Experiences - LSD - 3 drops an anti-climax

[Conkermon]

SWIM had always imagined LSD would be the craziest drug he'd ever do (if he ever had the nerve or the means to do it). He'd heard many myths and I guess he actually beleived them.

Anyway he used his experience with shrooms to come to the conclusion that LSD must be like shrooms but more intense and longer lasting. He concedes this was perhaps ignorant and he should have read up on experiences first. What he actually found was that having 3 drops of acid on sugar cubes had very little effect.

It was a spontaneous decision to take acid as a freind's step-brother had gotten hold of some and brought it down. It was put in the freezer to prevent it deteriorating and the step-brother being more experienced took 5 cubes whilst SWIM and his friend took 3. The step-brother seemed very fucked but SWIM and his friend weren't really. He had mild hallucinations and perhaps saw more patterns than he did on shrooms with his eyes open but felt nothing in his body. It wasn't intense at all and he felt normal aside from the fact he was experiencing mild hallucinations. There was no sense of a journey or anything like that. He put some music on which always sounded amazing on shrooms but it sounded the same as always on acid. Eventually SWIM went home and in the car he did notice the sky looked quite epic (it was dark and cloudy but it seemed to be a rich inky blue with the silver of the moon amplified). When at home SWIM couldn't sleep so he watched TV for ages, experiencing mild visual distortions (he was watching the olympics and it was like the faces of commentators/athletes were blurred) but nothing remarkable.

SWIM is considering three possibilities as to why his experience was a disappointment.

1. The acid had deteriorated / he and his friend took too little. [Seems unlikely that the acid was bad as the step-brother was fucked up, 3 drops is supposed to be enough and the brother was much more experienced with it..]
2. It was too spontaneous + SWIM and his friend weren't in the right mental state for something like acid. [Again this seems unlikely]
3. SWIM's experiences with shrooms and mdma etc caused him to have unreasonable expectations - acid is a visually trippy drug and the ethos is different to MDMA/Shrooms where the emphasis is on how you feel rather than what you see (although with shrooms it's clearly a mixture). SWIM and his friend both complained they didn't "feel" anything while the step-brother perhaps wasn't trying to feel anything and was instead just enjoying acid for what it is.

Any ideas?

[Felix Guattari]

Doses of acid, as you probably know, can vary very significantly in potency. Is SWiY on any medications that might have interfered with the trip? Also people have different 'natural' tryptamine tolerances (possibly due to varying levels of MAO). What does it for one may not do it for another.

If you're not on any other meds, and you're still interested in pursuing acid, try to get your next doses from another batch or just up the dose.

[Richard_smoker]

nope. i'd bet on it being "cut" with water, mouthwash, alcohol, or something of the sort...or one of your 'friends' pulled a fast one on you...did the person who "tripped-balls" happen to be the same guy who sold it to ya?? that'd be my first question.

then, yeah, maybe 5 drops really was that much stronger than 3 drops. my guess is that your 3 drops was less than a quarter of a decent hit. -DICK

[Iamgod 666]

If the acid was deluded with something the drops might of had different doses. Ive read horror stories of people who swish a little water around in a bottle there used to be LSD in, and they end up getting some gigantic dose, big oops, then psychosis. sad sad sad

[Songcycle67]

Sugar cubes are fairly shitty blotters because the LSD takes so long to soak in and dry properly. One can lose many micrograms if the person who dropped the LSD on them didn't allow them to dry properly. Secondly, I'd say SWIY's expectations were way off if he expected something like mushrooms. LSD is very intense, but it takes a while for people to notice the details. A lot of the visual activity is closed eye and there is less space/time distortion. With mushrooms, a lot of the mind melt is due to the way it warps space and time. They are entirely different entities. And thirdly, to put the nail in the coffin, it wasn't planned properly.

SWIM would reckon the dose on those cubes was probably low due to a combination of previous posters' ideas and the improper drying (something that happens a lot). But even with proper doses, SWIM has seen regular shroomers eat extremely high doses of LSD and not feel like they're tripping. But it's there, it's just not as in your face as mushrooms, they have high expectations, etc. Also the way that LSD works in peaks and valleys...the valleys can last up to 20 minutes sometimes and the person can feel like they just have a hash high. On LSD 20 minutes can feel like 20,000 million years. After that their mind is usually made up and all the visual distortions after that are just written off as "placebo."

SWIM says try it again in better circumstances, ready for anything--mundane, miraculous or both, and make sure your cubes were dried properly.

Reputation Comments on this post:

	yep. excellent points!
	You write very poetically about LSD. I always enjoy your posts

[Conkermon]

SWIM isn't on any meds and hadn't taken any other drugs in the weeks preceding the trip. The guy who was realling feeling it was the guy that sold SWIM the acid but he brought it over already on sugar cubes and the cubes were taken at random.

SWIM can definitely see that too much was left out of his hands for him to be entirely sure what went wrong. He had no idea such care was needing with drying the acid and he also doesn't know how far the step brother travelled (presumably if the acid had been on these cubes in this tupperware box in a backpack for a lengthy period of time it would have become less potent?)

Unfortunately SWIM has never had access to acid before although curiously he did find a new (unrelated to the step-brother) and reliable source a few days after his failed trip. He thinks he will try it again at some point, although he will probably do shrooms again first as he hasn't done that for a very long time and it might be good mental preparation for a full on acid trip.

Edit: SWIM also thinks his expectations and the environment were very important factors. He and his friend were just sitting there waiting for the lsd to kick in and it didn't take long for the friend to complain that it wasn't like shrooms and he didn't "feel anything". They watched a movie which was quite trippy but SWIM thinks maybe if they had been in a darker environment with some cool lights on and some nice music playing then it would have been possible to more effectively establish what SWIM was actually feeling and where the acid could take him.

[Songcycle67]

Lots of people waste their first trip waiting to be blown out into outer space or something, with a full view of saturn and the galaxy melting lava. It's a lot more subtle. Don't get me wrong, SWIM has had many an experience where he reached the outer limits..visions so powerful that they were burning his eyes, but it's a different kind of place than the place one can get to with shrooms.

SWIM is a real stickler on this board for recommending lights, night, and loud music to help increase visual activity and disconnection. But he believes that such stimulii can heighten the trip tenfold. A lot of the visual distortions and closed eye visuals are to do with what you're hearing and seeing. Loud music and strobe lights are a great tool to have around to help the visuals explode harder, louder, and longer. SWIM has been pinned to the floor, speaking in tongues while "Out of Focus" by Blue Cheer is bombarding his soul and there are so many lights that he has to close his eyes to keep from burning them out. All this on around 100 mics or so. A very low dose.

If all one does is sit around in silence waiting for it to happen their first time they're not going to get all the shock and aww that happens when listening to a favorite song or being bombarded with lights and mirrors. Dress it up and make it happen. All of this stuff would've been employed by early tripsters.

A nice romp through the woods is fine and good once one knows how to get what they want out of LSD, but for a first timer it usually takes a little help to see all the dazzle and glory.