Experience: 660ug LSD - First bad trip

Experience reports - LSD

  • Date: 13/11/2016
  • Gender: Male
  • Weight: 90kg / 198lbs
  • Age: 23
  • Side note: I am quite experienced with Psychedelics, and while tripping I have never seen stuff that isn't there. Just the usual geometry and things moving, but no objects/liquids that were purely imaginary.
  • Setting: I took the LSD at around 4:30pm at home with 2 other friends, the house wasn't very clean and just as the trip started to kick in I noticed that one of my fish had died - which I think set the mood for death later on.

Report

After about 30 minutes I saw the first effects, I was playing Guitar Hero and it was progressively getting a lot harder to play. In my peripheral vision I kept seeing people looking at me which was strange, I started getting bad nausea and had to stop playing.

About another hour passed and it was hitting me pretty hard, I kept staring at my friend and asking him "What?" because I thought he was talking to me when he didn't say anything. One of my other friends starting playing a game and I had no idea what was going on, I was stuck in multiple thought loops and just kept getting very confused. I kept asking my friends to explain what was going on.

During the peak I was looking at the crazy amount of geometry and the outline of it just kept expanding... it's hard to explain. I just kept staring at it and eventually it had replicated so much it looked like I was in a totally white room with a strobe light in the middle with lasers flashing everywhere. I remember feeling really peaceful and like I was connected to the universe. Also during this time when I moved my head it was like there was a spotlight behind me that pointed wherever I looked, and the lights kept flashing.

My memory of this part is very bad, I don't usually get memory loss from tripping. Suddenly I was in the toilet and I thought my urine was blood, I made my sober friend check and he said it was normal. I started panicking and then I looked at his face, his eyes were huge and black and there was blood pouring out of his mouth and ears. He was saying to me "there's no blood" and in my head I was thinking "What is he talking about, I'm covered in it" I looked at the walls and they turned black, my vision was going black and white and I lost most of my vision. My friend coughed and I saw her coughing up blood, there was just blood everywhere... All over the floor, all over my friends. I tried to call an ambulance but thankfully my friend took my phone off of me before I was able to. I remember the feeling of just intense fear and panic, it felt like all the blood had drained from my body - I felt my heart and it was beating so fast.

I said out loud to my friends "I'm dying - I'm dead" they said I was fine and needed to calm down, but I couldn't. I went upstairs to lay down to try calm myself but it didn't work, my friend came up to check on me and I left my room to go downstairs. Then I said to him "We're all dead" in my head we had all overdosed, I know you can't overdose on LSD but I thought maybe it wasn't LSD. Even though the person I was talking to hadn't taken anything I thought he was dying too, in response to my comment about us all being dead he replied "I know". Which really messed with my head, when he said that I thought we all knew we were dying and were trying to reassure each other in our final moments. Walking down the stairs I kinda snapped out of it briefly and realised what was going on, that I was just in a bad trip. I remember thinking "Oh I get it now" in realisation, then I got caught in a thought loop of "Have I realised this before?" then "Have I realised that I realised it before?" so on about 10 times until I snapped out of it.

I went back into the living room and my friends still looked like they were bleeding, around this time I realised I was imagining it all as then when I realised that all the blood went away. Once I was not panicking I realised I could make the blood come out at will, controlling the hallucinations. This was pretty fun, but I kept getting thoughts like "But what if I really am dying?" and as soon as I got it an intense wave of panic just went all over my body. I kept having to reassure myself that I wasn't dying.

After that I managed to enjoy the visuals, I was watching the geometry dance around the room and suddenly 3D structures began to materialise in front of me, it looked like I could touch them. I kept making these structures form until eventually it wore off enough to the point I couldn't see them anymore.

Even after I stopped panicking the fear of death persisted throughout the night, and I was just waiting for it to end so I knew I wasn't going to die.

Even though this was a bad trip I'm glad I had it, as I think it will help reassure me that I'm not dying if I were to have those thoughts again on a later trip.

Effects analysis

  • External hallucination - "In my peripheral vision I kept seeing people looking at me which was strange, I started getting bad nausea and had to stop playing.
  • Auditory hallucination - "I kept staring at my friend and asking him "What?" because I thought he was talking to me when he didn't say anything."
  • Thought loops - "I was stuck in multiple thought loops and just kept getting very confused."
  • Geometry - "I was looking at the crazy amount of geometry and the outline of it just kept expanding... it's hard to explain. I just kept staring at it and eventually it had replicated so much it looked like I was in a totally white room with a strobe light in the middle with lasers flashing everywhere."
  • Anxiety suppression - "I remember feeling really peaceful"
  • Unity and interconnectedness - "I was connected to the universe"
  • Amnesia - "My memory of this part is very bad, I don't usually get memory loss from tripping."
  • External hallucination - "I looked at his face, his eyes were huge and black and there was blood pouring out of his mouth and ears."
  • Anxiety - "I remember the feeling of just intense fear and panic"
  • Delusion - "it felt like all the blood had drained from my body"