A Reflection

On an ordinary Saturday, in the spring of 2014, my best friends Kevin and Charlie experienced the awesome power of the drug Lysergic Acid Diethylamide together. Our fascination with the mind-bending abilities of natural and artificial substances stemmed from our shared natural curiosity, as well as our collective drive to experiment; to see what was out there. Led by Charlie, we decided to have this experience together. My own interest in this particular chemical derived from the revelation that a monumental figure in my life, Steve Jobs, had elected to explore this chemical himself. Up until my experience with LSD, I had no idea what it entailed; indeed, I simply felt a gravitation toward the tool one of my foremost role models extoled. There was more to it, though, for me; I felt a sort of selective joy in the prospect of being a person to have had an experience with this chemical, as very few individuals have taken the plunge and threw themselves at the mercy of their own demons in such a way, all in the name of expanding one’s mind, seeking truth, or simply experiencing something different from the overtly linear and unexciting lives most of us live.

I had frequented the /r/drugs subreddit for some time leading up to this date, and a rough understanding of this chemical was the inevitable result. /r/drugs generally idolizes psychedelic drugs above all, and naturally I was exposed to many tales, commentaries and reflections on and about LSD. I learned, most importantly, that LSD has been the object of many peoples’ experimental curiosity for quite some time, and even holds a place in modern medical research. The natural conclusion I drew (and which Kevin and Charlie drew as well) was that LSD is not actually the phantasmagorical danger it is made out to be by the media, and by nearly everyone who finds the idea of drugs distasteful.

The actual experience commenced with a delay in our plans as Kevin and I were tied up with some banality. We eventually met at J’s house around 1 pm. J’s house was selected as the setting for our trip due to its ethereal ambiance, it’s well stocked kitchen, and most importantly its dearth of adults that might respond negatively to three nineteen-year-olds obviously under the influence of a powerful psychedelic drug. Charlie had the payload: a yellow envelope containing a plastic bag containing a sheet of grid paper. The stark white squares were approximately one centimeter on a side, separated with grey dashed lines. Charlie and I cut out three squares for Charlie, two squares for me, and two squares for Kevin. It was 2 pm. Putting the paper on my tongue and tasting nothing (a confirmation that the drug was truly LSD as advertised), I immediately felt a wave of nervous excitement. Here the three of us were, dropping acid together. If only I had known then what that action would entail, I might have felt differently about the entire sequence of events.

Having taken many other substances, we were all familiar with the placebo-effect head-games one plays waiting for a drug to kick in, i.e. quiet contemplation and reflection interspersed with physical movement, trying different sitting positions, walking around, and attempting to run through one’s range of thoughts and feelings, both mental and physical, in order to determine whether anything is amiss. And indeed it was. Quite quickly (I would estimate within twenty minutes of 2 pm) I could detect a tipsy feeling and an “off” quality to my vision. Kevin and Charlie quickly expressed similar sentiments. Giddiness set in, as did the peculiar quality of visual distortions. These would be a theme of the trip. At this point, they merely manifested themselves as a tendency for textures to move and breathe ever so slightly. Parallel lines that should have been quite obviously parallel did not appear so. Kevin commented repeatedly about a corner of a wall that seemed deformed to him, to the great amusement of Charlie and I. Time passed and I felt weak. My mind fogged up. I couldn’t think straight, which progressed into the peak of the trip.

Up until this point, I would estimate about 3 pm, I was still myself, I was S, I was just acting and feeling a tad strange. I was coming up, as were Charlie and Kevin. This transformed into a much, much stronger feeling, the peak of the trip, which lasted for a completely unknown amount of time. It set in quickly. I felt ill; but I also felt euphoric, much like on a high dose of edibles. I felt the need to lie down. This was by far the most intense part of the trip, and sadly, though the parts I remember are quite vivid, I do not remember all of it, nor any of it clearly. Let it suffice to say that as I laid down next to Charlie, I gradually lost all sense of who I was, what my life was, and who anyone else with me was. I was completely depersonalized. I wasn’t uncomfortable with this, though little did I know that this was merely the beginning. As I became more and more stripped down and distanced from myself, I lost control over my thoughts. I was able to process stimuli and form conclusions occasionally during the peak, but only simplistically. I buried my face in a pillow. I could hardly see. I opened my eyes a few times during the peak, only to see Charlie or Kevin or J floating in the void that was the space around me. It was J’s house, no doubt, but I could not comprehend it. I heard voices, but I did not understand their language. Phrases like “Hey S, are you ok?” came through, but little else. I could not comprehend words. Sounds lost meaning. I felt a need to connect to something, and called out to Charlie and J occasionally. I said their names, but only because my body has been trained to make the noises corresponding to their names when I desired their attention. Consciously, I had no concept of what the names meant. Charlie and Kevin were also nearly completely incapacitated at this point as well. At one point, I picked up a handful of fruit loop cereal, stared at it, contemplated it, and squeezed it as hard as I could, making my hand into a fist. I had virtually no concept of what this action would do, as it scattered cereal debris all over the office in J’s basement. Later, J would remark that this was a very “acidy” thing to do, much to my amusement. My reasoning behind such an act was that I had been only taking in the experience, and I wanted to “give back,” applying my own force to the external stimuli to which I found myself a slave. I had many urges to beak things, cry, pee, or blow my nose on the couch, among other acts that I knew would be “bad,” and would be characterized as increasing the entropy of the space around me. During the most intense part of the peak, I retreated into my mind, seeing nothing and hearing nothing. All I could sense were extremely vivid, incessant, repeated, wavy, rainbow-colored lines forming surfaces of beautiful yet inscrutable complexity, completely dominating my inner eye. These visions pulsated, and I somehow understood them to be the decomposition of my life, of my perception. These glowing colors and forms were the underlying makeup of my person, my mind and the world around me. The deeper I went into the peak, the more unraveled and exposed these forms became. Occasionally, and always overpowered by the above visions, I would briefly enter the usual thought loop I experience on extremely high doses of weed, i.e. a spoken stream of nonsense phonemes and vowel sounds coupled with rapidly flashed images of various oblong shapes. These possibly include the Rosetta stone, a medium sized car, and ant, a “walk” symbol from a stop light, an abstract image I created in photo shop when I was very young, and a bacterial colony, among many other images. This stream I can conjure up in my mind, even now, and was common to this experience as well as my more deep experiences with weed.

The peak of the peak, the deepest of the deep, corresponded to my losing all memory, all concept of time, and all control over my thoughts. I merely experienced the colors and images in my head. I had a vague reaction of fear; I doubted the possibility of many things I held close to me, such as the existence of good and evil in the universe, or even the possibility of duality. I felt as if I was in another existence; that I was simply a consciousness, divorced of a body, a past, or even the ability to think or process. I felt as though it would be literally impossible to have this state merge with my normal experience and perception of life; I couldn’t fathom how the alien state in which I found myself could ever reconcile with my normal life. I was scared, but I’m not really sure why. I wasn’t afraid that the intensity would never end, all I can remember is feeling as if things would be better if there was a duality to the universe, i.e. a distinction between good and evil. Things would be better if I could parse and interpret the signals I was receiving. There was no panic, just uncomfortable doubt. I might postulate that some fear came from the fact that I had no life, I was just my conscious self, nothing else. It made me sad for some reason. I cannot explain it. Possibly I am not comfortable with myself at a core level? Maybe I have engineered my life to protect myself from the possibility that my true self will come out and not be satisfactory to others, or even myself. I can only speculate.

This precipice over the valley of real panic and despair, however, marked the cessation of the descent. At this point the reconstruction began. I could see myself as a consciousness inside a brain, inside a head, attached to body. I saw Kevin and Charlie and J’s consciousnesses in the space around me, and I saw us at four distinct geometric points, trying to communicate. Instead of being able to communicate directly, we were (and are) forced to translate our conscious sentiments into brain signals that make our bodies produce sounds that travel through space. These sounds are interpreted through a reverse mechanism by the other consciousness. This inefficiency was somewhat saddening.

I had to re-learn who I was, what my life was, what memory was, and how to control my body. I started by feeling body, and found I was surprised by the organization of my face. I could barely understand how to control my sphincter muscles. One particularly vivid moment was first opening my eyes after the peak of the peak; I could not focus my eyes. I gradually regained control over my body through the memory of controlling muscles, realizing that I needed to go to the bathroom, I was quite thirsty, and my stomach hurt. I realized that my nose was running, and I had a tear or two in my eyes. I went to the bathroom and studied myself briefly in the mirror. This too was a particularly profound moment; I saw myself as if I had not seen my own image in several years. Visual distortions abounded. My eyes grew and shrank subtly and I saw a darkness around my mouth. It was disconcerting. I peed and felt better, having regained that smidgen of control over myself. I left the bathroom. The sober J was building an IKEA-style whiteboard and stand, to which I applied myself over the next hour with the help of Charlie and Kevin. I saw everyone as if for the first time; their faces looked alien and frightening at first. I felt drenched in a primordial liquid that was slowly falling away from me. As I emerged from the office in which I had been laying, emerged from the bathroom, and proceeded to walk and help J assemble the whiteboard, I regained mental functionality. I understood the construction of the whiteboard, I saw the geometry of it, and comprehended the function of the screws, washers and braces. It was immensely rewarding after having been stripped of my ability to feel human so recently.

The plateau was by far the most pleasant and exciting part of the trip. J, Kevin, Charlie and I discussed the possibility of a “hackathon on acid,” the differences between idealism and reality, how people communicate, and briefly Songbox. As the conversation blossomed, the visual distortions took on a truly gorgeous feel; hidden geometry was revealed in ordinary rectilinear patterns such as the floor tile and drawings on the new whiteboard. Concentric lines abounded. Colors oscillated. Natural patterns such as wood grain flowed like rivers. The granite countertops in Jeremy’s basement took on a beautiful, multi-layered three dimensional depth while geometric fractals encased most hard lines or edges. The many abstract paintings in Jeremy’s basement morphed into various shapes and changed colors; the movement in the paintings was one of the most striking things I have ever seen. All the while, massive, vivid tracers followed any moving object. The visual distortions were fabulous. I spoke with J’s grandfather, and saw waves of light coming off his face. I managed to keep it together though; I was more lucid on LSD than when smoking or drinking. Kevin, J, Charlie and I left for 7-11 to get drinks. J drove. I was unfamiliar with the concept of roads and cars, it all seemed extremely alien and foreign to me. I hardly recognized my own car, outside. The unrealistically bright and digital colors of 7-11 appeared to me as if through a fish-eye lens, lines and walls sloping away from me. It was fantastic. The four of us had casual conversation with the antsy cashier, and I spent several minutes admiring the strangeness of the place.

J drove us over to B’s house, where Kevin and I had a wonderful time remarking to B about the trip. The sheer awesomeness of the trip floored B completely, much to the amusement of Kevin and I. Kevin and I admired the trees outside in the twilight, remarking how incredible it was that we actually took this drug. The trees against the night sky grew into fractal trees one might see in a math textbook. We soon left, and J took us back to his house. I drove (yes, I undoubtedly inadvisably drove while tripping balls) over to K’s house to meet her new girlfriend, but wisely decided against it when I became mildly lost trying to navigate LaGrange and LaGrange Park. I was able to drive no more distractedly than I would have if listening to music or talking to a friend. Lights streaked by and cars’ headlights shone brilliantly, like looking through diffraction grating. I returned to JM’s house. The visual distortions had receded mostly by this point, and I had a great time reflecting with JM, M, EJ, SF, Kevin and Charlie, who all made it over. Kevin, Charlie and I were very entertaining to the sober ones present. I found great pleasure in cuddling and playing with JM’s cat. I had a blast with everyone, but departed relatively soon for a friend of A’s house.

My time with A was dissatisfying. The dynamic between her friends, A, and I was friendly, but I felt little toward anyone. I attempted to be engaged and communicative, and think I did relatively well, however, the group dynamic was much less cohesive (to me) than the dynamic at either J or JM’s house, and consequently I felt slightly disappointed and frustrated. Again, lucidity was not an issue; I doubt any of A’s friends suspected that I had taken LSD several hours previously. By this time the visual distortions had faded completely. I saw for the first time the true beauty in one of A’s friends, J, but that was about the only difference in my perception.

I drove home around 1:30 am, and fell asleep with some difficulty between 2 and 3 am. Overall, I found acid to be probably the most intense experience of my life, if not the most memorable. Taking ecstasy with A and all my friends was certainly more memorable, and much more special. It was probably twice as euphoric, as well. This however was much more interesting; I feel as though the MDMA was almost too special to try more than once or twice, whereas I could see LSD being used as a tool for self-exploration and discovery. Next time I will try this drug without J. I feel like he cast a slightly negative cast over the whole thing, not that it ruined the experience or anything. I could explain his influence, but it would certainly go beyond my experience with this chemical.