DOSE:

80 ug

LSD

BODY WEIGHT:

75 kg

Ingestion of 80µg LSD at 9.20am at a friends place. He devoted the whole day to be the guide for this trip (calm person, close friend, experienced with LSD). We spent the day together in his living room. The plan was for me to lie in bed with eyeshades and music available while he was doing quiet computer work. I went into the experience to reflect on mortality having prepared with meditation and literature. Quetiapine (antipsychotic) and Diazepam (Benzo) were available as emergency medication.
Start somewhere. The experience was far out. I’m sure that many minutes of the trip are missing from my memory. This might be due to any of these reasons: a) it was too incomprehensible to be memorized, b) neurological network for memory forming was inhibited, c) there was no sense of self experiencing it (by this I mean an organism experiencing it but lacking the idea of self thus being unable to appropriate the experience to its memory). Many times an apparently well-trained anit-fear module that even seems to work under conditions of mental incoherence had to jump in verbally or visually re-framing the experience (e.g. making me kiss multi-teeth, spiky, multi-eyed monsters, sprouting flowers out of wounds and open intestines, make me kiss faces of friends that were monstrously distorted). So overall, there were few and very ephemeral bouts of fear. However, I noticed how fragile the peace was relying on the spontaneous availability of this anti-fear module to come online. Physically, there were many unpleasant sensations: sickness and pressure in the stomach area (which always comes up for me with serotonergic agents; long lasting), a bilateral pulling sensation about the location of the kidneys (long lasting), stings in the right ankle and right wrist (ephemeral). With all that was experienced a (post-hoc) surprising lack of emotions.
Description by tentatively chronological stages:

Stage 1 (coming on): Traditional Chinese music. Switching from sitting to a lying position with a hot-water bag. Going through the body’s organs acknowledging the work they have been doing for 34 years as if talking to team members or employees. Acknowledging also that it’s ok if they retire (fail) at some point. Next, thinking about the animals I ate in my life and wanting to apologize, seeing a turkey nodding. Sitting on a table with a tiger, offering my foot (still connected to my body) on a plate while being in friendly spirits together. Sense that it’s ok that everyone eats everyone else as it’s just a re-distribution of atoms.
Stage 2: Seeing eyes everywhere. One central eye opening then hundreds next to it opening while the central eye blinks, so that it doesn’t realize that it isn’t alone. A two-dimensional drawing of the sky’s blue expanding into a man’s lungs, realizing that we are connected to the sky/air like buds to a rose bush. An image of mycelium like a web that connects all beings wrapped around the globe, me being part of it. Going to the toilet, which feels like a nuisance, multicolored me dripping into the sewage while peeing. Realizing that I’m feeling the same pain in my wrist as Jesus did on the cross. Looking at the wounds on my palms sprouting little flowers.

Stage 3: Zooming out on the world, out of the universe ending in an eye, then starting again. The visual presentation of me in form of multicolored, viscous sludge running down the wall. Trying to consider pro and cons of things then realizing that the dialectic back and forth converges to a circle. A sense of reality recursively folding back on its self. Thereafter only incomprehension. Difficult to recall what came next since memory is very fragmented from this point onward. The sense of my brain fighting to maintain a notion of self(-consciousness) sometimes losing, sometimes winning the battle in quick successions. Experiences are too incoherent and fragmented to be comprehensible. Anit-fear module running on full speed whenever a glimpse of self is re-conquered, thus no self-conscious fear experienced and none recalled. However, realizing that this succession of rising and diminishing self-consciousness is a form of insanity, thus not a good state to be in.

Stage 4: Looking into the mirror, recognizing myself visually but conceptualizing more like a big ape rather than a human. Eating soy yogurt, realizing that the dripping sludge on the spoon must be what my brain looks like now. Going outside to the park with guide, very slow movements. Feels good to get fresh air, some tree looks like it’s been uprooted and brought here from another planet. Feel like being outside for 15 min, but it was ca. 1h.

Stage 5: Talking to guide with little comprehension. Then listening to uplifting music. Getting up from the couch and starting to dance to EDM for an hour.

Stage 6: Other friends come to visit us. Not knowing how to answer questions. Difficult to follow conversation. Unable to decide whether current topic of conversation is interesting or worthwhile. Impossible to think about who I am, just smoke and question marks appear. No idea what my personality is.

Stage 7: Girlfriend picks me up from guide’s place. Walk home feels like it takes ages. Lights flicker at home. Eat something. Difficult to have conversation. After she leaves worried about who will wake up in the morning in this body, whether that’s a coherent/integrated version of me or not. Scary faces of friends appear, but are neutralized by anti-fear module. Realizing that I cannot visually recall their real faces, something that’s still difficult while I write these lines. 11.30 pm still no sign of tiredness, which is also usual for me after administering serotonergic agents. Took Zolpidem (hypnotic) and fell asleep after 20min.

Resume:
The experience, albeit the same dose as the last one, was much less palatable. Even the more friendly impressions of stage 1,2 didn’t lend themselves to much insight since – at least that’s a conjecture – the emotions were missing. It might be that the hard-working anit-fear module had the effect of blunting out other emotions, too.
What’s not so commendable is the contact with insanity in the form of a degree of (fractal) incoherence of experience that makes the sense of self surrender and „pass out“. This wouldn’t be so problematic if the sense of identity was, for a time, permanently squashed and then re-instantiated with a clear cut, however the brain fighting back to occasionally re-conquer a sense of identity only to fall back into oblivion is puzzling and uncanny.
Also I rather appreciate that my brain, while still being slow with thinking and bad with working memory, has found back to homeostasis now that allows for an integrated and comprehensible experience of reality.
Thomas Metzinger has among his constituents for basic consciousness a criterion called „Integration into a coherent global state“. More evolved human consciousness has the feature of „Perspectivalness“, i.e. a sense of self/identity or first person perspective. Empirically, it seems that the lack of „Integration into a coherent global state“ cancels out the „Perspectivalness“, which also makes a priori sense.
Still little idea of what my personality is, or who I am; just trying to get on with whatever activity comes to mind like writing this report.

Preliminary learnings:
• The dose while being far off a high dose as described in the LSD literature is still too high for me to allow for fruitful insights.
• Unconsciousness (death/sleep/passing out/..) is ok; gentle reductions of Perspectivalness is ok; Severe failure of „Integration into a coherent global state“ (a fortiori severely challenging „Perspectivalness“) is unproductive and potentially damaging.
• Ego integration into a larger complex of being (stage 1,2) is fine. Ego fragmentation, falling apart like shards of a broken window, should be avoided.

Exp Year: 2023	ExpID: 117215
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 34
Published: May 9, 2025	Views: Not Supported
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LSD (2) : General (1), Retrospective / Summary (11), Guides / Sitters (39), Therapeutic Intent or Outcome (49), Small Group (2-9) (17)