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Learning Lots from Leary
LSD
Citation:   Youshouldknowbetter. "Learning Lots from Leary: An Experience with LSD (exp29225)". Erowid.org. Apr 21, 2006. erowid.org/exp/29225

 
DOSE:
  oral LSD (blotter / tab)
BODY WEIGHT: 165 lb
The intro:
Let's start out with your basic introduction. I am your average late-teen, early-twenty year old psychonaut. I've injested countless quantities of short acting tryptamines, phenethylamines, cactii, mushrooms, and I quit counting after my 55th acid trip. Don't get me wrong though, I'm not an escapist. I don't want to leave what I have. I love every aspect of my life. I have a wonderful girlfriend, maintain a Dean's List standing at a University, and have a job that pays well. My parents have always cared for me, and although haven't always approved of what I've done, they've never left my side. So maybe you'll call that typical, boring, or ordinary. Well it's extra-ordinary! I adore what I have and what I felt I almost gave up.

The story:
It was my birthday. It was July 9th in the extraordinary summer of 2003. I just turned 21 and all was peachy. I had 5 days off of work and I was on a road-trip to see my best friend in the world, Nathan. At the time he went to school in Alabama and I was at U of M. Last time we were together had been over a year ago. At that point, he had come to visit me and we painted the town red. Needless to say I was very excited to go see him. I had never been to his condo before and was so anxious to give my friend a ginormous hug. Since I had just turned 21, I was of legal stature to buy beer and we just planned on getting really shitty. I am not much of a drinker, but sometimes it's wonderful to just get hammered and reminisce.

During the 5 and a half hour voyeur to Tuscaloosa to visit my comrade he called my cell phone and told me that he had a birthday present for me. I sped up to 80 miles an hour in anticipation. Finally, with punk music blaring I pulled up to the unfamiliar territory and was greeted by him outside. I dropped my backpack on the driveway and hugged his neck. It had been damn near a year since we last spoke in person and even when I arrived we spoke, wordless. Nothing but pleasant company was to be had.

We walked inside and sat down. He offered me a drink and some food and I graciously accepted. While he was making preparation, I was thumbing through a stack of Calvin and Hobbes books on the coffee table. It was just mindless occupation before I asked where the bathroom was. He motioned around the corner. It was at this point that I actually looked at the set up.

It was a relatively typical condo. After walking in the front door, immediately in front was a kitchen, to the side, a living room. There was a spiral staircase between the kitchen and living room that led up to the computer 'room'. The staircase was wrought iron with grating for stairs and there was a light set below it. It was more or less a balcony on top that overhung the den. The bedrooms were set in the very front of the place and I was to sleep in his roommates sister's room. I set my stuff in there, peed and came back out.

I looked around and Nathan was there on the couch with a little box with an itty bitty bow on top. I asked if that was to be my birthday present and he replied with a smile and nod. He said that I should open it now and that's exactly what I did. All I saw inside was a little plastic bag on top of a cotton cushion. Inside that bag contained a 9 hit square of extremely potent blotter. Later, I would find out exactly how powerful this was.

Each hit was imprinted with a black Timothy Leary face with whatever array of dazzling psychedelic color that lie behind him. Instantly I knew what it was. I had heard about this going around from a previous trip to New Orleans but had not managed to put my hands on any. Nathan's roommate had, however, bought an entire sheet of the stuff and sent us on our merry adventure. I didn't plan on doing this through the course of the evening, but plans change.

He asked if I wanted to drop that evening or tomorrow. I just shrugged my shoulders and put it under my tongue. He laughed and did the same.

Okay, I know what the readers are thinking. What a moron, he just ate 9 hits of acid, rumored to be quite good. Well, my friends, I must concur, but my concurrence will come later in this tale. Right now, I just want to reiterate how little of a stranger I am to the discovery of Dr. Haufmann. I've consumed as many as 10 hits of powerful acid in my day in public places, unfamiliar places, with a sour state of mind, etc. I've dealt with 2 relatively bad trips and one was on a 9 hit escapade. Let's just say that I'm very familiar with my body and it's reaction to LSD.

The hot wings finished cooking about 15 minutes later and we ate them. I kind of needed something to settle my stomach because that first wave of acid influx had ocurred. I'm not used to such a rapid onset, but I take it in stride. It was when washing my hands after peeing again that I noticed the amide starting to take effect. The sink seemed a distance away and my hands did not feel like they were on my body.

I loved that first rush of acid. It felt like something wasn't right but I am unsure of what it is. That twinge in the front of my head and the shifty body buzz that moves ever more pervasively through me. Anyone who has eaten acid knows this feeling of initial uncertainty.

So feeling heavy and odd yet smiling I go to consume the hot wings. They tasted like something Emerill would make. We each sit down with our plate and turn on comedy central. It was 7 o'clock because a new episode of South Park is on. We finish our hot wings and wait a while longer. The sun sinks into it's western horizon. It was an omen, a forebearer of the night to come. As it set, so the acid set in. Sparking of South Park characters Kenny and Kartman was proficient in their eyes. I looked outside and saw a pink sky that began to change color to orange then to red. My arm itched, I looked down and my hair was growing, moving, shimmying around a fly that wasn't there. I smiled and invited my friend to go outside and enjoy a cigarette with me.

It tasted strange but I was so enthralled with the surroundings that were consuming me, that I didn't really notice. The sky was a kaleidoscopic display of stars coupling with the sunset. It was the perfect natural ballet. The grass was growing very tall in the very back of his yard and they seemed to be carassing the sun that had almost left the sky. The grass grew into distant trees and I started hearing the colors, especially the greens. They were whispering peaceful thoughts about nature. The leaves on one tree started laughing so I asked it what it was laughing at, telepathically, and they said that the stars were fucking. I smiled and told them to hold on. I looked at the stars and saw them with an unknown clarity. The sun waned further down. Only a stark blue tinge was left. I laid down with Nathan crown to crown and we watched the stars produce more stars. I could command them with my thoughts. I asked their permission to see constellations. They bowed and whatever constellation I wanted to see, they gave way.

At some point, Nathan had left the outer realm to go and play the guitar inside. I went in after who knows how long to see what goodies I could find inside. I wanted to talk with Nate about the beauty and awe that we had eaten. I saw his door was shut. I heard a noise from that direction and saw it open. He ran naked through the den into his roommates sister's bedroom, into the closet and shut the door. The only thing he had was an acoustic guitar. I laughed at the thought and retired to the Salvador Dali book. How vibrant!

His roommate walks in the door. I didn't know who he was and he asked if I was the guy who was going to eat acid with Nathan. I had forgotten I ate it until that point but said that I was. He said it was cool and asked how much I had eaten. I remembered it was a square and told him 9 Timothy Leary heads. He looked at me with shock or some sort of emotion that only a head full of acid could describe. So the roommate grew into the floor and turned into an alien and started speaking in a language I didn't know, or didn't think I did. However, when I really concentrated I knew what he was saying.

'9' It was a question, not a statement. He then did the absolute stupidest thing that one can ever do to another while on a strong acid trip. He said, 'Uh-oh.' The beautiful reds and yellows of the room turned into a violent violet and deep blue with hues of shadows looming over me. I was getting the fear. I managed to ask him what Uh-oh meant in my newly found tongue. His voice turned to static. All I heard was garbled, muffled foreign language. I again concentrated on the statement as much as I could. It was like listening to Chinese on a cell phone, but I made him write it down. All the page said was two things really big. 'Double dipped' and '18 hits'. The 1 from the 18 slithered off the page.

Instantly the trip intensified to an unparalleled degree. It was a personal insanity. Things streched and grew. People from far off places appeared in the brick walls. The couch threatened me. I did everything i could to keep from thinking that I took double the acid that I've ever taken, but alas, I was peaking and couldn't help it. The furniture changed colors and began melting into puddles. The liquified cotton and wool spread around the apartment and it began to flood. I began to cry to Nathan to get out of the room because the house was sinking. He never heard me. I was sure he had died. The only way I could survive was to climb the staircase. The staircase was unfriendly and very hard to navigate. I just crawled, and crawled until I reached the carpet above. I laid down and looked at the ceiling. I looked through the railing down to the floor and everything down there was completely normal. I finally calmed down a bit and remembered that I had eaten acid and this was a result of the drugs I had consumed.

I wasn't done yet.

I was too scared to go back downstairs. The fear still crept in me. I thumbed through a magazine of fashion that was up on the indoor overhang and saw a picture of a really odd leather jacket. It was red and pinstriped. There was a hat above it as well with the same motif.

One thing worth mentioning is that I am sitting on the computer chair using the monitor's light to help me out. I couldn't find a light switch and Nathan, for one reason or another, unplugged everything in the house that was electronic except the computer. He told me later that the clocks were fucking with him.

Anyway, while looking at the picture, the computer went into power save mode and suspended itself.

Dark. A more pervading nothing than anyone can imagine. It was terrifying. It was ultimate void. I got dizzy. The fear started knawing at me. The pages of the magazine got hot to the touch and I threw it on the desk. I got so scared that I tried to throw up, but I could not. I paced, and all the while praying for whatever else was left to hurry and end. In my clumsy disorientation I hit the table and the magazine fell. With luck, I hit the table hard enough and the monitor flicked back on from the mouse movement, I think.

The pages were making a noise on the ground, muffled and strange. I picked it up and there was the leather jacket/hat thing again. This time it was different though. The blackness that I mentioned earlier wasn't anywhere around me. It had concentrated between the collar of the jacket and the brim of the hat on the paper. This blackness was emotionless. It was deeper than space and time. It was a black that only hell could spawn. Yet I was strangely drawn to it. I heard the voice again. It erupted from the depth with a shy and booming voice.

It communicated with me. It asked what I wanted. I didn't know I responded. Should you go deeper? Should I travel the void? I didn't decline. Whatever it was told me to look at the grandfather clock. I did. The pendulum stopped. Slowly the second hand halted. I looked at the page again and it was just a black blur. I put my hand on the page and remember closing my eyes.

I was frozen. I was no longer a human being. I was a cog in the 4th dimension. I was the extradimensional being that existed only in the space of time. A voice surrounded me. It asked what my perception of time was. I didn't know. It explained to me the difficulty that people have with time. He said that the reason so many people are late for so many things is that they believe in time, but are unsure if it exists. I said that time didn't exist. We invented it. He said that an idea is stronger than a piece of stone. An idea will live on forever and that stone will crumble. Time is only as real as we make it.

I could move again, but I still couldn't see. Time was now a figment of my imagination. Age, clocks, birthdays, years: all meant nil. It was an offspring of an idea that was in itself non-existent. I made it down the staircase. Finally I felt as though I was coming down. However, this poignant thought still rebounded through my head. I walked into the bathroom and made the mistake of turning on the light and looking in the mirror.

I was older. Not much, but enough to notice. I contemplated myself and my existence. Then I remembered the voice in the void. Age isn't real. Time is an idea. I looked at the pimples and my 5 o'clock shadow. It wasn't hair on my face. It was black ants and they were moving rapidly up and down my cheeks. They were biting me and turning into wrinkles and made me look really old. I felt as though I were 100. I was weak and tired so I sat down on the toilet. I was exhausted. Finally I stood up and I had returned to normal.

I walked out of the bathroom and looked around. Color shifting had almost ceased. I think I fell asleep on the toilet for an hour or two. The den had lightened a bit. I looked outside and the sun was rising. Had I really been panicking for 12 hours? What part was real? Was it a nightmare? The answer is 'yes' and 'no'.

Conclusion:

A personal quote of mine is: You don't go to the fair to ride the carousel. Well faithful readers, I definitely rode all the roller coasters.

Exp Year: 2003ExpID: 29225
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Apr 21, 2006Views: 23,177
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LSD (2) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Difficult Experiences (5), General (1)

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