DOSE: T+ 0:00	0.5 hits	oral	LSD	(blotter / tab)
T+ 3:00	0.5 hits	oral	LSD	(blotter / tab)
T+ 0:00		smoked	Cannabis
T+ 33:00	1 hit	oral	LSD	(blotter / tab)
T+ 120:00	1.5 hits	oral	LSD	(blotter / tab)

BODY WEIGHT:

145 lb

Marvellous and tremendously enjoyable

Set:
Professional male. Mid 50s. Married with children. Psychologically stable. No history of any mental illness. No previous experience of psychedelics with the exception of a small amount of san pedro tea (mescalin) on one occasion. Very occasional cannabis user (about once a year). Attitude towards the experience: curious, interested, enthusiastic, overall calm, slightly nervous but generally confident.

Setting:
Day two of a six day holiday. Large very private lush terraced garden and house overlooking the Mediterranean. Warm weather. Blue skies. A break to swim and snorkel in a nearby bay in the afternoon.

Substance:
One tab of LSD consumed in two halves with a three hour interval, augmented by occasional puffs of cannabis.

Sitter:
Long-standing (older) friend with previous experience of psychedelics.

Session:
Large healthy breakfast followed by half a tab sublingually for 15 minutes at 0930 and another half at 1230. Initial onset within about an hour. Peak 1300-1500 with a second peak at about 1800. Gentle glide down back to normality at about 2400. Nibbled on food intermittently throughout.

The experience:
Entirely positive. This was a tremendously enjoyable and fascinating experience.
The effects for me were principally visual and very classical. The onset was marked by the appearance of objects (trees, plants, wood, ceramics, rocks and boulders) gently shifting, warping and breathing – most strikingly the bark of a tree became fluid and liquid like. This continued for perhaps four to six hours.

I also saw: fairy-like tracers left behind by the movement of my hands, leaves and birds flying past; intensification and shifts of shade (“neon”) and colour (with the leaves of a eucalyptus tree becoming beautifully violet, silver and gold); intensification of depth perception (3D+ or hyper-realism) so that my depth of field appeared almost to be layered into slices; an inversion of up and down (so that the sky appeared as though it were the sea), tilting of solid objects (especially trees) so that objects to the side appeared to be above me; subtle but definite shifting of solid earth beneath me; and the appearance of faces and animal forms in trees.

Closed-eye visuals were intense and took the form of brilliant silver and gold lobular patterns. After sunset, different stars appeared quite distinctly as being nearer or further away in a very 3D way. Tactile sensations were also enhanced. At one point I found myself caressing my food as it shifted and warped in my hands.

My sense of self remained intact, though there were one or two moments when I did feel myself drifting away (especially after just puffing cannabis). I was reasonably functional throughout, except that using a mobile phone was almost impossible because the screen was flaring and ghosting with colour and patterns.

I was able to walk and talk throughout, although my conversation became rather philosophical in an enjoyably tumbling sort of way. I did not exactly lose my sense of time but it is remarkable how sunset and the stars came out so quickly.

By late evening, I felt myself returning back to normality. I slept well. I woke up with a slight headache but this went away with coffee and breakfast. Otherwise, the next day I felt perfectly well.

Further experiences:
The experience was so positive that on the evening of the day after I took another tab! What I did not appreciate was the tolerance effect; so that although the second experience was still pleasant it was very muted and low key. On the fifth day I took another 1.5 tabs but my receptors were still somewhat depleted so that the effect was again somewhat muted. The lesson is that LSD trips really need to be spaced apart by many days or weeks to get the full effect.

My fourth experience was about two months later (a little over one tab) and was similar in effect to the first trip – again very enjoyable but the setting was urban and so not quite so magical. For me at least, an environment of nature, trees, birds and tranquillity is the gold standard.

Integration/post experience:
The experience had let to a deep interest in the psychedelic. I have since become fascinated by the whole subject: the history of psychedelics, their discovery, pharmacology, uses and abuses, benefits and risks, psychedelic art, music and philosophy.

I fully intend to continue with my explorations of the psychedelic. But what is also clear is that the setting and the company are critical to the experience. The practical reality is that it is not easy to arrange matters so that one has the time, space and environment to enjoy LSD fully. So I suspect that my experiences are likely to be perhaps once or twice a year at most. I see the experience as something that one should respect and treasure, rather than treat casually. The quality of a trip is a great deal more important with LSD than the quantity of trips.

I am also curious about the effect of going more deeply and perhaps also combining with edible cannabis. I am not seeking to lose my ego altogether but I am very interested in going beyond the primarily visual.

Overall I am deeply grateful to have discovered the God-given gift of psychedelics. The world would be a better place if every politician on the planet were to experience at least one good trip.

Exp Year: 2018	ExpID: 112311
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 55
Published: Sep 16, 2018	Views: 6,798
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