DOSE:

2 hits

oral

LSD

(blotter / tab)

I took one tab of LSD on a Thursday morning, in the week between Christmas and New Year's. A special time of year, a time for reflection and retrospection. I'd had a busy past few months and the next few months starting in January looked equally busy so I hoped to do acid in this week. While it wasn't my first time taking acid it was the first time I tried a full dose and so I wanted a trip-sitter. My friend P, who is much more experienced with psychedelic drugs, offered to trip sit this day.

I woke up before sunrise and watched the sky changed colors. I was mindful of the time though since I had said I would be at P's place by a certain time in the morning. But since he wrote that I could be there at 10 I decided to walk to his place rather than take public transportation, which would likely be full of people in a hurry and therefore not the kind of vibe I wanted to expose myself to.

The night before it took me a long time to fall asleep because I was so full of anxiety about what would happen. This might be one reason why I didn't tell my boyfriend that I would be doing acid under P's supervision. I was too nervous about it.

I hoped that the walk would quell some of the anxiety I had, and it helped, a little. But when I got to P's place and was getting ready to take the dose I felt anxious again. We had initially agreed on two tabs but I changed my mind and wanted one tab. This proved to be a good decision in the end, as the trip I had was long and intense and two tabs might have been overwhelming.

I had no expectations for the trip. I wanted my mind to be open to whatever the acid would tell me.

P made some tea (I chose chamomile in the hopes that it would calm my nerves) and as I put the tab in my mouth he sat with me on the couch and we had a talk. I talked about things that were making me feel anxious and a bit sad. Interestingly, very little of this came up on the trip itself.

After about 30 minutes he left me alone in the room, and I kept sitting on the couch, waiting for the acid to kick in. After a while, there was some dots on the wall above the bookshelf that began to move, kind of like that game Snake or like signal lights for Wi-Fi. That held my attention until I noticed the shadows move. The room, which had green curtains, took on a green aura and I felt rooted to my spot on the couch. I held onto the chair in front of me to keep steady. Then I started examining the chair, and was fascinated by how the wicker weaving in the seat seemed to move. At another point I reached out my arm to touch the table, which took some effort at first. At various moments I felt like I was adrift at sea, and had to hold on to one of these objects to hold steady.

I remained at my seat on the couch for some time, until I began to feel overwhelmed with emotions. First was anxiety, then fear, then sadness. These emotions were not connected to anything specific -- I was feeling the pure emotions, overwhelmed by them.

Another dimension to these emotions I cycled through, was that I experienced ego death. It started with intense rainbow-colored visuals, and my sense of self (in this body) completely dissolved. First, I became a completely different person: a heavyset Black woman who was a mother. I felt so full of love and then sadness. Then I was a child, shivering afraid in a cave, longing for their mother. My left breast (over the heart) and sex area were highly stimulated and I felt connected to all the women in the world. I was many women, everywhere. Then came intense sexual feelings, and I became both a man and a woman having sex. I almost felt like I knew what it was like to be a man having sex with a woman. None of the people I became and embodied (when I was a heavyset woman I felt that my body was large and heavy, when I was a man I felt like I had a penis) were people I knew -- at least not at this stage.

I felt some happiness, sadness and fear again, and remained on the bed for some time. Once the most intense cycles, and this sense of connectedness to all people all over the world, faded, I gradually gathered the energy to get up and go to the chair, where I sat at the table. I started feeling angry and banged on the table. P came into the room to check what was wrong, and with difficulty I said I was fine but he came in anyway and I couldn't articulate what I was feeling. He sat with me and held my hand for a while. I could hardly speak, so overwhelmed I was with the emotions and experiences that had cycled through me, but eventually I got up. My first real sentence was "Where am I?" when I looked around the room for the first time since the acid really kicked in, and things looked different. The bags hanging over the door had looked like something else to me. The color was not so green. I laughed and started moving.

This is where things get fuzzy for me in sequence. The days are short, so the light hardly seemed to change during day. We probably stayed in the room for a while and P eventually moved to the bed while I moved to the yoga mat to do some moves. It felt nice to move after being immobile for so long (or perhaps it was not for very long). Then I was ready to leave the room. I said I was ready to leave. I meant the room, but he asked if I wanted to go home, and I clarified. So we left the room.

Maybe I went to the toilet first and checked out the open-air chute that was letting the wind and voices in. I looked down to the bottom, then up, then down again. Then I washed my hands and went to the kitchen. I first looked at things and then P joined me there. I tried some of the almonds he had soaking as well as some honey. I also tried maple syrup, which was really good. P gave me some herbs and liquors to smell, as well as fish sauce. I picked up a yellow lighter with a camel on it and first was laughing at it, what it was doing there, then started crying. P held me while I wept. It was an intense cry. Examining the lighter I'd had a flash of a memory being a kid sitting in a gas station in New Jersey. It was night and I saw a Camel ad plastered somewhere in my line of vision. I don't know if there was anything specific about this memory that could have triggered such sadness -- we made these trips to New Jersey only when my dad's parents were alive, and my dad is no longer alive either -- because it could have been much more than any immediate associations with that memory. But it was a long cry. Even after having already cried alone during the intense emotional sequences.

I can't remember exactly how I got back to the room, but I did and examined the books on the bookshelf. One book especially drew my eye: a dusty paperback novel. I examined the name of the author, the title, and the back copy, but it was very difficult to understand. I had to read each sentence one by one. I opened it and tried reading the author bio on the first page. I had to reread and reread each sentence aloud to make sure I understood it. I had never heard of the author. The last sentence said the author died in 2010, and I briefly felt sad and vocalized my reaction to that news. I examined the copyright and dedication pages, then tried reading the first page. I kept getting stuck at every sentence and I found it funny how a hearse was involved and how Freda was crying, saying it was beautiful. So despite the death, I found it downright hilarious. I said the author's name out loud several times since I thought it sounded funny and fake.

Eventually I gave up on trying to read and brought the book to P, who was chilling in his room. I showed him the book and tried to figure out the logic of the back copy with him to guide me. We sat very close together. I tried reading the first page again but gave up and so set the book aside. It might have been at this point that P offered to play me some music, so I put on headphones and lay in the bed. The first song had lyrics, something along the lines of "I'm a bad, bad woman" (or at least that's how I understood it) and I thought it was about me or perhaps that P was suggesting something, so discomfort rippled through me. As the song changed I noticed neon colors dancing on the wall and got interested in that. Then I moved my arms around and noticed how I could see the movement of my arms multiplying. I was much more into the next sequence of songs, all kind of chill-techno, acid-friendly music. Eventually I got tired of that and P offered his guitar to play. I plucked at it for a while, enjoying the sounds that it was making, then put that down, too. This might have happened before the headphones actually. After the music, I went to the window to watch what was going on outside. There was a crane at work, and every time it made a move it caught my attention. It might have been here, while I was sitting in my chair, that I began to feel like a very old woman, able to only watch the world from her window, while P held my hand, like a carer would. That feeling faded and P opened the window so we could see more of what was going on outside. We watched the people and P commented on how people walk can tell a lot about who they are. I agreed, but quickly got interested in a football match that I could see down the street. I felt like I wanted to go down and watch them play, and it was about now, after wanting to go outside earlier but having been suggested not to, that I decided I wanted to go outside. So we put on our coats and shoes and went out.

Even though it had been a long day for me, it was still light outside when we went out. The first people we saw were a dapperly dressed couple whose movements seemed weird to me, and it occurred to me later that they were a fake couple. Or rather that their love was not real, the two of them simply filling the roles they had to play. The woman was dressed in pink with long boots and the man in blue. They were walking separately but at one point he lightly grabbed her ass and it looked so weird and fake. They walked stiffly. Seeing more people ahead I felt like I was adrift again and held on to P for support. We went to the botanical garden, which thankfully was right near P's place.

We started on an almost-secret path and looked into an art installation with a mirror. Then we went to an enclosed garden area and inspected the bookcase, where I found an interesting VHS-tape and Spanish-language book (but left them both there) and P found a package of cookies. He took those. As we walked around I touched the various evergreen trees, feeling how their leaves felt different. Some were quite smooth while others were hard and spiky. We walked around and checked out the plants. I especially noticed plants from Asia and Australia (adding to Africa in terms of continental travel) and at one point we sat on benches just as I was about to get overwhelmed again. As I lay on the bench I gazed up at the sky, having a milder reprise of an intense moment from earlier. As part of my cycle of emotions and sense of connection to the world's people, I offered to feel their worst feelings for them, opening myself up to intense emotions. I thought of children who feared bombs dropping over their heads, those who could not rest under clear skies, and felt that feeling again, but this time of wanting to give them this feeling of peace.

After a while I got up and other people walked around us, but I avoided looking at them (though I kept sneaking peeks) since I was afraid of feeling their feelings too much. We walked around to the other end of the botanical garden and went down the greenhouses. It was getting dark and some lights were on there. The lit-up cactuses and assorted exotic plants suggested another world completely alien to our own, built up as a specimen for us to see. I noted though that these plants were on the same planet, just somewhere else. Again a global motif appeared.

Since trying to read the book I was getting more verbal, and when we were in the botanical garden I made some observations of the things we found and tried to read some of the signs but failed. P shared some things with me, too. Like how Czech turns into an alien language when he's on acid. For a while on our walk we held hands, and when we stopped holding hands it felt perfectly natural. I don't know who wanted to do it more. I noticed he kept yawning and asked if he was tired and he said yeah, looking forward to the longer days.

By the time we passed the greenhouses it was getting dark, so we walked for a little bit more, and I rested again, before leaving the garden and going back to his place. At this point I felt hungry and said I was hungry. P said he would pick up some food and make food, and would be back soon. So for the first time I was completely alone in the flat.

Here again my memory is fuzzy. I don't remember what I did while P was out grocery shopping. I was probably lying on the bed again, tired after the outing, but I don't think I dozed off. But I can't remember anything specific. Maybe it was now when I heard the children giggling from the neighbors' flat. The building, especially when in the room facing the street, felt so loud. I remember that I put a lamp in the room since there were no lamps. I just know that I was in the room when I heard the front door open and waited a few minutes before joining P in the kitchen. I offered to help and tried chopping the carrot but that was too hard so I switched to peeling potatoes. I got interested in watching P peel and cut onions and garlic and prepare the ingredients for lentil soup and roast vegetables. The sprinkle of pepper on the vegetables was like magic. As the food was cooking my attention was on the boiling water, the pot, and the oven, also while P was chopping sometimes. While the food was cooking P told me that he was seeing somebody who was married. I laughed and listened as he told me about their relationship. He started with the word "temptation," and that got my attention right away. I felt like again that it might have something to do with me even though it was a completely separate situation. The food was cooked and it was really good. I took my time eating and only had a little bit of both dishes, paying close attention to the taste of every bite, the texture of every vegetable. I hadn't eaten with this much intention in a long time.

Again my mind is fuzzy. It's possible I have some things out of sequence. But what I remember next is being back in the room, alone, deciding to draw some things in the notebook I had brought. They were abstract squiggles, but just as on the dining table I saw shapes resembling penises and, well, not exactly vaginas, but they could be. Sex was on my mind, despite my best efforts the previous day to dispel them. I felt strong feelings for P, feelings that had been suppressed for a long, long time, and I had visions about being intimate with him and even going out and telling him how I felt. Then I thought about my boyfriend and the consequences of this. I felt really anxious, but I knew I had been holding back these feelings. I wrote in the notebook: "Don't hold back. Tell the truth." This was also relevant to my visions from earlier -- it felt embarrassing to express these things before. I sat at the desk holding my head in my hands, debating in my head about what to do. I had visions of telling P what I felt, going to get my phone and text my boyfriend, having sex with P. As I worked through my feelings and sorted out what to do, I decided that I had to say something, at least. I was also feeling annoyed with myself for having to deal with this situation. I wondered why I was having feelings for P. As I thought, I realized that the person I had to trust was myself, for despite us having held hands and touched each other and hugged on this day P hadn't tried to do anything more. I had unsettling visions of dogs sledding on rainbow slides in snow, and thoughts of my boyfriend were peach-colored.

I went back to the kitchen and P joined me (or was already there?). I had more food and wanted to speak but couldn't. It was like I was fighting with myself. When I managed to speak I spoke with difficulty, as if my words had to breach a barrier in order to be spoken. I started with saying I can't speak because I am afraid to speak. Then we started having a halting conversation and I began to talk more. P heated some tea and we went to his room, where I sat myself by the window again, this time in a different chair. For the next few hours we were talking and not talking.

Talking: Talking about what was important to say, P said that sometimes you don't have to say anything. This was after I had told him that I hadn't told my boyfriend I was taking acid. It made the desire to say anything about the feelings I'd felt earlier evaporate. But I was able to start talking about the experiences I had earlier. Later, we were watching planes in the sky and started talking about airplanes and space. I said that at any given moment there are people in the sky. I remembered when I had seen planes closest outside of an airport, on the NJ Turnpike near Newark. He made observations about the planes' movements. We talked about outer space and how long it would take to reach the nearest star, how the stars are blotted out at night in most cities, and I mentioned the LA blackout I'd read about in a story recently. We also talked about experiences on acid, and he told me more about his new relationship.

Not talking: early on I got distracted by lights, then by the neighbors talking. One of them had an Indian accent and I was then transported to a kitchen in Pakistan, with bright visions of vegetables and rice to accompany them. At times I thought I heard English, with one significant line -- "these things take time" -- encouraging me to listen more for more lines of possible significance. But there weren't any others. I used the bathroom and the voices were really loud then, though for the most part I couldn't understand what they were saying or even guess what language they were speaking. There was also a moment where I felt angry at myself for imagining myself as Black people. I called myself a racist and thought the whole thing was embarrassing. I hadn't explained these earlier visions in such detail to P, just that I had inhabited other people's bodies, becoming them, in a way, feeling one with them and losing my sense of self. There might have been other, less intense visions, but I don't quite remember them.

I also examined myself in the mirror a few times, with pure interest. This is in contrast to my last mushroom trip in which I didn't like looking at myself in the mirror for I focused on the imperfections.

After a couple of hours it was time to get ready to sleep. I hadn't prepared to stay overnight so I borrowed a toothbrush and pajamas. We brushed our teeth at the same time, but went to bed in separate rooms. I looked at my phone, briefly, to reply to a message my sister sent me and I opened Instagram, but went through the posts very slowly and lost interest after five minutes. Shortly after I turned off the light and went to bed. I was kind of waiting for the trip to be over at this point, as it had been more than 12 hours, but as I lay down in bed it kept going.

I began to feel the acute pain of loneliness and longing, and considered going to P's room to sleep beside him. But I thought about my boyfriend and how I wouldn't want to make any moves while on drugs, but I couldn't be sure that my longing wouldn't lead me to do more while on drugs, and I began to doubt whether I wanted to be physically close to P because he was there or because of him. Tiredness began to set in and it was easier to not get up, but the pain of loneliness remained. I wondered if P felt it too. Then the empathic mind transport started again. I became a man this time -- first one with abs, then one with a beer belly -- and then I became, briefly, P, with visions of a beard and hairs. When these empathic visions faded I began to feel sexual and desired a penis, and as I began to touch myself I even imagined a penis entering me. I did some tossing and turning and touched my body in non-sexual ways. I didn't orgasm, and was tempted again to go to P, but didn't, though now I felt somewhat less lonely. When I curled up into a fetal position I became both a pregnant woman and the fetus inside her, just close to the point of birth, but didn't experience it. I felt so close but couldn't move to make it happen.

In-between or at the same time, I had various, mostly sexual visions, at first: again peach-colored, a sketchy vision of two cartoon people having sex, female bodies and male sexual parts in a kaleidoscopic formation, a straight-up vision of my boyfriend sitting on a chair with a mug in hand, saying something that I've now forgotten. I briefly embodied a young woman with a different skin tone, had visions of a make-up model, and more that I can't name.

As my energy (and the acid) faded, my visions became more black and gray, punctuated with brief moments of a vision of Death (a gray character with a skull, though its clothes were different) and each moment the vision appeared I expected to be afraid but wasn't. I had some more visuals that are difficult to describe as it's harder to connect them to anything, and there was a moment when it seemed to stop, and the acid's power lifted. But I was losing consciousness then so I soon fell asleep.

The next morning, I got up briefly only after P had left his room, and I wanted to communicate my intention to sleep more and inquired about his plans. I soon went back to bed and closed my eyes. I didn't sleep much more but my mind was active. I regretted not going to P the night before, but then thought that attempting intimacy while under the influence was not what I would want to do, and I had the same thoughts again about my current committed relationship and whether I really felt this way about P or just felt lonely. I had new thoughts about how it would have been nice to have sought comfort, but on the other hand maybe I needed to make myself lonely, and perhaps P would have rebuffed any advances I made anyway.

So despite the message to not hold back, I did hold myself back from seeking comfort for my loneliness and physical intimacy with a good friend. I think this is one of the main things the acid brought up for me: these feelings for my friend, and upon reflection I think I did the right thing, despite the pain I felt in that moment. It gives me time to reflect on my feelings and experience and I just need to pay attention and be more aware and mindful and not forget this. But I wonder if attempting to get physically close to P would have been the right thing for me to do to properly confront these feelings.

I was also feeling a bit sad and overwhelmed that morning, wondering how in the hell would I go back to normal after my experience. I began to think about what was the point of this "outer layer of being", as I conceived of it, when we didn't really need all that much to be content. When I brought it up later with P he said it was all the social constructs we built up, but I wonder why they exist, what is the point of them, for I didn't feel like how I was on acid was so dangerous. I still felt lonely (and regret set in again). The occasional mild vision came up -- one with a snake going through a video game, something with a bug, and a few others that I cannot recall at this moment.

Eventually I got up and heated some leftover lentil soup. Again I took my time with eating, and made a cup of tea. I craved something sweet but decided to wait until I got home. I went to P's room to look out the window, and I opened it just when the bells were ringing and P came back. We had a chat and I shared a bit about my experience, had some food together and then I decided to go home. I brought the book I'd shown interest in while on acid home. I walked, and my perception of the people was not quite the same as the previous day, and I was no longer tripping, but I felt a heightened perception of the people and animals and cars around me. I felt tired, but content, and sat on a park bench for a while to look at the view. I overheard two women speaking in English about one of their relationship problem. The guy was not understanding. Dogs were around. The sun was out. It was a pretty nice day. After getting home, aside from writing this report, I spent the rest of the day doing things as unhurriedly as possible. Though I already started to feel anxiety and the desire to distract from my loneliness creep back in, with thoughts about the time and putting on YouTube.

Aftermath: I have felt more aware and alive since the trip. After five days of emotional turmoil, I told P about my feelings and we started sleeping together. I am re-evaluating my relationship with my boyfriend and have realized the problems I have with our relationship. No huge life-altering decision has yet been made, but I know I cannot go back to the way things were before.

Concluding thoughts: I think the experience was highly valuable. The fact that I wanted to spend time with P while tripping showed that I am a social person, and it helped to have P there to comfort me when I was feeling overwhelmed. He also made an observation that I'm very curious, evident by how I wanted to explore the different rooms, go outside, and taste, smell and touch different things. I also asked a lot of questions. It was nice to have him to talk to. And I know I can trust him a lot. The person I trust the least in this situation is myself, for I was projecting a lot of my feelings onto P. While towards the end I'm unsure if I fully utilized the influence of the drug, this experience brought up feelings that I have ignored for who knows how long and it has given me things to think about. Like how I can be more mindful in the future. Try to distract myself less. But the most important lessons were my sexual awakening, empathic visions, and epiphany of my feelings for P and about my relationship. Whatever happens now, I am irreversibly changed by the experience.

Exp Year: 2023	ExpID: 117796
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: 34
Published: Nov 8, 2024	Views: 15
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