DOSE:	1 hit	oral	LSD
	repeated	smoked	Cannabis

BODY WEIGHT:

150 lb

We each ate 1 dose (liquid dropped on candy) at 8:00pm. There were three of us, plus three pet cats in the house.

I had acquired the doses from people I love very much and find very pure in God’s love, and I felt a great deal of trust and gratitude in my mindset. I also trusted the two friends who were sharing the trip with me (they are experienced psychedelic users) and felt that I was in a safe setting.

We smoked a bowl of medical-grade cannabis. I was a little excited and I think my friends thought it would calm the trip a bit.

We put in a movie. An hour later, I began to see the characters' facial expressions change and morph to reflect their emotional states. Anger and sadness made the facial features morph with sharp lines and angry eyebrows; happiness or love made them approachable and fluid (two characters who were in love had kaleidoscopic eyes filled with brilliant, sparking colors). Though the characters’ facial expressions were probably consistent and stable by “sober” standards, they were continuously changing.

I was pretty sure I was high.

The pattern on the rug became fluid also; certain colors in the pattern seemed to dance above others. One of the cats began scratching on a toy, which sounded like popcorn inside my head. I pet one of the cats, feeling how soft and alive the fur was. We listened to Lee “Scratch” Perry’s album Kung Fu and the Dragon and marveled at how the album art “totally nails [the feeling of being high on acid].” I felt several elements of knowledge about pop culture and mysticism become integrated in my mind. It was as though a doorway had been opened for me to “get it” – that is, understand what the 1960s counterculture had been trying to say and how it tied to the transcendent mystic traditions.

We smoked another bowl of cannabis at this point.

We had set out some art supplies, and I started with colored pencils. The pencils made no sense, and I became frustrated quickly with the largeness of the task of holding one and making lines. The pastels were much better and I easily became immersed in the colors. I had a great feeling of overwhelming existential joy – one might call it a mystical flow state, union with God, or just plain “blissed out” – whatever it was, I felt called to express my happiness through color. It seemed as though each choice I made was deliberate and perfect, destined through my happiness to fall into place perfectly in harmony with the universe. Synergy or synchronicity, I think, are terms used to describe this. I’m not sure. I just felt like I was “in the zone” with the art, and moreover, with life. “Hey, [friend’s name],” I said. “I’m high on acid!”

Fuck yes.

Previously, about a week prior to the experience, I had begun reading about entheogens (Pinchbeck’s “Breaking Open the Head”) and listening to podcasts about them, (specifically the one featuring Ford’s book “Becoming God”). I have been a mystical seeker all my life, and have read widely on enlightenment and psychedelics, but I wanted to prepare for my first acid trip and thus had redoubled my interest in the subject.

Because I was coming from such a strong, happy place to begin with, any potentially frightening images were easily dispelled by remembering the things I’d read about how to cope emotionally with an acid trip.

As I’d learned, I remembered, “Everything is love; ask what’s next; don’t expect, just feel love and union and focus on God,” and therefore any closed-eye visuals I experienced became beautiful, rainbow-hued fractal patterns infused with brilliant light (which I felt was similar to the light people experience in near-death experiences or to illumination from God). These fractals featured indescript, beautiful geometries infused with the divine rainbow light as well as curling, tendril, claw-like geometries that held dark energy. I remembered reading that acid can reveal the yin-yang quality of reality, and as I watched the visuals, I realized that both dark and light energy are necessary to make the world. I sought the light but acknowledged the darkness. I felt peaceful, blissful, and trusting of God.

At one point, the three of us went outside to look at stars and to smoke cigarettes. As we stood outside, I felt so unified with my friends. They spoke to one another and I could tell that they felt a connection with one another. This union was present throughout the trip, but was particularly strong at two points: standing outside under the stars, and while playing with tarot cards.

One of my friends said she was “feeling the tarot” and so she took out her cards. She asked me to shuffle them and cut them with my intention clear in my mind. I did, wanting simply to find God’s pure intention for me and to understand. My friend laid out three cards, past, present, and future. The present card had, to me, an aura surrounding it. The aura was multi-colored, prismatic. The rainbow aura energy (which was similar to the closed-eye visuals I’d experienced earlier) was also present in a line in front of my friend’s face and heart as she read the tarot.

I interpreted my reading as symbolizing the progress I’d recently made in therapy regarding some family problems (the past card), the culmination of my emotional struggles in the LSD experience and associated mystic reading (the present card), and our ability as elements of the universe to create our own experiences through intention and happiness (the future card). Interestingly, the past and future cards related to one another. Both were about material possessions (the family problems heavily involved these, and I’d been struggling to cultivate a sense of detachment from the materials around me).

At any rate, during this same period of time, I also experienced the visual phenomenon of my flesh sinking and discoloring. I found that this was easily remedied by again focusing on love; as my focus became stronger and flooded my body with love, my flesh became white and luminous and smooth.

At one point, I went into the bathroom. I’d been cautioned against looking into the mirror too much while on acid, so initially I was careful to avoid looking into the mirror. But at some point, I felt that it was important I be able to face myself confidently and happily in the mirror, so I looked. Initially, I saw some of the sinking, discoloring phenomenon near my chin and my eyes, but as I determined to love the person I saw in the mirror and to love myself, again, I became glowing and free, smooth in appearance.

I felt free from the continual, perfectionistic self-doubt that had plagued me for the past ten years.

I also, at one point, saw a green disfiguration on one of the cat’s faces. It was unilateral, just on the left side. It seemed mucous-like to me, though it was more like an aura or like the sinking disfiguration I’d seen on my own body than like mucous. The cat’s disfiguration was different in color, more green than grey. I found out later in the night that the cat was sick with a sneezing, coughing sickness. I tried to send the cat love and to feel love strongly myself, and I was able to influence the green disfiguration but not to eliminate it.

I realized that I could only control myself and that the trouble was the cat’s, but also, that I could help the cat by sending it love and by feeling love myself. This was a freeing revelation; my only obligation was to love! The greatest way for me to help others was to love!

I laid down, exhausted, at about 3:15am (7 hours after dosing) and finally came down enough to sleep around 6:15am (10 hours after dosing). I slept until 12:15am and woke up feeling mostly normal and quite refreshed.

The best and most effective strategy was to maintain inner stillness and trust in God. I think that previous experience with meditation is helpful and that it was important to have several activities in reserve that seemed like they would be comforting and joyful.

Some things I brought or experienced as comfort: art supplies (pastels were great, pencils not so great; I’ve also heard the recommendation for blacklight paint), food (fruits, vegetables, nuts), essential oils to smell, pets (though this could go both ways, I think, depending on the dosage and set), outdoors, trusted friends.

LSD can’t substitute for years of reading, meditation, therapy, and inner struggle, but in a few short hours of bliss, I came to feel insight, peace, and enlightenment in a way I hadn’t felt in many years of continual struggle. I realize now that struggle is not the answer; peace and love are available; the hardest task is to cherish and listen to them.

LSD was a very healing medicine for me, and I believe it could help many of us given the right circumstances. I can see how it would be easy to abuse LSD, but I gained a serious amount of respect for the playfulness of the universe and feel that this is a powerful and beautiful medicine for psychological healing.

I also really fucking get the sixties now, which rocks.

Exp Year: 2010	ExpID: 84929
Gender: Not Specified
Age at time of experience: 30
Published: Jul 20, 2010	Views: 9,091
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LSD (2) : First Times (2), Glowing Experiences (4), Therapeutic Intent or Outcome (49), Small Group (2-9) (17)