 2 full years since this experience, and I’m not sure if I’ve gone 8 full hours without thinking about it at least once. This was a legitimate religious experience. I didn’t think religious experiences were actually possible until I had one. The term had the same significance to me as the term “fairy tale”. Now it carries more significance than I’m sure it does to 90% of devout Christians, a truly religious experience is far more profound to the individual than anything that can be found in the Bible.

Now, on being God. This whole “I am God” thing really threw me for a loop and I had to think a long, long time about what that meant. Do I think I’m the Christian God? No, I don’t believe in the Christian God, I don’t believe I’m anymore God than anyone else, but I think everyone else is also God. God is existence, consciousness. It’s not some separate entity to be worshipped, because everything is God. I believe Our brains do not generate consciousness, rather consciousness is a dimension and our brains tune into it like radios of sorts. All matter is conscious on some level, everything that exists knows on some level that it exists, what it is, and how it should behave. That “level” is dependent on the level of complexity, a giant boulder is far less complex than the inch worm crawling across its surface, and as a result the inch worm, despite being far smaller, and containing far fewer atoms is on a higher level of consciousness. The reason we are “more” conscious than other animals is that we are more complex than other animals, specifically in our brains. Were we to create a machine or program (or more likely a combination) that is as complex as the human body, with the complexity of our neural network it would be as conscious as we are.

One thing that I cannot shake is the similarity between my experience and some stories I’ve heard in some religions. Most notably the entity who showed me my life, if other people have met this entity before, I could very well see him being the origin of the “Peter at the gates of Heaven” story (and every other similar myth, of which there are several) judging your life, determining whether you get into Heaven or Hell. Like I said, if I had been an awful person, this experience would have been hell, and were I the most virtuous, least flawed person on the planet it would have been Heaven. As it is I’m a decent person, I’ve done things I regret, but overall I am a good, kind, just, and honest person, and while I wouldn’t exactly call it Heaven, it was closer to Heaven than Hell.

Could this have just been a drug induced hallucination with no significance beyond that? Certainly, and I never allow myself to forget that possibility. However, anyone who thinks there is no significance to these experiences beyond interesting, purely chemical alterations of brain chemistry and neural pathways is someone I can almost guarantee hasn’t had an experience on this level. You can’t see what I’ve seen and felt what I’ve felt and say it’s just the drugs, you can’t have traveled distances and beheld scales which dwarf everything you thought possible and think “I was just high.” I had no idea that a person could endure an experience so powerful, but I have, I know they exist, and I’m somewhat saddened by how few ever get to see and experience an event so intense so utterly astonishing. Falling in love, marriage, the birth of a child, losing the one most cherished to you, these are are all experiences that are bound to be powerful and have profound effects on a person, none of these hold a candle to a breakthrough. I’m not trying to offend any parents or people who have lost loved ones in saying this, but I’m convinced that there is nothing that can happen in a normal human life that’s as intense, strange, and indescribable as a breakthrough. If there is an experience more powerful, I don’t think I’m interested in having it.

I no longer fear death. Before this experience, being a secular, naturalist atheist, my biggest fear was death, but now that I’ve been on the other side, seen what there is, I no longer fear it. I do think there is more to this universe than we can see before us, and I don’t think oblivion follows this life.

Exp Year: 2016	ExpID: 113027

Gender: Not Specified

Age at time of experience: Not Given

Published: Apr 11, 2019	Views: 3,525

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DMT (18), LSD (2) : Alone (16), Depression (15), Entities / Beings (37), Mystical Experiences (9), Combinations (3)


		 DOSE:

		 sublingual
		 LSD
		 (blotter / tab)

           BODY WEIGHT:
	   100 lb

For seven of the last nine months, I've experimented off and on with LSD. It was not my first psychedelic, nor do I think it should be anyone's based on its risk profile: I've heard stories of people who did a lot of acid and never came back, or read case reports of people who have had persistent visual effects or other unintended sequelae. (Rather, I think ketamine and MDMA are better first psychedelic experiences. Ketamine because its after-effects are the most uniformly positive; see its treatment of depression, PTSD, and chronic pain. And because its high is similar to alcohol's effects, and is short-lasting. And MDMA because its high is so warm and fuzzy, it's hard to imagine someone having a bad trip on it.)

But, in spite of my trepidation, I've also looked forward to trying acid based on the literature on its uses in assisting psychotherapy—increasing empathy, trust, and expressivity like MDMA—as well as creative and sexual processes. Ok, and it also sounds fun. So when the set and setting were finally right, I gave it a go.

At the time I felt both happy and safe, and conflicted. I have a wonderful partnership and we had even recently gotten married. We have a beautiful home, a wonderful life, and want to stay together. But I've always wanted kids, and my partner is done. He's older. He had his kids in his first marriage, decades ago. He didn't enjoy the process of being a parent and doesn't want to do it again. I think it would be different this time around for lots of reasons, but have been unable to convince him.

We were honest about this disconnect when we first got together. Falling in love was an accident. The happiest accident of my life. So I went on the pill for him, even though I wanted nothing more than to get pregnant on my wedding night when we met. Happy years have gone by, and I needed them. We needed them. But my need for a family only grows. So I have also felt increasingly conflicted about taking the pill. I don't feel in control of my life and body. I don't feel I'm being true to myself, and that hurts me in lots of ways. And yet I feel I have to do what my love needs first, to take care of him. And sometimes, although it's not his fault, I simply feel powerless to assert my own needs as well. We have a conflict and I put him first; that's a wound to my integrity of being. It's hard to find another way.

The first time we tried acid, we planned to micro-dose and go to the park. It was a beautiful summer day, so our favorite park was going to be crowded with people playing music, children running around, couples walking… I had read online  that you don't get hungry on acid and the high lasts 12 hours, so you must eat beforehand. I made myself eat four eggs even though I wasn't that hungry, they didn't taste very good, and two eggs would normally be a lot for me. (Obviously: Mistake.) Then, at the last minute, I was very excited about the adventure and wanted to try a full dose (around 120 mcg) instead of a tiny one (10 mcg is a commonly reported microdose where people report cognitive, emotional, and creative benefits).

My then-brand new husband wisely curbed my enthusiasm. Instead, I tried 40 mcg and he tried 20. We slipped pieces of paper, cut to lessen the dosage, under our tongues and held them there for 10 minutes before swallowing. Then off we walked in the summer sunshine.

After about 45 minutes, in the crowded park, I started to get nauseated. Then faces (which I already love looking at, like most people) got more beautiful and interesting. Noises, which can sometimes be difficult for me to deal with, and crowds, might have actually been easier—like on a glass of wine. And yet, there was also a growing edge to the faces. Some of them began to look twisted, strange, and frightening. My nausea also grew, and we headed home.

On the walk home, the world was swimming. You could call it dizziness, but it wasn't quite that. It was, rather, a flowy, swirling, falling visual effect I recognize now in psychedelic movie scenes as a distinctive LSD visual effect. The feeling of falling in it was the most pronounced this first time, probably compounded by the newness of the experience, the edge of fear that goes along with that, and my nausea from force-feeding myself a big plate of eggs in advance. I was really afraid the world would slip out from under me and swirl around—or at the very least that I would fall over and not be able to finish walking home.

Walking together, me leaning on my steady man, we made it home without me throwing up or a stranger deciding that I was behaving too strangely to let pass. Even though I had only taken 1/3 of a normal dose, there was nothing micro about this experience. I also think that this was the strongest reaction I've ever had to acid in some ways; maybe my brain needed to get acquainted with it in some way.

I love looking at myself on psychedelics, because I used to be dysmorphic and find that psychedelics fix this.

I love looking at myself on psychedelics, because I used to be dysmorphic and find that psychedelics fix this.

 What used to look ugly, fat, too awful to go outside (and more specifically, as dysmorphia usually goes: the angles of the eyebrows far too harsh so as to make me look evil, small skin imperfections so huge I can't see anything else, small things too hideously big and big things too hideously small, and nothing special, graceful, right). The effect is not permanent, but can last weeks before I start to hate my body and feel I need to hide it again.

Previously, on MDMA, I'd seen my whole face and body as they actually are, during and after. And on mushrooms, I'd seen even more how those perceived imperfections were horrible distortions. You might think it's sad to realize you've tortured yourself and lost a lot of life doing so, but I know what I saw. The dysmorphia was a problem in my brain, not something I chose. And the psychedelics fixed it. It's such a huge, unqualified relief and joy to be freer and feel beautiful. But I had hoped for that, having read case reports of such things in medical journals and online. I'm not the first person to notice psychedelics can treat dysmorphia, and I'm glad to think I won't be the last.

When I looked in the bathroom mirror my first time on acid, however, I looked like a man. I found myself attractive; I looked fit, horny, and friendly. But there was no creative control in the hallucination, no reading into the image something that wasn't (to me at the time), there. I had become a man, and was happy to see it. I thought of Bill Hicks describing the walls bleeding on shrooms, not as a horrifying experience but rather as a hilarious and fascinating one. This was my feeling also about being a man, except I was also incredibly turned-on and felt very powerful.

Then I went to bed with my husband. Although we had our normal sex as far as the mechanics go, it still seemed to me that this time, I was really the man. When we came, it was as if we were one, something I've experienced on other subsequent acid trips. Someone told me before I tried acid that being on MDMA is like a party where you're very one with your body and your friends, but being on acid is like a party where you're one with the universe. But I have found the experiences more similar, though distinct. It seems, though, that mileage varies greatly with drugs and sex, and I am a person who tends to have more sexualized reactions to a wide range of substances and experiences than others.

Subsequent acid trips have deepened the intimacy in my marriage, helped us talk, been inspiring visually, been mind-blowing sexually, and not resulted in nausea. It was dumb to eat four eggs before trying acid, and I never did anything like that again. If I'm hungry before, I eat. If I'm not, I don't. Once I developed ravenous hunger on acid and ate the best Indian food of my life. Eating it literally felt like coming. In general, I guess relaxing and doing what your body needs at the time is a pretty good rule of thumb for self-care off and on special substances.

I've tried micro-dosing and found around 20 mcg is great for plowing through demanding creative and intellectual work, especially when I am afraid or having a block, or a deadline. I've been diagnosed with ADHD by three doctors but don't really believe it exists, and the medications I've tried for it don't do good stuff to me in the days after. So this is my favorite ADHD medication, and I could see adapting Ayelet Waldman's (former, experimental) every three days protocol to deal with the dose tolerance issue. But I prefer to trust my brain and not do it all the time.

I've still not tried a full dose, preferring instead to exercise a lot of caution around set and setting when it comes to acid. I still want to, someday. I find that a partial dose of 70 mcg or so, especially with a small amount of MDMA, helps me deal with crowds—loud noises, bright lights, and big groups can otherwise be too much for me, and alcohol is not my friend. This seems significantly healthier for my brain, and I'm angry that alcohol is widely available instead… because used wisely, psychedelics seem so much healthier. But I have been lucky to have only really had good set and setting psychedelic experiences, because I have experimented with someone who loves and takes care of me.

I've also experienced feeling whole and healed on MDMA combined with this larger mezzo-dose of acid. I'm surprised this isn't yet in the literature on PTSD, which I had read for many years before trying MDMA. There is so much great research and advocacy going on to get people better care for mental health problems, but ultimately I think demanding that people heal their most intimate wounds with strangers in a clinical setting is insane. So I hope psychedelics like MDMA and LSD, especially combined, will be available to people to try with intimates at home for self-exploration, communication, and even healing. There are people who shy away from the idea that you can self-treat serious mental health problems like PTSD and depression, but I have tried lots of therapies and found everything else incredibly painful and counter-productive. Some people just need love to heal. I did. And drugs enhanced my ability to communicate, trust, feel connected, empathize, and see things differently to take that healing process further. So it surprises me to realize that my healing experiences on acid have echoes in Stanislav Grof's work using LSD in psychotherapy—but that the people doing research now on MDMA haven't tried incorporating LSD as well. Maybe that will come. I'm sorry I don't want to say more about this. It shouldn't be an aside like this, but… I honestly think it's so intimate that it's wrong to pathologize and fully document things of this nature. Some things are actually sacred. Part of me wants to inspire researchers to push that envelope and part of me wants to tell them they're hubristic assholes for pretending that they can standardize caring for the soul.

So I've worked, socialized, and healed on subsequent acid trips. But since that first time, I've never been a man again. When I was a man, though, it was very clear to me that I had a right to bear children. This is an insight that I've also had as a woman, but as a man it felt different. As a woman it felt less like I was in control, like I would have to bicycle through life and see what happened on the way, like a flower hoping for a bee. And as a man it felt like I could shoot my arrow and make life happen. I know it's cliched. But the gender-bend on that first, mezzo acid trip really helped me learn a feeling of control over my own life that I still remember and cherish today

the gender-bend on that first, mezzo acid trip really helped me learn a feeling of control over my own life that I still remember and cherish today

. Even though I don't see how to apply it necessarily. Nothing has changed; but I have.

There was also another completely unintended side effect that makes sense in the context of the medical literature on LSD, but I haven't seen reported anywhere else yet. For many years I suffered from Raynaud's, a vasoconstrictive disorder where you lose circulation in your fingers, toes, ears, and nose in response to cold. They turn white and creepy, and it hurts like hell. If it gets worse, you can have finger ulcerations, and I've had cracking and bleeding from it before. I've had it confirmed on ultrasound after seeing a specialist about it. But since taking acid, my Raynaud's hasn't bothered me at all.

I didn't even trigger it after a recent sprain left me holding frozen vegetables on the affected appendage. Normally handling frozen stuff has been the most fool-proof way to tick it off. It wasn't comfortable, but my fingers didn't go into painful vasospasms and turn different colors, requiring defrosting under lukewarm to warm water to recover, either.

Raynaud's is a really painful and life-limiting medical problem that kept me from doing some things I love but hasn't bothered me since I tried acid, and this might make some sense as an effect.

Regardless of whether my Raynaud’s comes back, my beloved husband comes around to having kids, or any other outcome down the line goes this way or that, I feel empowered by my acid experiences. After all, I'm the man. I have a life to live, arrows to shoot—and stronger, healthier, happier hands with which to shoot them.

Exp Year: 2018	ExpID: 113063

Gender: Female

Age at time of experience: 34

Published: Apr 13, 2019	Views: 2,640

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LSD (2) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Sex Discussion (14), Health Benefits (32), Retrospective / Summary (11), General (1)