DOSE: T+ 0:00	5 - 6 drops	sublingual	LSD	(liquid)
T+ 1:30	300 mg	oral	MDMA	(capsule)
T+ 8:00		oral	Pharms - Chlorpromazine	(pill / tablet)

BODY WEIGHT:

65 kg

NOTE: I’ve chosen to use pseudonyms rather than just initials when it comes to naming the individuals mentioned in this post, because I think names read better and this trip report involves quite a large cast of characters.

This trip report describes what was easily the worst night of my life- a full-blown psychotic episode, a train wreck, a disaster trip. That being said, it was still an invaluable learning experience, and over the following months I was able to use the lessons learned during this experience to reach a better, fuller understanding of myself, my own psyche, and my place in the world. In the final analysis, I’m actually glad that I went through this, but I certainly didn’t feel that way at the time!

In early March of this year, a few weeks after my twenty-third birthday, I experienced my first truly “bad trip”- what I would term a drug-induced psychosis. Myself and a group of friends had gone to an outdoor psytrance party, held on a farm just outside of town. My friend Bella had just acquired a vial of liquid LSD, and we were all very excited to trip together at this party (note: This would be my 4th time tripping acid. I am also very experienced with MDMA, methylone, psilocybin, 4-ACO-DMT, 5-MeO-Dipt, and several other psychoactives).

When we arrived (at around 11 p.m), we immediately went to the bathroom to dose up. I asked Bella for two drops (approximately 300 micrograms); I’d had 3 drops (approx. 450 micrograms) before, but I had never tripped acid in such a public space before and wanted to play it safe. However, as she was administering the LSD her hand slipped and I ended up with WAY more acid under my tongue than I’d bargained for - closer to five or six drops (750- 900 micrograms) worth. Bella was horrified, and I was understandably apprehensive. But there wasn’t all that much to be done about it. I considered retreating to a safer place and waiting out the trip at home, but I had been looking forward to this night for ages and was curious to see how I would handle such an unexpectedly large dose (not well, as it happens).

About half an hour later, I started to come up HARD. Visuals were extremely pronounced- thousands of tiny little spheres of multi-coloured light began to dance across my vision, and people’s faces began to warp and stretch. Conversation became increasingly difficult, and I began to feel as if there was no connection between the words in my head and the words coming out of my mouth. I also began to feel an extreme physical discomfort- “tweaky” is the word I would use to describe the sensation. I went and danced for a little bit, which helped distract me from the discomfort, but I was finding the whole experience distinctly unenjoyable. I ran into my friend Kyle, who was also tripping, and told him I was having a bit of a rough trip. We walked around the party for a bit, chatting in a disjointed fashion, and I felt a bit better. At that point I suddenly remembered that in my wallet were two 150 mg caps of MDMA that I had left over from my birthday, and in my acid-addled state it seemed like a brilliant idea to take them there and then, despite Kyle’s objections. BIG MISTAKE.

I went to dance some more, and started feeling really, really good. Better than I’d ever felt before. The music was face-meltingly incredible, every slight movement I made sent ripples of pleasure all through my body, everyone around me seemed blindingly beautiful. About an hour after I took the MDMA, I decided to take a break, got some water and went and sat by the bonfire, where I ran into my friend Rosie- a beautiful soul who I’d had a massive crush on ever since I first met her last year. We started chatting, and I basically blurted out my feelings for her. She seemed taken aback but pleased, and we kissed for a little bit. Things were taking a turn for the better, but then the incoherency that I’d been battling all night came back with a vengeance. I said some very inappropriate and hurtful things to her, completely unintentionally, and she became very hurt, confused and angry with me.

It’s at this point that the trip took a truly dark turn, and my recollection of things beyond that point is still very scattered and incomplete. I ran away from her, back into the mass of bodies on the dancefloor. I became overwhelmed by terrible, uncontrollable feelings of desire- everything and everyone around me took on a very sexual aspect. I started touching, rubbing up on and kissing everyone around me. Obviously, this didn’t go down very well with anyone- not that I noticed or cared at the time. Kyle and Bella saw what was happening and tried to drag me away, but I ran away from them into the darkness. I ended up backstage and, for whatever reason, decided to climb onto the roof of a large freight container and throw myself off of it. I landed face first in the dirt, breaking my glasses in the process. A couple of witnesses told me afterwards that I lay still for a very long time- about 10 to 15 minutes, they said- and I think I may have sustained a mild concussion from the fall.

Eventually, one of the organizers of the party found me and took me to the chill-out tent, where he tried to contain me and calm me down. My memories of this time are very fragmented. I remember lying on an old, beat-up couch, pushing my fingers into holes in the couch and being very aroused by this; I remember people’s faces morphing and warping around me- total strangers turned into childhood friends, men turned into women, friends and acquaintances turned into celebrities and pop culture icons. It was as if every time I blinked I was transported into a totally different reality with totally different rules. At one point I became convinced that to solve the worlds energy crisis we needed a second sun, and that I had the power to will this sun into existence; at another, I remember being given water to drink and then believing that I was drinking whole oceans dry, swallowing rainclouds, draining seas, sucking the whole world dry to quench my terrible thirst. A second later, I hallucinated that I was surrounded by silverback gorillas. The whole time apparently I was raving, talking nonstop gibberish. What’s important to note, however, is that this whole time during the psychotic part of the trip, I didn’t feel fearful, or anxious, or anything like that. On the contrary, I was consumed by an overpowering, awe-inspiring sense of wonder and joy- it was if I was so happy that my brain couldn’t cope with it, and happiness itself was driving me insane.

Eventually (sometime past sunrise), someone managed to feed me an antipsychotic- chlorpromazine, I think- and someone else managed to call my flatmate to come take me home. Once I was back in my bedroom, reality began to return to me bit by bit, and I slowly began to realise just how fucked up that night had been. I was sobering up but still tripping, and that was when I entered into the most hellish and nightmarish part of the trip. I lay in bed sobbing my eyes out as a multitude of demonic-looking worms and centipedes and other crawling vermin slithered and swarmed all over me, enveloping me in slimy darkness. I puked all over myself, and pissed my pants, several times, unable to even drag myself to the bathroom to clean myself up. I remember looking at my hands, and seeing the flesh begin to blacken and wither until the skin slid off of my body and all that was left was yellowing bone. At that moment, still in the grip of the monstrous candyflip but sober enough to realise just how badly fucked up things had gone, I hit rock-bottom, and for the first time in my life found myself contemplating suicide. I finally managed to cry myself to sleep at around 10 a.m.

The next few weeks were very difficult. I fell into a deep depression, obsessed by feelings of stupidity, shame and remorse over what had happened. Fortunately my friends were very understanding and supportive, and with their help I was able to get my shit back together and carry on with normal life. I tripped acid once more in the months that followed that night, mushrooms twice, and had two MDMA rolls (but no combos), and everything went pretty smoothly- I wanted to prove to myself that I was not permanently insane, and that I could still enjoy drugs despite what had happened. Nonetheless, the memory of that night remained like a scar in my consciousness, and I felt acute anxiety and shame whenever I thought about it or someone brought it up.

Over the following few months, with the help of therapy, the support of my friends, and a few more quite revelatory drug experiences (primarily involving MDMA and methylone), I was able to take a lot of positive things from this bad trip- as I said at the start of the report, it taught me a lot about myself and my place in the world, and I’m grateful for those lessons, even though I wish they hadn’t had to come to me in such a terrifying manner. I won’t go into the details here because this is a trip report and not a personal psychological evaluation, but the main point I want to get across is that every trip – good or bad- contains within it the possibility for personal growth and development.

Exp Year: 2014	ExpID: 103969
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 23
Published: Feb 22, 2023	Views: 2,546
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MDMA (3), LSD (2), Pharms - Chlorpromazine (318) : Rave / Dance Event (18), Hangover / Days After (46), Sex Discussion (14), Train Wrecks & Trip Disasters (7), Difficult Experiences (5), Combinations (3)