Acid Answers Questions About Reality

DOSE: T+ 0:00 1 hit oral LSD (blotter / tab) T+ 1:30
smoked Cannabis (plant material) T+ 2:45 1 line insufflated Ketamine (powder / crystals) T+ 0:59
smoked Cannabis (plant material)

       BODY WEIGHT:
   135 lb
     

Eric sent me a message on ICQ around 10:30. His messages were strange, and after a minute he confirmed my suspicions that he was on acid. He offered me the other hit of acid that he had, and I accepted it. I left my house with my bag. My heart raced with anticipation and anxiety. I was wearing jeans, sandals, and a plaid button-up shirt. I arrived at his house; Eric was outside on the street walking his dog. He called to me. We went inside and, after a short time, I took the acid. We sat on his couch talking and listening to music for a little while before deciding to go out for a walk.

We left Eric's house. Eric asked if going for a drive would be good, but I insisted that it was too dangerous to drive while on psychedelics. Eric had also taken some ketamine early on, and when he thought about that he realised how dangerous it would have been.

We walked down to a street right along the railroad tracks. We began walking beside the tracks in the unused land which lined them. It was rough; there was lots of undergrowth and I was very conscious of the limitations imposed upon me by my sandals, which truly were not designed to function on such terrain. We walked on for a while. Eventually, the path disappeared. We continued walking along beside the fence separating us from the tracks. Eric brought me to a place where he had put some pennies on the track. Unfortunately, they could not be found. We walked on.

We had to climb over some fences and onto people's property to continue on. All this time I was holding the joint that we had rolled before leaving. I began to notice the little lights which cover everything in the dark; it was as if they were overpowering my normal reality. It was now dark outside.

After climbing more fences, we found ourselves straying from the fence. Strange things confronted us on the ground -- fallen trees, sticks, mud, etc. I had to get my lighter out to help us see where to go. We kept on moving.

Eric was certain that we were almost out. Suddenly, we came to a steep hill. I did not notice it at all. It was way too dark and my mind was beginning to get messed up. Eric kept us both from rolling down this steep hill and being moderately injured.

It was at this point that the sweat all over my head caused the coefficient of friction between my head and my glasses to drop below the necessary threshold. My glasses slipped off of my head and fell to the ground...somewhere. I cried out for Eric to help me, as this was not something with which I could easily deal. Eric brought the lighter around and I searched the ground. I couldn't find my glasses. Eric realised that the task was impossible; the glasses had probably fallen down this big hill we were on, and there was no way in hell that we were going to be able to find them in the dark while on acid. I had to leave my glasses behind.

Eric turned and brought us out of the woods. The railway bridge crossing over a large ravine was right there, only ten metres away. We carefully found our way down the hill at the site of the bridge until we reached the path in the middle of the ravine. We were both elated, though I was also upset that my glasses had been lost and that I could no longer see properly.

After walking up the ravine for a little while, we decided to smoke the joint. I fumbled around in my bag until I produced it, and we smoked that joint. It was nice to have some pot, finally. It relaxed me. Eric's presence and the knowledge that nothing really bad had happened was enough to keep me happy from that point on. We walked until we arrived at an exit from the ravine, where we left and began walking to Eric's house.

Once we had arrived at Eric's house, I could finally relax somewhat. My glasses were gone, but everything else was still there. We sat down and listened to some trippy drug music. We had some pop to drink and then ate some sorbet. Eating the sorbet made me think of kissing.

I thought about a lot of things while I was sitting there with Eric. I thought about my 'spiritual journey,' so to speak. I thought about the choice of the right path. I thought about the light beings and the darkness. I thought of light as a controlling power and I thought of music, it's total opposite, as the only thing with the courage to openly resist the light. I then thought of how light was the tool of the establishment, that establishment and anti-establishment were the two overriding powers beyond the light and the music. Then I began to think of nature as somehow being behind that, as if at every step, some greater controlling power would emerge. These ideas that I was having were instantly visualised in very trippy ways inside my head. Total abstractions suddenly formed into concrete shapes. The barriers of classification which allow us to make sense of our world melted away, and I was left with no knowledge whatsoever.

I tried to think of it in terms of a fundamental question, a fundamental definition for existence. I searched for words to describe the thoughts I was having, but I realised that it was an impossible task. Belief was a concept I could not accept, but at the same time there is nothing else in this world besides that in which you believe. As you can see, it was just impossible for me to make sense of the world. That isn't to say that the sense which one makes of the world when one's mind is not being stimulated in strange ways by powerful entheogens is at all natural. The baseline by which we measure our world is totally contrived. The way we interact with the world is totally based on assumed principles, and that knowledge, the knowledge that nothing could be known, permeated my consciousness.

Well, I've been going on a bit of a tangent. This is what I had begun to think about. Eric and I went upstairs and smoked more pot. After looking at some trip art on the crappy computer downstairs, Eric had decided that we needed a computer without such a messed up video card. We went upstairs and smoked pot.

Eric then wanted to have some ketamine. We reflected on how ghetto it was to do what we were about to do. Ketamine, for those of you who don't know, is a chemical injected into animals to make them unconscious. It comes in the form of a white powder. I first found that revolting, but then I realised that any solid formed by a commercial chemical process is going to be a precipitate, so unless it's otherwise altered, it would come out as a powder at the end. We rolled up a twenty-dollar bill and snorted these tiny little lines of ketamine. There was something a bit gross about that.

The ketamine made me quite relaxed, but it didn't dull my thoughts at all. In fact, it made them more intense. I left Eric's house because he wanted to clean himself. I can't blame him -- we were filthy.

As I was walking home, I had crazy thoughts about the nature of __________. I'm sorry that I can't put a word to it, but that's what it was. It was that which was and yet was not. I first thought of it in terms of the question of existence. Everything formed this shape, like the shape that a dividing cell makes with the highest concentrations of chromosomes at each end, but all the stretched out chromosomes in the middle. This bulb with two poles was the visualisation of the idea I was having. I imagined that all of reality could be reflected by this shape. Here's how the shape worked: the two poles were yes and no. Everything between them was competition between those opposites. This was the continuation of the idea I had been having before. I asked myself if the question 'Is there existence?' could have caused this thing, this reality which is before us. As much as everything was real, it was also unreal. Nothing was certain, and my brain was caught in a feedback loop trying to process this paradox.

I believe that the origins of my being able to think that way came from the acid while the ketamine just made it more intense and connected.

When I got home around 2 in the morning, my mother was watching TV. I decided that going in and possibly interacting with her was a perilous thing indeed since trying to bluff my way through the acid would have been impossible. I imagined my mom asking where my glasses were. Then she might have seen my dilated pupils and it all would have been over. That's the sort of thing which could have turned my trip bad; I couldn't risk it. So, I walked away from the house. I had been writing on my palm pilot (I'm a geek, a technophile -- that's why I have one) while walking home, as you saw above. I sat down near my house and thought about it all. I began to see this as the latest challenge -- going home and just getting in. There was nothing I could do but go. I walked home. Thankfully, my mother had by then gone to bed and I was able to sneak upstairs without a social collision.

Once I got to my room, I felt the need to document everything as much as possible. I began writing about my experience (which was continuing). I felt acutely alone. I chatted a bit with a friend over the internet to try and keep my mood swings, of which I was becoming more conscious, in check. I watched some TV on my computer and I listened to a little music. Typing, after a while, became emotionally painful after a while. It got to the point where I could only type for a minute or two at a time before being overwhelmed. Watching TV gave me stability and happiness, though. I felt like I was walking the line between a good trip and a bad trip, though.

After a while, I decided to have a shower. It had been quite some time, and I was definitely coming down off of the acid. My mind began to return more to normal functioning, and I felt more in control of the situation. I recoreded a video of my sleep, just for fun. Sleep was strange. Everything was strange. I left the trip-world when I woke up at 12:15 pm with James calling me, asking me where I was and whether or not I was going to come and get him to go play D&D. Well, I was back to normal by then, but my task of processing the previous night had just begun. I don't know if it will end anytime soon.

What have I decided so far? Well, acid is good. Acid is powerful and must be handled carefully, but overall it's good. We took as much care as we could, never having tried acid before. If I ever do acid again, it will be safer. Ketamine, at least for me, should not be taken while on acid. I found that too intense. Ketamine is a more fucked up drug, in some ways; apparently, it can be physically addictive and will probably fuck up your mind if you use it regularly.

Eric told me that a trip would change who I was, and that I would go wherever I wanted to go. I went where I wanted to go; I feel as if there has been continuity between my acid trip and my other spiritual experiences over the past few months. It was a little difficult at times, especially when I lost my glasses and we were in the woods in the dark, but even more so when I was at home, essentially alone, trying to make sense of it all.

I really enjoyed pot. I believe that pot is a universal thing which everyone can enjoy. Acid is a little different. I think more people should try acid, but anyone wanting to try it has to be sure that he's up to it. I'm glad to know that my mind is strong. I was afraid that my mind would not be strong enough to get through being on acid, but it was, and I believe I am better because of it. I do not know whether or not I will do acid again, but it will probably be a while before I do, if I decide to do it again.

Exp Year: 2001ExpID: 9174 Gender: Male Age at time of experience: Not Given Published: Dec 5, 2003Views: Not Supported [ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]

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