DOSE: T+ 0:00	1 hit	oral	LSD	(gel tab)
T+ 0:00		smoked	Tobacco - Cigarettes
T+ 2:30	1/4 cig.	smoked	Cannabis	(flowers)
T+ 4:30	Multiple joints/cigs	smoked	Tobacco - Cigarettes
T+ 13:00	1/2 cig.	smoked	Cannabis	(flowers)
T+ 13:00	1/2 cig.	smoked	Tobacco	(leaves)

BODY WEIGHT:

175 lb

I like to think I'm a fairly experienced drug user. I have smoked marijuana daily since I was 15 and have dropped LSD close to a dozen times. I've also tried mushrooms, San Pedro cactus, ketamine, and dabbled (regrettably) in various pharmaceuticals.

The vast majority of the LSD I have taken came in simple, plain white tabs. It was super clean, albeit weak doses and I enjoyed my experiences with them immensely. Recently, a new form of acid showed up in the local scene: windowpane gels of various colors and strengths. When these gels first showed up, most of the LSD users I knew were healthily skeptical. Bad acid has been a problem among our college community before, and I didn't want to get NBOME'd by accident. The fears around these gels were only increased when I heard from friends that it felt markedly different than any other acid they had done.

Then a friend of mine got a hold of a test called Ehrlich's reagent, and much to our surprise the gels tested as being positive for LSD. My understanding of Ehrlich's reagent is that it cannot differentiate between different ergoloids. In other words, the test proved that it is either LSD or a chemical markedly similar that would also test positive. Given the recent resurgence of real LSD on the blackmarket, I would assume with fairly high certainty that these gels did indeed contain real LSD.

My first experience was taking half of a red gel (rumored to be especially visual). The strength of my trip off of half of a gel easily matched up to the intensity of 2 hits of any other acid I've taken. And the visuals and colors were far flashier and in-your-face than any I've had before. The experience I am documenting today came shortly after my experiment with a half a red gel. This time I took a full gel. And I was so not prepared.

10:00am - Swallowed the tab. I don't ever bother leaving LSD on my tongue, since it has always been my opinion that the oral bioavailability of LSD is far superior to sublingual administration. I also appreciate the generally slower come-up from swallowing rather than leaving it on my tongue.

10:20am - Just got out of the shower. I feel a touch different. There is an unmistakable click in my internal mechanisms that I feel each and every time I have dosed. This time is no different. I think I am noticing mild tracers, but that could be placebo.

10:50am - I'm at a Starbucks with my girlfriend, who has agreed to tripsit me today. I am initially feeling confident enough to go inside to order my coffee, but I am promptly overwhelmed by the atmosphere. I tell my girlfriend to get me a green tea and I step outside to smoke a cigarette.

11:00am - People watching. Human beings are fucking weird. A mom is yelling at her kid for something, but I don't know what. I don't like that. My girlfriend comes out with my green tea, but I am no longer interested in drinking it. We walk to her car to drive back to campus. Colors are really popping everywhere and the dimensions of objects seem surreal.

11:20am - I'm back at my apartment getting my backpack together for my journey. I feel like I'm racing against the clock, I am swiftly sinking deeper into the effects. I look in the mirror briefly and realize how stupid I must look to people. I kind of want to slap that stupid grin off my face.

12:00pm - I'm walking through a meadow with my girlfriend. I don't remember exactly how we got here, but my watch tells me I am two hours into the experience. I am very interested in flowers right now. Each and every flower I come across, I put in my girlfriend's hair which she thinks is sweet. I feel like an asshole for being so cheesy, but I fucking love picking flowers for her. I love her.

12:30pm - We stumble across two girls a couple years younger than us as we walk through the woods. They told us they had just graduated from high school and asked if we wanted to match some weed with them. I offer to roll the blunt, as usually I have impeccable rolling skills. I break both wraps I have, and one of the girls we met offers to roll a joint with one of her hemp papers instead. I apologize profusely and explain that I am tripping my balls off and that my coordination is off. She said it was no problem, but I feel very embarrassed.

---this is where my trip starts taking an unpleasant turn and I was less concerned with keeping time, so the following time markers are very rough estimates---

12:50pm - We smoked a joint between the four of us that contained 1-1.5 grams of marijuana. I am tripping my balls off. Surfaces are breathing and ripping. Patterns are erupting in the sky. Time has slowed to crawl and I begin to feel unwell. My face is getting hot, the very same symptom that kicked off my last bad trip over a here ago. This time though, the intensity of discomfort is far beyond anything I could imagine.

1:00pm - It's too much. I'm trying to keep my cool in front of these people, but I can't. I stand up and politely explain that I had smoked too much and needed to leave. The two girls seem confused but my girlfriend understands what is going on and follows me down the path. I'm walking and crying. I want it to stop. I close my eyes and I see powerful kaleidoscopes overtaking my mind. And then everything went black and I felt myself being tugged down the rabbit hole. I don't know exactly how to describe this, but 'rabbit-hole' was the thought I had as I was falling down it so I will describe it in this way. There's a lot of ringing and after what seemed like eternity, I was back walking down the trail. I'm still crying and yelling, and I realize that I must be scaring my girlfriend. She keeps saying, you're fine, you're fine. But I know I'm anything but fine.

1:15 - We are almost back to our apartment and I am forcing myself to not scream and cry for the sole sake of not getting arrested. However, as we approach the building campus police pull up right next to us. Fear pounds in my heart. My mind began to race. I figured someone must have heard me freaking out in the woods and called them and they were here to take me away. I would be arrested while tripping. It was a nightmare. To make matters worse, my girlfriend was very stoned and we both reeked of marijuana. I kept walking, holding in the urge to break down.

We enter the building and I can hear the cops coming after me, I rush into our apartment and go into my room and shut the door. I can hear the cops banging on the door, coming after me. I peek out the window and see the campus cop still sitting in his vehicle taking notes. The sound of the knocking on the door stopped. Then I begin to realize he is taking notes about me. He's writing about I'm on drugs for the paperwork before he comes and gets me. I feel like I'm dying. I tell my girlfriend that I thought I might be a danger to myself. 'You're just on acid, you're fine' she kept saying. That sentence echoed in my head for what seemed like forever. Then the whole debacle started over. This looped last for what felt like forever.

2:00 My friend John comes over, my girlfriend had called him to come calm me down. John doesn't do LSD ever anymore, but he had been around the block and done a shit-ton in the past so he knew what to do. He starts talking about things I like, we talk about the Grateful Dead, how cool his new guitar is, how I'll be laughing about this whole incident come tomorrow morning. I'm still feeling awful, but the conversation removed me from the loop I was stuck in.

2:30 John and my girlfriend walk me back into the woods, to a beautiful bridge-gazebo underneath a canopy of trees. I'm starting to calm down a bit, though I am still very anxious. My girlfriend and John smoke a good bit of pot and keep an eye on me from a distance. They must be thinking I'm insane.I'm very concerned about everyone finding out about this meltdown. People will be talking about what a fucking stupid acidhead I am and that I brought it on myself. I'm chain smoking cigs and chasing these thoughts around my head. The sky is swirling in a flurry of psychedelic pattern.

4:00 John has to go back to his place to do some homework, and I'm in a fairly better state. I curled up under some blankets in my room and turned on Family Guy. The show seemed detached and unfunny, but brilliantly visual. Even if it's comedy seemed bland in the moment, having a familiar TV show playing did wonders to calm me down.

7:00 The effects of the acid are beginning to wane. I just wanna smoke some weed. My girlfriend, however, thinks it's a bad idea until the effects have fully worn off.

11:00 I am comfortably down from the acid. I go out to the woods to smoke a blunt before bed. Reflecting on the day, as horrible as it was, I felt much better once I had gotten it all out of my system. Incredibly cathartic.

All in all, this was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life. I swore off tripping at the end of the experience. My quitting was short-lived, however, when I dropped a gel with some friends two weeks later. That time, I smoked no marijuana and had a paranoia-free trip. This is leading me to believe that marijuana just tends to affect my trips negatively and I should refrain from using it while dosed.

Exp Year: 2016	ExpID: 108755
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 21
Published: Mar 20, 2023	Views: 620
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