Experience: 200µg 1P-LSD (sublingual) + 12mg CBD - The Vortex of Empathy

Background

This is my fourth experience with 1P-LSD. The first two (at 50µg and 150µg) I've written about elsewhere - both were very positive and, in the latter case, insightful. My third experience, at 100µg, was my first time using it in a public place, shortly before visiting a series of art exhibits; this trip was still mostly positive but also somewhat stressful and lacking in depth. Learning from this, I've opted to make my heaviest trip a solo one, an experiment in chemical-aided visualization.

Set and Setting

A mild, sunny winter day. It's a Saturday, the first warm day in a while and there's a home game, so there are a lot of out-of-towners around. It's been three weeks since my last trip.

Timeline

+0:00 - I've opted to take the 1P-LSD in 50µg doses over a span of 90 minutes, with a ~12mg dose of CBD as an anxiolytic. I've had a light meal (chicken and rice) an hour before.

+1:10 - The comeup has been very gentle compared to last time, perhaps because I'm spacing the doses out. I'm only now feeling first alerts - electric tingling at my digits - and they're a lot more subtle than the tactile sensations I felt last time, enough that they could be psychosomatic.

+1:40 - The tactile hallucinations are still disappointingly mild but there's no question that I'm up. My mood is sky-high - it's like being very drunk, but clear-headed and lucid. Time feels like it's moving at about half-speed. I'm also noticing OEVs - they're underwhelming, but that's likely because of the sunlight. The light coming through my blinds is softening and splitting into different colors, and I can pick out patterns in the walls that resemble glowing threads. Afterimages last a lot longer but it's too bright to really notice this unless I specifically look for it.

+2:15 - Right on schedule, I'm feeling the odd combination of nausea and food cravings that I've experienced with previous trips. I grab a ripe peach and some chocolates - both are delicious and sit very well, and the nausea passes after 15 or 20 minutes.

+2:30 - Against all my preset plans, I decide to go for a walk - no specific destination, just wandering through the neighborhood. I live in the downtown area of a college town and the streets are packed, so I stick to places where I'll be a little less conspicuous - a head shop, a record store, a public garden, but also a wine tasting at a local shop. OEVs are nonexistent in broad daylight but the cognitive effects are very pronounced. Aside from the ongoing euphoria, I'm noticing connections between everything I see, as though all the signs and flyers and ads I see are linked by some common source. My concentration is seriously compromised - I can't even reliably walk to a park that's two blocks from my apartment without getting sidetracked and completely forget what I was doing. Despite this, I'm not so impaired that it interferes with my ability to interact with others.

+3:30 - Now back at my apartment. My pulse and temperature are both normal and the effects are leveling off, which means it's time to begin the visualization experiment. With the door closed and curtains drawn, my bedroom is dark enough to manifest CEVs. I have a pair of noise-cancelling headphones and a 90-minute playlist I've designed with hopes of augmenting the experience. At the 150µg level, I experienced borderline synaestesia and saw intricate geometric shapes that evolved and reacted to music. My initial hope was to recreate and deepen this experience, using the imagery as an aid in meditation.

What actually happened was wholly different. After watching the phosphenes dance for a minute, they coalesce into pictures - not geometry, but dreamlike images, highly realistic if somewhat distorted. Shortly thereafter, I begin to dissociate, and the pictures turn into highly detailed experiences that feel like memories. Over the next 75 minutes, my consciousness drifts away and floats through a series of distant places. Some episodes seem like recreated memories or fantasies, but in most I occupy the minds of other people - male and female, different ages, intimate relations and total strangers. These visions - which last as long as I can keep my mind at rest, - last anywhere from a few minutes to a few seconds, and come with visual, aural, and tactile sensations. And in some I can even feel the emotions of the person whose mind I'm occupying. At the deepest level, I dissociate so completely that I lose connection to my body and environment and even hear my own inner monologue as though it were someone else's voice.

+4:45 - I wrench myself out of the trance and return to reality. Back in a well-lit room, I struggle to the computer and take some notes, but I'm so exhausted that it's taking real effort to move and the suddenly redoubled OEVs are making it hard to focus. I manage to drag myself to a nearby pizzeria for takeout and later, after a shower, a slice and some wine, I'm feeling coherent again.

+6:00 - Coming down. The sun is setting and it's dark enough to make out new visuals, but they're just exaggerations of normal visual snow that are easy to ignore. These residual effects last another two hours, after which I feel totally normal.

Aftermath

Nothing I'd read (or experienced, for that matter) suggested that this sort of total ego shifting was a possibility with lysergamides, at least not at this dose. 200µg is a stout dose but it's not epic, and the initial effects were subtle enough that I wondered if my 1P had become degraded somehow. Evidently not. I suspect that the high dose isn't strictly necessary - there seem to be diminishing returns with doses past 100µg, which makes me think that the new effects were more attributable to set and setting than to the extra tab. In any case, this was a borderline religious experience and I plan on attempting to replicate the experience with other substances in the future.

Submitted by Random Output

• After images
• Analysis enhancement
• Appetite enhancement - Paradoxically, occurred alongside nausea.
• Autonomous voice communication - Level 3, manifested as a disconnect between my inner voice and the rest of my conscious mind.
• Cognitive euphoria
• Diffraction
• Ego replacement - During level 5 hallucinations.
• Geometry - Minor, peaking at level 3-4.
• Internal hallucination - Up to level 5.
• Nausea - Mild, lasting approximately 15 minutes.
• Pattern recognition enhancement
• Personal bias suppression - During level 5 hallucinations, manifested as a softening of my own experiences when inhabiting female forms and/or forms from non-Western cultural backgrounds.
• Physical disconnection - For brief periods during level 5 hallucinations.
• Physical euphoria
• Spontaneous physical sensations - Moving, spontaneous, soft, location specific, euphoric. Mild compared to previous uses.
• Thought connectivity
• Unity and interconnectedness - Level 1, a connection to specific other people.