LSD: Independence Day

On July 4, 2019, I took two hits of acid a friend had given me a few weeks before. Each hit was a piece of white blotter paper that was the width of a stick of chewing gum but half the length. Each blotter had two visible drops of liquid from a vial on them. He told me that they were dosed at 110-120 mcg and that the trip arc had a long, slow rise. A “simmer,” he later put it. I don’t think that dosage claim was accurate but the description was. I dropped at 3:20 PM and didn’t peak until almost 7:00 PM when I decided to smoke some pot.

Here was this trip’s most notable moment: During my walk to the rooftop party I was going to, I saw that there was a pretty big piece of art leaning against a lamp post next to some trash about a block away from me. It was a two foot square framed painting. The painting was of the interior of a tavern with a bunch of dogs in business suits drinking at the bar. The bartender, a cat in a tuxedo, was polishing a glass. I thought this was very strange and from half a block away, I considered grabbing it and bringing it home before going to the party. 

It wasn’t until I was maybe 4 feet from this painting, that I realized that it wasn’t a painting at all. It was orange plastic construction netting being held up with stakes driven into the dirt. The netting made a barrier around the lamp post which was being repaired. Inside the barrier was garbage piled to the top. I paused and laughed for a few seconds before moving on.

The rest of the trip wasn’t really eventful enough for me to write a full report. The visuals were pretty tame and minimal for the duration. The headspace was chill enough that, with some effort, I could socialize somewhat normally. Mostly I just positioned myself by the food at the party and stuffed my face at every possible moment. In the future, I don’t think I’ll go to parties on acid unless it’s an acid party. Oh, how I wish I’d get invited to an acid party. Maybe I just have to throw one.

Ketamine: My introduction

I’d been wanting to try ketamine for a while and recently I’ve had the opportunity to try it a few times. So far I think it is very strange and intriguing.

The first time I was at Friend’s apartment. Plug had come over to sell her acid and I asked if he had ketamine and he said yes but not with him. Friend was like, "I have ketamine! Wanna try it?" We all went into her room and Plug crushed up Friend’s K and I told him it was my first time. He cut me a small line. 

It was the first time I’d ever insufflated a drug that wasn’t cocaine. It kinda tasted like I snorted a Christmas tree but it didn’t bother me. I always think it’s weird when people complain about the taste of drugs. Or the drip. He said the drip sucks. I was a heavy cigarette smoker for decades and it gave me a never-ending post-nasal drip. Drip that gets you actually high is not something I complain about.

Anyway, we were all standing and chattering while snorting our drugs off the top of Friend’s dresser. I soon felt like I was half-drunk, which was weird since I hadn’t drank in around 5 months. I started giggling a little bit and my vision started narrowing as if through a fish-eye lens. Friend and Plug had nowhere to move to get further away from me but they seemed much further away. The small bedroom felt expanded. 

I went to look out the window and moving around felt like my body was blackout drunk even though I pretty much was walking normally and my mind was totally lucid. I felt like I had to tiptoe. Outside the window, the city spread out before me like a title sequence to a dark science fiction movie despite my field of vision being limited to one city block at its furthest. I was giggling like Butt-head but felt more like Rick Deckard.

Plug had another appointment and when he left the apartment, Friend and I did too. We walked a few blocks to a nearby bar to see some live music. On the walk I had a hard time judging the size of my own body, especially when passing oncoming pedestrians. It was like I was walking behind myself, viewing my own body from slightly behind and slightly above. We took a beat to brace ourselves before entering the bar.

I’d been to this bar many times before. It is small. A 10-seat bar on the left wall and six small tables lining the storefront windows and right wall. The space separating them is only as wide as the door leading to the performance space, a glorified hallway lined with two-tops and a beautifully lit stage about the size of two dinner tables.

But when we walked in, high on dissociative anesthesia, the bar room was big and empty and dark. I felt like the two people in there were looking at us funny and, while it’s possible there was reason to, there probably wasn’t. Neither Friend nor I wanted to drink alcohol. I made a wonky strut over to the bar and was trying really hard not to look fucked up. I ordered a “seltzer water and a water water” and was polite and deferential and tipped more than I normally would have.

We ducked into the back room performance space and it looked so much bigger than I remembered. There were no seats to be had in the crowded little room so we both crouched down in the middle of the floor at the back of a row of other people doing the same. After only a minute or so, I decided I wasn’t comfortable so I stood back up and took a spot in the back corner of the space.

There was a 4-piece band performing; four enthusiastic, goofy looking 20-somethings with acoustic instruments. There was a fiddle player, a guitarist, an upright bass player, and a banjo player. They all sang around a single microphone in the center. I said to myself, “this is a bluegrass band,” and it clearly was. However, something about ketamine’s effects made me unable to really understand or feel what they were doing. The style of music did not feel familiar. The words they sang didn’t resonate with me in even a minimally human way. Even their physical bodies seemed to exist in a foreign unreality. It was as if space aliens came down to earth, heard a single bluegrass song, and then tried to assimilate into that musical culture. All the people in the audience seemed distant and alien to me as well. When Friend stood up and came over to where I was standing I said, “They all look like a bunch of little flesh nubbins.”

We soon left and, at my suggestion, went back to Friend’s place to bump a little more K. I felt the soft addictive pull of this drug and made a mental note of it. She recently moved into a fancy, new, north Brooklyn building where the management company sets you up with roommates. When we entered, one of her roommates and his girlfriend were watching that movie “The Meg” in the living room. We did our best to act normal as we went in her room to snort more drugs.

After that we left the house again and took Friend’s dog for a long walk. We had a long rambling conversation during this walk. It was full of strange disjunctures. I felt like we would be talking about one thing, get sidetracked for an extended period of time, then return to the original subject without ever really noticing we’d been sidetracked. I sort of felt like neither one of us was making much h sense but that somehow we both knew what each other was talking about. It started to rain and we headed back to Friend’s place. We were both pretty beat and I went home.

In the days following, I had a hard time describing the experience I had to people. I felt like the effects at the dose I took were much more subtle than I expected. It’s only in retrospect that I was really able to put it into words.

-

A few weeks later, I got in touch with Plug to get some LSD and some K of my own. He came by in the early evening. I bought a 10-strip and a gram. He wanted to “show me how to do K.” I’d already done K with him before but I’m a noob and I didn’t mind the "tutelage." He crushed up some big crystals from his stash in a bill until it was a powder. He cut some small lines up on my coffee table. I have a milligram scale but we didn’t weigh anything. We just snorted the lines and hung out. 

I’d been listening to Stereolab since before Plug arrived but once the K kicked in, Plug was like, “This isn’t K music.” I agreed and suggested G Jones, which he was totally into. We hung out shooting the shit and talking about music. I got up a couple of times to fuck with the air conditioning and the lighting. Plug warned me to not make too many sudden movements because I might be clumsy - which was a good call - but I was fine. 

Plug was telling me about how he teaches classes on spinning these light-disc things whose trade name I can’t remember but which are apparently popular with ravers. I didn’t really know what he was talking about so he broke his out and started spinning them even though their batteries were dead. I watched him do his weird wook flow art shit and let out sedate giggles. He’d flip them around and the movements reminded me a little bit of how things move in my DMT trips. It was weird and I didn't really know what to make of it.

Eventually, Plug left to go to another appointment. I got the idea that maybe I’d try smoking DMT on top of the fading K. I loaded up about 35 mg in my new Yocan Evolve Plus (I need to write a report on my switch to this ROA) and meditated a bit before blasting off. I had a pleasant sub-breakthrough experience. During the come-up there was a vibe like the DMT spirits knew that another chemical was in me and were like “What’s this?” I felt almost guilty, like I was cheating or something. I laid back in the dark and watched a flow of indistinct, ghostly scenery move toward and over me. The vibe was very mellow and the visuals had a very sexual nature to them. 

When I came down, slightly dazed and bathing in afterglow, I went around the corner to a friend's place to smoke weed and listen to music. I was pretty out of it and was having trouble articulating my thoughts on anything. After a couple off hours I had to admit I was cooked and needed to go home and go to bed.

-

About 3 weeks later, on July 5th, I did my first solo experimentation with ketamine. The day before, I’d taken LSD and went to a rooftop party. Most times when I take LSD, I experience a comforting afterglow for a few days following. This time I was super depressed and it was no mystery to me why. 

I’d been fighting a depressive episode for a couple of weeks ever since my birthday dinner at my parents’ house spiraled into a grotesque of absurd, misdirected rage and violence. It was upsetting and disappointing and was a harsh reminder of why I chose to not speak to them for 6 years. I have a lifetime of material with which I could write a whole book about them and their malignant, covert narcissism but there are better ways to spend my energy.

Anyway, I’d been really fucking bummed all day long. I tried to do self-care things to get myself out of my shitty head space. I cleaned the house. I meditated. I did some writing. I cooked some food. Watched some TV. The funk was unshakable. Knowing that S-Ketamine is now being used to treat major depression, I thought this might be a really good time to do some experimenting. Still, I was a nervous about using this drug alone for the first time.

Around 10:00 PM, I dimmed the lights, broke out my gear, ands set up my Netflix with an episode of Our Planet about deep sea life. At 10:10 I weighed out 42 mg and - with some hesitation - snorted it off the scale and leaned back.

When I trip on mushrooms, I always get this pleasurable sensation in my neck and head during the come up. It’s like I’m creating static electricity from snuggling up against the warmth of the creative light of the universe. As I felt the first signals of the K kicking in, I rolled my neck around and felt a similar feeling but it was colder, less electric, more robotic. Like hydraulic fluid  moving through servos. My central air conditioning is really loud and I started to get annoyed with it. When I stood up to turn it off, I felt the wonkiness all over my whole body. I felt unsteady. I kept my center of gravity low and sort of crept across the room toward the thermostat. I came back to the couch and laid down.

I don’t really know how to describe the next 90 minutes. I felt very safe and very apart from things. I watched this nature show and felt like I was inside it despite also finding everything in it completely alien. I was unsure of what was going on in my body because I felt so still and not inclined to move. A few times I swallowed to make sure I was still there. At one point I touched my face and realized I had a line of tears rolling down one side but I was not crying or irritated.

Fifteen minutes after the first bump I took another 16 mg bump. Twenty minutes after that I took a 21 mg bump. Neither of these took me to a place any deeper, they just sustained the high I had going. I considered a third bump but I had a thought about the habit forming potential of ketamine and thought maybe I should just stop now. An hour after my last re-dose, I made a smooth landing.

Here’s where things actually got interesting for me. Once the effects of the K wore off, my depression was gone. Like completely gone. I felt fucking fantastic. The torrent of angry, hurt thoughts I’d been laboring under for a week had ceased. I felt at peace with myself and with the world. This anxiolytic and antidepressant effect lasted for a good three days after this experiment. I was really thrilled and excited for this new discovery and I very much wanted to try it again soon. That want made me a little nervous. I know that I have addictive tendencies and when I indulge them, my life usually gets shitty. I told myself to wait at least a week, if not a month, before doing it again.

-

I haven’t used ketamine since my last experiment but I’m sure I will soon. I eventually want to see what it’s like in the K-hole. For now, I’m just happy to learn that the new drug in my arsenal is so effective at blowing out the blues.

DMT: Flick your Bic

Tuesday, May 7, 2019 - 4:30-6:00PM

Substance/Dosage:

DMT - 35 mg., 35 mg.

Weight at time of experience: 184 lbs.

Setting: home

Companions: solo

Wednesday, May 8, 2019 - 7:30 PM-11:00PM

Substance/Dosage:

DMT - 40 mg., 35 mg.

Weight at time of experience: 184 lbs.

Setting: home

Companions: AC

In the first week of May, I changed my technique for vaporizing DMT with my oil burner. After my near disaster using a torch a few weeks ago, I got to looking for a new route of administration. The part of me that has a deep lust for gadgets was thinking maybe I needed to buy an electronic vape rig of some kind. I’d found enthusiastic internet support for some pretty cool-looking devices like the Yocan Evolve [note: I’ve since ordered one] and the X Max Starry v. 3 and I’d love to give these a whirl in the future. I’m just not willing to drop $100 right now on a new device that I haven’t tried. Then I came across a forum post from someone suggesting the “softer heat” of a standard Bic disposable lighter for use with oil burners. Their suggestion was to set the blue part of the flame to the bulb and evenly distribute the heat. The common sense of this was immediately apparent. If the object is to gently melt the crystal and vaporize it, why would I need the aggressive spitting flame of a butane torch? Maybe the reason for a torch will become apparent to me sometime later when I’ve tried more routes of administration.

On Tuesday, as silly as I knew it was, I double checked the art on my wall to make sure it wasn’t falling down. I didn’t want a repeat of my last train wreck. I did my little rituals to drive out any bad juju. I weighed out my dose and got to work melting it in my piece. I was taking a little too much caution to not burn the spice but, this being my first go round using a regular lighter, I didn’t want to make a mistake. The mistake happened in the other direction. I didn’t realize how weak my first hit was until I was halfway through it. I backed the lighter off the bulb during the next hit to increase the temperature. The second hit was big and I had trouble getting a proper third. I leaned back and closed my eyes, feeling a twinge of disappointment as I did so. In the darkness a purple, feminine entity appeared before me and lovingly fussed over me. She seemed more concerned about me not getting an efficient dose than I was. “It’s ok it’s ok it’s ok you’ll get it the next time it’s ok it’s ok,” she chattered in telepathy as she ran her spectral hands in a stuttering caress over my face and shoulders. I giggled a little at this alien mothering and enjoyed the funny body sensations. I felt a welcoming love run through me and knew that I didn’t need to be afraid to return to the DMT space. I also knew that I’d definitely get the launch right on the next round.

A small, dried puddle of spice remained in the bulb of my oil burner and I dropped another 35 mg. dose on top of it. My first hit was a long, slow, milky one. It got me excited. I pulled a second lung-filler and a solid third even though the wheels on the lighter were burning my thumb. When I leaned back, the room came apart in shiny, warping segments. I was catapulted around a mirrored tunnel, swinging forward and back. A square section of the walls of this tunnel opened up and a joker type entity stuck his head out ad yelled, “You don’t fuck with ME!” Another section opened up and the entity stuck his head out again and said, “I will DESTROY you!” It was almost like this entity heard me thinking that I didn’t have anything to be afraid of and showed up to prove me wrong! I remained overwhelmed by the spastic metal fantastics until the point at which I remembered I have eyes. When I opened them and saw my living room I burst into hysterical laughter that didn’t stop for a solid 5 minutes. Eventually my mind came to rest. I rose from the couch and peacefully went about my evening.

—

My new friend, AC, came over to try DMT for his first time. We met as simultaneous first-time attendees of the Brooklyn Psychedelic Society. His wild-eyed account of his first psychedelic experience, a 7 gram dose of mushrooms in silent darkness, wowed the room. We’ve been friendly since then. I won’t be telling the stories of his trips here.

We took turns trip sitting. I smoked first. I started too early with my first pull and the first hit was a little bit weak. I held it and took another that was good and milky. As the rush-up started I went to grab the other lighter that wasn’t hot only to find it wasn’t there. I had no time to get a different one so I burned my thumb on the wheel to get my third hit. The room started developing glowing cracks in the walls. A colossal, humanoid entity walked up next to my apartment building and said [telepathically, of course], “I’ll take that!” In one sweeping motion, he then picked up my my entire living room in his arms and took it away.

I laid my head down on a pillow and slid into a side-scrolling swirl of liquid fractal geometry. I watched undulating, rolling waves of impossible, molten, white, metal-plastic liquid flow past me. The ever-folding substance had a uniformly transforming pattern covering it. There was a hint that there were mechanical gears embedded in this soup. Despite the lack of any imagery suggesting this, something felt very sexual about the energy in the space. It was as if, by being there, I was making love to the realm. I felt welcome and loved and part of the flow. As the vision faded I smiled and giggled and felt peaceful.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to go a second time but after watching AC go twice I decided I totally had to. I loaded up a little less than I did the first time since three was some unvaporized residue left in the bulb. The hits came strong and clean. As the bells started ringing in my head during my third hit, my cat jumped up from her perch, ran over to the couch, and started meowing loudly at me. Talking about it later, AC thought it was because the cat was worried about me. I knew better. It was dinner time and I was late. It took a lot to hold that hit in and not laugh at my mouthy cat while the world was disintegrating.

I was immediately launched into the center of the patterned, high-definition, smoky swirl. The colors of the swirl were the colors of my cat. Orange and yellow and black and white and pink. It was the biggest thing I’ve ever seen. Incomprehensibly beautiful. I was stunned and awed. The feeling that came over me was like I was inside the tipping point of an orgasm. It was like riding a wave of epic, boundless sexual tension tension with little slips off that sent me into bursts of hysterical laughter. Nothing else existed. Time was irrelevant. Language could never suffice to explain it and all the “wows” and “holy shits” that followed only drove that point home.

1P-LSD: It's not LSD

Date: Saturday, May 25, 2019

Substances/Dosages/Times:

1P-LSD - 200 ug - 2:15 PM

Cannabis - 2 tokes from a one-hitter - 3:45 PM

Weight at time of experience: 185 lbs.

Setting: out and about in Brooklyn

Companions: solo

I recently purchased some 1P-LSD through a clear web online vendor and received it in the mail without incident. I was kind of tickled by this alone, having only ever previously purchased drugs in hand-to-hand transactions. More than that, I was excited to try what I’d been reading in a lot of anecdotal reports as a quasi-legal functional analog of LSD.

At 2:15 PM on Saturday, May 25, 2019, I shook off the last of my pre-flight jitters and put two 100 ug blotter tabs of 1P-LSD under my tongue. I started a new document in my phone where I would take the notes on my experience that make up this report. It was a gorgeous, 72 degree day in Brooklyn, NY. I felt very optimistic for the experience. I put my headphones on and cued up the new album by Earth, “Full Upon Her Burning Lips.” I walked to the grocery store where I bought a liter of water and a bag of mandarins. I put them in my knapsack and headed off to Prospect Park to be around trees and to people watch.

At 2:44 PM I noted that I was feeling very activated and that my feet felt sweaty on my walk. I’d forgotten it was Memorial Day weekend and when I entered the park I was surprised to find a grandiose display of military might going on there courtesy of the US Marines. There were tanks, anti-aircraft guns, helicopters, and many other devices of war on display. There was a marching band gearing up to play. And soldiers, hundreds of beefy, hyper-masculine boys in uniform swaggering around with big shit-eating grins on their faces. I have an intense distaste for authority figures so walking through this during my come-up irritated me. I quickly made my way to a less fascist area of the park.

At 3:00 PM I noted that “the park just breathed.” I took a seat on a bench. I was feeling some body load coming on in the form of queasiness and dizziness. I was a little nervous but I felt relatively safe. The park was full of people and I knew if I were to have any intense physical emergency that it wouldn’t go unnoticed. I had to pee. I checked google maps and the nearest public restroom was a half mile away. I started walking.

Over the next hour the body load gradually built in intensity. My hands were sweating and I had the beginnings of a headache. My throat was tightening, which made me a little nervous. I felt a rushing speediness and a patchy feeling of distraction coming over me. The visuals also started to rev up. The walkway was breathing. The bark on the trees was starting to move. I was debating on wether to smoke some pot or not which I immediately acknowledged was silly. With the exception of my DMT experiences, I’ve never tripped on anything WITHOUT smoking pot. I love the way cannabis potentiates psychedelics and heightens the visual effects. I put on the new Flying Lotus album, “Flamagra.”

At 3:54 I was starting to peak. I noted that this 1P-LSD felt dirtier than most of my experiences with LSD...“so much crawly so much wonky-ness.” I took a couple of tokes from my one-hitter and it kicked the visuals into a much higher gear. The visuals had a sort of rushed, jerky, abortive quality to them. I took a seat on a park bench in front of a wide open field of people picnicking. I stared at the tree line watching the branches wave in the breeze. As I watched, I could see patterns and little scenes starting to form in them but they would fade before fully expressing themselves. There was something lazy or half-assed feeling about the visuals, like they just didn’t have the energy or couldn’t be bothered. I thought that was really weird.

I also noted around this time that there was a certain lack of spiritual and intellectual depth to the experience when compared to LSD. My experience with LSD usually brings on a feeling of awe or divinity or “otherworldliness.”. This feeling was mostly absent and pretty much remained absent for the duration. I remember thinking at one point that I felt like I was in an imitation of an LSD trip; like if someone explained the LSD experience to an animator and the animator made a Saturday morning cartoon of it.

At 4:47 I made the note “there’s a strange darkness!” I found myself looking at people and feeling myself living their lives and knowing that we’re all the same. But it wasn’t like a happy oneness. There was a strong pathos to this feeling. Like a wrenching feeling like I wanted to go up to people and grab them by the collar and cry, “I UNDERSTAND you, man!” It felt almost desperate. I have no real experience with drugs that people call enactogens or empathogens but I imagined that this feeling couldn’t be far off from that.

I’d been texting with a friend and I decided to go visit her at the farmer’s market she works at in a different neighborhood. I put on “Mars Audiac Quintet” by Stereolab and got to walking. The breezy tunes pushed me giddily along through the clear-skied Spring afternoon. As I found my way out of the park and onto the sidewalks of Park Slope, I looked into the faces of everyone I passed and couldn’t help but smile. People looked extraordinarily beautiful. I felt their energies coming into me and in a way I felt like I’d lived their lives in these fleeting moments.

At 5:07 I made a note on the feeling of dilated time. It had only been about 3 hours since I dropped my tabs but it felt like much longer. I also noted that the body load felt really hard on my knees. The visuals had a frantic quality and hard edges were forming and melting all around me. The music sounded really good and I felt like it was both grounding me and sustaining my energy.

I got on the G train to go to Greenpoint around 5:30. I was a little nervous getting on the subway but once I was seated I took a moment to get aware with my body and assess my situation. I determined that I was completely smashed on drugs but was not really distressed in any significant way. I was also kind of hot and sweaty and had some slight regret about wearing a long sleeve t-shirt. During this train ride I started to feel a real emptiness around this experience and how very singular that was to me compared to all my other recent psychedelic experiences. Possibly worth noting is that I was listening to the second album by the band Beak> and the music is pretty dark and sinister. My mind kept making comparisons and analogies. I had this thought that 1P-LSD feels like LSD if T.J. Maxx made LSD.

I got off the train and started slogging around Greenpoint looking for the farmers market. I used to live in this neighborhood and, when I did, I drank excessively. Something about that seemed to be informing my trip and I thought to myself this is a very drunk feeling trip; weaving, weird and brazen. I had this thought that, if tripping on LSD felt like making ethereal love to a golden goddess, 1P-LSD felt like having a wasted, sloppy makeout session with the golden goddess’s slutty, buck-toothed cousin who was born with a tail.

By the time I made it to the farmer’s market it had already closed and all the vendors had packed up and left. I was a little disappointed but I was also tired. I went into a bar to use their bathroom and then found my way to a little park near the train station where I texted my friend to tell her I was embarrassed for not making it to the market in time. I sat down and drank some much needed water. I put on the album “TNT” by Tortoise and settled into its fluid grooves. People were playing with their dogs in the enclosed dog run and it felt good to watch them. My mind invented their stories and felt like I could see movies of their entire lives playing in my head. I ate about five small mandarins. They tasted good but I found myself more interested in watching the pile of peels stacking up than eating the fruit. I also wished the mandarins were nectarines. I also wished the 1P-LSD was LSD, or rather that it felt more like my last LSD experience which was very clean.

By 7:30 I was back on the G train headed back to my neighborhood. The heightened colors and open-eye visuals were still very bright and strong. The body load was becoming exhausting. I felt achy in all my joints and my skin crawled with prickly, tingly feelings that were more like neuropathy than pleasure. I felt really grimy in that druggy way where it seems like poison is coming out of your pores but, to be fair to the drug, I had been walking around in the midday sun for hours. I might have just been a little dehydrated. In that moment I was feeling like the rest of the experience wasn’t worth the body feelings, mainly because the psycho-spiritual component felt so lacking. Many of the reports I’d read of 1P-LSD effects have mentioned a quick come up, shorter duration, and quick comedown but I had a strong feeling that this trip was far from over.

I made it back to my neighborhood and decided to get a pizza and go home to watch a movie. I ran into a friend outside the pizzeria and I told him about my trip even though I could see he was really drunk and would probably forget even seeing me (which, in fact, he did…a few days later I told him the whole story a second time). I took my pizza home and settled in on the couch. Over the next two hours I ate the whole pizza. Yes, excessive. Also, delicious. I watched “Mouchette” by Robert Bresson, which I’d never seen before. It’s a very sad movie and admittedly a strange choice while tripping but it was terrific. I cried.

My final note I took during this trip was at 10:00 PM: “Shit is still slopping its way along. Sloppy visuals. Wish it would end already. Body load is annoying. Reminds me of high school and bad acid.”

I can’t remember when I went to bed but I know that I did not fall asleep until well after 4:00 AM. With all that time on my hands, stimulated and sickly-feeling and alone, I made the mistake of going on Reddit and prematurely talking trash about this experience on the LSD and 1P-LSD subreddits. This incurred the wrath of a bunch of teenagers who’ve never taken real LSD, amateur science nerds, and a bunch of Redditors who clearly have a stake in the RC trade. Pretty much everyone told me I wasn’t having the experience I was having or that somehow the effects of the drug I took had more to do with my mind than the drug itself, as if I couldn’t possibly understand the nuances of a psychedelic experience. It was really stupid. I ended up deleting my threads and my comments on them because I was embarrassed for even trying to have a normal dialogue on Reddit. It never goes well.. Why do I do this to myself?

The following day, I felt no ill effects or hangover symptoms. I can’t say I felt much of an afterglow either. I just felt like I didn’t get enough sleep before going in for a 12 shift at work because I hadn’t.

I may have been premature in telling Reddit forums that 1P-LSD is “kind of shit.” In retrospect, it really wasn’t a bad experience. Maybe just a little disappointing. I still stand by my statement that 1P-LSD did not feel exactly like LSD. Two weeks later, it’s hard for me to explain the difference. 1P-LSD did all the things I would expect LSD to do as far as seeing trails and breathing surfaces and melting edges. It had the body load that I’ve experienced with some LSD. But, in this experience, it lacked that sense of wonder and divinity that I consider the really beautiful part of the classic tryptamine psychedelics.

While I originally told people I wouldn’t take 1P-LSD again, now I’m not so sure. I still have 8 hits of it left. Maybe I’ll give it another go at some point. You know…for science!

(I've submitted this report to Erowid.org for review and possible inclusion in their 1P-LSD experience vault.)

DMT: Dark Entries, Disaster Averted, Disrespect of the Spice

Thursday, April 25, 2019 - 12:00 PM-2:30PM

Substance/Dosage:

DMT - 40 mg., 45 mg., residue

Weight at time of experience: 184 lbs.

Setting: home

Companions: solo

I’ve been putting off writing this post out of embarrassment. This round of experiments was a fucking mess. I’d like to think of myself as an intelligent, responsible, adult consumer of psychoactive chemicals. However, this week I was grossly irresponsible and disrespectful of myself and this molecule.

I’d been wanting to go another round with DMT but had been chickening out. On Wednesday I’d even taken out all my gear and even started to measure out a dose when I just abruptly changed my mind and put everything away. Thursday I woke up and told myself I was being a coward and that I need to see what it is in myself that I’m feeling afraid to confront. After loading my piece up with 40 milligrams, I cleaned up, smudged the apartment, struck my little gong a few times, and meditated a few minutes before getting started.

As I was taking my second hit and feeling the blastoff start, a large, mounted poster fell off my wall with a big noise, startling me. I sat bolt upright and shouted “What the fuck?!” I quickly realized I was not in danger and told myself “It’s ok! It’s ok!” I finished my second hit and managed to get a third little one in before laying down. I was still very shaken as I slipped into the realm.

A black and grey fog covered my view and immediately I started seeing and feeling hands around my face and neck that hinted at smothering or choking me. I didn’t actually feel like either of those things were actually happening but there was something discomforting and threatening about it. A dark, flying, feminine entity in swirling black and grey robes appeared before me. It was very close and stared directly into my face and it kept showing me its hands. Despite this, I wasn’t afraid. I actually said out loud, “Well, this is dark.” The entity repeatedly got straight up in my face in a sort of challenge and then would launch backward and upward into black space, her robes flapping like crows’ wings. I didn’t ask it any questions but later I would wonder if I should have. I soon felt the effects of the drug wearing off.

When I was back down I felt physically well and not too shaken emotionally. I was bummed about the alarming yet benign distraction that started my trip but intrigued by the dark visions that came in its wake. Much like when I wake from interesting dreams, I wondered if maybe I could or should go back into the realm and try to engage with the entity again. I decided to give it a shot. I loaded up my piece again and got to work with my torch. What followed was a manifestation of my worst fear of taking DMT alone. I’d characterize the psychedelic experience as a hard shut-out of the realm and I’m so grateful it was. 

After taking my second hit, I moved to put the torch down but when I released the trigger, the flame did not extinguish. I immediately panicked, fearing I’d start a fire if I lost consciousness. I struggled with the trigger to no avail. I banged the torch against my coffee table and still the flame jetted from the nozzle. Terrified, I drove the nozzle hard into my pant leg even though I knew I might burn myself and it went out. I looked up at a poster on my wall and it was animated but with a terrible, ghoulish energy. I laid back on the couch and closed my eyes. I found myself inside a dark, pulsing womb. Wet, red, fleshy folds with a slowly morphing pattern tattooed were all I could see behind my eyelids. The vibe was almost like being locked in a damp basement. I was really disappointed and chastised myself for being so irresponsible.

When I was able to sit up again, my mood was frustrated and tired and angry. I looked at my pipe and the pool of slightly burnt but re-crystallized DMT in the bulb. I fiddled with the pipe to figure out what the problem was. I quickly realized that the flame lock is on the left side of the handle. I’d been operating the torch left-handed and accidentally engaged it. I was annoyed both with myself and the manufacturer. Rashly, I picked up the pipe and the torch (with my RIGHT hand) and just ripped at it desperately. I don’t know what I thought I was doing. You don’t just cash a DMT oil burner like it’s a clogged bowl of weed. Immediately I regretted what I did. I felt like I followed a big distraction with a big accident with a huge disrespect for the spice. I laid back on the couch in the fetal position and found myself back in the dirty womb. I stayed there for a good 15 minutes waiting for the effects to wear off. When they did, I somberly got up and took a shower.

I will never use a torch while using DMT solo again. The accident that I averted would have been devastating for myself, my roommate, my cat, and the residents of my building if I hadn’t. I feel ashamed but, lesson learned.

DMT: Sex in Reverse, Entities Gave Me the Finger; Mushrooms: FAIL TEK

Wednesday, April 10, 2019

Substance/Time: 

  DMT - 35 mg. / 7:55 PM

Setting: my living room

Saturday, April 13, 2019

Substance/Time: 

  DMT - 40 mg. / 7:20 PM

Setting: my living room

  Mushrooms - 2 g. / 8:50 PM

Setting: walking around Brooklyn

Age at time of experiences: 44

Weight at time of experiences: 184 lbs.

Companions: solo

While it still makes me very anxious, I’m becoming more comfortable with traveling into the DMT realm. It’s becoming a bit of a ritual for me to smudge the house, gently strike a small gong, and meditate for a few minutes after I’ve set up my gear but I can’t help but laugh at myself while I do this. I’ve never been comfortable with spiritual displays and doing these things, even when I’m alone, makes me feel a bit embarrassed. Still, they help me get into a humble mindset and prepare me for entry into the cathedral of my own mind. I’m learning there is an unfathomable, endless power in there. I’m probably better safe than sorry in treating entering that space as if I’m visiting gods.

Last Wednesday, when I put down the pipe and let out my last hit, the shuddering came over me and I closed my eyes. I immediately slid into the swirling, white, plastic chrysanthemum-like space I’d seen during previous trips. Instead of being overcome with awe like other times, I felt peaceful. Comfortable almost. There was a sensation like hands lightly caressing the length of my body and a chattering of little voices that seemed to say, “...yes yes yes yes yes yes....” I had this idea that I was inside a blinding, annihilating orgasm unhooked from time and stretched to an impossible length. I snuggled into it and felt absorbed into the space, like we were moving together. I felt the entities around me even though I couldn’t see them. I whispered slowly, “I’m learning to be with you,” and sensed they knew and that they wanted me there. My whispering also broke the trance I was in and I opened my eyes. I giggled on the couch as I became aware of myself again and whispered, “I’m talking to myself on my couch.” I saw my cat sleeping on her perch across the room and slowly drifted back into terrestrial space. I texted a couple of friends from the local psychedelic societies whose meetings I attend asking, “You ever feel like DMT is almost like sex but backwards? Like it starts in an apocalyptic, annihilating orgasm and then trails off into the fucking and then the foreplay of whatever life is? ... So strange and beautiful and fleeting and with no describable lesson to bring back to normal life except that it too is strange and beautiful and fleeting.”

I can’t remember now but I might have vaped some cannabis concentrate in the hours before Saturday’s trip. I used to take it for granted that I’d get very stoned every day, several times a day, as a way of being. Lately, I feel much more sensitive to weed and I approach getting high with a much lighter touch. I can’t deal with the paranoid self-criticism that comes with getting completely ripped anymore. Anyway, I’m only mentioning this because if I had been a little high going into, it might explain some of the weirdness of Saturday’s trip (as if they’re not all completely fucking weird).

When I put my pipe down and closed my eyes, the shuddering brought with it elements of a bunch of my previous experiences. Once I was in the space there was a lot of excited high-pitched chattering and the familiar, swirling white space started scrolling past me from left to right. The LEGO-like builder men I’d seen a few trips earlier were smiling and sitting on a pile of blocks made of pieces of my living room. By that I mean it looked like my living room was a solid substance that had been diced into brick-sized pieces and taken apart so it could be the building blocks of another structure. They jumped up and started bouncing around in a funny little dance. The cosmic yogis were there too and it was the first time I’d ever seen them dance outside the dark dome space I’d entered in my earliest experiences. They had a funky dance going on too. The whole lot of them were making faces at me while they danced and at one point they all flipped me the bird, waving their alien middle fingers at me (Do they actually have 5 fingers? I’ve never noticed before). I saw the elf for a second and he did the giggling and pulling at my eyelids thing he seems to always do. These entities all seem to work together and have specific purposes in the space. All the while, this constantly morphing tableau scrolled past in the background. This trip seemed a little shorter than the previous trip but I’m starting to think that might this might just be me acclimating to DMT’s way of dilating time. I certainly don’t feel like I’m gaining a sense of control there but I’m definitely earning some familiarity. I need to make sure I don’t take this familiarity for granted or expect it to stay.

I was feeling very refreshed and centered when I returned from hyperspace. The wether on Saturday was beautiful and I had all the windows open in my apartment. I decided it would be a good night to take some mushrooms and take a long walk around town. I ground up 2 grams and left the power to soak in the juice of a whole lime while I prepped some food for the coming week. While I hard-boiled some eggs and grilled some chicken breast I thought about how delayed the onset of my 11 gram trip was in March. I’d never done a Citrus Tek before and wondered if it would actually speed things up. At 8:50 PM, with my stomach empty, I slugged the lime juice and mushroom matter down in one gulp.

I waited about 40 minutes before I realized how hungry I was so I ate a little salad. I then left the house and went out for a walk. I was experiencing some discomfort in my stomach about an hour after consuming the shrooms but I’d expected that. I’d been listening to Squarepusher’s Just a Souvenir when I left the house. I’d never heard this album before and though it was very odd but occasionally delightful. When that ended I listened to a new album called Excitable, Girl from 96 Back. I enjoyed the wide range of electronic styles - from Cornish acid to Italy disco to Detroit techno to ambient - and it made me feel like the mushrooms might be kicking in soon. But the album started and ended without liftoff ever happening. When I got about 40 blocks from my house I turned around and put on Bassnectar’s Divergent Spectrum. I wondered, “Am I going to get home before these mushrooms hit me? Are they going to hit me at all?!” They never really hit me, at least not much harder than a normal microdose of 0.25 grams would. I now mostly understand why my March macrodose took so long to kick in.

When I harvested the mushrooms I grew over the winter, I did not separate the two strains. I just dehydrated them and threw them all in the same jar. I knew this was sloppy as hell but here we are. The spore syringe of one of the strains must have had very weak genetics. I’m thinking that the first 5-7 grams I ate in March were mostly of the weak strain. Since I didn’t really take note of the appearance of the mushrooms I’d eaten either time, I still don’t know which are the weak ones and which are strong. Lesson learned. In the future, I’m going to keep a journal for my grows and take much better care in labeling my containers. I might just take all the shrooms I have left and grind them all up together so that I have a more homogenous product to use until then.

DMT - Experiments 3 and 4

Sunday, March 31, 2019 - 3:00 AM - 4:00 AM

Substances/doses:

DMT - 3 sessions: 20, 30, 40 mg. approx.

Tuesday, April 2, 2019 - 12:30 AM - 2:00 AM

Substances/doses:

DMT - 2 sessions 40, 50 mg approx.

Cannabis (concentrate) - vaped one toke

Age at time of experience: 45

Weight at time of experience: approx. 184 lbs.

Setting: home

Companions: solo

When I read Internet forums, users of DMT talk about the “work” they do with it. I’m starting to understand what that work is about. Clarifying intentions, developing rituals and ceremonies, practicing skillful routes of administration, and, above all, trying to understand DMT’s ineffable mystery and trying to understand of one’s self within it. I put in some work this week and had some interesting results.

Late Saturday night, after I got off work, I thought about trying a solo launch. I usually trip alone on mushrooms because I am very comfortable with them, even in ridiculously high doses, and I usually find the experience more rewarding than in groups. I’ve had far fewer solo trips on LSD. For some reason - maybe that it’s synthesized not grown, maybe it’s the duration of the trip - LSD scares me more. I figured DMT could go either way. An inexperienced sitter could end up being distracting but having someone around to check on my physical safety and to help integrate the experience afterward never hurts. I figured I’d be ok.

I decided to eat dinner first and set some rice on the stove. For a little bit I considered that I could pretty much have a full trip while the rice was cooking and even weighed out crystals, filled my pipe and filled my torch lighter. I thought better of tripping while cooking and it’s a good thing I did. Ten minutes after putting the rice on the stove it was burning because I didn’t have enough water in the pot. Holy shit. Disaster averted.

I really got fussy about the whole set up to tripping and my pre-flight jitters were strong. I made my bed, straightened up my room and did the dishes. I picked “Consciousness” by Windy & Carl to listen to and, for what it’s worth, I highly recommend it as tripping music. I meditated, smudged my apartment with burning sage, and set a simple but clear intent. Before lighting my torch I did some deep breathing to oxygenate my blood so could hold my hits longer. I really felt like I did everything I could do to respect the work and the spirits of the molecule. All of this was, of course, solid and responsible trip prep. 

However, as far as the actual trips went, I barely made it off the runway with any of my attempts. The first time I just got a little high. I heard the shimmery echo of the come up and felt the vibes of the spice but not much happened in the way of any visual activation or time dilation. I thought, “This is fine. I’ll set myself up for the second round and maybe hitting hyperspace won’t be so shocking.” I did that and, indeed, the second round wasn’t shocking at all. I felt the unique gravity of the hyperspace pulling at me on my bed but, rather than traveling there, it was more like I was on a city bus, looking out the window, and watching hyperspace pass by like a missed stop. There was a physical feeling like a caress from the DMT space and I let out a little, comforted giggle. It was like the entities in there knew I was trying and were trying to reassure me it was all good. My third attempt was as gentle and anti-climactic as the first. I was disappointed and I got a little bit down on myself. I thought my technique must have been shitty or that my scale was misleading me about my dosage. I started thinking about gear I might buy to invest more deeply in this work. I don’t want to keep having failures like this and wasting product. By the time I was down it was around 4:00 AM and I was tired. I stopped with the negative self-talk, put my gear away, and slept well.

In retrospect, it just might not have been the right night for it. I’m learning that there is something fickle about DMT. In my experience with LSD and mushrooms, if you eat the dose you’re taking the ride wether you’re ready or not. With DMT, it seems like you prep all day and wear a mandala covered space suit for the occasion and still never get off the launch pad. People on forums talk about getting “shut out” of hyperspace occasionally and that when it happens, one shouldn’t press the issue.

A couple of nights later, I gave it another go. I prepped in a similar way to Saturday night but wasn’t feeling quite the same nerves. I decided not to listen to music, thinking that maybe it had been a distracting and grounding force the last time. I waited until my roommate got back from the birthday party he’d been at during the evening so I wouldn’t get surprised if he came home while I was in hyperspace. I came out of my room out to greet him and he was cross-eyed drunk and already on his bed with his laptop. I knew he wouldn’t be awake for long. I made some tea and returned to my room.

On my first go I loaded up approximately 40 milligrams. I used the torch lighter I’d used the last time and I noticed it got really hot while I was using it. I managed two hits but decided against the third because I felt like I was going to have to burn my thumb to get it. When I leaned back on my bed and let the hit out, the shimmer came over me and it was strong but gentle. The ceiling lit up with a matrix pattern. I waved my arms around and they left trails of liquid smoke behind them. My hands seemed to have lots of extra fingers. I closed my eyes and rolled over into a pile of pillows.

The silent, sub-hyperspace world behind my eyelids was different from my previous experiences. The visuals were hazier, milkier. Swirling, dappled whooshes of color lazily breezed through my field of vision. I liked how the silence of my room allowed me to really hear the “room sound” of DMT, which I’d describe as a quiet, shadowy reverberation. I saw a woman in the darkness who kind of looked like she was from an art nouveau absinthe advertisement. She was a good distance from me and paid me no mind. She seemed to be pouring water from a pitcher but I couldn’t see what into.

My self-talk during this trip was annoying but valuable. A fractured, kaleidoscopic chatter comprising my own voice, a voice of the spice space, or both was cascading through my mind. “You can’t enjoy this because you’re not present in this moment. You are disappointed because you didn’t get what you wanted. But look at you! You’re SO HIGH! Isn’t THAT what you wanted? I mean you see what’s going on in here, right? Look at this! And this! Isn’t it kind of amazing? And you’re just dogging the whole thing. It’s kinda lame of you. You really need a better attitude about this.” This continued until I landed. As my normal internal narrative was piecing itself back together I felt almost embarrassed.

This string of disappointments was getting to me. I really needed a win. I looked at my pipe and there was a dried puddle of unused DMT in the bulb and saw it as an advantage. I dropped another 40 milligrams on top of it. The inadequacies of the lighter I’d been using were no longer acceptable. The big guns needed to come out. A couple of years prior, I’d bought a big butane torch during a fleeting moment of enthusiasm for dabbing cannabis concentrates. It’s really too big for this kind of job but it has an adjustable flame. It also has an ignition lock on it which I knew might get complicated on the third hit. Nonetheless, I knew it would be hot enough and that I wasn’t going to burn myself while using it.

I sparked the torch and the spice melted quickly. I got my first, milky hit in and felt optimistic. I got the second hit in and I could feel the big rumble coming on. As I’d expected, I had some trouble with the ignition lock on the torch after blowing out the second hit. I managed to get a small third hit in and quickly put the gear down and leaned back on my bed for what I could tell was going to be an intense rush-up.

Immediately, my vision became segmented into tiles and little hands were taking my mind and my vision apart piece by piece. Little voices stuttered in my head saying, “And here. And here. And this goes here. And that goes here. And here and here and like that and like this.” My view of my room was scrambled up like a plastic, sliding 15-puzzle. Then there was a flash of my room looking normal and then like - PFOOM! - it was gone.

My vision was filled with a white, patterned, moving space similar to one I’d experienced during my second round of experimentation. The way in which it was different is that it was much closer and that the matter of the space formed a mass of rounded-tipped tentacles reminiscent of a sea anemone. They filled my entire vision and undulated silently. While this was happening I experienced what I would later realize was my first full psychedelic ego death. Any concept of my personality - my inner narrative, my history, my desires, my sense of time passing - were completely gone. All that existed was right there in the waving arms of this inter-dimensional anemone. For all I could tell, this could have gone on for eternities.

I remembered I had eyes and they were closed. I opened them, saw that I was laying on my bed in my room, and was deeply startled. I gasped, “HOLY SHIT,” and curled up into the fetal position. I’d completely forgotten everything about my life and was shocked that I was still here, that my apartment was still here, that either was anything at all. I felt a chill come over me and pulled my comforter up to my neck as I started sobbing. I was still totally tripping and could still see the tentacles in my eyes but I knew the landing was was coming soon. I rocked back and forth weeping “oh my god” until I was tired. Soon after, I slept.

I have a lot of thoughts about this ego death experience but, for now, I’m going to keep them for myself.