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1. Have done LSD a good number of times. Your experience really depends on you and your mental state at the time. My first time I cried because I felt so loved and I think the biggest thing I took away from my first time was I was able to understand things from other’s points of views. For example I was having a disagreement with my parents but when I did acid I was able to see that even though I disagree with them, they were only trying to do what they thought was right for me because they love me. It’s very eye opening, especially the first time.
2. It is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever done. I’ve been genuinely happier ever since I did it about a year ago and my life is more productive. I cried for hours during it just at the beauty of everything and let go of all the pain I was holding in. God it was beautiful.
3. You feel it in your stomach first. All loose and almost numb; bubly. Then it creeps to your head and fingers and you start feeling overwhelmed with something. When you’re flush in the face you can either start laughing at little things or being a little uncomfortable at little things. This all depends on your situation. It’s pretty important that you don’t do LSD on an empty stomach, because that always makes me feel too sick to enjoy myself. When you’re full blown in the trip you’ll notice color vibrancy is through the roof, and things will start “breathing” visually if you stare long enough. Talking becomes difficult, but understanding is all over the place. A sense of anxiety is normal, and feeling like you have to go outside/inside is part of the process. It’s hard to get into nitty gritty details as everyone/every trip is different. But when you come down after around 7-9 hours you’ll most likely be really hungry. Your back will hurt like a mother fucker, and you’ll be insanely tired for at least another day. Altogether; LSD is my favorite drug for its profoundness, length of time, and minimal comedown. However, it’s absolutely important you’re 100% comfortable with a situation before you take acid, otherwise the smallest things can spiral you down in a bad trip of worrying and stress.
4. I’ve done shrooms multiple times. But the first time the trip actually had me hallucinating went like this. (It’s hard to explain so wish me luck)
So I’m sitting on my buddy’s couch, he’s playing some super cheesy trip music. I’m looking at his ceiling and it’s stomped (like a pattern) and I’m zoned on one section of the ceiling. And I see a turtle start to form, but it doesn’t get realistic, it looks like it belongs there. I’m staring at it, and I’m thinking “man these shrooms suck” I look away for a split second, and lose the turtle, and realize how hard I’m tripping. I start laughing, for a good 10 min I’m laughing harder than I ever have. I realize I hallucinated the turtle and then the ceiling starts waving and forming all sorts of shit. I got a weird feeling, like almost sea sick. Went outside and it was perfect. All the colors were bright and everything was moving with my breathing pattern (which usually happens when I do shrooms).
18/10 would trip again
5. You will not have words to describe it accurately afterwords because it really is incredibly different. It’s much more of an emotional drug than a visual one though. What goes on in your head is 100x crazier than what you see.
6. I’ve done Salvia, mushrooms, and LSD for traditional psychedelics.
Salvia: typically has a bad reputation, but I would still recommend it to anyone interested in psychedelics due to its safety, availability, and very short trip. I’ve done it 3 times in my younger days and each time was a blast, but most people I talk to did not enjoy it. It is a very short (15 minutes) but very intense trip. The visuals were very wild and cartoony, and the feeling was like being in another world. It was not “spiritual” like other psychedelics. I didn’t feel changed or like I came back with a deeper insight, I just had a really fun time enjoying the new world I found myself in, and it was all over soon, almost too soon. Like other psychedelics, very dependent on mind set and setting. Don’t do it at a party or anything like that. Be with your friends in a backyard on a warm summer night.
Mushrooms: At the start, everything seems HD, and I get a ton of energy to go explore and run around, everything is very fun and funny. Some people get very strung out and anxious during the “come up”, and they feel like they need to move or do something. That typically happens later in the trip for me. Basically the early stages are like being in the “giggly drunk” stage of drinking, but everything looks awesome. You get an incredible sense of “vibe”. Sober, you walk into a room and pick up on the vibe. On mushrooms, you physically feel it, in the deepest part of your chest. It definitely comes in waves, and I find I have roughly 3 – 5 major peaks, with reality slipping away near the top, but coming back in about half an hour. I have an anxiety disorder, and during the trips I can get really strung out, but good music and good friends prevent me from going into a bad trip. You should definitely be in a decent state of mind, and know how to talk yourself out of anxiety, or be with someone who can calm you. During this stage of the trip everything looks and feels incredibly intense. You feel like a child exploring a new wonderful world with fresh eyes. As the trip progresses, you will still have waves and peaks, but the peak will be nowhere as strong as the ones near the begining. This is when visuals really get crazy for me, and I get, for lack of a better term, “spiritual”. You connect with your friends on a very deep emotional level, and you physically feel any emotions. My friends and I literally cried from laughter and then from happiness that we were friends and doing this together, and then from joy that life can be so good sometimes, and back to laughter. Music is incredible at this stage. After this stage you slowly come down, and the easiest way to describe it would be like being a little buzzed on either weed or alcohol. You’re able to think straight, but things feel a little different. You will likely be very tired the next day.
LSD: like mushrooms, but more intense. Some people will get on my case here, saying that LSD and mushrooms feel totally different. I will agree that simply taking a lot of mushrooms won’t equate an acid trip, but the differences are hard for me to articulate. The visuals are more “wild”, less colourful, and more like the world around you is moving and melting and repeating, like the crazy scenes in the new doctor strange movie. The “spirituality” that I feel is less emotional than mushrooms, and more, mental? Intellectual? You don’t just feel a certain way, you understand things in a certain way. But the pattern of anxious but hilarious come up, very intense peaking and visuals, less intense waves of feeling but continued visuals, and then come down, is very much like shrooms.
General advice for all psychedelics. Set and setting! Be in a good mindset and a good setting. Good mindset means no looming deadlines, no major stresses or unresolved conflicts, etc. You want your mental state to resemble that of a happy child as close as possible. Not being stupid, but just content with everything and curious about the future. Good setting means being with close friends who you trust deeply and who you care about and care about you. People who notice when you’re having a tough time and let you know that they are there to talk. That type of friend. Be in an area you are familiar with, try not to be around strangers. I find during a trip that right angles can feel like the wrong angles. I like to be in nature, as do most other people. Have a Playlist ready to listen to. Music that calms you and makes you happy, try to stay away from anything brooding. Always eat before hand, and always bring water with you. Have a plan to get home if you’re in nature. I got lost in a forest while anxious and on shrooms, that almost turned very bad. But the most important thing is to just go with the flow. Things might be overwhelming at times, but just remember it’s like a roller coaster. It’s going to be wild and intense, but you’re going to come home safe afterwards, so just try to enjoy it, and it can be very fun.
My brother had a great quote which helped me during a very anxious come up on acid. I was pacing around the house and alternately laying down on the couch and getting up 30 seconds later. I turned to him and said “I feel sick and anxious, and I’m so hot and sweaty.” He looks at me and laughs ” you just took two tabs of strong acid bud! It happens!” I started smiling but then got serious and said “I don’t want to be here (in the house)” he just smiled and said ” then we don’t have to be here!”. We rode our bikes around in the sun and had a blast and it’s one of my best memories, my cheeks were literally sore from smiling.
7. I’ve eaten mushrooms a bunch of times. They call it tripping because it really feels like you are taking a trip away from yourself. In my experience, there is no tripping a little (think alcohol buzz or a little high on pot), you are either tripping or you’re not. Once you are, get ready and enjoy the ride!
Your mind will race all over and you’ll think of, and imagine things that never would’ve occurred to you. Things will “make sense” in a way that they never have before but you won’t be able to remember them unfortunately. (I’ve tried writing on shrooms and come back to scribbles and incoherent babbling that was life changing when I wrote it, oh well)
Visuals: You won’t see random stuff that isn’t there. No creatures or things. What does happen though is everything takes on a “sheen” like water. Patterns become very cool because they seem to move and shimmer. Tile floors, carpets, tapestries can occupy you for quite a while.
Do’s: •Have a friend with you or someone you can call. •Have some music available along with other activities (coloring, drawing, video games, instruments) •Have a cozy safe place to go if you start to bug out. •Have comfy pillows and blankets around. •Smoke a lot of bud. •Have water or juice available.
Don’ts:
•Daytrip (too many people, def not good for your first time) •Be around a lot of people. (It will just bug you out) •Stare at yourself in the mirror. •Drive!!! •Get too worked up. If you start getting whacky just remind yourself to chill the fuck out and try to relax. •Drink alcohol. They don’t mix well and you’ll probably puke. •Go near any law enforcement type people or authority in general. They are very scary when tripping!
8. My first experience:
I was 16. I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder, as well as general anxiety disorder. i had panic attacks lasting an hour or longer at least twice a day. I self harmed, to the point that I would rake a hand saw across my back in the shower in order to feel SOMETHING. I was numb. Whether it was the cocktail of ssri and benzos i was on, or it was trauma from my rearing, I hadn’t a clue. I don’t think it was genetic, my family doesn’t have a history with the conditions I have.
I consumed 400mcg for my first dose. It was a lot, and I knew it. It was a last ditch effort before I killed myself to give my life meaning and to help me feel again. It worked. I did it in my room, at night, while my parents where sleeping. 30 minutes after swallowing the tabs, I felt extremely excited, like I felt electricity running through every part of my body, like when I had a solo on stage in front of hundreds of people during my band’s concerts. Then things began to move. At first, I thought there were bugs all in my room, and began to panic, then a wave of euphoria rushed over me. It was calming.
The bugs melted away, and I realized that this is what visuals were. My walls morphed and breathed, my laptop screen melted away, I could no longer use the tripsit.irc channel that I had planned on getting help through. I was alone. I was scared. My mind began to race as thousands of thoughts flooded my head. I realized my father did the right thing early on in my childhood. He became addicted to crack cocaine when I was 2. He left my mother and I when I was 4. I had always blamed him, and had many “what if” thoughts. But I came to peace with knowing that he did the best he could to not have me grow up around his addictions.
My thought processes quickly decayed, and about 2 hours in I was lost in the trip. Fractals and kaleidoscoping vision engulfed the world around me. Everything was colorfull. Everything was ALIVE. Everything was beautiful. I felt connected to the world around me, to the people. I realized the intentions, both good and bad, of those who loved me and those who pretended to be there for me. My headphones with spotify were playing sphongle, and each note resonated deep within me. Each note struck a feeling that words cannot describe. I laid in my bed and meditated for most of the night, with a few trips to the bathroom to stare into myself in the mirror. I asked myself, who am I? By the end of the trip, I had found myself. I realized I wasn’t who my mom wanted me to be. I realized I wasn’t who my girlfriend wanted me to be either. I was me. I am me. I didn’t know there was a “me”. I had always done whatever in order to advance in relationships and school, no matter if I enjoyed it or not to be honest. Its how I was raised, to be the very best didn’t mean to be happy though.
I experienced ego death, for about 1-2 hours, in which I did not exist. Nothing existed. I felt the void. I felt dead. I thought I was dead. It was relieving and calming. I wanted the feeling to last forever. But my head slowly screwed itself back on, and my connectedness to all of existence began to diminish. 8 hours later, I was back to baseline. I had survived LSD and I knew it had changed me forever.
It felt like I had been through hell. My body hurt. My gums were bleeding from my teeth grinding. My muscles ached. My pores had been open pouring sweat all night. Then the sun came up. I literally felt my depression leave my body as the warmth of the sun in my window enriched me. I felt happy. LSD had forever changed me.
I felt happy… before LSD I didn’t know what happy really was, which sounds incredibly unreal to somebody who hasn’t been through depression. But its real. That day I learned what happiness was.
I later realized that the girl I loved and dated was the girl I wanted to marry, and deep down I knew she needed to try this crazy chemical as well. We both suffered from depression and we both self harmed, we also both suffered from addiction to oxycodone. After trying it, We grew together in the world of psychedelics. We learned how to be happy, together. Now, 4 years later, we are getting married in April. My mother loves the “new” me. I have an amazing social network of diverse people whom I would never have associated with before LSD. I have a life. I have happiness.
9. I was a big fan of hallucinogens in college. I dropped acid maybe 4-5 times, and did mushrooms easily 50. Every experience was unique, it depends so much on who you’re with, where you are, and what you’re doing. One thing I can say, however, is that the experience was very different than I expected before I tripped the first time. I was expecting reality to morph into some cartoonish play land, but the truth is it’s much more subtle than that. However, with an open mind, you can experience some pretty remarkable things, and the words you use to describe them are what gives rise to that expectation of cartoony play time.
Things I usually experienced while tripping include: walls melting or breathing, tricky depth perception and changing perspective, giggles, a too-intense feeling of pleasure throughout my body (particularly in my joints), the feeling of profound realizations in whatever I was doing/hearing/seeing, sensing patterns everywhere I looked, especially in conversation. Once I felt like my mind was outside of my body, and that “I” was in the middle of the room, about 5 feet in front of where my body actually was. I’ve also experienced some level of synesthesia in several occasions.
Most of my trips were spent watching movies, and I have to admit I’ve never enjoyed a movie more than when I was tripping. We tended to save profound and intense movies for when we were tripping. Hero, starring Jet Li, is one of the best I experienced this way, along with The Who’s Tommy, and (surprisingly) Ted Danson’s Gulliver’s Travels. Weird picks, but those are the ones that stayed with me.
When you’re tripping, you tend to feel like you really UNDERSTAND things, whether it’s a tree, a movie, or the person sitting next to you. But as the years have gone by, and the luster of the experiences has faded, I’ve realized that the feeling is fleeting and ethereal. When you trip, there’s a sense that you’ve learned something important, but when I look back, I can’t really point to anything I’ve ever done differently in my life as a result of what I “learned”. Years later, I learned there’s a word for that feeling of meaning: Apophenia: the perception of patterns and meaning in random data. I felt like I had learned something, but I’m hard pressed to say exactly what, or what I’ve done about it.
The sole exception came during my only “bad” trip. Long story short, I took too many shrooms, and we were out in an arboretum, got lost, had no water or food, and the fear caught up with me. I pissed my pants, tried to eat a tree, lost my hat and glasses, got cut and bruised to shit, tried to walk through a fence, tried to randomly jerk off in front of my friends, broke a bunch of music equipment when we got home, and broke a coffee mug by throwing it at a wall. Luckily I was with good friends that got me home safe. I blacked out through most of the experience, then gradually re-assembled my memories of it by re-living it in my dreams, then confirming them with my friends.
I used to trip because I was in search of “deep truths” about myself and the universe. And during that trip, I had a very strong experience of God saying to me “what you seek is not FOR you”. Basically, that I was mucking about with shit I didn’t understand, and was forgetting my place.
I was NOT religious or spiritual before that experience. Now I am. So I can point to that difference, and attribute it to hallucinogens.
Mushrooms aren’t usually that strong. I had a perfect storm of bad things going on. Acid, on the other hand, is usually quite strong. The way I used to characterize it was this: When you’re ready to not be tripping on shrooms anymore, the shrooms are usually about finished. When you’re ready to not be tripping on acid anymore, the acid is just getting started.
My main memory of acid is physical pain in my neck. It was originally discovered while searching for a vasoconstrictor, and it does function as one. I always felt like someone was trying to pull my veins out. And that feeling lasted for like 36 hours, long after the fun part was over. When I tripped acid, the fun part usually lasted about 10 hours, but then I would have to take like another 48 before I really felt like myself again. I would drop out of life for two days, sit alone in my room smoking pot and watching light-hearted entertainment, and eventually simple things like showering and going out to eat wouldn’t seem so insane.
One time I dropped acid 8 hours before I had to work (I was a waiter then). I thought I had time to not be tripping by the time my shift began. But on the drive to work (yep, I drove), it was clear that I was wrong. I wasn’t hallucinating much, but I was definitely having trouble thinking. My only goal that day was to not get fired. I told myself I could have a shitty day, fuck up every table I waited on, just don’t get fired. I made it through my shift, but not without having a terrifying hallucination of some kind of giant silver bug crawling over my hand while I was making a salad. I didn’t make much in tips either.
Basically, people trip for one of two reasons, in my experience. Either they’re chasing that sensation of learning something profound (like I was), or they just flat out don’t know what they’re getting into. There are degrees between those extrmes, but I’ve found that most would-be hallucinogen users boil down to one of those two categories. And in either case, you can get what you’re looking for with much less danger, and usually in a way that will have a more lasting impact on your life.
You want to have fun? Get drunk. Smoke pot. Be safe, don’t do anything stupid, and don’t over do it, or you take all the fun out of it.
You want to learn deep and meaningful things? Study hard in school. Read philosophy, or study the religion of your choice. Meet smart people and have deep conversations with them. Fall in love, get married, have a kid, shepherd a loved one through the death of a parent. In other words, live your fucking life. I’ve learned so much more, and had so many more deep, meaningful experiences than I ever had on hallucinogens by simply going through my life with an open, appreciative mind.
It’s possible that I arrived at my open, appreciative mind BECAUSE of my hallucinogen use. But I would never argue that I NEEDED to trip to achieve that. I got lucky and stumbled into the right place by a twisted back road. It was a happy accident. The happiest and wisest people I’ve met didn’t get that way by using drugs. And the people I’ve know who use a lot of drugs (of any kind) are uniformly unsatisfied with their lives. A lot of people use hallucinogens and fuck up their entire lives. I knew two people who tripped too often and lost their grip on reality. One developed paranoid schizophrenia. One developed severe depression. And people do stupid shit and get themselves killed while tripping. It’s not as common as, say, drunk driving, but it happens all the time.
I won’t lie and say hallucinogens are 100% bad. But like all the drugs I’ve tried (which is most of them), they’re overrated.
The post 9 People Who Have Taken Psychedelics Reveal What Their Experience Was Like appeared first on Caveman Circus.
