I found the legitimate LSD (as opposed to the synthetic variants commonly sold illegally here in the U.S. at large events) to be a subtle experience, like slipping into a warm bath. There are visuals, but they emerge from the patterns of your environment and for me they ebbed and flowed with the music. The thing I remember most was the sensation of losing a first person perspective and it being replaced by a feeling of an interconnectedness with everything else sharing my space. I could think about traumatic memories with ease and the distressing characteristics of those memories were completely absent, yet the content remained unchanged somehow. It made me dwell on how my consciousness could be a complete illusion and how at peace I was with that, given the fact I felt like I was already in a state of total union with the universe. It was about six hours of an appreciable high.
We put the liquid LSD on gummy bears with a dropper, so it took some time to metabolize, but the DMT was smoked and the effects were experienced as being nearly instantaneous. Right away I felt like I was on a rocket traveling at high speeds, then everything whited out and all I could hear was a loud ringing. Eventually I felt like I was in an all white room, when this being appeared and started to sing to me.
This “being” looked like a sexless mannequin with no features other than being thin, entirely smooth, light blue in color, and human shaped. It hand no mouth or eyes, but I clearly heard its voice talking to me in this singing language that made absolutely no sense to me, but somehow was able to communicate and elicit sensations. At some point these intense geometric patterns appeared and this being gave me this guided tour of the shapes and with an appendage that had absolutely no digits on it, was pointing out symbols written on the surface of the shapes that appeared to be vaguely mathematical or logical characters, but more Sumerian, if that makes any sense.
During the experience I felt like I was being instructed in profound secrets and the singing instruction prompted me to feel waves of pleasure. Then,almost as suddenly as it began, the shapes faded, the being was gone, and everything around me looked like a familiar setting. Next thing I knew I was looking at my grinning friend who was patting my shoulder. The entire experience had been about fifteen minutes but felt like it had been considerably longer.
What is most remarkable about both experiences is I came out of it not really wanting to do it again, because (while enjoyable) it still felt like I had endured something and felt like I needed time to recoup before trying again. That is why I appreciate psychedelics over other kinds of intoxicants, it really isn’t so much as an escape from the world, your problems and emotions come with you, but during the journey your perspective on them changes temporarily.
It has been some time since both experiences and I haven’t used either substance since and probably never will again. Like everything else, there are diminishing returns when it comes to tripping and the more frequently you do it, it stops being enlightening and turns into you simply getting high because you can (which is never a good thing).
A classic professor-to-professor line, so common as to be mundane and as such merits nothing more than an eyeroll and a chuckle, although less seen these days as faculty meetings become more civilized. Thanks for the memories, and for the laughs.
