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microdosing in bolivia

The wilderness of Bolivia – where the trip took place

Background

I first seriously started considering my multi-microdose wilderness trip immediately after I’d booked the three-day tour to the Salt Flats of Bolivia- the day before it started.

A multi-day trip through desert past lagoons, geysers and other natural wonders was fairly calling out for a psychedelic and despite having read a few online articles on the positive effects of microdosing, I’d never actually gotten round to it. This struck me as a perfect opportunity; the landscapes surely couldn’t be hurt by a bit of chemical manipulation but I also didn’t want to trip so hard when I’d be spending a lot of time in a packed 4×4 nor feel uncomfortable with my fellow travellers.

I didn’t tell anyone of my psychoactive ingestions; I didn’t want to be that guy who shows up and does acid everyday, well actually I did, obviously, but I didn’t want to be treated any differently.

Admittedly this ‘experiment’ wasn’t conducted under the strictest lab controls. It was the first and only time I’ve ever been on a tour of this nature, to altitudes that high (up to 4000m), or even in Bolivia – quite a few incomparable variables then. To add to the scientific rigour, or lack of, I couldn’t measure out my doses, so I just used small pieces of a tab, ranging between a tenth and a fifth of a tab each time, with the tab containing around 180μg. I’d read that it’s not effective to dose on consecutive days but I figured I’d see for myself how it works – at least that makes it an experiment right? Well, I guess this is more of a trip report then, but I’ve also tried to write analytically of the effects I felt and there is a summary of them at the end of each day.

Having never microdosed before I thought I’d do a little test run on the afternoon the day before the tour started. The fact that I was also going star viewing at an observatory with telescopes that night threw in a tasty motivator only elevated by the cool fact that my location, the Atacama desert, is one of the best places on the planet to stargaze. Realizing that it’d be more crazy not to take acid in this circumstance, I went to my room, took out my nail clippers, trimmed off a corner and chucked it down.

Day 1 – San Pedro De Atacama

[Apparently there was a decent amount on that corner and it turned out to be more of a semi-trip than a microdose.]

With its narrow dusty streets the small town of San Pedro De Atacama was like the set of an old Wild West, but lightly charged with the modern day atmosphere that tourists quietly milling around provides. Walking around with a spring in my step I felt coolly elated and couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. Thoughts slowed down, and my awareness of the spaces between them grew; there was an absence of typical mental background noise which gave a lightness to my inner being – it felt more spacious. My cognition was more focused, there was a crisp quality to my thoughts and more lucidity in my mental navigation.

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The main strip of San Pedro De Atacama

Back at the hostel I got chatting with my two roommates, a couple of friendly European girls. Socially I felt very comfortable, even probably more than normal. Chatting with them I felt calm and content, they’d just come the other way from Bolivia and we shared some stories. At one moment I saw a twinkle in the eyes of the German; she looked alive, I mean really alive. I was in that rarely visited field of experience where you once again realise that other people aren’t merely characters in your story- something within the depths of her pupils had revealed to me the easily forgotten fact of her being an actual living being with a life as vivid and complex as my own. As we looked into each other’s eyes I felt a deep human connection. Even though we’d just met I felt close. Both she and her friend seemed like genuinely good people and I felt an instinctive trust towards them.

Leaving the girls I went alone to the edge of the desert. Gazing out at a huge mountain lying before the tangerines of sunset I felt an underlying peace and stayed out there in peaceful contentedness, returning to town only after darkness had fallen. Lit up by small streetlamps the town looked magical by night, the scene coercing in me that feeling when you feel like you’re in a movie, when everything seems so scenic and atmospheric, and beauty seems to be more readily sprouting and observable in typically mundane scenes. Unfortunately the stargazing tour was cancelled due to clouds so, bumping into them again, I went out for dinner with my two roomies. I didn’t feel particularly hungry and could’ve easily skipped the meal but ordered something anyway thinking it healthy to eat something. The evening with the girls was a pleasure, I again felt at ease and had a thoroughly enjoyable time with them before we said our goodbyes.

Summary

  • Elation
  • Absence of typical mental background noise
  • Clearer thinking & lucidity in mental navigation
  • Socially felt very comfortable and positive
  • Easily felt human connection (increased empathy and trust)
  • Magic & beauty perceived much more readily than usual
  • In-a-movie feeling
  • Overall felt pretty damn great

Day 2 – Into Bolivia

After yesterday’s significantly stronger than expected dose I thought it wise to wait until after the border pass before dropping; the prospect of simultaneously dealing with a come-up and a customs official didn’t particularly appeal so I’d prepared a piece of tab, put it in a folded receipt and tucked it in my wallet ready for deployment. Stamped out of Chile and into Bolivia, it was about 8am when I was leaving the customs control shack and with the ink still drying on my entry stamp for Bolivia, I administered the first dose of the desert-drive sessions.

[The dose was fairly strong again. Yes, I know microdosing should be sub-perceptual amounts and the effects this day certainly weren’t that, but hey, I’m still learning this game.]

The Tour Starts

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Tour crew

The other 5 in my tour group were good company, I sensed good vibes from them and felt at ease and open. I was interested in their stories and I chatted and joked with them in high spirits as we passed lakes, mountains and geysers, occasionally bumping into other tourists on other versions of the same tour. We took a thermal bath in the middle of nowhere in the freezing chill and it was awesome! Everything felt fresh and new, everyone was in good spirits and there were good vibes all round. Excellent morning!

holdb.jpgAfter lunch we had some long stretches in the car to make it to our place for the night. During these stretches I felt more or less comfortable in the experience of a light trip and never once felt nervous. However, I also never felt totally relaxed. This was a strange reversal for me as normally on a long journey I feel settled and find it easy to relax. I suspect it was at least partly due to the jagged rhythm of our almost constant movement; driving from one especially picturesque natural phenomenon to the next, jumping out for a bit before jumping back in and then heading onto the next one.

Despite this, when we were in the car, I never felt like I was ‘waiting’ for or in anticipation of the next stop, I still felt very present, enjoying looking out at invariably awesome views. I suspect driving through such landscapes may well have pulled me into present awareness minus the acid, but I could definitely feel it adding a nice little edge, gently but noticeably.IMG_1223op.jpgOutside the car the wind was pounding so hard that it was seriously chilly. Being smashed by the wind however, was exhilarating, at least for me; at some stops the others didn’t fancy it and stayed in the car. Myself and one of the other guys got out at every stop, always sadistically eager to get out into the pounding gusts – we agreed that it made us feel alive!

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Shaun, at one of the stops only the two of us got out

In the second half of the day I had a soreness in my lower back, a common side effect for me after the peak of an acid trip. We had long stretches of driving and being stuck in the car for most of the day wasn’t ideal as I couldn’t use my go-to cure of stretching. Luckily I was sat up front in the seat with the most room- the others had been travelling together and as the newbie to the group they insisted I take the prime seat for the whole day. As everyone else drifted in and out of sleep I breathed and meditated calmly through difficult moments and the pain never became more than a slight discomfort. Arriving to the accommodation in the evening I stretched out on a bed which helped my back but still felt a little off physically – I figure the change in altitude (+2000km) had a fair part to play in this. For the evening I had a vague tired restlessness but didn’t have much problem going to sleep.

Summary

  • Life had an extra vigour – more animated and stimulating
  • Again, felt not only comfortable but enthused and cheerful in social situations
  • Vague restlessness – never totally felt relaxed. It seemed to be a weird mix of surface level presence with an underlying uneasiness, a background hesitation, that despite feeling fine and in positive spirits, for whatever reason something telling me ‘you can’t totally relax’
  • Sore lower back after halfway mark – typical for me on acid
  • Good mindfulness through physical discomfort

Day 3 – Deeper Reflection

[This day was much more comfortable physically, I didn’t suffer from any back pains and had no need to meditate through discomfort. Also I remembered I had my windbreaker and ditched my layers, much better – 90% of the chill was coming from the wind. Without resisting the nippy gusts I felt much easier.]

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On this day the stops were magical, the most beautiful of the tour, easily topping the first day. I had feelings of calmly blissful euphoria during moments spent out under the sun in these marvellous surroundings. I relished being out in these remote spots of natural beauty and each time the call came to get back in the 4×4 and move on, I felt a tinge of disappointment; I could’ve happily stayed longer at any one of the spots. Reluctant to go on, I was always last one back in.

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I could’ve stayed here for days

As the day before, the afternoon had some long stretches of driving. Long stretches of silence filled the car as everyone else dosed off again. With the territory devoid of any signs of humanity the long quiet drives lent themselves to reflection. There was a difference in the quality and themes of my thoughts compared to normal, and I slipped more readily into alternative perspectives, thinking unusually deeply about choices in my life, the roots and causes of things, why I am who I am, the movement of everything within the great stream.

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Gazing out felt kinda like time travel, I imagined our ancestors thousands of years ago treading this same unchanged landscape, nomadic tribes of hunter gatherers wandering this rough terrain for days and weeks on foot in search of a place that might be a settlement.

I tried to imagine how they perceived reality, disconnected from the matrix, no society-at-large to keep pace with, no news narrative to keep up with, zero sense of official history – only stories handed down from relatives or through tribes. As one of them, your reality would be the land and sky infront of you; the curves at the edge of turquoise lakes, the patterns within robust rock formations, steam dancing out of geysers. Following the stars for directions, counting the fingers until sundown, scanning the landscape for plants or movement – of prey, predators, and perhaps other people; an old alliance or group of wanderers speaking an alien tongue – this is what I imagined to occupy the minds of those wayfarers, this is how I imagined their reality.

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What a different world we occupy than that of our cousin adventurers who made their way across this same land. For those nomads, lack of modern media and technology meant the impossibility of constant news and reminders of events happening miles away in places one’d never go; no disturbing news of the latest natural catastrophe or political scandal, no feeds of photos of other people living an entirely separate life, no bombardment of commercials or the desire for needless things that they create. No hunter gatherer ever looked at a screen and read of the latest buffoon to be made president or moved their finger to give approval of an image by or of someone they’d never meet; the only source of information outside of direct experience would’ve been the mouth of a living being standing in front of them.

Imagining their simpler existence I envied their lack of the moral dilemmas that we are faced with in the consumer society of today: What tech products can I buy without causing child labour in the congo? What clothes can I get without endorsing sweatshop slavery? Should I stop eating meat to lessen my carbon footprint? What should I do about the corrupt political system – vote for one of a choice of crooks, or not vote for anyone? And then, what can and should I do to play my part in positive societal change? None of these thoughts would have passed through their minds. Though they might still have had deeper thoughts about the more far-reaching ramifications of their actions, they were free of the overt madness that faces us in the modern globalised world as their basic actions for survival wouldn’t have had the same clearly traced consequence on the lives of people the other side of the world. Utilitarian considerations would surely be less labyrinthine and confounding. They would never have been forced to be made aware of the upshots of their actions so explicitly before being seemingly left with no option but to continue living in the very society that is the cause of these problems, therefore also contributing one’s own share to the evils of the world.

But there, I could see land untouched by civilisation. I peaked into the land and life of the past, saw ancient formations and structures that outdate the ancient cities of Athens and Rome. Staring out at the landscape I imagined those drifters and with the raw plainness of pure nature before me, tapped into their freedom from this modern psychological bind.

Summary

  • Physically more comfortable than previous day
  • Euphoric moments when outside under the sun
  • Incredible beauty
  • Wanted to spend more time at most stops
  • Peaceful contemplation
  • Enjoyed expanse of nature

Day 4 – The Last Day

[This was the first day that I felt diminishing effects from the D and therefore the weakest of the 4 days. I figure this was due to my body building tolerance.]

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We rose early, driving out over miles of salt flats to see the sunrise from what used to be an island where the Incas made offerings to the god of the sun. After getting there and climbing to the top I took a seat facing the mountains to the east. It looked pretty cloudy so I didn’t think we would see the sunrise and after a while figured it wasn’t coming so got up to go over and chat to the others. Moments after I’d gotten up, Shaun called over to me ‘John!’ and pointed as if the sun had just popped up behind my back. I knew he was fucking with me so I flipped him off. ‘No really!’ he pointed again. I turned around and there it was; the tip of the orange arc peaking over the mountains. I’d missed the split second moment of appearance – but I didn’t feel disappointed, the inevitability of it seemed obvious; clearly I was never meant to see the sunrise on that crisp morning. I laughed to myself and took it as a lesson on patience.

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I was in good spirits and seeing two guys chucking an American football on the flats went over to join them. I enjoyed the simple joy of chucking a ball and sensed a freeness amidst the disconnection of being in the middle of salt flats. It felt like being in the middle of an ocean. It wasn’t a typical experience of what I would consider being in nature: surrounded by trees in a wood or forest, or amongst towering mountains – there I could see flat endless pure white terrain to the horizon in every direction. It was the most distant I’ve ever felt from organised society, even being with other people.

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At the end of the tour our driver left us in Uyuni, my first experience of Bolivian society. Walking through the town I felt excited to be in a new place, but not noticeably more so than how I normally feel arriving in a new place. Having taken the dose on this day around 5am, I suspect that the acid had actually worn off by the time we arrived. With a few of the others I grabbed a bus to Potosi, I was heading northwards towards the Amazon in my quest for ayahuasca.

Summary

  • Diminished effects on the 4th day. This was probably the first actual ‘microdose’
  • Positive outlook – didn’t feel disappointed missing the moment of sunrise
  • Physical activity felt good – tossed that pigskin like a pro

Conclusion

Am I glad I did it? Absolutely. At the end of the tour my feeling was gratitude; for the opportunity to see nature on such a scale, the cheerful company of my fellow tourers, the magical places, and all of them combined. I imagine that most who are fortunate enough to go on such a tour, dosed or not, also feel grateful, but personally I know the experience wouldn’t have been the same if I hadn’t.

Though the doses may’ve been more effective if I’d taken a day’s gap (or 3) between each one, speaking from the other side I can say I still felt obvious effects for the first three days. However, there was a clear and significant dimishing on the 4th day – interestingly I’ve also read online of someone reporting likewise; not feeling any diminishing effects on consecutive days until day 4 (and they actually microdosed).

This was an entirely new experience for me; it was my first time on a tour of that nature, first time taking a lower dose, and first time taking acid on consecutive days. This obviously makes it very difficult to make any cross-comparison between the variables.

Does that render all of my observations as totally invalid? I don’t think so. Even if I’d taken nothing away from this wonderful experience it’d have been worth it on its own merit, but beyond the joys of the trip itself I do feel I’ve gleaned some useful info on the effects of acid at lower doses. I found that it’s totally fine for me to be around other people and can actually make me more talkative and open, enhancing interactions and conversations.

The experience has also led me to believe that in certain potentially stressful situations, ones that may therefore seem especially inappropriate on a psychedelic, a lower dose could actually be an aid of great benefit. An aid in staying mindfully calm and focused, and to lessen the chance of spiralling into negative thought patterns or ‘freaking out’ – interestingly something that high doses of psychedelics are often believed to increase the odds of. Obviously this requires more investigation and I intend to try microdosing again in a more controlled environment. Stay tuned.

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lsd acid tabs psychedelic
lsd acid tabs psychedelic

The fateful tabs


The Ego Strikes Back

As I’ve already stated, acid is a reflection of our own mind, not one in itself. With this in mind, I’ve already made a classic mistake in writing this, I forgot about the golden rule; personal perception. Even with all my evidence for espousing support for ego-death theory earlier, I must redress the balance now.

Although, generally loss of ego/subjectivity with LSD is recognised as a universal feeling, I have still made huge assumptions on what others may have felt and made the biggest donut of this whole series of memoirs. Who’s to say the egotistically bereft acid vets Jack met weren’t expressing their personalities? Perhaps they were vague and bland before acid. Similarly, my slip into nihilism and numbness from acid thinking may have just been due to my own personality, I’m just articulating this through a recent drugs experience, whereas before I would have defined the same feelings through a different lens. Also, just as those who take acid like beer (let’s get fucked!) could be looked down on for missing the point, so could the more philosophical cosmonauts like Leary and Huxley. Ultimately, after the experimental phase, people usually do drugs for enjoyment purposes (assuming there’s no addiction involved), but due to LSD’s effect, the experience can be interpreted as highly revelatory or deep to the right mind. This is why, increasingly, it seems the self does exist strongly and does affect even one’s feelings of losing the self.

An example of this self-influenced objectivity trick is the fact that open-minded or unorthodox thinkers seem to have more gratifying or deep experiences on LSD compared to those who take the drug with a pre-perceived prejudice or try to fight its effects. So either there is a pure feeling of objectivity and only some people are “getting it” and others not, or the feelings of “oneness” are a societal creation by liberal westerners who take acid. However, too many people seem to confirm similar feelings of unity and infinity when they take acid so this may be more universal. Once again, the trick of circularity trips us up though, as soon as we believe the ego has been smashed by objectivity we see our perception mushroom into different layers and we start to think of the chains of causality affected by people’s ego/personality/interactions that cause us to research, organise, and then take acid in the first place, so suddenly it seems even our ego requires release.

In this post-acid funk I’ve been in recently, at once positive in one breath and existentially tortured in another, my attentions have increasingly been affected by a recent bout of clinical depression my brother has gone through. Leaving work for a month my brother moved back home for support and we ended up having many long philosophical talks whilst walking around our neighbourhood in the evening, an attempt in talking things out. My brother is closer to middle-age than me which made me wonder if perhaps I would feel the same in the future, it is common to at a certain stage in life. However, when my brother told me about the anti-depressants he had received from the doctor, it made me think. He described the effects of the pills; nausea, a strange light-headed feeling, then a weird buzz, where eventually you end up just not feeling negative. To me, this sounds kinda similar to some illegal drugs and caused me to ask my brother if he would ever try acid again, having done so once many years before. After initially laughing at the suggestion and saying that acid was the last thing he needed he has actually come round to the idea in a big way and it makes sense. Acid helps one to look at existing problems in a new and constructive way, accept flaws in life and oneself as natural and inevitable and to appreciate the simple beauty of all life. These all sound like pretty good strategies for dealing with depression to me. Again, my bro is not a weed smoker, but the dead end the depression put him in made him acquire a ‘nothing to lose’ attitude with that too and he started having the odd spliff with myself and found that it took the edge off the depression and also allowed his mind to relax and think without the pressure of insecurity. We haven’t planned the trip yet, but I hope to do a glorious summer one with my bro and hopefully it will be a really big positive revelation for him. He said to me that he wants to be in a good mindset before he does it which I agreed with, but I reminded him that his mindset was all up to him. Again, this is why acid is good for treating depression, it allows one to realise their own agency and control in life. Even just talking about alternative modes of thought and experience seemed to broaden and brighten my brother’s outlook. My bro’s story just proves to me even more that LSD and other drugs should be legalised or atleast de-criminalised because the treatment doctors provide is either unsuitable or is trying to mimic the effects of drugs anyway. It also makes sense that when my brother began to feel like he had gotten trapped and stale in the repetitious nature of life, a drug that gives the soul a spring clean would appeal. This also reinforces the idea that LSD itself seems to have a natural connection and applicability to human cognitive understanding that is very important. Drugs like coke may be bottomless in the desire they create for more, taken just to want more, but acid is bottomless in its inspirational potential.

We still look for order, meaning and logic whilst on drugs, just in a different conception; we aren’t necessarily free on acid, we’re still the same machines computing the same data, but in a new way. Acid can make the old conventions we live by seem silly, but it does not always provide alternatives. The world view acid gives is ultimately unknown, it is elusive, it teases supple minds and leads us up circular pathways because ultimately, this is the nature of existence and acid (good as it is) is not going to change this. To me, this makes me see acid as a tool I can use in my future life to develop my identity (which comprises superficial and more deep-rooted elements) but not something that will provide answers. Personal perception is all, this is what acid says to me; ‘you are malleable, change, adapt, make the world easier on yourself – enjoy it mate, rather than chasing the lost city acid teases you with, because you’ll never get there’. Acid is regulation of the self, the BB contestant vs. acid vet example I used earlier shows the dangers of a reckless lack of self-analysis which allows ingrained, unexamined (often illogical) personality traits to run amuck for years and finally become completely assimilated vs. a complete gutting of one’s mental landscape leaving it empty, formless.

I think acid taps into areas of our brain that can meld feelings of creativity and flux with concepts of order, logic and harmony – chaos and order. This is why those who have studied philosophy have been said to get more out of acid immediately. I am a former philosophy student myself. It is a way of thinking, a logical thought tool – this is why any argument requires a valid premise and a clear definition to be taken seriously, words are weighted with meaning, not like an opinion piece or restaurant review; it is an attempt at semantic mathematics. This way of thinking requires one to 1) think of topics/concepts in their largest perceivable context and 2) pursue conclusions free from the influence of environmental factors on thinking. In this sense this is why LSD thinking and the philosophical method are so similar. LSD opens the mind up to see situations or ideas from a new angle in a bigger picture and in doing so, removes pre-conceived ideas of truth and understanding to facilitate this process.

However, just as with LSD, this thinking can be liberating and debilitating. My experience of philosophy was exactly like this; I felt free to ditch certain prejudicial or silly opinions I had held onto over the years (like believing in God) and it gave me the confidence to question bigger assumptions in the world and in my own life. Also, when debating with people, I found it easier to step back, be objective and analyse their points more logically, often making for much better arguments from myself. However, just as with acid, initially this feeling of being an epistemological nomad was comforting because I felt I had shed certain ignorant ways of doing things, I had learnt something, but the same problem of nihilism crept in again. Soon I was analysing everything philosophically and trying to catch people out – ever vigilant in case their argument didn’t fully stack up. Moreover, I had to start dispensing with some of my own opinions or having to over-correct sentences at the moment of utterance if they assumed too much. While this is a good method for winning arguments, it isn’t very fun and even the open-minded can find it wearing. Plus, even with the logical analysis approach, it won’t always be successful because of course no one knows everything, which is also partly the dichotomy in philosophical discourse – it was created as a logical, scientific method for explaining the unexplainable. To me, acid presents the same teasing possibility – the possibility of crazy massive answers when what it boils down to understands the opposite – the basic values in oneself and how to augment them to find happiness (assuming happiness is the aim of most people).

Timothy Leary said you’ve got to do acid every weekend and smoke weed every day to keep sane. Leary said he was living the life of another statistic, over the hill with less and less creativity, until he took acid. But what is the alternative? Do drugs all the time? I have to now re-evaluate odd people I’ve met in the past, what they were saying wasn’t necessarily weird now I think about it, those late-night crazy chats in bars or raves, now I see those who are called mad as the sane ones.

My conclusion is that there is a concentration on immediacy and easy-gratification in our culture and this is the case with drugs too. Why is cocaine far more popular than LSD? Because it enables one to feel physically stimulated, but within the realms of reality and within societal convention to a point; someone coked up is just more hyper or chatty or adventurous, it puts a sheen on your view of reality. Acid, however, opens up so many possibilities people are sometimes not sure what has happened to them because there is nothing to weigh the experience against, and hence they prefer drugs that enhance existing desires/ambitions, rather than open up areas with no easy answers. This is why I firmly believe in taking more acid until one becomes more lucid and comfortable and able to analyse the self and the world. This can be used for many projects – recreation, dealing with trauma, working on creative or academic solutions etc. These things all represent time, subtlety, patience, understanding; things modern people don’t have time for. This is why acid is often misunderstood as a drug, so often the more salacious effects are focused on in popular culture that we as a society have lost sight of its serious potential. Of course any good cosmonaut knows that more research should be done with acid and is increasingly being done, but would be far more effective and prolific when public perception is changed too. LSD is an integral part of the human experience and to date, to my knowledge, no one who has tried it has seriously recommended it be made illegal or criticised it, doesn’t that tell us all something? Or does it? It’s up to your own perception my friend, but I tell you what, it made me feel fucking great and anytime you feel yourself sleepwalking into a life of passivity, monotony, drudgery, unhappiness, conventionality, insincerity or banality just remember, you’ve got a choice; you can be brave and you can ignore the doubters and be free, not just with LSD but with the philosophy it encourages too.

Whether it is the perceived effect acid has or not, I feel that from now on I will never get as indignant about things as I used to, and as long as I can keep childish enthusiasm for things in spite of this, that’s okay. For me, a lot of negative or (formerly) conspiratorial notions I had about this whole being human thing have been confirmed by acid, but that’s always been in me, as long as I can remember. That that part of me may never be satisfied or quelled and I should look instead to the possibility and suggestibility acid- thinking creates, and hopefully life can be that little bit less harsh and that little bit more enjoyable in the coming years. Also, it has freshened my creativity and encouraged to remember the joy of playing an instrument and composing music, the whole process feeling fresh. I don’t think I need to end on a Bill Hicks quote or anything – you only live once, try it.

lsd acid identity psychedelic

lsd acid identity psychedelic

Identity

Reality has seemed so petty at times afterwards. The feeling I had transcends the heights and limits of beauty and truth, at once amplifying them and making them seem ridiculous at the same time, or so normal they seem ridiculous. For example, the classical music seemed so beautiful and made so much sense as existing. It was as if every note had existed in that order before anyone ever composed it and, ironically, this also made it seem more everyday/pedestrian, whilst also being beautiful. When someone looks at the ceiling of the Cistine chapel, they may well feel in awe of the craftsmanship and even intimidated by the scale of the talent required to produce it. It may make one feel insignificant. However, if looking at Michaelangelo’s creation on acid, one might feel as if it had always had to look that way, a feeling of natural inevitability, like one could enjoy it’s simple beauty, the colours and shapes and meaning, and not the words of the tour guide. Acid can provide an appreciation of things that is free from the influence of cultural/historical factors long ingrained on the minds of most western industrialised psyches.

The stripping of cultural identity from contemplation, that acid provides, left me feeling that I was not the self that I knew and not even the self I thought I had become, but an empty vessel, a being of energy stretched into a strange shape, as we all are. All the qualities or details that I use to describe myself to people or how I classify myself in my own mind (white, middle-class etc.) appeared to become meaningless, just semantics. I felt sad at first thinking of myself as just space matter; it’s like the film we are the star of in our own heads (and the character we play) never getting to the production phase, forgotten. However, this was also liberating (again, circularity of thought –both sides); the feeling of cosmic insignificance relieves anxiety over status, self-consciousness, social expectations and materialism. The more sombre thinking on mortal insignificance has also, at times, boiled over into a numbing nihilism, but that might just be there naturally(!). I’ll explore this further in the concluding parts…

lsd acid paranoia trippy

lsd acid paranoia trippyParanoias

Before this trip I had done acid once before on my own, I had an enjoyable experience – albeit with some insecurities and guilt coming to the fore in the hairier moments. Being in a group for my second and much more profoundly affecting trip made me think more about how acid changed the nature of reality.

My first trip gave me shimmery visual effects and a lot of personal psychological analysis but not much musing on the wider universe and my place in it. This may be down to the acid being stronger in my second trip and opening my mind more, or perhaps the group dynamic; it could also have been all the MDMA we boshed before and after we’d dropped those paper tabs onto our tongues!

My experience of a group trip had pros and cons. Pros included the reassurance that if anything went wrong I’d have some sort of help, and there were new ideas being brought to the table e.g. Jack brought sensory stimuli like pens, crayons, furry books etc. – sounds silly but, simple pleasures and experiencing the highs and wonder together.

However, the cons for me did include a degree of paranoia, which I didn’t feel tripping alone because there was no perceived threat from anyone else. Some examples from, you guessed it- the height of my trip, include:

1. On being presented with genuine ‘smelly’ pens by my friend to draw with, I believed at the time they were actually normal pens and everyone was in on this except me. So, when asked to smell a ‘strawberry scented’ picture by the lads I believed they were experimenting with a mind trick trying to see if the suggestive power of LSD would make me think I was smelling strawberry and not ordinary red pen. I believed the ultimate aim of their experiment was to prove that group suggestion could outweigh an individuals’ reason and logic. This was a weird experience, but I got over it.

2. Once some paranoia creeps in it can then become a theme. At another stage of the evening we ambitiously went about moving the living room table and replacing it with a mattress. This was tricky whilst bombed already, and the paranoia came back again. Jack said ‘moving men’ because myself and two others were repositioning the table and this made me believe that Jack, camera in hand, was filming footage for a punk’d style show called ‘moving in men’ and that I again, was the dummy being duped. I believed the fantasy show ‘moving in men’ consisted of getting people boshed on acid and then convincing them that they were moving furniture that was actually stationary- to the hilarity of the studio audience – Bizarre. I had a partial hallucination at this point as Jack holding the camera, the table and my peripheral vision all blurred into one and when I sat down I also half-believed we had never moved the table and a feng-shui trick had been played on my eyes.

3. Over the course of the trip the nitrous oxide balloons we were caning were extremely enjoyable and at times blissful. However, the paranoia crept in again and I started to think that my friends were filling the balloons with air and again seeing if I would make myself think that I was doing gas when it was actually plain air or seeing if at the least I was pretending to go along with the group. This didn’t stop me smashing double balloons everytime they were going of course.

The paranoias I experienced seemed to tap into personal insecurities and display me at my most raw individual state balanced with my role in the group. This was unpleasant at the time but never crippling, because I knew there was no real threat from any of the perceived deceit. In the end it may not even be anything to do with my character, it just may be the way LSD made me feel at the time, who knows, it made me feel like I was just a vessel influenced by its surroundings rather than inherently a certain way. Don’t get me wrong either, these paranoias did pass after the height of the trip and I had a lot of great experiences. I feel I know myself and my place in the world better now.

colorado nature mountains

LSD: The Aftermath

While preparing to write this, a eulogy to an acid trip and its consequences, I have wrestled each day with thoughts that sometimes seem to increase in intensity and complexity with time, rather than dissipating. Even in trying to write this, the introduction, I feel like I am writing a conclusion, the feeling of circularity is palpable. As soon as articulation in the mind begins to inform the fingers, the thought chain has skipped ahead to some presumably logical next level. Sometimes, this confusion can halt writing altogether. Any discussion on human existence or understanding will always carry with it the pitfalls of the unknown, making descriptive or definitive statements difficult to conjure. Whether LSD or similar substances are just chemical tricks that have nothing to do with real truth or whether they are the root to some deeper understanding is not important, the important thing is that the experience can change one’s perception of reality long after the event, possibly forever. Because this subject requires a discussion on the nature of reality, I can only describe the view from my island, which seems natural, except, I’ve only just arrived myself.

Return To Reality

Considering the day directly after the trip was a blur, I see my real return to a sort of normality coming the day after that. I remember feeling miffed that while my friend and fellow voyager John’s return train journey home to a weird little place like Leamington Spa would be direct, I would have to get off at East Midlands Parkway and take a coach the rest of the way to Leicester (a slightly bigger, weird place), adding an hour and forty five minutes to my journey.

Another of my fellow voyagers, Chris, walked me up hill to the bus stop and left me with a solitary BLT in my hand from the local shop. Having not been out in the daylight for a few days I suddenly felt exposed to the world; the afternoon was grey and blustery, the wind whipping in at me. I stood at the bus stop with my holdall between my legs and two coats on, bleary-eyed and unshaven, the pillow I had brought with me placed on top of my bag. The pillow at my feet brought with it the visual suggestion I was some sort of drifter or vagrant, and standing perched on that hill at the bus stop I did begin to feel different, like I was a drifter, but I wasn’t drifting from town to town, I was drifting through states of consciousness.

This feeling manifested itself as I looked at the dreary street of local shops around me, the grey light was almost tangibly embedded in the air, like a cloud of gas seeping into my pores and allowing me to actually feel the mundane, pithy nature of that afternoon that dragged me back into reality. However, just as I began to feel deflated, I caught myself and remarked in my own head: ‘it’s all just a trick, a game’ and suddenly felt some weight lift off my shoulders. In itself, this wasn’t a remarkable statement, many phrases carry a similar message (with or without reference to a drug experience) like ‘that’s life’, for example. What differed in this instance was my thought process – it felt different. Almost everyone has times when they shrug off a bad mood or thought by telling themselves not to worry, but on this occasion I meant it more deeply for the first time. I had often told myself ‘that’s life’, implying that you win some and lose some, but this time I seemed to find comfort in the fact there is no winning or losing. After my come down was initially hardened by the feelings of mediocrity that the provincial street scene filled me with, I’d very quickly felt my new consciousness intervene and felt liberated, if only for a moment. As I stepped on the bus finally, pillow in hand, I thought; ‘Am I a different person now?’

I was worried I would miss the train as I was cutting things fine, but as the bus turned the next corner I found myself at the apex of a hill with Sheffield spread out below me and sunlight suddenly flooding in through the windows. I looked at the view, the city below didn’t look scary or large. I didn’t think of all the little lives going on down there, it appeared irreverent and flippant, almost like it was just a shape itself. I then closed my eyes and saw that bright dark you see when the suns on them. I saw interlocking patterns in different colours. I didn’t magically see geometric patterns because of the after effects of LSD, I saw the same shapes we all see when we scrunch our eyes up, except this time I saw them differently – I laughed and felt joyous. It was a different me now.

To heighten my feelings of being a solitary mystic wanderer on my journey home, I rebelliously sat in first class on the train (without a first class ticket). The ticket collector told me it was fine that I sat there as there were hardly any passengers on the holiday service but that normally she would have to move me. Why did she have to add a warning of a hypothetical future scenario? It was merely to assert some sort of pithy authority in the face of a rule flouter. This immediately heightened my thoughts of reality, and these were the first inklings I had that my mind would be going to strange places far more frequently than usual over seemingly commonplace happenings post-trip. The ticket lady had created another reality in her head to add to the current perception of the reality we were supposedly sharing – the present moment. This showed me how natural the feelings you have on acid are, even in ‘normal’ reality we as humans are constantly inventing slightly altered past and future versions of events that do have an effect on present sets of circumstances. In this instance, it’s that I would now probably be less likely to chance sitting in first class.

After this musing I remembered that I had a BLT and devoured it ravenously, enjoying the simplicity of it and again feeling like I was appreciating it differently now; I felt less self-conscious about the way I was eating. This could be perceived as rude -to eat like a pig – but it gave me a strange thought. People who suffer serious head trauma in accidents sometimes become more sexually explicit in their language or behaviour. Perhaps this is just them returning to a more natural state of humanity and it is only our societal blushing that makes this behaviour seem odd because we have devised ways of talking about sex and attraction – scientifically, with puns etc. Devouring the sandwich and ignoring rules of proper ways to eat, was I in a more natural state?

These questions of perception came to a head once I got off the train and made it on to the coach. I sat at the back so I could relax and wrestle some more with the questions in my head. Unfortunately a big group of middle-aged guys came and sat at the back too. Their conversations seemed intensely banal after the experience I’d had. On the way home, one of the group was chomping on a marmite cereal bar and saying out loud the names of business signs the coach happened to pass. As we went through the less than picturesque town of Loughborough I heard in the corner of my ear: ‘Sandicliffe Ford’- ‘hmmm’, ‘Bartley’s Bakery’ – ‘oh’ and ‘Abdul Jalfrezi House’- ‘right’. I felt like telling him to shut up, it seemed like the very epitome of closed thought – reading out company names just to say them out loud. At that moment, the sun came flooding through the windows and blurred the faces of the group. With no facial features they seemed like shells, imprints that were melting into the landscape as if they were just matter – it made me feel content again; ‘it’s just a trick’. As I looked out at a stunning sunset, I was filled with a sense of beauty and peace and wanted to cry. I hoped those guys, even from their island, could see it too.

When I finally got back to the family home, I had a bacon sarnie, a cuppa and an early night. The next day seemed virginally bright like the start of a new era, and everyone I walked past in the street didn’t know what I had – I had a higher knowledge which was an inexpressible feeling. Some must know, and from now on I will see people as in two camps – those who have understood this experience also, and those who haven’t – those who care about the hum drum, the petty, are swallowed up by the game we’ve created for ourselves in the societal mind: not the true game, the true mystery.