My First Acid Trip

Last week I took some LSD. It’s a schedule I drug so the only way to access it is through the black market. I have never really cared about legality especially when it’s based on fucked up laws that make no sense to me. I have always been a psychonaut. What this means is that I have always been profoundly interested in altered states of consciousness. I have always been an introspective person, that coupled with periods of crippling depression have allowed me to get deep into my own mental processes. It’s not always a pleasant thing especially when you feel like you have no control over what you are thinking about. I have tried enough drugs in a desperate attempt to numb pain or escape the pain. If I wasn’t trained in psychology I think I would have been way worse off but depression can creep up on you and all the knowledge in the world is sometimes is not enough to save you.

LSD is not exactly cheap but I wonder how much value one can put on sanity and general well-being? My small brother who also suffers from depression had already tried half a bloater and so far, I have seen some tremendous changes in his mood and social interactions. This time we split it with him. A friend of mine also took half and split it with his brother. I think it’s the best thing that I have done for myself and for him. I know you are probably thinking that there’s something wrong here and that as a therapist this was an irresponsible thing to do or that this is just another drug to numb and escape but hold your horses.

I have smoked a lot of marijuana which is a very weak psychedelic so I know a bit about altered states but I wasn’t prepared for this. The method of ingestion is oral. You put the bloater in your mouth for about 15 minutes which should allow your capillaries to absorb it into your system. I ate mine because I didn’t want to waste anything. The setting (mental state and environment) are very important for anyone who wants to do a psychedelic drug.

 We were listening to music and smoked some pot while we waited for the high to kick in. When my brother tried it the first time it took about one and a half hours to kick in so we were patient. When the LSD starts kicking in it feels a bit like a weed high but you soon realize that it’s also different and very distinct, you don’t feel intoxicated but your mind becomes very clear. I was watching some visualization while listening to the music, I have never seen colors so rich, the patterns turned into this weird 3D universe, changing form and transforming in the most beautiful way ever. I really can’t put to words what that experience was like, it’s something someone has to experience for themselves.  I felt this calm that I couldn’t explain and at some points I caught myself smiling for no apparent reason. This was about 2 hours after I started feeling the effects of the drug. There were also visual distortions for about 30 minutes, faces appeared smudged or people’s heads (I was watching a series at this point) started getting bigger, it was all very amusing for me, I couldn’t stop laughing about it. My brother and I talked about all sorts of things which was very interesting under the trip. One of the effects I noticed is that you can’t sleep for a few hours, I had taken it at around 4 pm and slept at about 5 am. Everyone else confirmed that this happened to them as well, I had initially thought that it was the excitement but it seems to be a side effect of the drug.

All this was amazing but that’s not my immediate interest in psychedelic drugs, I think that they are very powerful mental tools with unimaginable healing power, mankind has used psychedelics for millennia because they exist in nature, it’s even argued that some of the rock paintings discovered were drawn by people under altered states of consciousness. It’s ironic that they are now illegal but that’s a story for another day. My depressive symptoms have subsided, that is not to say that I am healed but I feel like the LSD trip catalyzed that process, I have noticed a lot of positive changes, I am now very productive, this is even the first time that I have written in a long time which really something I am thankful about. I feel like my mind is clearer and that I am more patient with myself and others. I downloaded and watched all the literature I could get on LSD because that is what I can access at the moment.
 I now understand a lot about how psychedelics affect brain and it explains a lot what I have been experiencing. They interrupt your default mode network, this is the part of your brain that is active in wakeful rest, like during daydreaming and mind wandering. LSD for instance reduces blood flow to these regions leading reduced activity, the brain reacts to this by activating new neural pathways in an attempt to communicate with itself, recently they did a study where they put people who had been given LSD under and fmri and observed their brain activity. What is really interesting is that the brain under LSD is highly connected, parts of your brain that are normally not active are activated, this is why people smell colors and hear music under an LSD trip.

Psychedelics have been used to treat depression, PTSD, addiction and even anxiety and with ridiculous success rates (there are enough studies published in reputable journals for anyone who would love to learn more). I think this is why psychedelics are illegal, I am not a conspiracy theorist, I am skeptic but it makes a lot of sense that drugs like these are illegal, there’s a lot of money to be lost if one or a few trips under the guidance of a trained therapist can alleviate all these conditions. Liquor and cigarettes on the other hand are very legal even though they kill more people than natural disasters and combined acts of terrorism.

As you can tell by now, I extremely excited about this drug, I can’t wait to talk to anyone who would care to listen to this discovery, I intend to conduct my own little experiments with myself and a few select people who I know might benefit from it, people who have tried antidepressants in vain or people struggling with all these conditions but can’t afford therapy and treatment which is ridiculously expensive. Part of the reason I have never looked for therapeutic help is that I can’t even begin to afford it, I am a trained psychologist so I have been my own personal doctor.

The point of all this is not to encourage drug use, psychedelics are immensely potent and if not taken under the right environment can cause some psychological problems, they are also not for everyone, it’s all about finding what works best for you. The intention of writing this is to spark and arouse some curiosity in you, no one should take all I have written as gospel truth, we live in the information age so ignorance is not excusable. For those interested turn on, tune in, drop out.