DOSE:	1 hit	oral	Unknown	(blotter / tab)
		smoked	Cannabis

BODY WEIGHT:

9 st

Meet A and ingest a tab of what I am told by him is LSD, however after reflection on the matter it seems highly unlikely this was LSD, its bitter metallic taste was unlike anything I had had before, in fact it seems more than likely to be DOC as to the time frame of the trip seemed to last for much longer than 8 hours of acid, more like 22.

As to the time of the dosage, it was just as night was falling across the festival, I’d guess to be about 8.30pm. One the first events post drop is that I follow A and J and sneak past a festival steward into crew camping by confidence trick, simply strolling through with my ordinary punter wristband openly on show, not a backstage one, the darkness definitely helps us succeed. We sit in M’s beat up people carrier which is when we start tripping balls – I’d estimate this is about 45 minutes to an hour into the trip. The van feels like a grotto, subterranean vibes, we begin chewing seat belts at J’s suggestion.

Head back to festival proper and go to watch band called Tantz in Rebel Soul tent, crazy klezmer sounds, full of emotion, I experience a full on synasthesia experience; the music elongates from the strings, hangs in jagged shapes and sad ornate loops. The colour of the music is a vivid purple and pinky red, the notes look like the violins and violas, an air of raggedness permeates all, faded glamour items now in tattered guises. The whole atmosphere is beautiful and overwhelming by the last song I am in tears. I feel like the set is a an ongoing narrative, each song is a story, a tale of a homeless peoples, a sad bedraggled group gathered here as festival goers, as humans, a celebration and a lament for our lives in a world where poverty is endemic and evil is afoot to stamp out our feelings, our emotions, our own rebel soul, something trying to rob us of this, our birthright. Share some cool moments with A and M and pose for photos of gurny faces.

Am wearing A’s hoodie I should mention, borrowed from when we were at the van as I was cold. Strange hieroglyphs like wizarding ciphers adorn it, it feels like has a shamanic quality. I wear this hoodie for the evening with some kind of ever changing combo with the green earth jumper, sometimes the hoodie hangs loose from my shoulders, hanging down my back, barely worn, yet perfectly positioned, letting it all hang out, loosely jangling round the festival. I feel like a borrowed item myself, my clothes are from charity shops or borrowed from friends, like I am a waif or a stray, not only at the festival but in my life generally. This theme reoccurs throughout the evening.

After the gig somehow lose everyone, maybe run away to explore and end up headed the woods, discover a grove and am hugged by trees, wrapped in folds of limbs it seems like a good time to stop and build a spliff and smoke. Encounter strange tree nymphs who may or may not have been really there, frolicking and spinning in the overarching beams of an ever living roof. Approached by a man who resembles a tourist, silly hat clutching a festival programme like a guide book to the pyramids or something. I talk to him, but he is confusing to me, I think he wants some acid but I can’t really help him as I haven’t got anything to give. He startles me slightly, I am a bit wary of him. I later dispatch myself into the forest proper and am lost in a maze of wood paths. Meet an unexpected party of 3 people who make me laugh with their weed tales and a story of another friend who has her own strain of cannabis named after her, they seem a bit like a cast of a strange TV show, a psychedelic sitcom yet to be written, one declares its his birthday today, here, now at the festival, all at once it feels as if its MY BIRTHDAY! And it is kind of a re-birthday. Suddenly it feels as if I am on holiday from Reality, suspended consequences apparently, or so it seems. My birthday, the holiday, I feel like a child, everything is exciting, I can’t even recite my own name, it doesn’t matter, I introduce myself to them as the Man with No Name. I am on holiday from all consequences.

Rush around the festival more, feeling surges of energy leave the woods, JF calls me on my mobile, asks me to play out; meet him by the swings! Like a small child I rush off to the playground, but JF’s only a break from work. He is haggard and Dickensian looking, he droops tiredness, his saucer eyes have a forlornness of them of one who has worked too long in the coal fired town, a refugee from the slums of the festival. We enter the Reggae Roots Yard, the iron fire is huddled by a mass of pill chasers, vagrant mumblers’, sketchy characters and the girl I know - CCG stereotyping herself perfectly. Too much conversation with CCG and JF make me want to rush out of the grimy yard and back to the tranquil woods. I give her some MDMA I find in my pocket and decide to leave. CCG wants more pills, the more I talk to her the more robotic and computer like she seem, like a broken doll or something. Broken computer child, beeping out encoded messages. I take her to another tent, I am anxious to get in but CCG points out there is a queue to get in. The entrance is shaped like a police box, like the TARDIS from Doctor Who, you enter into a long corridor before coming out into a dance tent, it seems appropriate, we take photographs of ourselves, clickety click, glamour pouts, mooch down the eternity corridor that seems stretched and longer than usual and emerge into what at first glance seems like a middle class disco. Everything seems quite nice here; I feel as though I’ve suddenly become married to CCG, the thought seems terrifying. I wait around a while, but I just want to get away, I feel as though I’ve dragged her from the choking slums of the festival to this comfortable world of high society, I feel trapped as I play out this relationship with her in my head, I leave her talking to some DJs and then flee across country desperately seeking the freedoms of the woods.

Meet A and M again somehow, A is tripping also, they want to go to the woods so we go together. Crossing a bridge we encounter a beautiful stream, suddenly the trees start to bequeath visions to us, the water shimmers and the trees start to vibrate to the colour waves around it. On rounding a corner a shark like thing hidden in the water takes us by surprise, M shouts a warning - lurking dangers, hidden depths, under river terrors! Consumer by fear and laughter.

Find what seems to be a pub in the woods, actually a collection of instruments, old pianos and keys hung in the trees. I christen it the Piano and Elbow boozer with an old piano all beaten up and left in the woods. It is labelled the Silver Medal Exhibition, the runner up piano, second hand, second rate, now stripped of keys and back board, bare strings to be twanged, to be played. Play with sticks of metal, sinister piano music, watching the photographer (A) as he takes photos of us playing. Absolute super good fun, one of the best experiences of the festival. Al suddenly denounces it as useless, a silver medallist. M and I defend the runner up piano, but suddenly it all seems a bit close to the bone, M hits the piano, its all a bit too much for us both at the bone at the old Piano and Elbow. Leave swiftly. Stop at the next “pub” we christen it the Slag and Lizard refill water bottles after much confusion about what exactly is going on there, seems like we are in our home town at this point.

Find a small grotto bedecked with mushroom type hieroglyphs, we look inside, feels like it is a den of our trippy mushroom cousins on earthy missions. We lie on our backs on the woodland floor, I begin to lose all sense of perspective or gravity, the trip hits really hard now, I feel as though I am lying down, standing up straight and hanging upside down all at once. It’s a beautiful weightlessness. Above (or below) the trees morph into strange dancers, dressed in brown 1920s style outfits, fans, top hats, the elaborate dresses, they toss and twirl in slow succession, waltzes in the stars, a cacophony of synchronisation. Yet to merely move ones head to the right was simply to observe A and M seated in usual position. Yet on my back I am weightless. I feel so incredibly eternally happy. JF appears briefly and seems like a soft-spoken elf. M attempts to collect glasses so he can reclaim his “deposit” on them and get a pint, I try to explain to him that there is no deposit, that by paying a pound extra he has simply bought a glass. M refuses to believe, claims he can still get a deposit back. I laugh louder and louder at the whole idea of holding a deposit, suddenly the cosmic joke strikes again, everybody is looking for their deposit from life but there is no deposit. This is it.

After much deliberation we head to the big fire by the lake. Here we find the remainder of the band clinging to the Scouse outcrops, the wooden towers surrounding the fire, the spires of desires. We sit and stare for a while at the people below. A and I descend to gaze at the mansion across the lake, the scene is set, the graphics have loaded, a great wobble bubates the house, its windows bulge in geometric diamonds, its like we are playing both playing a game we christen Ketamine Mansions, both of us Level One, Player One. We’re always playing Level One of Infinity Levels.

I see B and P near the fire below. I buy P some trips from A, I owe him. I wish more of my friends were there, I tell A how I love them all, how he’d love them, we try to summon them, chanting their names across the lake at the Kettie Mansion that simply wobbles back. But I feel as though I am there for them all, the ones who couldn’t make it, a representative for them, the Greats, the Legends. I owe them one.

Trip hits its height at this point, the sun is bouncing over the horizon. I feel like I have ultimate control of whether its going to rise or not, I start to mutter a manta that comes to mind everythings gonna be, gonna be alright, everythings gonna be, gonna be alright, I feel like this simple act starts to affect everyone around me, the fire starts to react, the people start to play the tune, the drums start to beat it, my intentions start to manifest, its so overwhelming, I feel like a wizard, it’s a bit too much. I start directing this reality, I feel like God, fractal open eye visuals on the sky. I stop though, the power of my own intentions scares me, I want to sing, to shout to rave, to trip out, I am tripping out; you can do whatever you want to do seems to be the message of the trip, the one that manifests itself anyway in reoccurring trips…

Heading back to my tents I check in on S and N, to find S fast asleep dreaming uneasy dreams. I climb inside my tent and lie half in and half out of consciousness, I cannot sleep, I find myself crouched over a crate of beer drawing a mind map of the festival, its provinces and pubs mapped. Talk to friends who emerge about 9 o’clockish, we drink tea together. Life is nice, sit and chat for some while head off to find S, head off down to festival to admire the Skarumba, people dancing and exercising to the early morning tunes. Eat tomato and cheese but it’s a bit much for my stomach. Wander over to S’ tent to find them up and awake. Sit at the table and build a spliff and light it as a crowd of police walk by. I feel unconcerned but S urges me to rectify the situation. No spliffs.

Back to the festival still tripping balls in between moments of lucidity. Watch the Festival Games, ridiculous light entertainment on a Sunday afternoon. Find I have no water or smokes or anything, I have to ask S if I can drink some of his, feel a lot of love towards him, like an older brother helping me out, feel borrowed and immature again like I'm dependent on others for substance and meaning.

The trip continues… later I find myself in a tent smoking a spliff. Outside its evening and the trees are eating each other… I point this to S who points out that it’s not actually real… bringing me back to ground… back to earth. The trees stop eating each other, everything is normal, some 22 hours later and reality has returned. We stand by the lake watching the fireworks whilst blasty pop music reminds us about money money money, its back to the realities of the edge world, back to work on the post round… its been the most amazing day, the best day ever, everything shimmered in its true form, interconnected, intertextualities, reality revealed, the curtain drawn back, the door of perception truly blasted open, I felt like I had touched the true face of god and it was in here in our own reality, in ourselves, we are the gods, we are the one we create this, perceptions altered, the world is the world but it just depends on how you see it… life altering…

Note: Some years have passed since this trip, I remember it with fondness as it was my big break out trip, nothing, even on a higher dose, has ever come close to it again, which in a way I am glad. For a while I was in almost complete happiness after this, the next 6 months was a really sweet time anyway. I took some lessons onboard, eventually, one was not to be so dependent on others and to try and map out my own destiny.

Definitely wasn’t acid due to the duration.

Exp Year: 2018	ExpID: 112350
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 27
Published: Apr 16, 2019	Views: 1,063
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Unknown (120), LSD (2) : Festival / Lg. Crowd (24), Glowing Experiences (4)