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

		   T+ 0:25
		 .5 tablets
		 oral
		 LSD
		 (blotter / tab)

		   T+ 0:50
		 1 tablet
		 oral
		 LSD
		 (blotter / tab)

		   T+ 1:30
		 1 tablet
		 oral
		 LSD
		 (blotter / tab)

		   T+ 2:00
		 1 tablet
		 oral
		 LSD
		 (blotter / tab)

		   T+ 2:30
		 1 tablet
		 oral
		 LSD
		 (blotter / tab)

           BODY WEIGHT:
	   145 lb

This was my first experience with this substance.  I was extremely depressed about perceptions of my career stalling and post-graduate identity diffusion and losing touch with people who had mattered to me-- this depression had been growing on me gradually for years but lately had worsened further in severity.  None of the medications worked; they seemed to be just masking the underlying structural or cognitive problems and made things worse in some respects.  I felt that I could no longer live up to my own expectations or those of society, that I was fundamentally flawed in my attempts to engage with people, and out of these motivations I had been planning my suicide for weeks.  In a fit of desperation I had ordered a variety of drugs from various sources to try to see whether anything might change my perspective, or at least to collect a few experiences before I left.  By the time this trip was over, apart from having indeed collected a vast array of experiences and far more than I had bargained for, I found that I wasn't even depressed anymore.  It was almost a sort of psychological surgery.  Though I had not expected this outcome, LSD may well have saved my life.

T=0:00: I took half a tab and waited 30 minutes.  Listened to the first half hour or so of Dark Side of the Moon.  As was proper, I thought.

T=0:25: Felt nothing so I took the other half.  Listened to the rest of the album.

T=0:50: I took a 2nd tab because I still felt nothing.  Supposedly some effects were supposed to begin by 30-60 minutes into it.  Waited another 45 minutes while listening to some music from the Matrix and doing email.

T=1:30: Still noticed nothing.  Had a snack.  Drank some juice.  Took a 3rd tab.

T=2:00: I finally noticed some intensification of perceived colors.  It was pleasant.  Pretty.  Seemed like this stuff was perhaps a bit weaker than advertised (classic novice mistake apparently...).  Took a 4th tab.

T=2:30: I finally started to see some weak visual trails.  Still no 'breathing walls' or anything I had been told to expect by friends or read about online.  Colors were still vibrant and beautiful though.  Grabbed a sodium acetate hot pack to look at because I figured the crystals that form in them would look interesting with these visual effects.  Took a 5th tab.  Got into bed since I wasn't sure if I would feel drunk/unsteady when the stuff finally kicked in.

T=2:45: I noticed that the fuzzy setting patterns and support marks in the concrete ceiling of my apartment had begun to intensify into something resembling densely composed Aztec writing or an angular Celtic braid pattern.  The grain of the wood of my door took on much sharper edges and more saturated colors.  It was gorgeous.  I spent a while looking around at various objects in the room.  I picked up an abstract bronze sculpture and twirled it around in my hands.  I wondered whether I would hallucinate it melting or merging with adjacent objects (this never did happen, oddly; I was always able to perceive it clearly).  I went to my computer and moved the mouse around and saw some visual trails of its path, but didn't it always do that?  (It did, though not so strongly.)  I got back in bed.  I wondered whether the 5th tab had been a mistake....  In retrospect I should have been wondering about the 4th and perhaps the 3rd as well.

I wondered whether the 5th tab had been a mistake....  In retrospect I should have been wondering about the 4th and perhaps the 3rd as well.

T=2:55: the intensified patterns in the concrete ceiling began to swirl and blend smoothly.  The support marks seemed to dance like rainbow-hued cartoon bones.  The saturation of the colors of the wood grain patterns of the door began to pulse.  Fascinating.  I activated the chemical hot pack and watched the trails of crystals grow.  The warmth was nice.  I felt rather cold for some reason.  I had read that temperature regulation could vary on LSD though-- so perhaps that was prudent.  The visual trails became more intense.  I saw jagged edges suspended in the air when I moved the hot pack.  The trails seemed to be more pronounced with sharper-edged objects.  I didn't see them around my hands for instance.  I put the hot pack under my shirt because I was cold, but then had a sudden desire to take my shirt off and pull on a comforter instead so I did.

T=3:05: I had a sudden flash of connection to ancient ancestors.  Perhaps it was taking the shirt off; I'm not sure.  I twirled the sculpture in my hands and thought about ancient Europeans in continental Europe hunting large mammals during the winter for food.  I thought about the structure of human societies and how historically women had stayed in the village and anchored the society/tribe while men went out in small bands to hunt.  How women often communicated better and had stronger personal networks while men often had stronger ambitions and tended to be better at spatial reasoning and strategy.  How modern society was being controlled and constrained and often broken and damaged by abstract representations of society on websites (Facebook, online dating, etc.).  How society and the economy were becoming more materialistic, more winner-take-all, more dependent on perceptions.  I envisioned hunting a wooly mammoth with a few lifelong tribesmen with spears, coming home to a wife in an age when divorce did not exist, when children were raised semi-communally and always had potential friends nearby (instead of going to school and being ripped away from their communities every time they graduated or their parents were forced to move by faceless corporate employers).

T=3:10: My hands began to glow yellow-orange in the light from my lamp.  I was still envisioning ancient ancestors and thinking about society.  Time seemed to be slowing down.  I tossed the sculpture back and forth between my hands but seemed to be barely noticing it visually or what it felt like.  I laughed.  This felt nice.  For now.

T=3:15: I tried to think about the software project I was working on but couldn't think past the first 2 or 3 stages of the pipeline I was building.  That was a bit concerning.  I can normally do that even when I am very drunk.  Oh well.  I assumed it would come back.  I had to struggle to remember my name.  The hairs on my arms were glowing in rainbows.

I had to struggle to remember my name.  The hairs on my arms were glowing in rainbows.

  Thought about names as anchors to society.  Names and numbers and abstractions over top of underlying biological-chemical-physical reality.  Assumed reality.  My view of reality was about to become a great deal more direct, however.

T=3:20: I began seeing psychedelic patterns when I closed my eyes.  Round paisley 4-way-symmetric patterns, fern-like patterns, 2-tone paper-cut-artwork patterns.  They seemed to have a recursive or fractal structure.  They zoomed inward and always resembled themselves.  Every 30 seconds or so they would 'reset'.  I opened my eyes and checked the time on my phone.  The visual trails were incredibly intense.  The home screen looked like something from a futuristic movie or video game, with trails sliding off the graphics like white angular fading vapors or sparks.  Beautiful.  I momentarily thought of messaging a few of my friends who had had extensive experience with psychedelics in the past but thought better of it.  I don't drunk-text so I certainly shouldn't trip-text.  I wasn't sure if I even remembered my password anyway.

T=3:30: I closed my eyes and suddenly envisioned being reincarnated as a caveman for about a minute.  Then a different caveman.  Then a woman.  Then an African tribesman.  Then a rainforest tribesman.  Then something genderless entirely, possibly from another planet, seemingly some imagined hypothetical species.  'All my best trips were on LSD' began to run through my mind like a mantra.  It was strange.  Time was very slow now.  I seemed to live out significant life experiences of other hypothetical people, other hypothetical creatures in general each over the span of about 30-60 seconds.  I kept re-checking my phone for time and I remember each of these episodes was barely a minute if even that.  The circular 4-way fractal patterns overlaid on the imagined reincarnations; the trip had taken on a sort of recursive character.  The mantra replaying in my mind, the imagined reincarnations, and the visual patterns each 'reset' every 30-60 seconds or so.

T=3:35: There had been a protest nearby earlier in the evening and now there were police sirens.  Uh-oh.  Suddenly my anxiety levels spiked and I felt nauseous.  Not because I thought they were coming for me -- just because of the change in background noise.  'Set and setting'.  I was worried the trip was about to take a turn for the worse.  I had money, no criminal record, had been careful all my life, was being quiet, was safe and undetectable in my apartment.  They were coming for people less careful on the streets.  I thought about how arbitrary the war on drugs was, how police were their own culture and the urban poor were their own culture and the technical professional classes were their own culture and only ever occasionally intersected.  I wasn't hurting anyone, and I would get away with this anyway; meanwhile people far poorer than me who sold things to pay their rent were risking jail time and destroyed lives and homelessness.  It all seemed so artificial.  Structures of social regulation and control.  Ten thousand years ago we had been cavemen and tribesmen; we had taken substances like this for mystical experiences and rites of passage.  There were no controlled substance laws back then -- so arbitrary, some grandstanding congressman trying to make his career on oppressing others who he had never met, had never conversed with, had never even genuinely tried to understand.  The sirens and the sounds of cars and trains blended together into a smooth background soundscape of modernity and anxiety.  I went to the bathroom to lay on the cold tile floor because I suddenly felt overheated and a bit nauseous.

T=3:40: I was abruptly reincarnated as something genderless and alien, prostrated in a ritual to Lovecraftian alien 'outer gods'.  My body seemed alien to me; I felt unfamiliar with its structure.  I could suddenly tangibly perceive the philosophical absurdism of Camus and live within it.  I had always believed it intellectually, and if I stared at e.g. my hand long enough I could begin to perceive how absurd and how arbitrary the structure of the human body was (compared to any given alternative evolutionary possibility), but here and now I was living it and perceiving it fully.  The fixtures and trash can in the bathroom appeared to be covered in vertical columns of alien writing made of thin lines and triangles that glowed and sparkled in pulsating pastel blue and orange and yellow.  Another few cycles of reincarnation across alien genders and species, still with this strange religious overtone, this ritual prostration.  (I was still on the floor or kneeling.)  The mantra repeated over and over in sync with the successive reincarnations.  It was fascinating.  I felt as though I had greatly advanced in my understanding of absurdism.

T=3:45: I suddenly felt more lucid, remembered what it was to be human.  No longer nauseous, I took a big drink of water (have to stay hydrated) and an anti-anxiety supplement that I keep handy.  I often do have anxiety.  (... in retrospect that should perhaps have concerned me.)  I went back to my bed and thought about the visualizations of alien reincarnations.  The patterns in the ceiling and door were still quite vibrant and beautiful, their colors varying gradually in saturation.

T=3:50: I was reincarnated as a captured spy or scientist, trapped in a delirium or virtual reality consisting of standing by my desk in this room (my apartment), with an overriding sense that foreign and perhaps entirely inhuman oppressors were trying to somehow break into my mind or cause me to admit to them some secret coordinates or cryptographic encryption keys.  They were trying to capture or break my collaborators, who I envisioned as some of my closest friends; some may have already been captured; I did not know.  I saw my passport on the desk, some foreign currency.  I envisioned the apartment as a hotel room in which I had been staying before being captured, that they had somehow trapped my mind in this place through drugs or virtual reality while probing it for information.  I felt a sense of great pressure and anxiety; 'you'll never break me; I would rather die than reveal the keys or lead you to my collaborators' I thought.  I had a sudden sense that the LSD had 'blasted shards of my consciousness into adjacent lives,' envisioning them as shards of dark green glass in brass fixtures embedded in limestone.  On reflection, this is true; what else is conversation?  We all embed shards of our consciousness into those others with whom we deeply interact, in showing them how we see the world.

T=3:52: I felt a sudden recollection of what it had been like to be delirious from a fever when I was a child, when I could not identify my parents and they seemed to me to be cloaked in trench coats asking me who they were.  I grabbed some paper and a pen and began writing what I could remember of my profession, that I had taken a large dose of LSD (for some reason I wrote 'face-melting dose of LSD' and underlined it, though whenever I looked in the mirror my face looked fine-- just a bit alien/arbitrary), 'why did I do this to myself?', then remembered it had been in part to try to overcome my mounting severe depression over my current path in life (at times I had barely left my bed in a week) and the seeming futility of continued post-graduation ambition in the modern industrial-technical system.  I suddenly had a flash of vision of being suspended as a white drop between two curved spines in a vast void and the thought of something like pure lived experience.  It somehow symbolized my life between beginning and end.  Between two oblivions: one before birth, one after death.  I had a monumental and overwhelming feeling that merely being able to have experiences at all was wonderful, that my former notions of suffering as economic subjugation and professional difficulties were entirely a matter of my own perception and that these things were in any event scale-free, that all the internal structure of my mind was merely how I happened to perceive the world and that far more of it was subjective and malleable than I had believed.  That I had taken so much for granted.  That my social anxiety was due to imagined assumptions on my part about what other people thought of me, that none of it was likely even real.  That we all view the world through our own internal mental structures and representations and that just because it looks a certain way to us at one point does not mean that it looks that way to everyone or even to us at different points in our lives.  That we spend so much of our time thinking about internal abstractions that we imagine accurately describe the outside world but are really just Nietzschean-perspectivist slices of perceived reality, or living in various imagined futures that for all we know may never even occur.  That the Buddhist notions of cultivating mindfulness and living in the present and gently acknowledging impermanence and not being upset about it were key to avoiding suffering in the world.  That so much suffering was subjective and caused by trying to fulfill brittle expectations instead of experiencing life.

T=3:55: I went to get more water.  I then felt a bit hot and nauseous again so I laid back down on the cool tile floor.  I began being mentally reincarnated as increasingly strange alien forms -- radially symmetric things, undersea things, liquid things, gaseous things, abstract things, mechanical things.  Always this mantra 'all my best trips were on LSD' and the sense of a recursive nature to the closed-eye visuals and the trip itself.

T=4:30: I went back to bed.  I suddenly saw myself as completely immaterial.  I felt that I was, most fundamentally, nothing but a neural network that could be connected to any arbitrary physical body/hardware/sensors, in any society or none, at any point in history in any place in the universe or an alternate universe.  I thought about how even driving a car or piloting an airplane or playing a video game causes people to feel themselves as 'being' the entity that they control, how wielding a weapon or using another type of tool causes them to see it almost as an extension of themselves.  How the network was almost agnostic to the underlying hardware.  Just pursuing hierarchical concept-structures and receptor activations associated with them that controlled my activity-- dopamine to motivate, serotonin to appreciate and love, oxytocin to bond, GABA to relax, etc.  Oversimplifications I know.  I thought about lower mammals and how they were motivated by similar receptors and drives but lacked the same level of complexity to model and represent the world in their cerebral cortices.  I thought about the AI research I had done.  I thought about strong AI and deep neural networks and deep reinforcement learning.  I thought about the future and the first artificial general intelligence, how it too might conceivably conceive of itself this way, but as the first known purely-abstract intelligence in the world.  I thought again of myself as fundamentally just a form of deep neural network and a collection of hedonic drives and emotional shades toward tendencies of behavior.

T=4:44: For the briefest moment I saw something small and bright and shimmering, outside the network or between the layers or somehow transcending it.  I have no idea what it was or what it was supposed to represent.  Perhaps it was some abstraction of pure existence or a notion of divinity or the totality of the universe as perceived.  I am not sure.  There is no reason to believe that it had any particular bearing in existence or possible experiences, but I can't shake the thought of it even now.  I was reflecting on the walls of Plato's cave as my own incoming sensory stimuli in the abstract, and then there was this outside thing.  Perhaps it represented the fundamentally unknowable (per the 'cogito') nature of true reality unlimited by our perceptions.  But I am not sure.

T=4:45: I envisioned my close friends and past lovers purely as neural networks and receptor activation profiles like me as well, each seeking their own satisfaction and fulfillment within their own realms of perceived experiences and internal assumptions.  'Is your blue my blue?'  To say nothing of whether your assumptions about social constraints match my own.  I had a sudden appreciation for the differences between people and their perspectives.  I had an overwhelming feeling that I wanted to focus over the next few years on getting closer to my friends and making more friends in general and seeking new lovers, having spent almost all of my time over the past several years focusing on my technical career.  I thought of the world in the Cartesian 'dream argument' sense, the notion that we really could be in a simulation or all brains in vats.  But that somehow other people, other beings were more important and more ontologically fundamental than perceptions about the rest of the outside world itself.  I had never had this thought before.  I had always assumed the notion of solipsism implied others would be inherently just as ontologically contingent as anything else within perceived reality, but suddenly I saw them as something different.  What I envisioned now was more like the setting of the Matrix, multiple individuals experiencing the same or a similar shared perceived reality, even if they were all really something or somewhere else.  Perhaps because of my inability to completely simulate them the way I could with other phenomena, perhaps they seemed in some information-theoretic sense to be undeniably outside of me.  Or at least outside of whatever parts of my mind I could consciously perceive.  And right now that seemed like all of them.  Certainly I felt a far more complete understanding of my own assumptions and sociocultural contingencies now than I ever had at once before.  I saw my friends and past lovers as immensely bright sparks of various individual colors flying through a space of possibilities with me, at varying distances and speeds, as though we were all engaged in some common struggle or journey together and should help each other in pursuing it.  Though we were all spread out over the country now, I momentarily flashed back to my earlier visions of living in primitive tribes.  Abstract modernity brings us closer than geography, at least, in part.  It was beautiful.

T=5:00: Things took a sharp turn for the worse again.  And this was a pattern on this trip.  I wouldn't even call it a 'bad trip', any more than I would call a tense movie a 'sad movie' simply for having sad or frightening parts in it.  There were overwhelmingly happy and illuminating parts as well.  But this was a frightening one.  I suddenly saw myself as this network.  And the sun began to rise.  As it rose the visual trails became more intense again and the visions stopped.  I tried to remember my work again to check where I was on the trip, but I couldn't seem to remember how to write code at all.  I forgot my name.  I looked at my arms and saw caveman arms.  I was momentarily horrified.  The sentences suddenly went through my mind 'You thought cocaine was something, didn't want to try it again?  That was nothing.  This stuff can mess you up in more ways and on more levels than you can even fathom.'  I thought of 'sheet eaters' who had taken too much LSD and gotten stuck in permanent recurring trips.  'Sometimes you just trip out for no reason; I tell myself that it was just a free trip and I should try to appreciate it.'  Absolute horror.  The temporal distortions made it somehow worse, the notion that I could be trapped here for years subjectively in the span of minutes, that I had somehow modified my own means of perceiving the world and that it was impossible to turn back time and undo any damage that might have resulted.  I had a sudden thought of my own internal neural network, with the LSD suddenly jostling layers out of alignment, like the sharp-edged misaligned visual trails and notion of displaced 'shards of consciousness' but at higher and more conceptual levels of my cortical networks.  I remembered an article about git that I had read that had alluded to a complex process called an interactive rebase, and something about 'so you misplaced these commits midway into a DMT trip; at least git will still track them for you'.  This was LSD and I had never taken DMT; a friend said it had been incredibly powerful and he wondered if it had somehow damaged him.  I wondered the same about myself now.  I wondered whether whenever I thought about my current software project I would spiral into an unprompted trip, whether I had somehow woven or welded some of my real-world experiences to this inner world of perceptual distortions and recursive insanity.  Had I really need to start this experience with 5 tabs?  Periodic spikes of anxiety about different aspects of my life came back as well.  I suddenly rushed to the bathroom and threw away all of my remaining supplies of various drugs.  I decided I was never doing this again and desperately hoped that I hadn't damaged myself in some enduring way.  And that regardless I was at least no longer depressed per se, ironically, and needed to live a healthier lifestyle.

T=5:10: The sudden phrase 'you have to integrate it' came to me like the voice of a psychotherapist.  I had somehow chosen to do solo psychological surgery on myself with no anesthetic, and that implied that I was responsible for putting the parts back and closing the incisions now.  Every time something felt like it might slip out of place, I grounded it.  I felt as though I were realigning the jostled layers that the LSD had rattled and perturbed and revealed and cleaned and swept the dust out from under, the misalignments I imagined at various levels of my cortical hierarchy being symbolized by the visual trails I experienced at the lowest levels.  Periodically I would slip back into being mentally reincarnated as additional strange forms, liquids and gel-like creatures, things with no skin painlessly living in a flesh-world, people of other races, people in the future, things made of yarn, things made of food products, multicolored aqueous chemical systems, the walls and building materials of the apartment itself, etc.  'All my best trips were on LSD' repeated every time it happened, this strange recursive mantra.  I thought of my parents and my name.  I thought of my friends.  I saw the other people in my life as stronger anchors to reality than my perceptions themselves were, and of myself pulling my way back to this particular evolved reality, this particular realized form of what was possible, by thinking of other people, other consciousnesses as my anchors.  Every spike of anxiety I worked through, I thought about its underpinnings, told myself that it stemmed from assumptions I made about the world rather than from the world itself.  Assumptions that in some cases the LSD itself had shown me I had, so much I had taken for granted that in reality was merely a product of my lived experiences, environment, culture, physical form, and neural structure.  In hindsight, LSD was perhaps the most effective cognitive-behavioral therapy I've ever had.

T=5:30: The sun had come up and I remembered how to write code again.  I remembered my identity, though it still felt completely arbitrary and absurd to me.

I remembered my identity, though it still felt completely arbitrary and absurd to me.

  I could have been anything.  I could have been a tentacled underwater alien in a minor moon of a gas giant in another galaxy and in some fundamental ontological sense it would not have mattered.  That this modern human western cultural existence was the particular form that my observed reality had taken was as acceptable to me as any other.  But the LSD had not fundamentally changed the structures in my cortex; my knowledge and skills were still there and waiting for me.  I felt so alive.

T=6:00: I cleaned up a bit, drank a lot more water.  Occasional visual trails but they were receding.  I could remember the passwords to my devices again.  (Perhaps those had been the 'cryptographic keys' I imagined during the virtual interrogation scene; I had noticed at the time that I was unable to log into my devices and perhaps had mentally recast it as being willfully refusing to do so.  I was reminded of 'bicycle day' and how Albert Hofmann had thought that he was going mad on LSD and perceived his neighbor as a malevolent and persecuting witch.)  Occasional imagined alternate experiences and realities but they felt more controlled.  Before, they had felt entirely involuntary, like my conscious perceptions being forcibly re-initialized in another body or another time.  Now they were more faded, felt more like my imagination.  It was like the difference between a lucid dream and a directed visualization-- less comprehensive and realistic-seeming, but also much more controlled.

T=6:30: I reflected a bit on the experience.  The visual trails were very weak now.  I felt clean and cold but rather unkempt, the way I feel when I am getting over being sick with a high fever or after throwing up repeatedly from a stomach virus.  Like I was about to be healthy again.  I reflected on the historical connection between LSD and ergot poisoning, on my own speculations about the relationship between past experiences of feverish delirium and this experience with LSD.  I was tired but I felt peaceful and satisfied.  I went to sleep for about 12 hours.  I had been up all night tripping, though I was on a late schedule anyway.

T=18:30: I got up, took a shower, washed everything very thoroughly.  I was still feeling a bit unsteady in my body and mind.  I reexamined some of the assumptions I had identified toward the later part of the trip, particularly about social anxiety, and resolved again to focus on staying close to the people I care about.

T=19:00: I went out to my kitchen, drank some vegetable juice.  Normally I hate vegetable juice.  For some reason, it seemed to me rather arbitrary now whether people should drink fruit juice or vegetable juice or something else entirely, so I finished most of it.  Then I decided that it still tasted a bit disagreeable and threw the last quarter away.  Perhaps I was settling back into myself again.  Into this particular possible reality.  I had some cold pizza.  I've always liked cold pizza.

T=19:30: my roommate came out and we talked about society and the economy and experience for 3 hours.  I was astonished at how much was arbitrary, how much was a mere mathematical or biological/evolutionary or social consequence of something else arbitrary that had occurred before it.  This permeated discussions of economics, politics, business, finance, career development, recent scientific discoveries e.g. about exoplanets, social dynamics and sociology, etc.  I felt able to reexamine the world from a broader and less parochial perspective.  I kept watching and wondering if I would relapse or start seeing visual trails again, like I had read that people sometimes could.  I felt a bit unsteady.  For some reason I was better at making eye contact than I usually am; I decided that there was no reason why I shouldn't, and that old habits and anxieties need not dictate the future.  I admit I was a bit worried about suddenly relapsing into incurable insanity like some government propaganda psychedelic horror story, but nothing whatsoever happened and I was fine.  By the end of the discussion I felt great that I had engaged with someone intellectually so broadly.  Over the past couple of months we had only rarely spoken at length with one another, and usually about narrower subjects.

T=22:30: I had another snack, caught up on email, sent some messages to friends I wanted to talk to (not even about this experience; no one but me knows about it; I just wanted to stay in touch and hear from them again).

T=25:00: went to bed again, slept for about 8 hours.  Woke up feeling completely normal, but not depressed or anxious or worried about the future or my career or society anymore.  Realized that much of society and one's own environment and assumptions are arbitrary and malleable.  Reflected on a comment by Steve Jobs about Bill Gates: 'He'd be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger.'  Saw billionaires as still just nodes in the network distribution like us, just in different places in society, having gotten there on their own respective paths and courses through life.  I've met a few.  If I made it, I decided, I would be a philanthropist; if I didn't, I was content to watch the world turn with my friends.  Resolved to live life more focused on other people and experiences and intellectual contributions, and less focused on the narrow game of accumulating ever more money and buying larger properties to show off, less focused on rigid notions of career success or failure.  Above a certain point it doesn't even matter anymore.  Shredded the suicide note I had printed on my desk a few days earlier when I thought I could no longer live up to my own expectations; I had been obsessed with the idea of fitting into a pattern of career development and progression and felt that I was stalling out, that I couldn't go on anymore.  I remembered that some of the wealthiest and most famous people I knew had been poor and obscure at 35, and that fundamentally life need not be focused on money or fame anyway.  That staying in touch with other interesting people was far more important.  And I had been so arrogant in so many ways.  But now that seemed like just one of many possible former lives.  I wasn't depressed anymore.  LSD helped me see that my perspective and assumptions were merely one of an uncountably infinite set of possibilities and that I needn't be bound to my former self.  That it was better to begin a new life than end one that seemed to be going off the rails laid out for it.  LSD may well have saved my life.

That said, I remain deeply humbled and grateful that no damage appears to have been done.  My actions were reckless; I took at least twice as much as I should have without realizing that it took so long to kick in for me, having assumed stupidly that it was just weaker or more dilute than advertised.  Reading further, this appears to be a common mistake, and apparently the time of onset simply varies widely between people.  I do not regret being solo, though -- some of the experiences that I had would have been weaker or less authentic or overpoweringly embarrassing and anxiety-provoking had someone else been there observing, and had I not had to make my own way through.  I cannot say this is right for most people; frankly it probably isn't.  But even in the depths of delirium and insanity I have always been safe with myself.

I did not expect to have full-blown loss of self and ego death and a thousand alien reincarnations and significant insights about perceived reality and historical changes in the structure of society and the resolution of longstanding psychological issues and an improved social attitude from my first trip.  I was expecting to maybe see the walls appear to breathe like I had heard that they would, and maybe feel a bit more peaceful.  Oddly, they never did, but I was ultimately very much at peace with the experience, and with experience more generally.

I may never touch this substance again.  Many ancient cultures had one-time initiation rituals into their tribal religions, often as a rite of passage.  To me, this has been similar, to say nothing of the risks of what could have been.  But if things ever get as bad for me psychologically as they had been before this trip and I am seriously contemplating suicide again, years or decades from now, then perhaps I may consider it.  I had gone into this with the attitude of 'what do I have to lose?' and come away with the conclusion that life is amazing and wonderful even in its absurdity, that most of my issues were internal and solvable, that suffering is fundamentally dictated by one's perspective on impermanence, and that society and culture themselves are incredibly subjective and malleable.  I understand why psychiatrists experimented with this substance in therapeutic settings in the past.  But as with everything, the outcomes can be rather unpredictable.  My life and perspective as they had existed needed a shot of chaos, a perturbation in the path of the optimizer before it converged to a singularity-- and I am back in pursuit of my course through life now.

Exp Year: 2016	ExpID: 108860

Gender: Male

Age at time of experience: 25

Published: Feb 8, 2018	Views: 2,251

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LSD (2) : General (1), First Times (2), Mystical Experiences (9), Therapeutic Intent or Outcome (49), Alone (16)


		 DOSE:

		 1 hit
		 oral
		 LSD
		 (blotter / tab)

           BODY WEIGHT:
	   115 lb

I've always been really hesitant about trying acid. I have a lot of anxiety problems, and would feel shaky and even fainted once listening to other people's trip stories. The thought of ripping my mind open and losing what seemed like all control was my worst fear. I always thought it'd have to be the perfect day, the perfect mood, and the perfect weather, but it actually wasn't anything near that.

My first trip was on a rainy day right after a pretty shit break up. I met up with my friend downtown and he asked if I wanted to drop. All the sudden, I wasn't anxious, and took the bit of paper and popped it in my mouth. The fact that I didn't hype it up made it much more easy and relaxing. Then that was it, I was locked in for the ride. And because I AM such a cliche little anxious baby, I took out my sharpie and drew a mark on my hand. I told myself that I could look at that as a reminder later that it was all just the acid and that if it ever got bad, to just wait it out.

We took a bus to nowhere and got out and walked around amongst a ton of people. I started to feel high, the kind of high I get when I eat a pot brownie. Giggly, aloof. I wondered then, and still wonder now, how much of that was placebo and excitement. After an hour, I figured that was it. My whole attitude was 'HAH. Acid is nothing. I could do this anytime of any day'. We decided to walk to Meijers (a good 30 minute walk) to pick up some flowers.

10 minutes later we came to a retention pond full of geese. My friend ran to them and tried talking to them. I laughed at him, and figured he was just being a dork, but then he looked at me, genuinely confused, and kept trying to get close to the geese, more weirded out by their rejection each time they backed away. 'Wow' I thought, 'He must be feeling this way more than me'.

We started walking again, and not one minute later, there it was. A beacon of sunlight coming out of a cloud. 'Hey, it's god or something'. We both doubled over in laughter for about 4 minutes. Then started talking and walking again, back to normal.

5 minutes later, mid sentence, I got distracted. I could think of what I wanted to say and I couldn't think of what I wanted to say. Then thoughts on this branched out into absolutely nothing. I couldn't bother with talking anymore. Then my lungs filled up with air. Like being winded, but trying not to be winded at the same time. I couldn't slow my brain down and it eventually became something immersed in a large lake of what the fuck. We stopped to lie down in a ditch next to an apartment complex (great idea?) and this was incredibly uncomfortable. I couldn't stay still. I asked to get up and leave, and my friend obliged.

1.5 hours in, we started talking about exes, and luckily, we both promised we would try to avoid depressing conversations beforehand, and quickly forced ourselves away from this. It was really starting to feel weighty. Breathing was hard, seeing was hard, being was hard. My mind was just a constant vibration. It was uncomfortable, but not unbearable. That is, until we reached Meijer just under 2 hours in...

I felt too loud. Too out in the open. Everyone that was looking at me, I just wanted them so desperately to look away. Which was unlikely, since I was the one storming through a crowd of people tripping and wide eyed. Another REALLY odd thing is that acid makes people look SO familiar. I could stare at someone's face, trying to recall where I knew them, and realize that I didn't.

Another REALLY odd thing is that acid makes people look SO familiar. I could stare at someone's face, trying to recall where I knew them, and realize that I didn't.

 Either that, or it just made people look fucked up and hideous beyond all belief (think 'Scary Movie 3' where all the people's faces are warped like in 'The Ring'). It wasn't until we were in a toy aisle that I felt my first stroke of absolute terror. I wanted nothing more than to be at home. I looked at my hand, and said '7 more hours'. It saved my trip. Seriously.

Meijers sucked, and gave me a ton of revelations about consumerism. An entire aisle for juice. An entire aisle for hair dye. An entire aisle for shampoo. Etc. Etc. What really got us was the flower center. Being surrounded by beautiful, colorful, good smelling flowers was such a beacon of comfort. We bought a bouquet to carry with us. This was going to be our sword of all that is good on our trip. We traded it often, taking turns carrying it.

We decided to just lay in the grass and look at the cloud about 3 or 4 hours in. I was much more settled. Much more calm. My hands were still tingly and my mind was nowhere near normal, but my body was used to the deep breaths, and I could finally just sit back and enjoy the trip. We looked at the stormy clouds, and it was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. I saw the most vivid hallucinations of kaleidoscope formations in the clouds. One repeating one was people, all holding hands in a circle, thousands of them, dancing outwards. It was breathtaking.

We finally walked home and talked. About everything. Even exes. And nothing was depressing. We talked a lot about humans and love and consumerism and how we should all be more understanding.

8 hours into the trip, we got back to his house, and cuddled. And dyed his hair. I was so tired from all the walking around that I had absolutely no trouble whatsoever passing out and sleeping, feeling absolutely no different than usual the next day.

I'm not sure if I'd do acid again. I got lucky that I was in the right place at the right time, because I could see how it could go so, so bad. I'm really glad it didn't though.

Exp Year: 2011	ExpID: 90927

Gender: Female

Age at time of experience: 20

Published: Feb 12, 2018	Views: 2,032

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LSD (2) : Public Space (Museum, Park, etc) (53), First Times (2)


		 DOSE:

		 1 hit
		 oral
		 LSD
		 (blotter / tab)

           BODY WEIGHT:
	   115 lb

I almost decided not to take the hit. I had not done it in so long I couldn’t decide if I wanted to or not. That night, however, after going to see a local band at a peace bar with some friends I thought, what could be the worst to happen?

My world was changed forever. This was not even the first time I tried acid. Nothing has been the same for me since.

The night I took the hit, I met up with my friend and her boyfriend and after listening to the band, decided to go back to his apartment. I definitely did not want to be driving while tripping. After arriving to his house I realized it was the 25th anniversary of the Grateful Dead blotter. That relaxed me and made me giddy inside. I took one hit. One hit. Doubting hardly any strange feelings would arouse. I was wrong.

After about 45 minutes, I decided to watch Dazed and Confused. The other people were in another room playing guitar all sitting around together singing. I watched the entire movie confused about the meaning of it all. I couldn't take my eyes off of it.

When the movie ended, I decided to go into the “guitar” room and jam with all my friends. The effect of the acid was really starting to mess with me. I played the guitar while the strings moved around me and danced while I was playing them. More people started to show up to my friend’s boyfriend’s apartment. I needed air. My friend and I walked outside and decided we wanted to get a Widespread Panic cd out of her boyfriend’s truck. After sitting outside in the cold laughing because we didn’t know how to get in the truck, her boyfriend came out with the keys and unlocked it for us. We sat in his truck for about 30 minutes wondering how to get the cd player open. Everything seemed to take so long to do. I couldn’t figure out why normal things I would attempt to do seemingly took an extra 30 minutes. It was hilarious. I loved this new way of life. I felt like I was literally in slow motion.

After discovering the Widespread Panic cd, my friend and I raced back inside, put the disc into the cd player and danced for what seemed a million years. Bare footed, long skirt, my beautiful Grateful Dead necklace tied tightly, I danced until I thought my lungs would burst. It was the most beautiful thing in the world. I loved my life.

I danced until I thought my lungs would burst. It was the most beautiful thing in the world. I loved my life.

 And if I could just dance here, and not do anything for the rest of time, I would be fine.  Eventually we got tired, however, and decided to sit in front of the fan and cool off. Watching my skirt blow in front of the fan, I felt like I was at the beach. I imagined myself, drink in one hand, the other hand tracing lines in the sand. This feeling was overwhelming.

It was getting hot. There were many people in his apartment now. My friend and I didn’t know what to do. We both glanced into his bedroom and saw the window. The window. Our haven. That saved us that night. I will never forget the window and the wonderful memories and closeness it brought. We opened up the window and literally hung out of it, the bottom half of our bodies standing on the bed, while the top half dangling. We stared at the stars and I shot to the moon. I danced around in space for a while, laughing at all the other meaningless people in the other room. Didn’t they know they could fly in space in this room? They were missing out. I was having the time of my life. My friend and I discussed how beautiful bricks were and how there was a Mexican mountain just right above the rooftop. What in the world had I done to myself?

After coming back to reality and climbing safely back onto the bed, my friend and I began to dance again, swaying to the music. At one point, I touched the boom box ( I still call it that, forgive me.) and I knew right then and there I was at a Panic concert, front row, basking in the gloriousness of JB, Jimmy, Schools, Jojo, Todd, and Sunny. I was the luckiest girl in the world. Who would have known in just an hour, I would be sitting at yet another Panic show this year. I literally felt the music’s vibration. I jolted at this orgasmic feeling.

After dancing  once again, my friend and I decided to head back to the window. As we climbed out, we began laughing uncontrollably. I don’t know to this day if it was because of how wonderful it felt to be on the outside world, or if it was because at 3 in the morning, we were climbing out a window staring up at the rooftops of houses. A light suddenly came on, we threw ourselves back on the bed. Who in the world was that? Had someone seen us? What would they have thought? This only made us laugh harder. How random. I love random events and awkward moments define my life, but this was a whole new chapter in the book. After about ten minutes and no one had pounded down the door, we relaxed and laid on the bed.

“Look up at the ceiling, it’s insane!” my friend’s always told me. Man, what a sight. Before even thinking about the ceiling, I glanced around the room and stared at the posters. The most intriguing poster was of The Doors’ Jim Morrison’s face. The only difference than a normal picture was that the background colors were incredibly trippy. I stared at his face and I was happy that we were friends. I felt like I could confide in him and talk to him. My friend and I actually did talk to him. We explained how awkward we felt because the people in the other room were acting so shady! After talking to Jim I felt better. After looking at different posters around the room, my other favorite was the Phish poster to my right. It was the band all gathered around in black and white. It seemed as though they were just there practicing in the studio. I told my friend I felt like I was in the studio with them. I told the boys to turn up the mike a bit and my friend and I actually jammed with Phish for a while.

After jamming with Phish, I looked back over at the poster of Jim and I realized he was mad at me. He was REALLY mad at me. He was glaring at me and his nostrils flared. I was scared. I was extremely scared. Even my friend noticed how mad he got! All I could mutter was, “Jim, don’t give me that look…” I just wanted him to be happy again. I couldn’t bare it anymore, so my friend and I hung out of the window again. I enjoyed it so much. The bursts of air, the clear night sky, it was all so intriguing.

Finally, daylight was coming about. We had spent the entire night in her boyfriend’s room. We laid in his bed and opened the window and watched the sky as it turned into a dull gray. We also watched her boyfriend and all his friends come out into the living room and talk as if we were not there. It was as if my friend and I were watching a television show. We were invisible. It was all so strange. She put on a Dave Matthews CD (Some Devil) and we stared at a painting by Van Gogh. We realized that the painter doesn’t even have a clue was he is about to do. It is just the miracle of the paint brush and every second it touches the canvas.

What a night. I finally fell asleep listening to So Damn Lucky, and realized that I was ready to come down off of this feeling although it had helped me to bond closer to my friend. My life is just a series of incredible awkward moments. And I love it. With or without LSD.

My life is just a series of incredible awkward moments. And I love it. With or without LSD.

  I haven’t used it in a while and I might never drop again. But if I do, I know the random events that will happen will be life altering and mind changing for my world at least.

Exp Year: 2007	ExpID: 68181

Gender: Female

Age at time of experience: Not Given

Published: Feb 28, 2018	Views: 1,646

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LSD (2) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Glowing Experiences (4), General (1)


		 DOSE:

		 2 hits
		 oral
		 LSD
		 (blotter / tab)

           BODY WEIGHT:
	   118 lb

[Erowid Note:
A substance(s) in this report might be identified incorrectly. Erowid reviewers question the author's identification of the drug described. Although the report is included in the collection, the substance might be something other than the author believed it to be.]

Let me start off by saying this was for 2nd experience with LSD. I am extremely fond of the drug, and knew alot about most well known psychedelics, and many less well known ones. I had been very interested in LSD in perticular, and seeked it out for over a year before this experience(yes, I know whats your thinking,'You at least found it, and with only a year of search').

When I was able to obtain it, my only source was extremely reliable and I feel to be the only person that I have ever heard say that they know app. How much LSD they took. My source obtained blotters and other forms of acid directly from huge European suppliers, so all of my doses were lab tested in places where it is legal to do so. Most doses I had averaged at app 110mcg.

Also, please dont think about my age, age is no indication of maturity, and I had used pot heavily for app 1 year and a half before even learning about any psychedelics, which in itself had brought me into the path of enlightenment. I spent alot of freetime researching chemisty and psychology at the time, and later became more interested in philosophy too.

I bought 10 lsd tablets. 3 of which were Albert Hofmann 100th aniversery blotters(Also refered to as Bicycle Day blotters), 1 Ganesha blotter, 1 random liquid drop that happened to be dropped on thick paper but not blotter, and 5 liquid dropped sour patch kid candies. All contained +/- 110mcg, the one liquid drop or hofmanns being the strongest and the ganesha being the weakest.

Now to get to the experience. It was New Years Eve. There wasn't much planning but this was when I first started to use psychedelics so I wasn't that mentally prepared for what it really was, and not just what I read about. I was to take 2 Hofmann blotters at app. 8 o clock p.m, Saturday, take a shower and masturbate, trip out all night in my room, and go to sleep in the morning for a few hours before I went to a family cook out.

Its also important that my first time ever taking lsd was exactly 4 days before, on tuesday night. I had taken the one ganesha blotter and had an uplifting and euphoric experience, but not any sort of psychedelic experience really. More like just taking a stimulant with wierd body sensations and some slight visual and mental differences. I would presume that the blotter had app. 85mcg. In reality, it was just getting high on another substance.

T0.00- Sitting in my room in the dark (hoping to not damage the LSD), I take out my little drug box from the bottom drawer of my dresser, where I keep all drug related items. I set the box on my computer desk and open it to see a few little empty baggies, a small plastic case containing about a gram of 99.8% pure molly, and one bag containing a small piece of tin foil containing small paper squares. I take out the blotters from the bag and foil and set them on my desk. I pick one up and stare at it for a while, thinking about what to expect. I had very little expectations at all, for the entire week since the last experience I couldn't tell if I even had felt anything on tuesday night. I have to note that I had extreme fear at this time. I was seriously pushing myself to eat the blotters. I had much excitement to take them, but I was also very afraid of the outcome. I had no idea what to expect from taking twice the dose I had taken last time, and just under the dosage that was popular in the 60s. I put the blotters on my tounge and immediately notice a stronge bitter taste, which I was warned to avoid. I almost instantly spit out the now clump of wet paper due to panic that it might be ridiculously strong or contain some sort of other substance, but instead I take one of the blotters out of the clump and rip it in half. I watch the ripped piece of wet blotter sitting on my computer desk. I think about whether I am wasting the half of blotter or not by letting it sit in air while the LSD is dissolved in my saliva, and I throw it back in my mouth. I told myself at this point there is no going back, that blotter was already in the situation. After the blotters are officially being chewed and sucked on, I turn my light on and pop call of duty  Modern Warfare 2 in my xbox 360 to pass time while I wait for it to come on. The time is app. 8:30pm. I swallowed the papers about 15 minutes into chewing them. I spent the next hour paying little attention to the online matches I was playing and alot of attention on whether I would be ridiculously fucked up or not. I was really worried, being New Years Eve, that one of my family members, particulary my mother, would walk in on me laying on my bed staring at my ceiling and talking to myself with huge pupils.

There was also an intense fear of a bad trip, since I had never actually fully tripped on the drug before, I had no idea what to expect, plus the night before had been terrible. I had gotten into a fight with my father which ended up with me and him in tears and me fearing he would commit suicide. I had gone home from his house and the last time I had talked to him was on the phone after he left, in which I told him I was worried about him and was appologizing. This hadn't come up in my mind again untill after I had taken the one drug rumored  to give a person who experienced something like that recently with no resolution the worst fear ever imagined. I have to say during my anticipation, I was extremely worried, and was no longer anticipating a good trip, which made it worse because I kept thinking about how I couldnt change anything that happens in the past.

(Let me note that this was the worst experience of the night, before the drug even took effect.)

T+0:55- I first notice alerts. I had no idea what was going to happen at first, but when it did I definetly noticed. My vision began to flash, like a stobe light. I turned and looked at my wall, which was doing it too. I leaned up from my laying on stomach gaming position and the mind effects suddenly hit me. Everything that I had been thinking about suddenly vanished, it was like the effects of the drug was the only thing that I was focusing on.  That in no way describes what I had experienced at the time. I sat down at my computer desk and looked around my room. Everything was colliding with each other in this strange kaliedoscopic swirling pattern. It was like there was a 360 degree rainbow in my vision, with different layers on everything. My mind was racing in all directions at this point, and I kept trying to almost decribe to myself what was going on. Its was like I was watching everything happen, then over and over and over would watch the same thing happen. It felt like deja vu, like I had this experience many times before and knew exactly was going on. I kept repeating to myself,' THIS is what its like, I understand now. I understand. I understand.' Everything seemed to be going in loops. When I moved it felt like I only had to use effort for the first movement and then it became a symmetrical and repeating process. I still felt entirely in control of myself. I felt like I was more in control than ever. I felt like I was more a human being than ever. I would sit there and stare at things for hours, look at my phone, and the minute hadnt even changed. Everything was happening so fast pace, yet everything was going so slow. I moved my arm to pick up something(at the time I cant remember what it was because I never ended up picking it up) and noticed trailing images following the movement of my arm. I stared with amaze. I suddenly remembered a report of a government test on an artist who was given a total of 110mcg of lsd. In the report it said for a while he layed down on his bed and seemed to become strangly fascinated with something above him, and was moving his arms around in the air. This brought back the thought of understanding. To understand how others feel, what they were thinking about, what others perceptions were at the moment that they were thinking and feeling. This had all been within about 20 minutes.

T+1:30- At this point I definetly felt like I could handle the drug easily and not act like an idiot, so I went up stairs to take a shower. I walked past my mom in our living room, luckily there was a huge christmas tree taking up most of her vision, but I felt as if everyone I had seen felt exactly how I felt at the moment, being able to see all, feel all, understand all. I perticularly felt like I was watching the world move and progress. I made it up stairs into the bathroom with a towel. I looked at myself in the mirror, at my pupils, and noticed they were HUGE. Because I was tripping I felt like they kept getting bigger and bigger like an outward progressing spiral. This made me laugh, I'm not entirely sure why. I turn the shower on and undress. I feel like I'm being watched from everywhere. This feeling is easy to bypass because it is obviously not true, and the universe doesnt care if I'm naked.

I step into the shower/bath combo. The water is very hot and steamy, but comfortable. It really got my trip going more, the walls of the shower were developing small app. Half inch size tiles which were then morphing into hexagons and swirling. I felt extremely euphoric, but also a little unnerving. I figured since I had the opportunity, I will masturbate to see what sex feel slike on acid. There was a wierd auditory effect which made it seem like every sound was at the same pitch, so people would be able to hear the slight tapping sound over the roaring over the water. This was more challenging to bypass, because the feeling kept following me all night, in which I purposely tried to keep my speaking and noise making to a minimun to reduce the chance of seeing someone and having to act sober around them. During the deed, I noticed touch almost felt like numbness, but not like dxm in which it actually was numbness, but like normal sense is replaced with this oversense of everything thats there. Like I could feel my skin, and my skin within my skin. Impossible to describe, but it was a very great feeling. Definetly made masturbation over the top amazing. During the 'peak experience'(not Leary's peak experience lmao) if felt like I lost reality. I fell to my knees in the shower because I was no longer in existence and didnt know how to control my body because everything was a big swirl for a single moment. I came out of it as quick as I went in but it felt like forever at the time. Imediately after my mind dwindled on whether people in my house would hear that and be like,'Wtf did this kid just slip or something?' During part of the shower I started thinking about my father. After feeling depressed for what seemed like a long time but was probably only a few minutes, I came to realize that what happened had only brought us closer. I can't explain it but everything bad that happened had changed us both for the better. This gave me the feeling that I had lifted a tremendous weight off my shoulders.

T+2:00- I finished taking the shower and am now back in my room. As I walked through the living room my mother told me that she was going to sleep because no one was around to have a party and watch the ball drop. This lifted another weight as now I had no worry about whether or not I was going to be with her for a decent amount of time.

The time was now app 10:30, and I felt like I had been tripping for days already. This didn't bother me at all, and I liked very much the feeling of having an endless amount of time. I spent most of the next hour or so moving around my room in and out of comfortable positions. I felt like everything kept repeating itself. I felt like I would read a txt, and a minute later get a txt and think that I had already read it. I was focusing alot on my visual field. It seemed that purples and blues were almost dominating, and that hexagons kept forming, moving towards me, then smaller ones would form and do the same thing. It was just like one of those psychedelic moving pictures that you see people have as tags to their forum profiles, where you are entering a coloring and symmetrical tunnel, but instead of being like what I now know is basically tripping on dmt, it was like a clear image of that over what I normally see. From about this point on, most of the experience was combined with different types of music from my ipod, include the beatles, alot of random music that I dont remember(Ipod was stolen long ago) and this one rave song that my friend that does e alot showed me. I first listened to the rave song and it was like my body rejected it. When I turned it on I felt like my ears were exploding and everything that was going on was losing its grip. It seemed like there was so much violence coming from the music. I ripped the headphones out of my ear and changed the song to Strawberry Fields Forever by The Beatles. This song proved a good choice, as I felt like I knew exactly how John Lennon felt. Back to Understanding thought loops.

T+3:25-I keep moving around on my bed because everywhere that I sit or lay is uncomfortable. Its not like it was ridiculously unbearing, and it didnt change my trip at all, at least that I noticed. I would just lay down, and after a minute realize that I was breathing strangly and start manually breathing. Inhale, exhale, it just became another pattern. I can only assume to everyone else that I could have possible seen, I would look like I was breathing extremely fast, because I would be thinking and enjoying my CEVs; which aren't very much different from the OEVs; and because time is going slow I try to breath at a 'normal' rate but in reality its probably alot faster. My vision is made up of living things, which yes it obviously is, but at the time I never thought about it before. There were floating letters and eyes and pyramids. In the center of my vision is a hexagon that keeps changing sizes and producing more hexagons, and in my peripherals it was mainly intense color and swirling circles that almost looked like diamonds. All of a sudden me moving around induces another Understanding thought loop. I think about how people end up in bad trips. This doesn't bring me down or anything but I keep thinking that I can easily see someone who isn't prepared for this go downhill real fast when it kicks in. This makes me wonder about why I didnt experience a bad trip. I was almost in the perfect set for a bad trip, and it completely reversed on me. I sit and wonder about why people even look at this drug negatively at all, and then am imediatly sucked back into what I had just thought about with how people end up in bad trips. One crazy thought loop, and it really smacked me in the face with a laugh because I had completely forgotten the conclusion I came to not 2 hours ago(two hours in my head, probably not even a minute).

T+3:30-(Its the New Year. Yayy. This moment actually had nothing to do with the bullshit time schedual, but is about a girl. Yes.)

I recieve a txt from MK, a girl that I was interested in for a short amount of time mabye back in august or something, I can't remember. We went out once but she lived extremely far away and I had very few methods of transportation. The text says,' Happy New Years'. I imediately comprehend this as some sort of sign. I'm was at the peak of the greatest experience of my life, and out of nowhere this person txts me(I didn't think about the fact that people send out txts to everybody saying 'Happy New Years').

I send some sort of reply that I can't remember, and we begin to have a conversation. I was amazed. I kept thinking,'What are the odds of her texting me now? Now. NOW. Now?'. I felt like we were having an extremely deep conversation. I hadn't talked to her in probably a few months now. I'm telling her about how I had taken acid and feel like I'm connecting with everything so deeply, about how acid is like a straight up intellectual shot that snaps you right into the most drastic and understanding state of mind. I feel like I feel everything. EVERYTHING. When there is any sort of altered energy you can feel it. Everything exists. And everything that exists is happening now. And it always will be happening now. She didn't and some other people she was with didn't believe me, so I sent them a picture of my eye. After that there was no argument. We continue talking for awhile, and she sends me a text telling me about a kid that is bothering her through text messages. This leads into a downward spiral conversation with me trying to change the subject and ending with her asking me to tell them to stop. Crash, horrible moment. This girl apparently knows nothing about LSD. I felt like she was asking me to go pick a fight with a few 19 years olds.

(I have been a passafist ever since I started smokin pot. Fighting is pointless and doesn't resolve anything but spontanious anger, and the pain you feel afterwards is alot worse than whatever the person did to make you fight them. I'm not talking about physical pain, thats easy to bypass, but the emotional distress that can't be suppressed. Smoking pot just makes me think about it more.)

I asked her what the issue is. Two kids that are 16 and 17 are texting this 13 year old girl asking for pictures of her naked. I laughed to myself, and following was my fear for what the world has become. I sent her a text back saying if she sends it to me ill tell them to stop(definetly was a joke, but also wasn't hoping for her to take it as one). Instantly I'm propelled into a theory creation. I see another simple pattern. Girl talks to boy, boy asks for naked picture, girl says no, boy bothers her more, girl seeks rescue only for the cycle to continue. Before she even replies I tell her my discovery in a text. When I recieve a text back it is replying to what I had first said, saying pretty much omg stopp thats exactly whats been happeniingggg. I send her a text saying Lol while I recieve the txt agreeing with my discovery. Now I'm thinking about how stupid this whole situation was to begin with. Everything thats going on now is. Soon after this I stop talking to Marykate because I couldnt feel the vibration of the phone over the vibration of the music I was listening to in the dark laying on my bed in my room. I feel like my chest is being sucked inward almost. The patterns in my vision or moving in kaliedoscopic rythmes to the music.

T+3:46-I decide now is a good time to go for a short walk to a park near my house. Since its 12:16 I don't have to worry about running into many people when I go out in public. I put my jacket on and place my ipod in the right hip pocket. I wait to put the headphones on untill I get outside so I can make sure I don't make alot of noise leaving. My mother doesn't care if I leave the house, but I don't want to wake anyone up in the middle of the night. Once I get outside I start to get really paranoid. Not 'OMG I'M IN THE DARK, A CREATURES GONNA EAT ME!', I just feel like I'm being watched from all angles. I walk as fast as I can because I feel like I'm moving extremely slow and everyone else will stare at me. I put the music on my ears as I walk up my driveway. Once I get to the top of my small hill, I hear something. I thought it was real at the time so it really freaked me out. I was into the music and lost in my mind and I'm suddenly snapped back to reality by this voice. I automatically whipped out the headphones and turned my head to see if anyone was around. Not a person in sight, no cars. I put my headphones back in. The song hadnt even progressed 2 lines. I was listening to some house music. Not quite as hardcore as the rave music, but it was extremely upbeat for just normal house instead of being like love and ecstasy. The video contained alot of strobe light images so it was definetly the music trippin me out into a much deeper state in which I started hearing things.

(The entire night I felt like I had been hearing things, now that I bring it up. I kept thinking I was hearing like echos, and could hear people conversations perfectly from 20 feet away behind a closed door. And I would think alot and alot and then randomly realize I've been speaking my thoughts out loud, but then I'm not sure if I was actually speaking my thoughts or not. There were times when I definetly had said something. I would be thinking deeply and forget where I am and then randomly snap back because I just began to speak out my thoughts. They were forming abstract sentences when I actually speaked them out. I can't think of an example but it was usually when I was thinking about like the Earths natural beauty, or about how other people were feeling at the moment.)

The walk is about 1/4 mile total. Strange, I didn't remember it taking this long to walk that distance. I feel like cars kept passing me, yet it still seemed like there was a huge gap of time between when the cars would pass. I have to walk up the street, turn left, walk up the street and up a small hill, and cross the street somewhere along the way. I get the sound effect 2 more times before I decide to not put the headphones in again. Its definetly a voice, although I don't understand what its saying, the way it talks sounds almost like entering a tunnel, if that even makes an actual sound other than a placebo from feeling enclosed. It isn't speaking english, but unlike what I hear about the 'mushroom voice' I can't make out what its trying to tell me. I feel like I keep leaning to the side as I walk. I also feel like I'm falling forward and backwards at the same time. Its like a repeating cycle of spiraling patterns, you can feel it and see it. I feel like everyone is in their windows watching me. Even though its pitch black out, it seems ridiculously bright to me. Not like everything is like daytime, but I feel like I can see things that I wouldn't be able to see if I was high at night. I also have no loss in direction, I remember how to get places, where I am and how to get home. I kept hearing stories from this hippy guy I know where people couldn't find there way home on acid. It might have been metaphorical I suppose, but he just seemed like a guy that would go out and do drugs and get fucked up, not like an actual 'hippy'.

After I take the turn I can see the park. It starts about halfway up the hill accross the street, but there is a grassy area accross the street all the way to the light, so I cross right away. I felt like I was gonna see a car coming towards me as I walked accross the street. I wasn't afraid of getting hit or anything, I just felt like I was in the road for so long that a car should have come.

I am across the road and start walking fast again. I would have been doing it the whole time but I forgot that I was going to. I walk by this tree/bush combination that is about 20 feet long and is between the road and where I'm walking. I feel some sort of reassurance that I'm away from peoples eyes.

As I'm walking up the hill, I look at the ground. It seems as if about 4 feet in front of me there is some sort of warped trench in the ground, and it moves forward as I move forward. Tripping outside and at night is truely amazing. Everything feels so calm and connecting. I am now walking across a soccer/Lacross field. The trench goes along with my feeling that I'm falling forward as I walk. I look up at the sky and see the most amazing scene I've ever experienced in my life. As I walked the sky created a multidimensional plain. It was filled with life and diamonds and gigantic pyramids. I couldn't help but get the feeling this is why pyramids popped up all over the world with no connection to each other.

I feel like its taking so long to get across this field. I'm only half way there so I'm gonna start running now. This area seems so open. Seems sketchy to me, as I feel like everyone can see me look like I'm falling forward. There is a snack shack and bathrooms up ahead. In the front of it they made a patio with a roof and a picnik table. There is an extremely bright light coming from the side of the building, but I feel like it reaches everywhere in the whole park. I feel people watching me. I run to the building and stand on a side with shade. I hardly feel comfortable, there is still plenty of light surrounding me. I think about what I would say if I ran into a cop, how it would be easy to lie my way out and walk home, but I wasn't sure if he would notice I was tripping. I know I look fine, but I feel like I don't. I move around the building and sit down at the table on the patio. I'm litterally standing in a bait spot. Its pitch black everywhere for miles and I'm sitting at a table under a light. I start getting extremely nervous. I can't escape the light no matter where I go. I get up and walk on to the parking lot, which is right in front of the patio. There is a large area to park to my left, and a small road leading to another area to park right in front of my. I keep walking in circles in the parking lot without realizing it. I keep walking to one side of the parking lot to see if it will be out of the light, and then I forget what I'm doing only a few feet ahead and stand in place. Then I turn around and walk towards the other side. I will look over at a darker area, and then jog to where it was.When I get there I panic because it is just as bright as before. I go over and sit on a guardrail next to the parking lot. It is just as bright as where I ran from.

(This whole walk is hard to describe in detail because it was really just the same thing happening over and over. Well, the whole trip really was just the same thing happening over and over but either way. I don't make it seem like it would have been that long of a time, but it definetly did feel like hours and hours. I shall move on.)

I look up at the sky to escape the fear I'm experiencing. Its the most amazing thing I've ever seen. The most amazing thing anyone could ever see. I start to tear at the pure bliss I feel. My mind is running extremely wild, and for the first time since I've been out, I think about the temperature. I don't feel cold at all, but I can feel the piercing wind. I look at my hands which have turned bright red. This alarms me, so I reach into my pocket to check the clock on my phone. What the hell its 1:46? I can't help but think how strange it is, not that its been an hour and a half, but that its been exactly an hour and a half. I feel like its telling me to leave this place. I walk across the small road to the buildings side and start crossing the field. I'm moving quickly, fast walking, because this park is making me more and more nervous as time goes on. There is the same pattern on the ground. Its still very strange but it was very cool to look at. I couldn't take the smile off my face.

I feel like its taking even longer to walk this field now. I check my phone again and its already been 7 minutes, the amount of time it takes me to walk a half mile normally. I'm extremely puzzled. I turn my head and look at the parking lot. I watch a police officer pull in to the parking lot of the park. Panicked, I lay in grass because I still feel like the light can reach me(even tho I'm 3/4s of a soccer field away and the light is facing the opposite direction). The car drives to the end of the parking lot, turns around, and exits. It drives up the road towards me, but I'm not near the road so it wasn't close enough to see me. I stand up and jog untill I get across the road. I cross earlier this time, so I'm on the other side of the street on the sidewalk as I walk past the bush/tree combo.

I see the light from a car coming from behind me, and get nervous. I stop moving and pull out my phone, just in case I was walking crooked like I feel like I do, and to make it look like I had a reason to stand in place. All of a sudden I hear a voice. Not the same tunnel sounding voice I heard earlier, but a human, female voice. Its saying,'Hey.' I look next to me and am extremely startled to see a small car, mabye an older honda civic(I was really freaked out because no ones ever pulled over and asked me if I needed a ride before, and I'm on ACID, so I didn't have a chance to look at the car really. I appologize.), parked on the side of the road. A good looking girl of mabye age 19 is asking,' Do you need a ride?'.

	'Ehh, No thanks I'm fine. I live right up hear.'I reply slow, I couldn't think of what to say. It felt like I was on the spot.

	'Ok,' She drives on. I resume movement towards my house, even more eager to get home. At this point there is a very, very heavy thought that I am going to die if I don't get home soon. I can't feel the temperature difference, so have no idea if I'm in mid hypothermia. I start fast walking again.

I get around the corner and see my driveway. Just another few hundred feet. I put the headphones back in thinking that it will pass time quicker because I know I'll still be walking for a while. I start listening to a song, but am not enjoying it really, I take the headphones out and look down at my Ipod touch. I scroll through my songs to find one a want to listen to. My vision suddenly flashes red and blue, I look up to see a police car about 20 feet ahead driving towards me on the opposite side of the road with his lights flickering. He flicks them on, off, on, off within a second or so duration of time, and keeps driving forward. I feel frozen but can tell my legs are still moving. I keep walking forward and turn around to see if the cop went straight. There was no vehicle on the straight so he must have turned. I get probably one of the worst and scariest feelings I've ever felt(Very very funny and IRONIC that I get this feeling from our 'protectors'), and sprint full throttle towards my driveway. I run down my driveway and get to the stairs leading up to my door, when I hear a car coming. I look at the road and see the police car drive by going in the opposite direction. I sigh in relief and walk up to my door.

I walk through my living room and look at my christmas tree with lights. I stop and stare for moment, and then move towards my room. Once I get inside I turn my light on and crash onto my bed. I filled a void by making it back, but I still feel like I got hypothermia, My hands are not functioning well and are bright red. I run them under cold water in my bathroom for a few minutes. It took a little bit for me to reassure myself, but there is nothing wrong.

T+6:00- The next few hours after 2:30 were not very important to make many notes. I spent  most of the time listening to music, and continuously moving around my room in circles. I searched the song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds by the Beatles, and was blown away by how perfect of a description for LSD the song is. It may not have had the intent, but it is a vivid picture of a trip put into words. I had to have listened to it 10 times at the least.

T+8:40-I start to use my creative state to draw. I start to draw a few geometric images, forming strange structures resembling different crystal formations. It takes me about an hour to draw a larger hexagon shaped pattern, afterwards I am very proud of my image. I take a picture and send it to one of my friends, with a text saying,' Wait till you trip for the first time.'

T+11:00-I have significantly come down my this point. There is still a very strong sense of visual and physical differences, but its not anywhere near its full capacity. Everything has become dull, and I feel physically strained. I had been up for over 24 hours, and Was ready to pass out, but I was still having extreme difficulty falling asleep. I took out my one hitter and packed it. I took one pull, and imediately brought back some power to the trip, altho not anything spectacular. It gave the trip a less desirable effect, to say the least. I felt more out of control. When I closed my eyes I could see vivid images of what I was thinking of. Its not like I was actually seeing it, but more like my already strong visual sense of memory was heightened. I couldn't control my thoughts as much, and they were leading into a much more negative cycle. I saw abstract images of blood stained walls and felt the pain of everyone.

T+14:40(10:10)-It took me a while but I managed to fall asleep. I still had slight visual alterations. I wasn't still tripping, but I felt like my mind was stretched behond exhaustion.

T+20:00- I am now at the party. Mental effects still linger, and I only got at the most 4 and a half hours of sleep, so I am ready for a full day of rest. I can't decide what to make of my experience. It was definetly a grand one, but I am very afraid to go back into that state of mind any time soon. I feel like I have no desire to take LSD again at all.

(Less than a week later, I dosed about 165mcg in the car on my way to a resort in The Berkshires. After I had time to rest I was eager to make another leap of faith.)

Exp Year: 2012	ExpID: 97314

Gender: Male

Age at time of experience: 15

Published: Mar 18, 2018	Views: 2,347

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LSD (2) : General (1), Various (28)


		 DOSE:

		 4 hits
		 oral
		 LSD
		 (pill / tablet)

           BODY WEIGHT:
	   150 lb

Background: when I was 17, I hitched hiked around Australia and stayed at the infamous Hippie House in Darwin (top of Australia) which was the last outpost of the famous Hippie Trail and it became a temporary home to hundreds of freaks and heads from every part of the world.  Prior to this trip, I had only smoked a bit of cannabis. I will use the language of the time, as we spoke it.

I had only just settled into the Hippie House in McMinn Street and a young slick American head, reeking of patchouli turned up one night and asked me if I wanted to a buy a 4Way Acid microdot to be cut with a razor if I wanted to share.

I had a great desire to use Acid because I had heard so much about it and felt like a virgin in a whorehouse, without any preparation or forethought I swallowed the tab with a swig of coca cola and thought – how bad can it be? I then went into the kitchen to play chess with my friend Jacque the Frenchman, he was stoned and I told him I had just swallowed a 4Way Trip and asked him what to expect.

He asked me if I had tripped before, I said “no”, he looked at me as if to say “you’re fucked”, but laughed it off and told me to relax and enjoy the ride. I started to feel a sense of intense anxiety in the pit of my stomach, so I went outside to get some air.

When Father Spillane-my childhood parish priest- suddenly appeared in a sharp hallucinatory form, wagging his critical finger at me as I sat on the back steps, I knew I was in for a rough time. I needed to start walking to calm the rising panic that began to well up. I thought if I went to the local shop that would calm me down.

Everyone in the house appeared to be tripping or stoned, so off I set, as the trip gained intensity I began crossing a busy main road, it was around dusk and the world looked very, very strange, the anxiety in my gut and the feeling of an absolute impending doom, struck me half way across the road, I felt the heat of the car lights on my skin and I knew I was going to die.

I looked at the road culvert and planned to run for the safety of the roadside, but the concrete roadside gutter rose up in the air about 15 to 20 feet high as I began to move towards it. My own fear was perfectly projected onto reality, I froze solid in the middle of the road, I could not move, even though some part of me knew these were my own projections the fear was just too strong.

The heat of the car lights, now car horns were upon me, in my knowledge and acceptance of my horrible but inevitable death, I suddenly remembered (or appeared to remember) how I had died in the distant past, by drowning;  the images of some people pulling my body out of the ocean were as clear as any ‘normal ‘ reality.

As I waited for the first car to slam into my paralyzed body an angel suddenly appeared, grabbing me by the arms and pulling me off the road. It was my friend Wolfgang the young German guy from Berlin. He spoke gently “Are you alright? It’s alright. It’s alright. You freaked out on the road man, not cool, not cool!” I suddenly dropped into near normal perception and thanked him for saving my life (which was exactly how it appeared to me).

There were a bunch of us now in various states of mind alteration walking,  ahead of me was  earth mother Sue I had only spoken to her a few times previously, but a strange phenomenon  started to happen, in the distance massive black clouds were building which was normal for the tropical wet season and lightning flashes would occur, after each flash I would feel a buzz of electricity enter my bare feet and tingle through the body.

I asked earth mother Sue if she felt this too,  she said yes,  and immediately we were bonded, each sentence she spoke seemed to hold great wisdom, great insight, in all my life I had never heard such profundity. She told me I was already high and was seeking to be grounded, that was my spirit quest, she however was too much grounded and wanted to get high, always higher, this was her frustration and spirit quest. Looking back she may have been talking complete crap but to me it was the ultimate insightful wisdom.

I started to relax as earth mother Sue talked me down in soothing tones, and suddenly everything was fine, ecstatic in fact. When we got back to the house, loud music was playing it could have been the Moody Blues Knights in White Satin or perhaps Jethro Tull singing Mother Goose from the album Aqualung; whatever it was, it was riveting, penetrating my nervous system with joyous powerful surges, strawberry incense was burning and as I smelt it, it was liquid love, taking me into deeper ecstasy until I couldn't see anything except brilliant white light and the world would come and go in it.

Later someone said that acid was a truth serum, I found that to be the case, because the longer the trip lasted the more I felt isolated and separate form all beings, I thought, this mental construct, summed it totally  “ The empty hallways of life.”

There was no meaning to be had anywhere, this insight stuck with me and was not depressing but rather in its obvious and irrevocable truth, it was liberating.

Postscript: I never took acid again, it was a once and only experience for me, too harsh and in my case awakened too much 'truth” you may say, I like this quote, it stands the test of time: “LSD without a doubt, without a shadow of a doubt, whatever else you will say about it, will change completely a person’s world view, forever; it will never be the same again, whether the experience was positive or negative”- Dr. Ralph Metzler

Exp Year: 1972	ExpID: 97785

Gender: Male

Age at time of experience: 17

Published: Mar 29, 2018	Views: 1,810

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LSD (2) : General (1), First Times (2), Various (28)