Experience:300µg LSD - Togetherness and the Silent Dusk

   "My eyes peel apart
   a sweet, early start
   our sun hangs high
   lighting up the sky
   
   the asphalt simmers
   burning sigh of summer,
   it breathes the dreams
   of younger, bluer jeans
   
   we dance and scream
   nothing's as it seems
   but we don't fret
   we aren't old yet!"

T+00

Woke up at 8:30, Theta was late, Omega was early. We all three ingested at 9:50, for most of the onset we were pretty calm. We mostly talked about the effects we could feel, how it was before, what to expect from this trip, how excited we were, etc. The haze of the early morning was cleared by about T+20min, when bodily stimulation became readily apparent. I had not smoked any weed yet. Thinking about it, this stimulation was much different than my recent 4-FA trials, it resembles none of the stimmy-ness from amphetamines and amphetamine derivatives. It is not smooth, but uneasy, the rush is constant and all-encompassing, but seems as though it's only in my veins or something, like there are different streams running through my body. Music is becoming more enjoyable, by T+:50 I have swallowed my tabs and take a dab. I suggest to Theta and Omega that we go for a walk, the sun is out and it is not too cold. They agree, we are disjointed when we try to leave, becoming easily distracted. Walking around in the silence of the Sunday morning is refreshing, and the physical act of walking feeels effortless, as if I were on a fast moving conveyor belt while walking. I had expected to be uneasy, but I was calming down now that I could listen to music so loudly in my headphones. Colours aren't so enhanced as I am used to, my sight and sensory abilities are greatly enhanced. The pines in the park smell deep and enthralling, they pull me into memories of camping and idyllic scenes of prancing animals in the woods, the trees bend and smile at me, their faces swimming into new faces with every breath. The birds chirp, their calls cutting in and out of the breathing sound of wafting conversation, I can pick out individual words, but strung together these alien exchanges mean nothing to me. How light my feet are, Giraffage's "Close 2 U" sinks into my ears, the swaying digital samples swirling around my head. This. This is what I remember. I stare down at my chest, it looks weird, my legs are so far away, the upper section of my vision bowls into a fish eye effect. The world before me is so much clearer!

T+1:20

Back inside, my walls are heaving up and down, in and out. XXYYXX's "About You" drifts out of my speakers, Theta and I take dabs, my room becomes a dance hall. The walls are singing, expanding and contracting bulbs of swaying geometry sparkle along the eggshell whites, illuminating them with dazzling rainbows and rapidly changing totem poles. Dancing feels like second nature, how could I ever move in a way other than this? Stimulation is still uneasy, the THC has grounded me though, I feel more controlled. Visuals are amping up, staring in one spot yields a large circular hole of clarity that is slowly shrunken by constantly shifting and expanding geometry. As the hole closes, the shapes bind together and press themselves out into my dimension, bringing the wall out to my face, enticing me to play. As I get used to it, my stomach begins to growl, and Theta and Omega are not talkative. At one point I start talking but am distracted by the tracers my hands leave behind them as I move them in front of me. Omega is enamoured with everything, Theta looks uncomfortable. I notice that when I try to make conversation Theta and Omega say differing opinions, and they become more despondent. I am hungry, and not enjoying this dynamic. What's wrong? Omega's demeanor seems unchanged compared to Theta, I sit down next to them, we share words, I am restless so I stand up again. I have been pacing, in one way or another, since I starting feeling effects. Omega remarks on my constant shifting, I finally decide to leave for the store.

T+2:00

Ah, on my own, fucking finally. The air is clean, gorgeous, I'm surprisingly warm. The warmth emanates from the concrete, settling around me in the air, flowing over my skin and through my lungs. Oh my god, how glorious this sighing summer day is, how wonderful this drug is. How could I have forgotten? How could I have feared? There was never anything to fear except fear itself. I reach the store, I look at the clouds above, they are amazing. They swirl and shift internally while continuing their circular movement around a fixed point, then they pause and tunnel in, leaving tracer clouds behind them. The clouds then duplicate and expand further, growing more and more complex and large form in my vision. Wow. In the store it's very hot, silent, I hear the bell ring with the door opening and it echoes into my mind. Why am I here again? Oh, right, to buy things. I don't remember why though. The guava thing looks good, I remember my other friend having one when we were tripping on Psilocin last summer. I wanted something full bodied, I had forgotten about the possibility of nuts. I was starving, but nothing seemed appetising. I grabbed a fruit/grain bar as well as a mint chocolate Cliff bar. Paying was weird, I had to clarify which pad to enter my PIN. The cash register sign is tunneling into infinity, the clerk's face begins waving in and out of my vision as I stare at the cigarettes on the wall, I wonder what smoking one of those would be like, I haven't smoked them in a while, it would probably suck but I want one, but why do I want one? Because they were cathartic, I wonder why people think giving themselves cancer is cathartic, it's not that it's cancer, it's just easy, we humans sure are weak and strange to enjoy poison so much, but aren't I so strange to enjoy insanity? Who knows, how am I supposed to carry all these things? Oh, I'm outside. The bar is in my mouth, it's very difficult to eat. I don't know what to do with it, so I look around and carefully set it down on someone's doorstep. What if it were hurt? I lie to myself that I'm full, and decide that my walk isn't over yet.

Taking a right into the neighbourhood, the trees breach into my vision, expanding in front of me this glorious picturesque moment of shining summer beauty. Holy shit. The trees swung and roared glistening fountains of what I could only understand as math, but I didn't know the significance of the algorithms. If I focused on walking, and stared at the centre of the road, the trees and textures around me would slowly melt into pure and interconnected geometry, breathing and morphing in and out, seeming to create a tunnel around me. I thought about what I was doing, how it felt, since it had been so long. On the inside I felt elated and excited, but my outside demeanor didn't seem to change, which was off putting to me, since normally I can feel myself grinning stupidly. My friends were still in the apartment, I wondered why I had to get away from them, what wasn't right. I felt better on my own, but I had chosen to do this in a group and I wasn't making use of the togetherness. What even is the point of togetherness? The sharing! Of course! Everything must be shared, even in my own life, when I create things, I must have someone else see them or it doesn't feel real to me. Sharing is everything, the exchange of any sort of symbolic capital is the primary function of the many, is it not? I need to go back and share, but this is so pleasant, so there must be something wrong. I was getting lost, the world was too gorgeous for me to not get lost in it. I walked around more, until I finally found myself naturally in front of my apartment door.

T+2:30

I had no idea it had been such a short time, it had felt like centuries. I put on different music, Washed Out's "Weightless", something to put the room into a warmer state. Theta was still quiet, but they both asked me what it had been like, and I told them about what I had walked around doing. They both tried the Cliff bar, apparently it was incredible. I tried a bite, just a small one, it was so deep! First, this rush of peppermint, and an earthy chocolate, and the crunch of something, my mouth and throat were filled with a cool minty feeling. As I left the taste sit in my mouth, it grew into an ever complex sensation, until it disappeared. I took another. This is basically sex. As time went on, I noticed the same kind of uncomfortableness, but now it was in the air and not my stomach. Omega went to the bathroom, and Theta looked at me, I looked at them, and looked at the bathroom. Theta widened their eyes, and I was immediately calmed down. Ok, it wasn't just me, there were definitely painfully awkward silences. Theta was sketched out, I didn't understand why. I decided that I needed to take Theta outside and discuss the problem, they agreed, I informed Omega that I was gonna take Theta on a walk and that we'd be back later, they could leave or stay but I wanted to be alone with Theta. They agreed, not really understanding why, and Theta and I left. Once outside, I could breathe, what was going on? We discussed it, but it was difficult. We were both thought looping a little, and kept explaining it in concepts that the other didn't understand. After a tedious twenty minutes, we had both come to the understanding that Theta was unsure about Omega. They confessed to me that they didn't really know what they had expected, since they had to do weird small talk while tripping. They informed me it was really uncomfortable for them to interact with someone while in such an emotionally vulnerable state, especially since they didn't know them well at all. We kept walking, for a while, through neighbourhoods, we stayed away from the park. At one point I got Theta to explain that they didn't know how much Omega knew about the friendship between Theta and I, and that not knowing the facts about them made Theta uncomfortable as well. I explained to Theta that Omega knew everything about our friendship, that I had known Omega for over a year, and Theta immediately calmed down and raised their hands in exasperation. "Well, if I had known that I wouldn't have been so weird!"

All of that, for nothing. We kept walking around though, the world was so beautiful. Theta remarked to me that it felt as though we were inside of a painting, caught in a moment of artistic perfection. They explained that the effects didn't seem as digital as our previous journey with 450µg, I agreed with Theta. It felt much more natural. We explored for a while, and I eventually brought us back to the apartment. We went inside, and discussed what happened with Omega, everyone hugged, and the dynamic was completely fixed. Conversation flowed, and by now the trip had change significantly. At T+5:00 I was still peaking hard, but the effects seemed to be more controlled. I would still be swallowed into a tunnel of shifting geometry if I stared at one point, but the nature of the geometry had changed. The algorithmic nature had shifted into amorphous and asymmetrical constructions, that, as they got more intense with focus, slowly mirrored themselves across textures, creating webs of geometry. At this point it was much more cartoonish, colourful, and playful. It moved with the music I was playing, Craft Spell's "From The Morning Heat" soared from my speakers, the entire apartment was dancing, but it was all contained in individually wrapped sections, rather than the normal overlay. I took a dab.

T+5:30

Now that the trip was here, we were just having conversation. I looped for two and a half hours, wanting to go outside. Every thirty or so minutes I would declare that I wanted to go outside, and then I would realise that I wanted to be higher, so I would sit myself down to take a dab. While taking the dab, I would forget about deciding to go outside, and I would stay in my chair and start talking about something. This repeated until T+8:00, when Omega told me that I had been doing this for hours now, and I realised that they were right. Wow. Oops. We finally decided to get ourselves outside, and went to the park. The sun was just now beginning its decline, I was still getting very strong effects, but I believe I started my offset around this time. The park was absolutely stunning, glowing with deeply saturated beauty, full of people playing kickball in the middle of the field, kids running around, someone getting married, people having picnics in the rose garden. We three naturally understood that we were allowed to move around the park at will, and that staying in a group was not necessary. I took off my shoes, I wanted to feel the earth beneath my feet. The park hadn't looked this perfect since last summer, I couldn't believe it. How incredibly stunning, the warmth emanating from the air, no cool tugging winter breeze at my heels. The grass was soft, comforting, cool. I ran around the park, looking at all the plants and people, listening to music. Oh how this is ecstasy, what else could I ever want in life but an evening such as this?

I eventually lost Theta and Omega, oh well. I ran around more. Eventually I met Theta behind the rose garden, sitting in a shaded area. I stared at a tree, and the light behind it bloomed from the edges. The centre of it began to shift and move in a circle, exchanging its matter among the conglomerations of geometry moving around it. I told Theta about this effect, they said they weren't getting anything that intense anymore. Of course, they hadn't taken any dabs throughout the trip, I believe it might have drastically extended my offset/afterglow. We went and got Thai food, it took me all night to finish all of it, eating was very intense.

T+8:00

I had gotten home, I decided to try to vaporise DMT on my nail. I heated up the nail, weighed 20mg (+/- 3mg), and dropped it onto the top of the ceramic nail when it was glowing hot. The DMT bubbled and melted into smoke, I inhaled, it was not as plastic tasting as I remember, and felt definitely different. After five minutes I was back to full peak effects and then some, the waving and stop motion visual effects of my previous experince with DMT were there, and I stared at my tapestry, blowing in the fan. It grew and grew until it absorbed my vision and I observed a family of natives in a fall tone colour scheme undergo a series of unfortunate events before they overthrew their opposition and then as soon as I had been shown this narrative I came back down and effects settled out. After this, I took doses of GHB every 10 minutes or so, taking a couple large ones, acclimating about 2.5g over the course of the offset. By T+10:00 I was into the afterglow and had virtually no visual effects except for continued colour enhancement. I was able to sleep by around 5:00 the next morning, staying up super engaged in hours of documentaries.

Afterthoughts

LSD has proven time and time again to me that it is an incredibly deep lysergamide that has never disappointed me. This trip stood out in the difference in bodily effects, intensity of natural looking geometry, and the strange need to solve a confusing and awkward conflict. I peaked for normal time, maybe a little short for this high of a dose, Theta peaked for close to four and a half hours, which seems odd to me, that is surprisingly short compared to my experiences. Dabbing continually drastically intensified mental effects, and I would strongly recommend doing it. Maybe not as much as me, though. The depth of the enhancement of sensory experiences with LSD is profound, I believe it agrees with me the most out of any psychedelic I have tried. I still think to myself, how could anyone be afraid of LSD? It's so easy, so loving. I firmly assert that LSD has the best afterglow of any psychedelic. Ahh, what a wonder.

On a personal note, it was rather difficult to manage the anxiety of conflict resolution. At times, I wondered if it was my own delusion, as Theta and I tried to have a discussion about it. It was really difficult, sometimes I felt like we were talking about the same thing, sometimes I didn't, and I want to feel as though I have learned something from this strange altercation, but I may not have. While I feel a greater engagement in the world around me, while there is, inside of me, an awakened sense of curiosity and wonder, I still do not fully understand what the entire point of that whole problem was. Was it just me? Was I just physically uncomfortable with it, and manifested that discomfort into my environment? If that's the case, then why did I not realise it at the time? In regards to my actions, the efficiency of them were sound, because I solved the problem of me being upset or interpreting discord in my surroundings very quickly. I can't really speak to the ethics of what went on, I feel as though I may have been rude by leaving Omega inside without really explaining what had gone on, but when I got back I had them all discuss it, and Omega was fairly sober. We spent more time trying to figure out who was tripping the hardest, Theta and I couldn't tell which one of each other were more coherent, and Omega was too busy laughing at things. It was a weird situation. I think that my assessment of the experience above is mostly factual, not so subjective. I don't know how I feel about the whole trip, there were some parts that were uncomfortable, and some parts that were fantastic. I want to give this another shot on my own, where I am the only one in my environment. That may prove to be easier.

Visual effects

Enhancements

• Visual acuity enhancement - "The world before me is so much clearer!"
• Colour enhancement - "The park was absolutely stunning, glowing with deeply saturated beauty"
• Pattern recognition enhancement - "The centre of it began to shift and move in a circle, exchanging its matter among the conglomerations of geometry moving around it."

Distortions

• After images
• Colour shifting
• Depth perception distortions - "I stare down at my chest, it looks weird, my legs are so far away, the upper section of my vision bowls into a fish eye effect."
• Drifting
  • Morphing - "the trees bend and smile at me, their faces swimming into new faces with every breath."
  • Breathing - "Back inside, my walls are heaving up and down, in and out."
  • Flowing - "the clerk's face begins waving in and out of my vision as I stare at the cigarettes on the wall,"
• Symmetrical texture repetition - "The algorithmic nature had shifted into amorphous and asymmetrical constructions, that, as they got more intense with focus, slowly mirrored themselves across textures, creating webs of geometry."
• Recursion - "The cash register sign is tunneling into infinity"
• Tracers - "At one point I start talking but am distracted by the tracers my hands leave behind them as I move them in front of me."

Hallucinatory states

• External hallucination - "The walls are singing, expanding and contracting bulbs of swaying geometry sparkle along my the eggshell whites, illuminating them with dazzling rainbows and rapidly changing totem poles."
• Scenarios and plots - "I observed a family of natives in a fall tone colour scheme undergo a series of unfortunate events before they overthrew their opposition"
• Settings, sceneries, and landscapes - "Taking a right into the neighbourhood, the trees breach into my vision, expanding in front of me this glorious picturesque moment of shining summer beauty."
• Transformations - "I look at the clouds above, they are amazing. They swirl and shift internally while continuing their circular movement around a fixed point, then they pause and tunnel in, leaving tracer clouds behind them. The clouds then duplicate and expand further, growing more and more complex and large form in my vision."

Geometry

• Level 1-7 - The visual geometry of LSD, in this instance, presented itself as algorithmic and symmetrical in nature, as well as amorphous and asymmetrical in nature. Its style was similar to 25I-NBOMe, 4-AcO-DMT, and Psilocin. Highly detailed and realistic in nature, digital and fluid in movement, its speed matched external influences such as emotion, music, and environment. Geometry manifested itself in an mostly algorithmic and intensely colourful overlay that would change in artistic style dependent on the visual stimuli that it was being applied to. The same direction of movement and feel of geometry could be reproduced on any surface, but its physical detail changed with change in surface. At level 7, it became nearly blinding, until reaching level 8A. - "Visuals are amping up, staring in one spot yields a large circular hole of clarity that is slowly shrunken by constantly shifting and expanding geometry. As the hole closes, the shapes bind together and press themselves out into my dimension, bringing the wall out to my face, enticing me to play."
• 8A Geometry - Exposure to semantic concept network - "If I focused on walking, and stared at the centre of the road, the trees and textures around me would slowly melt into pure and interconnected geometry, breathing and morphing in and out, seeming to create a tunnel around me."

Cognitive effects

Enhancements

• Novelty enhancement - "I was able to sleep by around 5:00 the next morning, staying up super engaged in hours of documentaries."
• Emotion enhancement - "The warmth emanates from the concrete, settling around me in the air, flowing over my skin and through my lungs. Oh my god, how glorious this sighing summer day is, how wonderful this drug is."
• Thought acceleration - "I wonder what smoking one of those would be like, I haven't smoked them in a while, it would probably suck but I want one, but why do I want one? Because they were cathartic, I wonder why people think giving themselves cancer is cathartic, it's not that it's cancer, it's just easy, we humans sure are weak and strange to enjoy poison so much, but aren't I so strange to enjoy insanity? Who knows, how am I supposed to carry all these things? Oh, I'm outside."
• Thought connectivity - See above.
• Analysis enhancement - "As I left the taste sit in my mouth, it grew into an ever complex sensation, until it disappeared. I took another. This is basically sex."
• Empathy, love, and sociability enhancement -"What even is the point of togetherness? The sharing! Of course! Everything must be shared, even in my own life, when I create things, I must have someone else see them or it doesn't feel real to me. Sharing is everything, the exchange of any sort of symbolic capital is the primary function of the many, is it not?"

Suppressions

• Thought disorganization - "We discussed it, but it was difficult. We were both thought looping a little, and kept explaining it in concepts that the other didn't understand."
• Personal bias suppression
• Memory suppression
• Anxiety suppression

Novel states

• Time distortion - "I had no idea it had been such a short time, it had felt like centuries."
• Introspection - "Everything must be shared, even in my own life, when I create things, I must have someone else see them or it doesn't feel real to me."
• Conceptual thinking - "Sharing is everything, the exchange of any sort of symbolic capital is the primary function of the many, is it not? I need to go back and share, but this is so pleasant, so there must be something wrong."
• Thought loops - "I looped for two and a half hours, wanting to go outside. Every thirty or so minutes I would declare that I wanted to go outside, and then I would realise that I wanted to be higher, so I would sit myself down to take a dab. While taking the dab, I would forget about deciding to go outside, and I would stay in my chair and start talking about something."
• Delusion - "I don't know what to do with it, so I look around and carefully set it down on someone's doorstep. What if it were hurt? I lie to myself that I'm full, and decide that my walk isn't over yet."
• Euphoria - "Oh how this is ecstasy, what else could I ever want in life but an evening such as this? "
• Laughter
• Simultaneous emotions

Physical effects

Enhancements

• Tactile enhancement - "I tried a bite, just a small one, it was so deep! First, this rush of peppermint, and an earthy chocolate, and the crunch of something, my mouth and throat were filled with a cool minty feeling."
• Stimulation - "bodily stimulation became readily apparent."
• Wakefulness - "I was able to sleep by around 5:00 the next morning, staying up super engaged in hours of documentaries."
• Bodily control enhancement - "the THC has grounded me though, I feel more controlled."

Suppressions

• Perception of decreased weight - "How light my feet are"
• Pain relief

Novel states

• Spontaneous physical sensations - "the rush is constant and all-encompassing, but seems as though it's only in my veins or something, like there are different streams running through my body."
• Tactile hallucination
• Pupil dilation

Sensory effects

• Auditory hallucination
• Auditory enhancement - "Music is becoming more enjoyable"
• Auditory distortion - "The birds chirp, their calls cutting in and out of the breathing sound of wafting conversation, I can pick out individual words"