DOSE:

1 hit

oral

LSD

(gel tab)

BODY WEIGHT:

210 lb

My First Experience With LSD and Psychedelics

I am a 21 year old engineering college student who tried LSD for the first time about three weeks ago. Around the time I tried LSD, I had just finished my winter quarter and had to return home due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

A couple weeks before the quarter ended, I was conversing with a close engineering friend. Our conversation turned towards hallucinogens at some point, and he discussed his experiences with taking LSD, mushrooms and mescaline. Given that I had never really used any substances recreationally (besides some occasional social drinking), he recommended that I try LSD for my "first time". I thought about his suggestion for a few days and performed some research into LSD. I ultimately decided that I would try LSD at some point during my spring break. I bought a few LSD gel tablets off of this same friend and hid them away. Right as my winter quarter final exams ended, my university required most students to move out of campus housing due to the Coronavirus situation, so I had to return to my parent's house.

Since both of my parents were working from home due to the Coronavirus, I realized that I would have to be discrete about taking LSD. My brother had also returned home from his university for the same reason as me. I talked to him and found out he had used acid before, so he agreed to keep an eye on me when I decided to take the acid. He also had a testing kit and verified that the tablets I had appeared to contain LSD.

I made plans to take LSD a couple days later. I spent the morning and afternoon of that day preparing by clearing out my room, hanging up a few posters on the walls and preparing a playlist of music and videos that I would listen to and watch. I selected nine hours of "SpaceAmbient" instrumental music and three of my favorite videos from a particular Youtuber. The videos, totaling about 70 minutes, explored the past, present, and future of the universe in a highly visual manner with a powerful instrumental soundtrack.

I fully intended to approach my first experience with LSD with an open mind and positive attitude. I was in a good mood having received my remaining final grades earlier that day and finding out that I did very well in all of my classes. I was excited to see where the experience would lead and what insights into myself that I would gain, but also a little nervous because this was my first time really doing an "illegal" drug.

At about 9 PM that evening, I consumed one gel tablet (approximately 150 - 200 μg according to my friend). I then drank a couple glasses of water and took a quick shower. I returned to my room, put on my headphones to listen to the ambient music, and laid down in bed. I started feeling a noticeable change in my mental state about 45 minutes later. The first thing I felt was an overwhelming feeling of positivity connected to the music. This music itself felt so beautiful and emotional. "How could anyone not listen to this and feel so awe-inspired?" I thought to myself.

Visual hallucinations did not start until about 60 - 75 minutes in. I first noticed the curtains in my room subtly and gently pulsing. The visuals increased in intensity pretty quickly over the next 20 minutes. By 90 - 105 minutes in, the popcorn ceiling and textured walls were moving around in complex, dynamic patterns and fractals. The ceiling was slowly rotating. I saw what appeared to be blinking eyes moving around on the ceiling and on many surfaces. The music radiated pure positivity.

As the walls of my room, posters and ceiling continued to pulse and gently rotate, I suddenly felt this connection to a sort of shared cultural consciousness. It was as though I now understood a bunch of pop culture and history connected to LSD and other drug use that I was familiar with only in passing. This is the force that drove the counterculture, so I thought.

At about four hours in, I paused the music and began watching the videos I had lined up. The videos are already visually spectacular and the ideas discussed hard-hitting without LSD, but watching them during the trip simply blew my mind. The videos' visuals seemed so much more complex and the ideas explored felt so much more powerful. I felt microscopic, humbled by my insignificance on the scale of our galaxy, on the scale of our universe. I felt so grateful to have the opportunity to live life at this privileged moment in time, for the conditions necessary for life may only exist for a vanishingly brief moment on the scale of the entire timeline of the universe. As the arrow of time continues its cruel march forwards with entropy slowly erasing everything I know, I am afforded the opportunity to be alive, to briefly carry the torch of life that shines in defiance of the cold, uncaring darkness that awaits me and, eventually, all life on this planet.

As I watched the videos, I noticed the light in my room was radiating pure energy that made my skin tingle with a calming coolness. The colors of the light and different posters in my room were continuously and subtly shifting between a white and yellow tinge. I looked over at one wall and saw cyan-blue-yellow bird-like patterns spreading their wings and taking flight. The passage of time was also somewhat slower; the video seemed to slow down and linger on for longer than I thought it would be.

After the videos finished, I sat back in bed, turned on more ambient music, and started contemplating my future while staring at the rotating fractals moving across the popcorn ceiling. My contemplation reinforced my confidence in my current plans to attend graduate school and pursue a PhD after I graduate next year. Academic research is something I currently love and would love to continue doing.

The intensity of my emotions and hallucinations gradually faded after about seven hours post-consumption. The overwhelming feeling of positivity had long ago faded away. Every surface still had blinking eyes and complex, dynamic patterns. Infinite fractals appeared and disappeared. The music still sounded much more complex.

During this period, I did have one of negative vision. After I turned off the lights in my room and laid down in bed, I looked at some blinds in front and to the right of my bed. As I focused on the outline of the blinds, which were backlit from a streetlight outside, I observed rapidly moving lines which began to morph into spiders. I did not feel any panic or anxiety. Simply closing my eyes resolved this issue. To avoid seeing anything else that could be potentially distressing, I resigned to putting a cover over my eyes and listening to ambient music. I watched muted kaleidoscopic fractals dance across my vision until I fell asleep a few hours later.

After twelve hours, or 9 AM the next morning, I was finally able to fall asleep. I was mentally exhausted by that point and happy to get some sleep. When I woke up at 1 PM, everything appeared to have returned to normal emotionally and physically, though I felt a little drained for the rest of the day. I had a deep, restful sleep the following night and woke up from that feeling completely normal again.

In summary, my first experience with LSD was a deeply personal, emotional, positive, profound experience. I felt like I understood and perceived so much more about myself and my role in life. I was humbled by how utterly insignificant I am on the scale of the universe. I now recognize LSD as a powerful tool for unlocking parts of the human experience that are not accessible through other means. Sufficient preparation and having the correct mindset were undoubtedly vital for keeping my trip a mostly positive and beautiful experience. I am still processing what I felt and saw three weeks later. My perspective on life has also noticeably shifted; I feel so much more grateful for living and experiencing life.

I see this as a first positive step into the wide world of psychedelics. My brother and friend have agreed that we should plan a fun outing to a remote campsite in the Sierras after the Coronavirus pandemic passes.

Exp Year: 2020	ExpID: 114289
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 21
Published: Apr 24, 2020	Views: 4,284
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
LSD (2) : Music Discussion (22), Glowing Experiences (4), First Times (2), Alone (16)