DOSE:

2 hits

LSD

(blotter / tab)

BODY WEIGHT:

140 lb

Background:

Before I begin explaining the most amazing trip thus far in my early-adult life, I would like to give some boring yet necessary background of my previous experiences with drugs and the incredibly fortunate circumstances which I was allowed in the spring of 2010. First off, at the time of the trip I was 18 years old attending my first year of college in Oregon. I had experimented with various psychedelics, mostly the basics (LSD and Mushrooms), as well as frequent cannabis consumption, and of course a fair share of alcohol use. After finishing my second term of college with relatively stellar grades, I had miraculously convinced my parents to help pay for a plane ticket to Kauai where I would join my good friend (we'll call him J), and his family for a week long adventure on the most peaceful and beautiful places I have ever been. After doing a bit of research, J and I decided that if we could successfully pull off a two or three hit L trip that it would be a magically unforgettable experience, and furthermore an event which we may never have a chance at again. Looking back I can safely say that it was the greatest decision and most environmentally immersive experience of my life thus far.

J and I had loose plans of where and what we wanted to do for our trip but were having a very difficult time escaping from his parents for a day, this wasn't necessarily a bad thing because the days with his parents were spent in tropical forests and beautiful beaches. However, as the week slipped by we were beginning to consider the possibility of having to take the L on a day spent with his parents, brother and sister-in-law, and try to act as normally as we could. I was not very thrilled with this prospect, as one can imagine why, but J continuously tried to convince me that we could pull it off 'no problem'. I certainly had my doubts. Luckily we were able to talk his parents into letting us do our own thing for the final day on the island; boy, did we cut it close!

The night before, we scrambled to form a plan on how we wanted to spend the estimated 12-or so hour trip, as well as pack the things which we thought we may need. We decided that for the first leg of the trip we wanted to try to hike a trail, and for the second leg we wanted to be on a beach, this would allow us to really 'see' the multiple environments which Kauai had to share. We woke up, ate breakfast and dropped the tabs (2 each) around 9:30 a.m. I found it funny that as the blotter dissolved on our tongues we continued chatting with his family, waiting for his brother to drive us to the trail. At about 10:00 we piled into the rental car and drove the mile or so to the designated first-leg of our adventure.

Nounou Trail, 'The Sleeping Giant':

We arrived at the trail and departed from his brother. At this point neither of us was feeling anything and we agreed that it may be smart to wait at the base of the trail until we could feel the onset of a come-up. We sat in the nearly empty parking lot for a good 30-45 minutes conversing about how wonderful the vacation had been thus far, and how we were both sad we would soon have to leave paradise. We agreed that this trip would be the perfect way to commemorate our stay on the island and talked of the various things we wanted to take from our individual trips. As our conversations began its transformation from sobriety to liminality we both decided that we were beginning to feel something and that we could probably begin our hike.

For the next half hour we quickly progressed up switchback after switchback, neither of us feeling much more than a slight buzz and an increase in sensitivity to light. It was really amazing however, advancing up the giant ridge and seeing how the leap in elevation affects the atmosphere and subsequently the surrounding flora. As we climbed, the air around us slowly changed from dry and hot, to muggy and cool. This transformed the plant life around us into a much greener and tropical environment, one which you would expect to see on a Hawaiian island. As we reached the final leg of the climb I felt my mental consciousness begin to alter as each one of my thoughts would wander in a non-linear fashion; I can only describe my thought pattern as a connect-the-dots puzzle where instead of the lines following the correct numbers, they would connect randomly, flowing from one dot to the next and then back again, then to some other far-off dot then back again and so on and so forth.

It wasn't until we reached a rather curious clearing from the trail that I had my first visuals. As we strayed from the designated path and onto a rocky cliff which overlooked the east side of the island we noticed a looming rain cloud beginning to sweep over the beaches and surrounding towns. I stood amazed as the cloud tore through the landscapes at an impressive speed, and as I stared at the cloud it began to change from a dark grey color to a sandy hue and then to a very rich purple. I smiled as I knew that the L was finally taking its hold, and within seconds of this realization the cloud reached the spot where we were standing and let loose its magnificent warm rain. The leap in stimuli disoriented me for a moment as the feeling, smell and sound of the rain baffled me, and it was at this point I would safely say I began 'trippin.'

The cloud left as quickly as it arrived and we were once again left with a gloriously sunny day to continue our trip upon. We continued our trek up the mountain with the goal of the most elevated point being our destination. We had read online however that the most elevated point isn't really a part of the trail and would require a bit of climbing, and in fact had lead to the death of multiple young, able climbers. This didn't seem to faze us though as we silently blazed up the final 100 yards of the path to our highly anticipated journey's end. And my god was it worth it, from the highest point we had a 360 degree panoramic view of the entire island. Straight ahead was the crystal clear ocean, sandy beaches and creamy white clouds of the 'east-side,' while directly behind us was the immense green landscapes of the thick Hawaiian jungles and it's dark, looming rain clouds. I sat with my feet dangling off of a good thousand foot cliff, using a boulder as a back rest and looking out at the expansive ocean. My fear of heights was completely obliterated as I felt entirely in control of my body and environment; there wasn't a single moment where I second-guessed the intimidating height which I was exposed to. Listening to the most upbeat music I could find, my eyes gently took in the beautiful 'eye-candy' all around me as my normal fractals manifested themselves in most everything I looked at. One fractal in particular that always shows itself in my L trips is the image of a gecko with perfect symmetry up its spine. This visual always brings me pleasure because it has always been with me in all of my trips and consistently reminds me of the first trip I ever had, and notably another one of my favorites. Sitting awestruck, waves of euphoria engulfed my physical and mental being as I watched the magical routine of my environment working around me. I sat in wonder as the ocean birds flew with the winds in graceful arcs around the edges of the cliffs; long tracers flowing behind them like the contrails of a plane, each trail slowly dissipating after a few seconds.

The next thing I noticed was a fairly large bee clumsily battling the winds next to the boulder which I was sitting upon. I watched it fly right up next to me as if to assess whether or not I was a threat to him, apparently it thought I was, because the next thing I knew the bee was clinging to my hand and ferociously stinging me! This startled me and I quickly waved my hand to get the bee off, watching it as its lifeless body eventually fell off of the cliff, the stinger still attached to my hand. I calmly plucked off the stinger, still perplexed that I had just been attacked in such a peaceful state of mind! However, the strange part was that although I saw that I had been stung, and even looked at the stinger still in my hand, I hardly felt it at all; in fact, all I felt was a slight tingle run up my hand and arm. Although I was thoroughly enjoying my spot on the cliffs, being stung distracted me and I got up and walked over to a nearby cliff where J was sitting. We discussed the things we were seeing and how our trips were going; apparently he was hardly feeling the acid and was getting very limited visuals. J has always been a bit of a heavyweight when it comes to substances so this didn't really surprise me; however he said he was enjoying the experience thus far and we both agreed it would be a good time to begin our descent down the mountain and towards the beach.

The walk back down went very quickly as we both had immense amounts of energy and were practically flying down the path. J said that the L was now actually setting in and that he was beginning to get some discrete visuals. As we walked down the trail we discussed how difficult it would be to live on an island like Kauai which although incredibly beautiful, was too secluded from the societies on the mainland. This reminded me of my childhood town in Nevada which was about 5 hours from any other civilization and basically an island of its own. This was what drove my mom away from my father, and I had never fully understood this complex situation until then. I felt enormous amounts of empathy for my mother and knew that although her decision to leave caused a giant rift and the inevitable divorce between her and my dad that it was the only thing that could keep her happy. This also made me think of my dad who had to choose to either stay in the only home he ever knew or lose his love, his fear of branching out into unknown territory inevitably overpowered his feelings for my mom and separated them for good. This was precisely why I felt it wouldn't be healthy to only expose oneself to a single secluded environment for an entire lifetime, and that it often harbors a fear of the unknown. I felt so much love for both my mom and dad and finally understood their divorce which had always been concealed from me, and although it saddened me that they had to split up I knew that all of it was necessary for all of us to be where we were that day.

We quickly reached the trail's exit and were left with the daunting walk to the closest beach we could find. As we left the parking lot a car pulled up next to us with a man and his wife, and a child in the backseat. The man, thinking we were locals, asked us for directions to the trail, and although it was literally 30 yards from where we were standing and we had just left from there, it seemed like an incredible task to try and direct him there. On top of my already impaired state-of-mind, my brain became even more tangled when I looked in the passenger seat at the man's wife and noticed that she looked exactly like my college roommate's mom. Now to this day I don’t know if it was a hallucination or not, but I swear that Mrs. Larsen was sitting in that car trying to figure out where the trail was. This very strange occurrence was a distraction of its own, but then when I looked at the man I was thrown even further off as his face began to morph and contract in a bizarre fashion. After what seemed like an awkwardly long amount of time they went on their way towards the direction that we pointed them in and we were off once again. We walked through residential neighborhoods and then onto the busy highway which we hoped would get us to the beach. Unfortunately there were no shoulders or sidewalks and so cars zipped by us at an uncomfortably close distance. Eventually we made it off the highway and onto the quiet road that would lead us to the beach.

A Manifestation of Heaven:

When we reached the beach we took off our shoes, sunk our feet into the warm sand and headed for the end of the coast where we wouldn't run into anybody. Once we got to the end of the beach we threw off our gear and quickly made our way to the crystal blue water that had been beckoning to us all day long. The water was indescribably magnificent as I waded in to my waist and let it caress me. J and I wanted to swim but were stopped by the sharp coral which we saw lined the coast and would certainly cut up our feet if we weren't careful. So instead, we went back to our towels and laid back and relaxed.

Now at this point I thought that I was beginning to come-down, but boy was I wrong, as I began listening to music and watched the clouds slowly drift from the ocean, over our heads, and then inland, I felt myself begin to slip back into another visual and mental peak. I had never been so interested in the clouds, I watched as they slowly changed color, morphing and twisting into abstract shapes. The clouds seemed 2-d, like paper, except that there were multiple layers of the 2-d clouds, and as I stared in awe they began to shuffle like a deck of cards. These visuals were so calming; I would watch a particular cloud make its path from the ocean and over my head until I could no longer see it in my field of vision and then search for another one to look at. Every so often I would close my eyes and be welcomed by a mixture of colors and geometric shapes which looked a lot like the clouds above my head. There were multiple occasions where I would have my eyes closed and know this, but would be seeing the same images of the clouds which I had just been looking at. It looked as if I literally had my eyes open, I could see the rims of my glasses, the clouds moving overhead, the cobalt blue sky, and even the horizon of the beach out of my peripherals. This would confuse me because then I would open my eyes and see the exact same thing except with much more vivid colors!

J and I then received a call from his parents wondering where we were and hoping to come pick us up. We were both still tripping but decided that we were at a state-of-mind which was manageable and told them to come to the beach to grab us. At first it was a bit awkward being around them because I still felt pretty fucked up, but I soon got comfortable with the situation and embraced it. The rest of the evening was spent playing basketball and putt-putt golf back at the resort. After we ate dinner and J's parents went to bed, J and I went out to the beach, smoked a couple joints and watched Alice in Wonderland and drifted off into a veryyyyyyyyyyy deep sleep.

I still consider that amazing Friday in Kauai the single greatest experience of my life and wouldn't change a single thing about that day. Although the two hits weren't the best I ever had, they were perfect for the situation, which was more about being in control than tripping nuts! For anybody that has not visited Kauai, I strongly recommend it, and if you want the best view on the island go to Nounou trail, you will NOT be disappointed.

Exp Year: 2010	ExpID: 84855
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 18
Published: Dec 25, 2013	Views: 3,486
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