Vicarious experience: First time on LSD

I am in no way advocating the use of any illegal drug but I find it necessary and beneficial to learn about them and understand their effects through a first-hand experience of those who have tried them. By experiencing them vicariously we can determine our standpoint without possibly putting ourselves at risk. To learn more about LSD I sat down with someone who tried it for the first time and I asked his story.

Tell me about yourself. What’s your name, class year and major?

I’m not really comfortable saying my name but I will say I am a senior English major.

What made you want to try LSD?

I’ve tried various other drugs and LSD has always been on my list. I’ve always been told by friends it was pretty safe and that it can really open up your mind. I was finally able to get my hands on it, though it was not nearly as easy as I thought it would be to get it. I took off work a few weeks after I got it and that was that.

How did it go? What did you do? Tell me about your day.

I’d say it went really good. We started off at around 2:30pm. It was me and two friends, one who had done it a few times before and one was doing it for the first time too. We were chilling at one of the guys’ house and we took three tabs each. It took about 45 minutes for it to kick in for me, though one friend felt it in about 30. From there it was a wild ride. When it hit me, we went downstairs to the backyard and it was like a new world. We smoked a joint to help magnify the feeling and my mind exploded. The usually dull, shitty New Brunswick environment popped. I found myself standing in the back corner of the yard and it felt like I was deep in a forest.

I knew I wasn’t, it didn’t screw up my mind that bad, but it distorted my view. The leaves were so bright and beautiful. It made me appreciate nature like I’ve never had before. Then in the distance I heard birds singing and I looked up and about three houses down I saw a barren tree with what seemed like nearly 75 birds filling its branches. It was amazing. I knew they were probably just boring looking birds that all looked the same but to me they all looked different. It looked like bright red cardinals, shiny blue jays, shimmering golden doves and purple birds that I’ve never seen before, all singing in unison. The LSD must have worked with my nearsightedness to create this image of beauty. I was awe struck.

This all happened within the first hour or so and I knew it was going to be a good day. I wanted to see more so we went to the front porch. It was so much different than I’d ever noticed. It was now obvious I was in a city due to the red brick buildings but the sun hit them and made them shine like I’ve never seen. It blew my mind. The colors were so vibrant and I never wanted it to end. There were trees with green leaves, red leaves, orange and yellow. The sky was bluer than I’ve ever seen. Not only was the world beautiful but I was so happy. Happier than I’ve ever been. I found myself laughing hysterically for 20 minutes straight. This happened a lot that day.

Really? I’ve never really thought of LSD as being something people laugh that much on. 

It was like I was on laughing gas. Like I had smoked some sort of long lasting super weed. My face and the back of my head hurt from laughing so much and so hard.

Then what did you do?

It was starting to get dark, it was probably around 5:30 or so and the dusk made the sky turn from blue to pink to purple to gray. It was as if my mind was controlling a dimming light switch. By the time 6pm rolled around the sky was black. I’ve never been so impressed by the changing sky. After nightfall we decided to go inside.

What did you do inside?

We had set up my friend’s room with a TV, Xbox, and large speakers as sort of a safe space. This is more or less where we spent the rest of the night. Things in his room were different than what they were when we set it up. There was a poster of fish on his wall that looked like it was an aquarium. It was like they were swimming around on his wall. We stared at that for what seemed like hours, but in reality it was probably only about 15 minutes.

There was picture of a weather map on his wall and the lines and colors on it turned into a moving, 3D image. There was also a dragon banner that swayed and changed between red and orange. It changed with the music. We were mostly listening to lyrical EDM and every song changed the way the images danced and how our moods were.The greatest thing I saw in his room though was the side of his bed. It was mesmerizing. We had flipped it up so we had more room for chairs. It was so basic but the pattern breathed with the music. I never thought it would be one of the coolest things I saw that day. I kept going back to it throughout the night.

It was now around 7pm and this is when the mood changed a bit.

What happened?

His landlord came to show the house to a few groups of people to sign a lease. At that point I was playing Call of Duty, which was pretty awesome. The landscapes in the game were cool as hell. I found myself just running around taking it all in. I didn’t even care that I kept dying. It was like a virtual nature walk. We must have looked like idiots though when the groups came in to look at the room. We were three kids staring at a screen with giant pupils while blasting EDM. I felt like we were in a fishbowl being observed.

That must have been a lot to deal with.

We made the best of it. She was only there for about an hour. This wasn’t even the worst of it. I forgot to mention but we took it on Friday, November 13. The day of the attacks in Paris. At around 8:30 my friend got a notification on his phone that Paris had been attacked. We went upstairs to watch the news. I’ve been told acid can change your mood pretty quickly but now I was experiencing it. It was crazy. I went from smiling to ‘what the fuck’ in seconds. We sat in dead silence for like a half an hour. I knew I had to snap out of it so I got my friends to go back downstairs and within 15 minutes we were back to happy.

How’d you get it off your mind?

We smoked again and let the music take hold of us. We also ordered food which helped. Food was something else on it. We got cheap, shitty Chinese and it was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. What was weird though is that with every bite I found myself not hungry by the time I swallowed but hungry again seconds later. The rest of the night was good. We kept listening to music and found a few cool visualizers to watch on the TV.

How was that?

Better than I could have imagined. The colors were wild. They were more vivid than I’ve ever seen. I created my own images within them. Then we found some Christmas lights and plugged them in and it changed the whole aura of the room. This was around 11pm. I was starting to come down so we smoked again and it brought me right back up. Me and my friend started playing with the lights. It was like we were cats tangling them up, tossing them around and swinging them. But I couldn’t stop. It was awesome. The lights, visualizers, music, posters, and a bit more weed took us to around 2am. This is when we decided to end our very long day. I went home but it wasn’t the end for me. I was still mildly seeing patterns ’breathe’. It was like a tribute to the day. I finally fell asleep at around 4am.

Would you do it again?

Absolutely. The good times totally outweighed the couple bad things that happened. I’m looking forward to the next time I can make time to do it again.