DOSE:

1 hit

oral

LSD

(blotter / tab)

It’s been a week and three days since I dropped LSD for the first time. I’ve previously smoked salvia a few times (by far my most abstract and terrifying psychedelic experiences), tried psilocybin mushrooms once, dropped ecstasy a few times, drank one opium tea and smoked weed on and off pretty heavily over the last two years (a habit, since experimenting with more intense hallucinogens, I’m beginning to lose interest in). The notoriety of “acid flashbacks” always intimidated me, I’d always been given the impression that they’re extremely intense and could strike at any time, the safety (and sanity) of my future self, and those around me, never seemed worth the high. When I heard down the grapevine that a chemistry student from my college was getting hold of a couple of tabs I decided to investigate acid flashbacks and see how dangerous they can actually be, the fruits of my research comforted me and I decided to drop a tab the following weekend.

Although a little unfit I’m generally in good health, I take no medication and there are no mental health problems in my family (as far as I am aware at least). Before trying new drugs, especially hallucinogens, I usually experience a lot of anxiety but I felt really positive about trying LSD from the moment I realised the chances of it ruining my life were slim to nought. Previous difficult experiences with drugs have taught me the value of caution and I decided to drop half a tab first and see how I felt after that. Dropped the first half at about half past 12 and pressed it firmly to the mucus membrane beneath my tongue, held it there for two or three minutes then chewed and swallowed it.

My sitter and I took a bus into my city centre and milled around while I waited to come up, I started to feel off baseline after about an hour but my impatience was getting the better of me and after an hour and a half I dropped the second tab. A trip to the local art gallery was pretty strange, we only spent about fifteen minutes in there but by the end some of the more modern abstract art was beginning to take a decidedly trippy feel. One of the unexpected effects the acid gave me was that it made my ears “pop” really frequently, similarly to when they do as a passenger on a plane taking off or landing. I’d earlier arranged to meet some friends at a jazz gig in a student bar, so me and my sitter headed to the station to wait for our bus.

On our way I accidentally shattered the airtight Perspex tube the tab had been sold to me in, rather than immediately discarding it I spent a while rubbing my thumbs over the serrated edges and spreading blood over my hands. It took me a while to realise what I’d been doing and when my sitter noticed he persuaded me to throw the shards away before I seriously hurt myself. It was around this time (about two hours after dropping the first half) I became fully aware of the LSD’s affects, my concept of shape became pretty flexible and I was noticing a lot of unusual patterns (for example the speckles on the bus station’s floor tiles were forming patterns a lot like fossil shells). One of the things I found most difficult about the experience was the time dilation, seconds were genuinely stretching into minutes, although this in itself isn’t much of a problem the confusion it fostered brought me close to anxiety a few times.

After what seemed like an eternity sat waiting for our bus to depart we were on the road. The bus ride itself didn’t seem especially weird, in hindsight I remember noticing quite a lot of trippy patterns and visual distortions but at the time they really didn’t seem to matter at all. I think the time dilation must only come on really strongly when you stay in one environment for a while, because I spent the bus journey staring out of the window at the different streets and we were at the bar in no time. I’d been there two or three times previously so it was an environment I was fairly familiar with. When we entered we unexpectedly bumped into two kids I know from college (C and J, for convenience) so we pulled up chairs and sat with them whilst the band played.

I can’t remember much of what the band’s set was like, the few times I concentrated on them I found their music really positive and uplifting. Disappointingly I experienced no visual synaesthesia although changes in tempo and intensity had a definite affect on my perception of temperature. Over the next few hours (about three to five hours after dropping the first half) the time dilation reached its peak and I began to feel very comfortable, at this point I was already glad of the experience but was beginning to feel like I wanted to come down. The dragging time was making me impatiently text my friends to find out how long they’d be, texting took a look of concentration but the messages were far more legible than ones sent drunkenly.

As the acid was peaking I felt really fidgety and started shredding placemats into ridiculously small pieces whilst rocking my legs quickly under the table. I had the feeling of “energy” running underneath by skin, all over my body. It’s hard to describe properly, the closest I can get is to imagine the bubbles in boiling water over your entire body. My friend H arrived during the peak and stayed for about half an hour, she was wearing a leopard-print coat which I amused myself with for a while, watching the spots rearrange themselves into feline faces. Although my general perceptiveness was reduced I felt a lot more perceptive about people’s emotional states but the time dilation was making conversation a disorientating experience, I had to keep asking if I was speaking too much/not enough. Eventually, a couple of hours late, my friends V and B arrived and we were able to head back into the city centre for the day’s main attraction: the city’s Christmas lights display.

Our departure was delayed for a while because I was beginning to feel really rooted to the bar and afraid of what we might encounter if we left. I can’t remember if I reasoned myself out of this or was talked out of it, but eventually we set off on foot. Although the dark made me a little apprehensive at first but once we were outside the cool air and lights on the wet concrete overwhelmed me with euphoria. Walking felt absolutely effortless, as if I was being carried around by a conveyor belt and colours, rather than being cartoonishly exaggerated as portrayed in the media, instead just seemed much more intense. It felt as if I was seeing colour with clarity for the first time, shapes and patterns (existing ones, not just my hallucinations) also seemed to have real significance. My most powerful ecstasy experience doesn’t even come close to the absolute peace and euphoria I had wandering those wet streets but although not as intense ecstasy is at least stable. LSD’s volatility ensured the bliss way to be short lived.

On the way into town we stopped by at a Tesco’s, I can’t remember exactly why, presumably for food. The shop was crawling with police (looking back I may have just hallucinated some of them, I’m sure there were definitely three but at the time everyone inside looked in uniform). Every authority figure’s eyes bored into me, every corner I turned revealed yet more cops. I daren’t risk leaving the shop in case they corned me alone so I followed my sitter around the shop. He was talking quite a lot and concentrating on his voice as we wandered about the shop’s confusing layout helped me focus my attention. We were finished and back on the street within minutes but the experience was nevertheless taxing, my euphoria was totally vanished and the streets assumed a new hostility. After talking to my friends for a while and watching the reflections of the streetlights in puddles I began to feel more comfortable again, looking ahead I realised we were close to the city centre.

We entered the city centre through the back of the newest shopping centre, a towering, well-lit glass structure. The combination of the lights and glass looked staggering and heralded the return of the euphoria, somehow even more intense than that experienced earlier. My friends assured me that the city’s Christmas lights were overwhelmingly disappointing but at the time I was convinced I’d never seen anything more sublime. The auras around each bulb dissected into elaborate and radiant rainbow light spectrums. My friends complained of hunger and busied themselves with staring through shop windows whilst I staggered, open-mouthed down each street gazing above me. I was struck by how easily my friends allowed cynicism or physical/material distractions to divert their attention from such a profound pleasure. When I tried to explain this to them they seemed totally unconvinced and after a while of nonsensical rambling I eventually gave up trying to expand their consciousness. Although I would have happily wandered the streets for hours more, my friends decided they wanted to leave so we returned to the bus station. As walk walked I realised my cheeks were stained with tears.

The bus station was busy when we arrived, full of loud young people. My patience with gobshites is short at the best of times, in that frame of mind their raucous was eliciting a combination of dread and frustration. Time dilation, my frustratingly constant companion through the day, returned at this point and the wait for our bus dragged badly. At the point it was about six or seven hours since I’d dropped the first half and the effects were noticeably tapering off, although for a while passers-bys faces looked a lot like the android Kryton from Red Dwarf. Eventually V and B’s bus arrived and me and my sitter went and caught a bus to his house.

Although the patterned seats were being a bit mischievous the bus ride wasn’t too bizarre, once again because I think I had a lot to concentrate on. Peering out of the front window of the bus just before we got off was fun, I felt like a passenger on a space ship. By the time we got back to the sitter’s house the visual effects were all but gone, I just had to wait out the comedown and try and get some sleep. We sat and read old issues of Vice Magazine until about 1 in the morning when I eventually decided to go home. I felt incapable of sleep so I sat on my computer for a while and then tried reading. I picked up Dead Souls by Gogol at first but that proved too difficult to concentrate on so I changed to Nineteen Eighty Four and leafed through that till I fell asleep at around 6 in the morning. I woke up two hours later not feeling too bad, although I resented having to get up for college.

Exp Year: 2010	ExpID: 88499
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 18
Published: Dec 3, 2011	Views: 22,913
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LSD (2) : General (1), First Times (2), Nature / Outdoors (23), Various (28)