A Deeper Look Into Visuals
LSD & Cannabis
Citation:   The James. "A Deeper Look Into Visuals: An Experience with LSD & Cannabis (exp72083)". Erowid.org. Apr 29, 2019. erowid.org/exp/72083

 
DOSE:
4 hits oral LSD (blotter / tab)
    repeated smoked Cannabis  
BODY WEIGHT: 178 lb
I started this experiment with one goal in mind, to determine if open eye visuals experienced during an LSD dose were dependent upon a definable background. Now, what that means is a little abstract, but basically I set to find out whether or not the visuals were really there or not. In theory if the open eye visuals were just a figment of my imagination, or a hallucination, the “patterns on the wall” would appear in detail regardless of how well my eye focused. I've answered that, and given a humorous experience report as well.

Information about me and psychedelics: I've taken bunches. I've rode a ketamine wave of destruction till it crested and rolled back into my sea of thought. I've eaten godly amounts of mushrooms, I lost count a long time ago how many, and I'll never know how much I've taken at once (extract). I've squirmed in the throes of a DXM hell, and stared, drooling like an idiot at the jellyfish I saw when I ate too much Dramamine. LSD and Cannabis are my best friends. I've taken research chems on top of organic chems, I've been on all the above at the same damn time... In other words, I know what I'm doing, like it's my job.

Information about my eyes: they suck. Real bad. I wear those big ‘ol coke bottle glasses that you could start a fire with the sun. I’m pretty sure I’m close to legally blind. But there’s good news for my peepers. In 2 days I’m having custom lasik surgery performed. I’ve never eaten psychedelics without the aid of my glasses, I’d taken moments to remove them just for a glimpse, but never a full experience. I felt like I was running out of time to ask and answer a daunting question few have probably asked.

These are notes that my finance/stenographer took during the trial. Phrases marked with quotations are just that, me saying some weird psychobabble a reader might find useful or entertaining. I'll interlude with my personal experience notes. Pot smoking is to be assumed as almost constant. (oh, and I'm also a pothead. SURPRISE!)

6:09 pm James dosed 4 hits of LSD blotter paper.

6:15 pm Already experiencing a slight head change with a small tingle down his spine.

6:24 pm Went out side to walk around the yard to see things before full on effects. Said it was hard to see details and could only see objects but couldn’t pick out any intricate patterns. Seems to be more apt to play with the dogs.

6:28 pm Feels playful but not very energetic, and can tell that he has the first signs of the LSD.

6:30 pm Took a shower with the intent on doing a water cleansing ritual.

6:46 pm Finished shower and wrote his own insert about his effects from the water. He also noticed defined color change in objects.

“Acid Time: Took a shower before effects set in. Only experience to report- As drops of water fell off my hair I saw a reflection of myself in each drop. Reminded me that I am part of every drop.”

Ok, this is me trying to explain how I saw a perfect reflection of myself in each droplet of water falling from my hair. It reminded me for a moment that I was one with the drop of water.

7:00 pm Noticed closed eye visuals but could only see faint opened eye visuals.

7:33 pm “God Damn!” Conversation is hard to follow. With glasses on it gives the visuals more detail but without them the visuals are just as stunning
With glasses on it gives the visuals more detail but without them the visuals are just as stunning
and beautiful as ever. Feels kind of lonely, like he wants someone else to share the experience at his level of thought.

“ It feels like I’m diving into a new world for the first time.”

Not having my sight is something I thought I would be able to take in stride, but I didn’t take into account how it affected my mood. Having my effective field of vision reduced to about 25 feet (even then with only the hair 2” from my eye in focus), made me a little apprehensive. The world around me seemed alien. Even in a sober state of mind, the sudden loss of vision would have been hard to deal with. But now all my visual surroundings were reduced to colored blotches that move around other blotches of color. It seemed much more natural to close my eyes and listen, rather than see… But I forced myself to open my eyes and stare off into the ceiling paying close attention to the visuals.

When the acid took hold I could see some faint movement in the otherwise blank white blur that was my ceiling, but it didn’t seem like anything more than some mild oscillation. They faintly formed lines running east and west (true direction, up and down to me), looking almost like a sound wave on an osculation machine. To reference, I put my glasses on, and whoa buddy! The energy lines turned into full blown mini universes of detail. The best I can describe is a square, of triangles, and other geometrical shapes, forming energy bars across the ceiling, but SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT! I took my glasses off again, and the original picture came back, just fuzzy lines.

7:46 pm Smoked pot and stood up. “This is a little unnerving, I can’t really tell how far away the ground is.” “Never again will I have to think about how it feels to stand up.”

8:30 pm James has been laying on the couch keeping to himself for approximately 94 minutes listening to Lateralus by Tool. Seems to be focusing on his closed eye visuals, or he’s trying to figure out the universe.

After a lot of staring, I felt a change in atmosphere was in order, so I put in Tool’s “Lateralus”, a personal favorite for such occurrences. Soon after this, the leverage of the dose I’d eaten took me away into the music. I floated around for a while, just observing. I inspected my thoughts the way an engineer inspects a building to make sure everything was up to spec. I guess I got bored with that and just started analyzing. Nothing in particular, just… well, everything. But nothing at once? You’da just had to been there. I guess I just swam around in my head for a while riding the waves of sound like a surfer in Maui. At some point I stood up and just wanted to go outside.

8:40 pm Feels like he’s already peaked or he might be at a plateau he’s not for sure.

8:44 pm Goes outside to compare his before and during effects. Everything seems to be like little pixels of color. He takes in all of what is around him. Seems to be a little over whelmed but is having fun.

Joanie “What are you thinking about?”
James “A whole lot of nothing.”
Joanie “okay”
James “Maybe about what to call that color….it’s a nice place to be…I think I’ll just call it happy.”

“The day that everyone stops trying to make everyone else see it their way will be the perfect day.”

Ok, now I want you to imagine this… Take a picture of the “perfect” sunset. Partly/mostly cloudy, plenty of blue sky, the sun just peeking over the edge of the valley, casting a warm, electric red/orange glow across the clouds. Now take that an put it on acid. Now take that and drive it through the rain without the windshield wipers on and crash it into a rainbow headfirst at a buck-twenty. Minus the refraction from the water, that’s close to what I was seeing.

My vision of the outside without the aid of my glasses was pretty stupendous. Instead of seeing a cloud on the horizon, I saw a morphing multi-colored “something” that had an electric buzz all about it. And EVERYTHING I saw was doing this.

After a while I wanted to just put my back to something and chill out for a second. Another perfect moment, thunderstorms to the left of me, a beautiful sunset to the right, with the bottom of a hemlock to my front, letting small peeks of brilliant color through the branches. Firefly’s were slowly showing themselves in waves across my vision. And all of this while crashing into an electric rainbow.

9:15 pm He put his glasses back on thinking that he was coming off of the plateau, but the visuals were more intense, more lucid, and in more detail.

I felt that the peak had passed, the experiment had been preformed, and it was time to introduce the control. I put my glasses on.

WHOA! DAMN! The mild visuals I’d experienced without my glasses gave way to a new explosion of moving, vibrating, breathing everythingness! (a normal trip) The wall suddenly had visual texture instead of an electric buzz and the patterns were very intricate, like the square made of triangles, made of geometrical blah stuff. This actually brought me up a few notches onto another short plateau of about 45 minutes. (most of which consisted of playing with a kitten) As more time passes the visuals started getting fainter until I felt it was time to record my experience.

Stenographers conclusion- In conclusion, based on the facts and truths given, if you have “perfect” sight you can see and experience more of the effects than if you were not able to see quite as well.

Psyconaut report- Ok folks, I warned you I've eaten a lot of this stuff in the past, so this conclusion is a little biased.

So, In conclusion… I feel that the visuals experienced during an LSD dose are a visual representation of an energy that is always present, but not always perceptible. Reality is where matter meets consciousness. The energy from such a thing might let off a certain radiant hue. Perhaps the effects of psychedelics only allows a part of our brain to become sensitive to such energies. In a tunnel reality we know what we can see, hear, smell, touch, feel, and know (But you have to know that you know to know…. Right? Right…), with only these imprints available to it, I theorize that the visuals are a representation of an energy that our mind can “see” but not see, so it makes us think we’re seeing… the.. Um, visuals….

Bottom line: Those visuals come into focus with corrective lenses.
Bottom line: Those visuals come into focus with corrective lenses.
They're still there without, but just like any other object they lose their shape and structure into the blur of nearsightedness. I even tried to form patterns out of the blur but couldn't do it. And I can make patterns appear on anything, anywhere, anytime just by thinking about tripping. They have a definable place in reality, otherwise they would have manifested anywhere I looked.

I did this experiment for two reasons
1) Previous acid trips brought up the topic and I was curious. I had previous thoughts about the visuals, but I wanted to 'KNOW' before it was too late. The experiment just strengthens my original theory.
2 ) I don't know if anyone's ever done it before. I thought I'd share.

Nutshell: Dude, that shit's really there!

Exp Year: 2008ExpID: 72083
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Apr 29, 2019Views: 775
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LSD (2), Cannabis (1) : Combinations (3), General (1), Small Group (2-9) (17)

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