DOSE:

2 hits

oral

LSD

(blotter / tab)

BODY WEIGHT:

120 lb

I don't want to sound like some kind of elitist or anything, but I think people like myself are a dying breed, at least among 16- to 18-year olds in this town. What I mean is that, most kids see drugs simply as a way to get fucked up. 'There's nothing to do in this town, so get fucked up!' This is the mindset of nearly every high schooler here. I, however, thanks to sites like Erowid and a very influencial brother, feel that drugs, especially psychedelics like acid, are for something that is exactly the opposite of getting shitfaced. Most kids here are just potheads and alcoholics anyway. Once recently, a core group whom I used to call my friends decided to take some acid, with the mentality that it was just a new way to get trashed. Consequently, one ended up in the hospital, many were caught, most freaked out or otherwise hated the experience. I, however, had been doing research on LSD for well over a year, reading and reading, much off of this site. I also took acid that night, for the first time, and stayed in one place. I had to deal with people being caught and talking to my parents right as it was kicking in, but thanks to simply knowing what I was getting into, I worked through it. The trip was beautiful, even after such awful happenings. Fast forward three months, to my second trip.

I dropped the two hits at about 12:05 AM, with everything around me set for a night alone with LSD. I had music picked out (to be listened to with headphones), soft lighting on, made sure I was on good terms with friends and family, especially my girlfriend. I wanted this to be a smooth trip, one that I would remember, one that would leave me satisfied. I am a strong believer that acid should not be taken often. I believe in the incredible positive potential of LSD, but I don't go off on Leary-esque rants about how it is the end-all be-all of knowledge. Anyways, the trip.

I felt the first effects about 20 minutes after dropping the hits. A feeling of anticipation, an uneasiness and excitement. Like going up the first hill of a roller coaster, all in my head. I thought it was time for a little music. So, I put on 'Sister Ray' by the Velvet Underground, but about two minutes into it, I had to turn it off. It was too abrasive, too wild, too much. The acid was kicking in hard. So, I tried putting on The Soft Bulletin by The Flaming Lips, but again, halfway through the second track I had to turn it off. I had forgotten from the first trip how much acid actually takes you over, how it actually changes the way you think. By this point, the world was beginning to blur. I was giddy, and I couldn't stop myself from moving. I looked up at the ceiling, where the shadows of the light I had on (one of those lightbulbs shaped like a flame), were suddenly in complete 3D, moving and completely blurred, but a sharp sort of blur. Intense rushes went through my head. A sort of intense buzzing, that I could feel bouncing around in me. I guessed this could have been due to the acid on the hits reacting with the aluminum foil it was wrapped in. Who knows if that was the actual cause, I know I don't.

I had to have some sort of stimulus to avoid the buzzing. Either television or music. I tried to listen to something more soothing, but it just seemed fake and almost annoying. I could only watch TV for a few minutes before I simply had to turn it off. It was too bright, too bizarre. At about 1:30, the acid had taken my head completely over. I suddenly thought of my first trip, of having to talk to my parents. All I could think was, the acid has completely backfired on me. I want reality again. I want to be able to control this. But alas, acid is not pot, and as hard as I tried to simply ignore it, the more it would kick in. I began to forget where i was two hours before, the way I thought two hours before. I was now in a state of panic, all alone. And it had only just started. I knew I was in for it.

I made the decision soon after that if my parents were to wake up, I would simply admit to them that I was on acid and that I just needed to be alone. I knew there was no way I could fight it. I felt ashamed of myself, for being just another teenage junkie bent on getting mindfucked while his parents slept. I began to think, what would happen once they find out? What would they do if they saw me freaking out like this? Why would the doctors do that to me in the hospital? What would they put on my record? Would I be held back in school for this? Would I make it into college? Was my entire life completely fucked forever because of two little squares of paper I ate? No, that's crazy. That's stupid. That's impossible. They are asleep, man. Get a grip.

Somehow making my way back to sanity, I found myself hanging off my couch, eyes wide open, staring at the ground, breathing heavily. I suddenly noticed the beautiful sensory symphony. The light on the ceiling was soothing, the carpet swayed as if underwater. Forms simply morphed and distorted, all with an incredibly peaceful rhythm. The world around me became alive. I could feel my skin in a new way. Dry but also oily, smooth but rough at the same time. I looked in the mirror. My eyes were big and dark, and just glistening. It was definitely not just my pupils that were dilated. It was my entire brain. The world around me swayed and bubbled. Surfaces were no longer solid, and in my mind i could feel them fizzing and popping, like the fizz on a carbonated drink. I almost felt as if I were in a Chuck Close painting. One of those incredible portraits he did where the people's faces did not simply end at a line and the overall picture was perfectly realistic but at closer examination brilliant color and pattern became apparent. I felt as though I were breathing liquid. Breathing alone became an incredible experience. The world around me truly was alive, like I had thought before. I was in some kind of psychedelic wonderland. I almost imagined like I was in some futuristic city, with flying cars buzzing by me, like the Jetsons, all under that brilliant orange light. I had to have the music to match. So, I put on Air's Premiers Symptoms, and let myself go. During this, and most of the peak experience, words are simply inadequate. So many things happen in an experience like this that trying to explain it in any way just doesn't do it justice. I remember thinking to myself, there is NO way I could ever describe what this whole experience is like. There is just no way.

Some 30 or 40 minutes later I came to, now in silence, except for a tapping at my door. Suddenly the incredible feelings of peace and happiness were shattered. The light was still on but I desperately wanted it off. Suddenly the old thought loops came back. What was the tapping at my door, why wouldn't it go away? I want my future! I'm not a bad kid, honest! The sense of terror was very real. So real, in fact, that the only reason I am even now choosing to hold off for a long time before I take acid again, is because of those moments.

But it was just my cat, and for the time he was in my room he was the perfect companion. He moved silently and gracefully. I almost had the sense that I was finally seeing the world the way he had his whole life. But still, this was not enough to cool down my head. I was still going crazy in the back of my head. Suddenly, the light became too bright, so I turned it off, and slipped away into blackness.

The awful buzzing quickly came back, now louder and more painful than ever. As if the awful thought loops weren't bad enough, I had to deal with that. So I spent the next hour or so frantically turning the TV on and off, trying to listen to music. Anything to stop the madness. I even got a snack, which was terrifying, considering I had to walk past my parents' bedroom in a house as creaky as ours. However, the reward was well worth it. I smoked plenty of pot before this trip, and never had eating or drinking been so glorious. Simply incredible, undescribable.

Eventually the buzzing stopped, leaving only the intense, intense peak. I was experiencing full-blown pyschosis at this point. Thought loop after thought loop, over and over, uncontrollable. I could have bitten through nails I was clenching my jaw so hard. Any life or any thoughts I had before the last 3 hours had been completely forgotten. I was building a very scary void in my head, and it was expanding at a huge rate.

If I opened my eyes and looked down at the rest of my body, the blankets covering it would simply shrivel up. I watched myself disintegrate into madness. I pried myself up and looked out the window. The outside world was going batshit. Nothing stayed still, buildings oozed, the street and cars breathed and waved as if they were on rough seas. The branches of the trees grew, in any direction, I couldn't tell. A few seconds of that was all I could handle.

The thought loops kept going. I looked at some photographs I had taken (I am very much into photography) out of my window one night. They moved as if they were real. the branches swayed, the street lights were bright. I had to put it down.

Eventually the awful thoughts became unstable. They were growing and spiraling at rates I couldn't handle. This universe was getting too big for it all. In a matter of seconds, it collapsed. Every thought, every question I had been frantically asking for what seemed like forever suddenly broke down, until finally I had only one question to ask. I didn't know who I was asking, but I got my answer. I felt the universe collapse and incredible speed. I saw every particle come together in a fantastic implosion of everything I knew and didnt know or ever knew or ever will know. Finally, everything this trip had been riding on and every thought and visual and everything that had ever happened in the universe came down to a single answer. Everything came down to this one single moment. I was sure, that this is where I would meet God. Leary was right after all. But, oh no. That was not to happen. I got my answer, alright. A single, fleeting vision, that explained why all of this was happening.

It was just the acid.

I stopped. The collapse was complete, and the very first reaction I had, in the split second after I got my answer, determined everything thereafter. I died.

When I woke up, I was still in darkness. The awful thoughts were gone, replaced instead by pure psychedelic noise. Like TV static in my brain. Only a few minutes had passed, but the peak was definitely over. Somewhere in my head, I had a firm grasp on reality. Something was telling me to get up, go to the bathroom. So I went.

The brightness in the room was incredible. Everything was sharp, but also very much alive. The countertop was 3D, and the fake granite pattern moved much like the carpet of the lobby of the Mint Hotel in the acid scene of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Beautiful trails followed my hands. The fibers of the small bath rugs grew, like ivy. Everything was still a blur but at the same time perfectly clear. Who knows how long I was peeing. I figured I should leave before it gets suspicious.

Returning to my room, once again I listened to Premiers Symptoms. This time, I only listened to 'Casanova 70', which was incredible. The visuals both and and out of my head were beautiful. Soon after finishing that, I worked up the courage to listen to Siter Ray again. Already, I was beginning to piece together what had happened before, and make some sense out of the trip. I had originally planned on making this trip more for visuals and the sensory high, instead of the intense mind trip I had taken nearly four months earlier. But, once again, the peak was over, and the visuals were beginning to fade and my sense of reality and my memories of everything before the trip were returning. Slowly, but surely. So, I put on Sister Ray, and smoked an imaginary cigarette, and congradulated myself over and over for making it through the night in once piece, and jammed for 17 minutes straight, laying on my couch, under a single blanket.

Listening to Sister Ray was so good, that I immediately listened to it again. I noticed every note, every incredible sound. I was just blown away. Once again, I seemed to just understand the whole psychedelic scene in the 60's. That's not to say I was there, or that I actually do know all about it or why happened, but I just got a small, beautiful sense of the time, of how the world was flipped upside-down. San Fransisco and LSD. New York, Greenwich Village, Heroin, Vietnam, Hippies and Beats, Civil Rights, complete social, political, cultural madness. Incredible. And here I was.

Dawn broke as Sister Ray ended. Spring was finally starting to show. The morning sky was beautiful. I got out my camera and took a whole roll of pictures. As the last of the tracers faded away, I was left with pure exhaustion. A euphoric exhaustion. I was happy as hell. The real reward of the trip came after it was gone, some seven and a half hours after I dropped the hits. I ran over the trip over and over in my head, and each time getting happier and happier. I got through it. I got away with it. All by myself. I was THE MAN. And, just as suddenly as it had taken my head over almost 8 hours before, I passed out.

I woke up around 1 in the afternoon. The trip was officially over.

There is something incredibly powerful in LSD. I do believe that if everyone in the world had an experience like the one I had, the world would be a better place. But, I know that that's never going to happen.

I can't stress it enough. LSD IS NOT A PARTY DRUG. It is not for the faint of heart or mind. The most important part of an acid trip is the tripper. If you are just looking for another way to get trashed, or you just want to see some cool shit or something, stay very far away from acid. The rewards of acid are not immediate. It's not like smoking pot, where you get fucked up and then pass out and return to your normal self without getting anything real or lasting from the experience (in most cases).

But at the same time, LSD is not some fountain of all knowledge. I learned a lot from this trip. But the happiness I got out of it did not, and still does not, extend to anything else. The experience was completely self-contained. Why did all that happen? It wasn't God. It was acid.

Exp Year: 2003	ExpID: 23181
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Nov 20, 2004	Views: 26,830
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LSD (2) : First Times (2), Glowing Experiences (4), Alone (16)