Machine of Society

LSD, Mushrooms, Cannabis & Police

Citation: Glowstix. "Machine of Society: An Experience with LSD, Mushrooms, Cannabis & Police (exp60953)". Erowid.org . Oct 5, 2007. erowid.org/exp/60953

DOSE:

1 hit oral LSD (blotter / tab) 2.0 g oral Mushrooms (dried) 1 cig. smoked Cannabis (plant material)

BODY WEIGHT: 145 lb

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to talk to the cops while you're tripping? Have you considered what it would be like to be abruptly interrupted while minding your own business in the middle of an intense trip by a lengthy police interrogation? Terrifying isn't it? I've been there, read on.The night began around 8:30 pm, with the ingestion of the hit of blotter acid and about 2 grams of mushrooms. I had just finished smoking a blunt and my stomach was nearly empty, so the trip began in about 20-30 minutes. My companion for the night had eaten about the same amount of mushrooms, but no acid. I had never combined LSD and mushrooms, so I didn't quite know what to expect of this trip. We began by watching TV, waiting to come up and trying to subtly urge my roommate and a few mutual non-tripping friends to leave the room so the trip could really begin. I find it quite uncomfortable to trip around those who aren't. Even though they are relatively experienced psychedelic drug users I just feel awkward, inappropriate and just plain goofy around non-trippers. They were in the process of getting drunk, and thus they were glad to leave us be and go play pool or something. I'd like to note that one of the friends, who I'll call Steve, left about eight beers in our fridge. Remaining alone with another tripper, in retrospect, was perhaps not the best of ideas.However, at this point in time I was starting to trip pretty hard, and the combination of effects from the two hallucinogens was interesting and strange. The visuals were less intense than usual but much more detailed and intricate than any I had ever experienced before, the walls of my room seemed to be an intricate lattice of colors and figures that extended miles beyond my sight. The universe seemed to break down into thoughts and ideas rather than objects and processes, I pondered to what extent reality was merely an artificially constructed set of ideas and perceptions rather than a physical, solid, definable universe. After spinning glowsticks and listening to music at a high volume for an hour or so, I had another friend of mine roll a joint on my desk and the three of us went on a drive to smoke. The marijuana enhanced the visuals greatly, as has always been the case when I trip and smoke. Big mistake #1 was a few stems and seeds left on my desk, and the bag of pot left in the drawer.Being outside, away from the music and glowsticks and confinement of the dorm room took the trip in a new direction. I became grounded in reality to an extent. I could envision the entire universe as an enormous self-perpetuating machine, in which every bit of matter played an intricate role in the greater workings of our existence. I pondered the extent to which I could control my place in the machine, and the extent to which the machine would control me. Little did I know, at this point, the extent to which I would get stuck and nearly caught in that machine.We arrived back at the dorm building and went back into the room after socializing with a few people in the pool room downstairs. I was feeling a bit more social now, but I didn't stay for long. We smelled strongly of marijuana, but that was nothing that normally concerned me. I'll call this big mistake #2. Once back in the room I started to spin glowsticks again and we turned the music back on. The music was at a fairly high volume, but nothing that would normally cause any trouble in the building. Everything seemed to be going great at this point. I was having an intense, thoughtful, fulfilling and unusual trip with no concerns to keep me from really enjoying myself. This is exactly the point where everything goes wrong.Two of the building RA's opened my door while I was spinning, and at first I didn't have any idea what was going on. There was a male RA and a female RA. They told me that my music was too loud, and they walked in and immediately spotted an empty beer bottle. They told me they would have to search the room and that I should go ahead and get rid of any other alcohol. We complied and emptied out all of Steve's beer in the bathroom, and at this point they spotted the stems and seeds on the desk. They told us we smelled strongly of marijuana, and accused us of drinking and smoking in our room. We told them we hadn't been drinking and they believed us immediately, we obviously didn't look drunk. The male RA stayed upstairs and told us the cops were already on their way, while the female RA went downstairs and called the cops.I still didn't comprehend the seriousness of the situation at this point, I was very confused as to exactly what was happening. The male RA tried to gather up the tiny amount of stems and seeds, but without either of us noticing it my co-tripper had thrown them behind the desk. He took one of my paper towels and asked me to sweep them up and hand them to him. Much to my own confusion, I swept up mostly dust and a few very tiny green particles. I was under the impression that he had already picked up the stems and seeds that he had seen.He took us out into the floor lobby, and while we waited for the elevator my co-tripper said he had to use the restroom. Unbeknownst to me, he stashed his glass pipe on top of a ceiling tile above the toilet. While the RA followed him into the bathroom, I went back into the room and grabbed the bag of pot. They had already told us that they would be searching the room, and no consent was needed because it's university property. I stuffed it into my pocket and came back out, where the RA decided that we'll take the stairs.Walking down six flights of steps gave me a moment to collect myself and finally comprehend the seriousness of the situation. I tried to clear my head as much as possible, and assess what I needed to do to. My mind seemed to instantly sharpen, my basic survival instincts kicked in. We arrived downstairs and the RA told me to sit in the RD's office and wait for the police officers. I told him that I needed to use the restroom, with the intention of flushing the pot down the toilet. However when I got into the bathroom, I encountered a good friend of mine taking a piss. My mind seemed to work instantaneously, I shoved the pot in his pocket and pulled my car key off of my key ring. I whispered to him, 'Put this in my car, I'll explain later.' Just as he walked out of the bathroom, the RA poked his head in the door and told me not to flush the toilet. I probably would have already flushed it by then, but the closeness of the situation made my heart start to pound.It should be noted, at this point, that I was fully aware that none of them had any idea that I was tripping. Though I'm sure my pupils were the size of flying saucers, they had no idea what state of mind I was in. I sat down on the bench-seat facing the RD's desk next to my co-tripper, and the cops entered. This was one of the most intense moments I have ever experienced. The cops were assholes, trying to accuse us of this, that, and the other. They told us condescendingly that they were getting high just smelling us. We told them that we hadn't been smoking, but rather we had just been in the car with some friends. It was quite obvious to all four of us that we were lying, but I managed to stay on top of the cops' mind-games. We kept our story straight, made up some names of the people who were actually smoking pot in the car. They were some old friends from high school, we didn't know their phone numbers, addresses, etc.He told us to empty our pockets but did not pat us down or search us. He kept insisting that they wouldn't leave without locking somebody up, giving me the impression that I could go to jail at any moment. I did not allow myself to be overrun with this fear, but it was terrifying nonetheless. I thought, at that point, that the cops had a few stems and seeds in their posession. I had no idea what was going to happen, I had no idea what they could do to me for stems and seeds. It eventually became apparent to me, as much as the officer tried to suggest otherwise, that they weren't interested in my stems and seeds. They wanted a bust, and we weren't going to give them what they wanted.They tried to talk circles around us, mix us up, catch us for anything so they could go back to the station with a couple of freshly-cuffed stoners. The whole ordeal seemed to stretch out for hours, but we were really only in the room for about 30 minutes. Everything said to us seemed preconcieved and phony, it was all just a big show being put on for us by these assholes whose salaries are paid for by my taxes. I instantaneously analyzed everything the officer said to me, carefully trying to determine the motives behind questions and reading between the lines. By the end of the interrogation I felt as though I could predict what the officer was going to say to me, based on my perception of his motives and my internal analysis of what he had already said to me.Finally, they gave up on us. 'You're free to go,' he said so nonchalantly. I went outside and smoked a few cigarettes, still quite overwhelmed and trying to piece the situation together in my mind. I couldn't really comprehend what happened for a while. My co-tripper and I had a lengthy conversation, which helped me put things together and figure out the things that I didn't know. We talked to a few friends who helped us further understand why our room had been raided in the first place.As I started to relax more, I began to trip harder again. Suddenly I felt the most immense happiness. Freedom! We had escaped! There were so many close calls and things that could have gone wrong, but we came out almost entirely unscathed. I would say entirely, but I'm sure I'll get a dorm-building violation and probably have to write a paper on drug usage or something. I fell back into the trip, and thinking back on the night overwhelmed me with profound happiness. This was probably around 2 am. The whole ordeal seemed to fit perfectly into the trip, the way the great machine of society tried to force its will upon us while we tried our hardest to resist. It felt like we had been through a monumental struggle, and the feeling of coming out on top was incredible. I pondered the contrast between the great happiness I was feeling and the intense terror I had experienced mere hours earlier.This is one of the most profound lessons I learned from this trip, everything seemed so much better at that point because of the hardship I had endured. Good times and bad times are all relative, good exists only in its contrast to bad, and vice-versa. Glowsticks won't glow unless you surround them with darkness. A constant supply of good will lend one to stop appreciating it, thus leading to bad. Good cannot exist without bad. And suddenly the universe is balanced--black and white, good and evil, chaos and order, yin and yang.