DOSE:

1 hit

sublingual

LSD

(blotter / tab)

BODY WEIGHT:

95 lb

It is 8:30PM on a Wednesday night. The date is February 11, 2015. Approximately twenty-four hours ago, I was at my “peak” of tripping on LSD. To me, I find it strange, almost wrong to say “I was tripping on LSD.” No, it feels much more appropriate to claim that the eyes in which I view my reality simply melted into oblivion and were replaced with new eyes. Still, I wear those new eyes; yet the filter which allegedly protects me from my newly discovered world is in place once more. It’s a filter I feel I cannot be rid of without the aid of this psychedelic. Or, can it?

At 8:00AM this morning, my senses felt entirely “sober”, and yet my mind was overflowing with thoughts both fascinating and overwhelming. Please take note that there are quite literally no words which could accurately describe my trip to this alternate reality, or perhaps, my real reality. I try to bear in mind this quote as I attempt to recollect my journey: “We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are.” Though I have no tangible evidence to back this up, I believe that my journey was personalized for me, or rather, I personalized my journey. On the contrary, though this does not dismiss my belief, others who have indulged in psychedelics report seeing, feeling, and hearing similar things—a collective, “shared” state of consciousness. Please also take note that the motive for my decision to partake of LSD was driven by a desire for intellectual, emotional, and spiritual enlightenment. Though I don’t look down on anyone who uses LSD recreationally, I am interested only in learning and taking observations from this substance. That being said, the expression of my “journey” will come across more as how one would write about an experiment with data and results. Yes, I did not know entirely what to expect, and I knew that going into it. One cannot take a psychedelic and have expectations, really, because that is more dangerous than helpful, in my opinion.

I sat on the couch to start out, and as I placed that small white square paper (one “dose”) under my tongue, my heart was already thumping harder, but not so much that I felt uneasy. I felt chilled by my anticipation. About forty-five minutes later, the first noticeable change I experienced originated within my legs. They felt tingly, yet in a visual sense... though, a bodily sensation. It was as if I could see what I felt, though not literally. I described it as “streams of particles exiting my skin.” I felt giddy, like a child, and rather riveted by everything around me for no apparent reason, yet the mild hallucinations had not begun just yet. My eyes settled upon the wall in front of me, and I recall noticing it seeming shinier, translucent almost. Instead of the usual light blue, the bottom half of the wall appeared pink and certainly glossier. I initially rationalized the change in color to be due to the pink bookcase against the wall, but then it was questioned... How could a matte surface reflect upward on a wall? And more significantly, why did I firstly rationalize this abnormality? Was I already subconsciously in denial of what was occurring? What does that indicate...? And along with that, I noted that the light outside the window given off by nearby houses and street lights looked electric blue... how could that be? Surely, the LSD was finally having a notable influence on my vision. Around the same time, I noticed that the music playing in the background seemed to be more amplified and richer, yet those two words still do not accurately describe the auditory transformations. In any song, there are a multitude of aspects: the lyrics, the rhythm, the chords, etc.—all of these form the song. Yet I heard very little of any of those features. Instead, I heard the vibrations within the music... I saw the wavelengths with my ears, and they consumed and overcame the lyrics, rhythm, and chords, and yet this was not at all unpleasant—quite the opposite.

Though fascinated to an extent, my first truly startling moment came about when I stood up and walked a few paces, observing the room in a counter-clockwise motion. The walls around me seemed to bend, their dimensions changing very slightly, yet fluidly. They appeared wobbly, but still only marginally. I felt I could have thrown a quarter at the wall, and it would have made sense for it bounce and ricochet out of sight. That was enough to cause me to sit down instantly, not fearful, but certainly stunned. Not quite ready to stand again, I observed a picture of a sunset on a phone, and my eyes widened in sheer astonishment once more. The wisps of clouds within the photo appeared to be swimming. The picture had come to life before my eyes. Akin to the movement, the brightness and contrast of the colors were amplified, especially amongst the orange and yellow. They were glowing—illuminated. That picture, with its three-dimensional qualities, appeared far more real than any sunset I had witnessed, even in person.

I could not tear away my gaze for what felt like a long while... which brings me to my next notable phenomenon: time. I’ve heard many claims that time does not exist while under the spell of this substance. I concur, but only to an extent. Yes, time is not thought of in the usual way, with universal measurements... hours, minutes, even seconds... those units are somehow insignificant, useless. I would go as far as to say that the clock is looked upon in disdain for those seeking to veer away from comfort, from normalcy, from the world of stupor. For one having a frightening time, I could see them deriving comfort from a clock, because it may ground them. How I measured the passing moments is best compared to being at a fair, with various booths of interest. I would be drawn to an object, I would admire this object, and then I would move on to the next curiosity, all while paying no attention to time. For all I knew, I spent a lifetime with each “display,” until satisfied with the data I collected and the relationship I created. It sounds incredibly silly to say that now, as I sit here, typing away in a dull room... that I “created a relationship” with each object I was drawn to, but there’s no other way to term it. I felt at “one” with everything. I was desperate to familiarize myself with every detail of the entities I was lured to. It was of great importance that I do that, that I occupy myself with my surroundings as much as possible; I was a child in wonder. I felt both tall and small simultaneously—tall in physical relation to my surroundings, but small in relation to the significance of my surroundings. This does not mean that I myself felt insignificant. No, because as I found significance in my environment, my environment in turn blessed me with significance. Truly, it was a symbiotic and peaceful bond. I deemed my surroundings sacred, in the truest sense of the word, and in return, my surroundings deemed me worthy of its secrets and treasures. I readily indulged.

From this point onward, I don’t think I can give an accurate order of the events which transpired, as my experience floats farther and farther from my consciousness, almost dream- like now. Though, I can describe some the events and visions that stick out the most, but again... I cannot do them justice. I recall feeling an impulse to draw patterns. I witnessed patterns all around me, on the walls, on the ceiling, in the carpet, especially. I felt the patterns on the carpet as if they were tactile works of art. And so it only made sense to create these patterns to the best of my ability, to give them a voice, to set them free. I drew upon a square piece of wood, and I felt incredibly driven and focused. Nothing could have snatched my enthusiasm from me. I saw the lines and curves before I drew them. I was tracing more than I was drawing. I drew with crayons; I needed color, and I needed specific colors. At times, I felt frustrated, because the color I needed did not exist. But aside from that, I was mesmerized by my creation. The lines and curves danced as I traced, urging me on, casting inspiration with each stroke. I recall uttering two phrases, word for word, as I created... “I don’t know what I’m drawing, but it makes sense” and “It’s whatever I want it to be.” Both phrases were spoken with a knowing smile.

In my kitchen, the wood floors, the counter, and the wooden cabinets caught my attention the most. I had to run my fingertips across the cabinet to the right of the sink, for the sound that gave enraptured me—again, a rich sound. The etchings within the wood mutated and wavered. The minute spots on the counter wiggled and wormed their way around. They appeared to be under a microscope. When I stepped outside onto my deck, the trees held my gaze at first. Perhaps the most magnificent illusion of all, they appeared to be wilting and then re-growing right before my eyes. I stared unabashedly, beholding the life cycle of these trees. Since it was dim out, I only saw their silhouettes, but that was more than enough. The sky, although dark, somehow appeared lit as well. To my right, there were city lights, and just like the phone picture, they were livelier than normal.

Throughout my journey, for whatever reason, I craved juice, particularly orange juice. I also needed to be chewing. I ate a bagel and drank some tea and savored every bite and drop. I scarfed down the food, somehow not caring for the mess I created. The crumbs of cinnamon sugar from the bagel fell upon the lap of my pants and glistened like galaxies. I headed to the lowest level of the house at one point; I had a longing to play my drum kit. Before I could even begin playing, though, I reached out and touched the head of my snare drum. The sound it emitted was even more gratifying than that of the kitchen cabinet. With the tip of the drum stick, I made small spirals on the drum, hypnotized once more by the resonance it presented me. I hit each piece of the set—the crash symbols, the tom drums, the ride. Each sound seemed to tell a story with the vibrations that washed over me, cleansing me somehow. Eventually, I found a song on my phone to play to, hooking it up to the speakers. I played along with the song, and wasn’t surprised to find that my levels of concentration and imagination trumped any other time I had sat down to play. I felt extraordinarily energized, bursting with passion. Yes, passion... I did not need to open my eyes to play, so I closed them. With my eyes closed, a globe of transparent colors—yellow and orange—somehow came into sight. Were they auras of some sort? What did it mean? The colors cloaked the rotating sphere. I felt as though I had the ability to play faster and with more precision. I was no longer human, just a ball of resolute energy. I dove into the pulse and was lost, but blissfully so.

When I looked in the mirror for the first time, my features—each feature—was altered slightly, but at a state of constant change. Though, each alteration was only slight, but enough to where I could see a difference if I looked at my face as a whole. This did not disturb me. It fascinated me. The lights in the bathroom radiated an unknown assortment of color... perhaps a green-yellow combination, but again, there is no name for the color(s). As I glanced at the carpet, patterns still danced across the surface, morphing and intertwining. Everything was in a constant state of metamorphosis, a constant state of life. I was endlessly transfixed. And my thoughts were running parallel to the patterns, endlessly morphing from one subject to the next. The only difference was my thoughts were sporadic, while the patterns seemed to have more of a fluid system, a structured and predetermined plan to their program.

"To use your head, you have to go out of your mind.”

The whole pretense of my experience seemed to revolve around things disappearing... then reappearing... then disappearing... then reappearing, but not in the sense that they would be gone entirely, and then back entirely—all disappearances and reappearances were nuances. It was as if I was examining life and death endlessly. The theme: change, with its inevitability and beauty. Change: with its discomfort and devastation. Yet I was comfortable with my discomfort. I was the companion of my devastation. For because of my knowledge of its inevitable nature, I sought to bond with it, to learn of it, to love it. I did not seek to fade it; I embraced it in its entirety. This paradox, this comfort derived from discomfort, gifted me with peace.

𖣘𖣘𖣘𖣘𖣘𖣘

“If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living.”

𖣘𖣘𖣘𖣘𖣘𖣘

“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.”

Exp Year: 2015	ExpID: 113899
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: 20
Published: Jan 20, 2020	Views: 738
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