Experiences - SWIM's problem with LSD + Life

[Egnarodude]

SWIM has been having a problem lately. I will describe SWIM's past experiences so that the situation may be understood.

Swim was attending college and had experimented with LSD beforehand a couple of times. There were some good trips, some bad trips, and some normal trips. There was also a time when swim used ecstasy quite frequently. For close to five months, swim did not take any LSD. It wasn't until he met a girl which would later be his girlfriend who was also into LSD that he became interested in the drug once again. They took a trip down to St. Petersburg, Swim's hometown, and tripped at the beach. It was Swims best tripping experience ever. Afterwards Tosh, the girl, and Swim ended up together and tripped several more times that semester. Approximately 3 times and once over Winter Break. The time after the St. Petersburg incident, Swim was having a pretty good time until he started to see his own face in a lot of places. It was not pleasant. Later on that evening, he went to a party and ended up having almost an argument in his mind.

Weeks went by and tosh and Swim got closer. They tripped again at Tosh's friend's house and the same feeling of uncomfortableness happened once again.

I will skip ahead to the incident over Winter break because this seems more important.

Swim and Tosh went to Disney quest and tripped. It was enjoyable at first, but eventually the same thoughts and feelings started to bother Swim. Swim was confused, could not concentrate, felt completely unmotivated to enjoy himself. And eventually tells Tosh of the problem. Almost immediately Tosh and Swim started bad tripping off of eachother. Swim thought that Tosh was trying to tell Swim something about himself that he couldnt understand while Tosh thought that she had killed somebody and kept asking Swim questions. Eventually tosh and swim went and sat in the car. Tosh eventually went to sleep while swim spent the entire night thinking. There really is no explaining the thought process which was going through Swims mind, but he felt like he was dealing with a bunch of feelings that he had been hiding from himself for a long time. It was the most intense experience he had ever had. He explains it as if it were like he was being reborn. He describes it as if he were letting everything in and letting everything out all at once. Through mental exhaustion, swim could not carry on any further and eventually gave in for the time being. Afterwards, there was a feeling of uncertainty inside of him as he could not slow his mind down. Later on that evening when they both arrived at Florida State University, Swim felt like he was insane and felt as if the feeling would never stop. Sleep seemed impossible, so Swim took two Sudafed and literally forced the thoughts to stop so that he may sleep. He describes this as agonizingly painful but necessary. He woke up the next day, went to take a shower, felt very numb to the touch. He knew exactly why but didnt really want to do anything about it. He then went to tosh's room to lay down with her and try to calm down. Within seconds Swim broke into an uncontrollable crying fit and afterwards felt more alive.


Swim has now been broken up with this girl for about two months. He has trouble concentrating on things because he cannot slow his mind down. He constantly has a feeling that there is something else to life that he does not understand. This causes him to get frustrated, be unmotivated because he feels as if there is no point.

Swim has tripped on LSD three times in the past two weeks, before then the last time was the Disney quest incident. Swim has trouble enjoying LSD and enjoying his own life. He has a feeling as if LSD may have caused this feeling, but also recognizes that LSD may have brought these innate feelings into consciousness. Swim has trouble simply looking at something because there is a feeling of looking FOR something. There are constant colors, patterns, and sometimes scary flashbacks when these thought processes happen.

This problem has manifested itself physically as well as mentally. Swim sometimes can feel a wall inside of his mind that he feels he has to overcome. Sometimes when swim is upset, swim will begin to cry but feels himself stop himself from crying. The same happens with laughter. There seems to be an emotional void in his life that he is trying desperately to understand.

There is a thought in his mind that perhaps if he were to take LSD again, enough of it in order to finish what he had started in the car back at Disney Quest, he might be okay. This also scares him because there is the fear of perhaps this is what is making the problem a problem in the first place.

Swim simply wants to know that if anybody has been through a situation like this or heard of a situation like this before. If so if there is any advice for him that may help.

[Henfer]

What you describe, could be called a HPPD, effects after usage of hallucinogens that stay sometimes. SWIM has this too, mostly on glowing light in the night, and white surfaces shimmer in different colors, and also some psychic after effects - which, in his case, are positive.

what swim thinks is, that you tripped way to often knowing that you feel discomfortable and then again and again, despite feeling not so good after it and therefore going in with a not so positive perspective.

LSD is a great drug, and can be purely positive, but like everything in life and especially drugs, overusage leads to problems. LSD is, moreso than any other drug, a lifechanging substance, that WILL change the way you think and has huge influence on you, even months, years, after tripping.

it's not smoking some bud, bein' high and next day it's gone. it is known of people, that overused LSD and similars, to somewhat loose connection to the reality (sid from pink floyd comes to swim's mind). did you have the right intentions? LSD is not just a high, and the perspective you are starting a trip with will have tremendous effects on the trip and therefore on the life after.

simply, if you fear what may happen if you take it once more, the chances are good that you'll end in a bad trip. the human mind can only take so and so much load.

if you have this bad, disturbed feeling that there must be more and you wish to work up - professional psychological help should be your first choice.

Reputation Comments on this post:

informative without being arrgont or flameing

[Egnarodude]

Swim is already seeing prefessional psychological help, what makes no sense to swim is the fact that before these incidences, swim's life was perfect and swim was happy with everything...

[Henfer]

of course this makes sense. LSD opens your mind, which also means informations stored in the subconciousness. LSD can bring up memories you surpressed (for whatever reason), unpleasant ones too. it can even release latent psychological disorders. maybe you had an underlying psychotic disorder, and time after time LSD released it.

it cannot be said enough: LSD is literally the most powerful mind altering substance in the world, with the potency to completely change your life forever, either in a positive or negative way. the anti-LSD propaganda is totally off, but that does not change the fact that LSD CAN make you go insane. is there any family history of psychic disorders? that's nothing to be ashamed off.

first off, definately stay away from tripping, as swiy is most likely in a very unstable psychic condition. think about it, you tripped sometimes as much as 3 times in two weeks. every trip needs to be worked up by your mind.

stabilize your life, and professional help is a step in the right direction. just don't trip anymore as long as you are this unsure of yourself and what may happen. as much as LSD could help you to work it up, swim believes more that you are suffering from HPPD (look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hppd). drug-induced psychosis is also possible.

just work it up.

[Heretic.Ape.]

The meaning of the word psychedelic is "mind manifesting". It is not suprising if it surfaced issues that you were completely unaware of before tripping. I suggest you take this as a valuable opportunity to uncover your latent issues through continued therapy. A recommendation is to try, however hard, to have a lighthearted approach to these problems. There is obviously something painful you need to address and painful psychological issues can seem much bigger than they objectively are so try to keep in mind that YOU are fine, there is just something, probably from your past, that you haven't integrated psychologically yet, some issue that is perhaps being repressed. Even if you find something that seems very horrible about yourself, embrace it and it is likely that once it has been accepted you will see that it really isn't as big a deal as it seems. Start keeping a joural of your feelings and thoughts on those feelings every day. This can prove to be very revealing over time as it's sometimes easier to "talk to yourself" about things than talk to a councilor while getting your thoughts together. Share any thoughts you have from journaling with your councilor at your sessions (this will give you productive material to work with and hopefully speed up the theraputic process). A good sign that your close to an issue is a BIG discomfort with your line of thought, sometimes a bodily reaction similar to an anxiety attack. Stick with it but try not to take yourself too seriously in this process because it is this feeling of self importance (protecting self image) that is usually behind such mental defense mechanisms.
I stress that you keep this in mind: there is nothing wrong with YOU, only something you haven't integrated into your self concept, world view, or something.
Best of luck on this adventure of self discovery (and yes, that's what it is, think of it that way rather than a "problem with me")
h.a.

[Henfer]

yes, the suggestion to take this with a light heart is very good. for example, swim is "suffering" from HPPD as well. things changing size, not able to focus on geometric surfaces, changing colors on white surfaces, visual snow with colored particles.

but, as swim is a "high"-head who happens to like being high (and he is high since quite some time now without pause), and the HPPD gives him a feeling of being high all the time, and also swim is a fan of altered perception, and people know him for being crazy anyway (but most are not aware of his LSD usage), he somehow likes it. and even if not so, the superhigh creativity and pure love for life itself outweigh the HPPD.

don't talk yourself into insanity, swim can tell you, he has a lot of very strange thoughts about himself, also asking himself constantly if he's going insane - however, this is not bad overall. it gives him a deeper intensity of life, somehow.

mind you, don't play around if you've gotten drug-induced psychotic disorder. swim has had this after some uncomfortable experiences with some other shit (meth, coke, etc. swim has basically gone through every drug other than heroin.), and back there he was REALLY thinking he's loosing his mind completely, and developed several psychotical disorders, that stayed there for months. almost all are gone, some are there still but almost nonexistant (also, this thankfully of LSD - it helped him to work up his mind).

[Egnarodude]

Thanks a lot for the advise guys. I am glad to have found this forum. Yesturday was my birthday and I was having a pretty crumby day. But while I was watching a movie i was pretty into it and eventually i realized that I am doing this to myself. I knew that all along really. But now I find it easier to relax.

This may partially be because I consciously made a decision to stay away from drugs and alcohol for an extended period of time. I am not even sure how long. I am definitely going to be staying away from psychadelics for a long while, maybe indefinately if i do not feel comfortable enough about myself.

All of your advise is well appreciated, thank you.

[Egnarodude]

Oh and by the way, I know what you mean by being close to some sort of issue that is bothering me.

There have been a couple instances where I would start to cry and then BOOM it felt like somebody lifted a huge barrier off of my mind and I cried so much harder but it felt so releiving like i was letting off pressure. I think this is what needs to happen so i can feel centered.

Reputation Comments on this post:

good one, hang in there

[Nagognog2]

I am glad you decided to stay away from drugs - specifically psychedelic - for an extended period. You've got the door propped open, and it takes time to integrate the influx of material from the subconscious mind. You don't need to encourage more material be introduced.

The integration will proceed at it's own pace - naturally. Do continue with your psychologist if this is helping you. It's good to have a sounding-board at your disposal. Now relax and let the journey proceed. Perhaps later in life you will find reason to go exploring again.

Reputation Comments on this post:

damn good post

[stoneinfocus]

Yeah, don´t take it too seriously, it´s not even said, that one bad trip experience automatically induces another one, it could well be the opposite, as you described the "open window" , which I experienced, too, was the most overhelming feeling I´ve ever had, so powerful, thast it lies beyond any setting or early experiences, it´s totally out of control (not that you ain´t, but this feeling).

it´s like a million seeds spreading through the ground surface, painful but very giving in the end and a beautiful picture and inspiration even after years...

if you feel like doing again, do it, it always was the best for swim to take it even though he thought it wouldn´t fit in, it was always the best to take it whenever he felt like it and this immediately.... just, please don´t go tripping every weekend, that might lead to nothing but wasting of the acids qualtiy trips and your mind, maybe more like every three months or 1x year.