This was my 5th time trying acid. Every previous trip had been completely carefree.
So I took my hits with two other friends (4 sugar cubes each) around 9:30 pm in my room at university. The room isn't an ideal location for tripping as it looks like a prison cell but all of my previous trips had been in the same location or an indentical room in the same student halls.
To try and put ourselves in a good mindset we watched one episode of a sitcom (Bored to Death) followed by one cartoon episode (Adventure Time). The first indication that something wasn't right was that the cartoon (which is pretty surreal) made me feel a little uneasy, I thought it was just too silly and yearned for something more grounded.
After the cartoon had ended we started listening to music. My friends and I had created a gigantic music playlist which consisted of one three song playlist each followed by an album each plus a Dylan album to top it all off, (a pre-requsite surely?) with the aim of watching a film and playing some video games later in the night.
We arranged it so that my playlist started first and that my album played last meaning that after my playlist had ended I wouldn't hear any music that I had chosen for nearly two hours.
Selflishly, I just could not enjoy my friend's music for the most part and spent the first two hours distracting myself with a Bridget Riley art book which contained a bunch of opitcal illusions. Like in all of my previous trips, I had cellotaped some multi coloured lights to the ceiling which bathed the room in some pretty glorious light. Usually staring at these lights was a pleasant sight but this time I looked up to see patterns of skulls surrounding each light bulb. I was kinda alarmed as I had not seen anything like this before so I took my eyes off the celing and retreated back to reading my weird art book.
For some reason I soon became unreasonably irritated by my two friends. I felt that one of them was fidgeting far too much and ruining my vibe, the other was just kind of losing it, not really in a negative sense just laughing and dancing like an idiot.
Once my album began my mood dramatically improved, and by the 4th song I felt incredible. I asked my friends whether they wanted to take down the lights off the ceiling and hold them in our hands as we had done during previous trips. Once we took the lights down (which was a bit of struggle but felt at the time as epic as raising the American flag over Iwo Jima) and I held them in my hands the trip really began to pick up. I'm confident I experienced some form of ego death. For a few minutes at a time I began to stop feeling as if I was a person and felt like I was just expereincing raw sensual stimuli. The second half of my album was probably one of the best feelings I have ever felt. It was just pure ecstasy. Once my album finished Dylan started and we were all just amazed by the power of the experience. I switched on my tv which was hooked up to my pc and brought up some trippy images of Dylan and we sat and just laughed hysterically at how joyous we all felt. I began to have the morbid thought that if I had to die it may as well have been at that point in time because although I'm happy with my life I just couldn't imagine feeling any better than I did at that moment.
Around 10 minutes later I experienced some uncomfortable sensations in my chest and began to slightly panic. I left my room (which was swelteringly hot) and went next door and lay on my friends bed to get some air. Even with the discomfort in my chest I was still feeling overwhelmingly euphoric.
It's at this point in the night that my memory begins to fail me. My friends came into the same room to have a cigarette. After I had calmed down and my chest discomfort had subsided we talked about how good we felt, just general positive things. I then went next door picked up my guitar and amp and brought it into my friend's room. For some reason I was under the impression I could play guitar really well (I can barely play the thing) and started telling my friend's that I needed to practice because for some reason I believed that the trip had enabled me to know how to play. Just after this I had the strange thought that my friends and I were sharing the exact same thoughts.
The next period is really hard to remember. For some reason I went back into my room in a panic and threw a massive bag of crisps (chips) against the wall. That's the last memory I have of being in my halls that night.
At this point I can't rely on my own recollections to explain what happened. I have fragments of memories of running around the city but nothing distinct, it was like being in a really murky, unclear dream. I have hazy images of walking up to people and experiencing strage delusions about the universe that I can barely recall. Something about shouting out letters and colours in different orders and combinations so that I wouldn't die or I would become immortal or something crazy.
At some point I remember being forced down to the ground and later being put into a van whilst handcuffed. As I said at the time I didn't think any of what was happening was real and I tried to "unimagine" the handcuffs around my wrists as If I was in a bad dream and could change my reality just by thinking it. After this point I have some confused memories of being taken into a hospital by police and being asked questions by nurses. I kept hearing the police and doctors mention that I was on LSD and couldn't remember telling them what had happened so I continued to believe that I was dreaming.
My first lucid memory after this point was lying in a hospital bed on the A&E ward. I was completely confused as to where I was, what had happened to me and even whether I was still alive. I looked down to see that my ankle and wrists were severely inflammed and I had wounds all over my body. I was being watched over by some terrifying looking Somalian security guard with a lot of missing teeth. I asked him what happened and he told me I needed to wait for the doctor to arrive. Shortly after a nurse came to see me and told me that I had fractured my ankle and that I had been brought in by the police who I had been violent with. I could barely believe what she was telling me because generally I'm pretty terrified of confrontation and I have never been in a fight in my life.
I went though a series of scans and various nurses asked me questions about what happened but I still wasn't confident that what I was expereincing was reality and thought that I might wake up at any moment. I made a trip to the bathroom and saw that my face was just a mess. I had a massive bump on the side of my head, a gash above my eyebrow and a lot of brusing around my right eye and cheek as if I had been punched.
I think that I was brought into the hospital around 5 am and I was discharged around 4pm.
Once I limped back home on crutches my friends came into my room looking pretty angry and asked me to explain myself. I told them that I had very little memory of what happened that night and that they would know more about what happened to me than I would. They informed me that I had ran out of my room without any shoes whilst talking gibberish that started with full sentences about discovering the meaning of life and then just degraded into individual words. Apparently I was screaming this nonsense as I ran down the stairs and into the building's foyer, a security guard tried to help me but I pushed him off and ran into the street. After scaring a lot of people and doing myself harm someone called the police who restrained me for my own safety and took me straight to hospital.
The whole experience was just a nightmare. I can barely remember anything let alone fracturing my ankle and being arrested.
What I'm curious to know is why did this happen? As I've said I've done LSD 4 times previous to this in almost the exact same circumstances (same room, same people etc.). I didn't feel any different to how I've felt the previous occasions I tripped, I'm not depressed and I don't suffer from any mental health problems or anything.
So I took my hits with two other friends (4 sugar cubes each) around 9:30 pm in my room at university. The room isn't an ideal location for tripping as it looks like a prison cell but all of my previous trips had been in the same location or an indentical room in the same student halls.
To try and put ourselves in a good mindset we watched one episode of a sitcom (Bored to Death) followed by one cartoon episode (Adventure Time). The first indication that something wasn't right was that the cartoon (which is pretty surreal) made me feel a little uneasy, I thought it was just too silly and yearned for something more grounded.
After the cartoon had ended we started listening to music. My friends and I had created a gigantic music playlist which consisted of one three song playlist each followed by an album each plus a Dylan album to top it all off, (a pre-requsite surely?) with the aim of watching a film and playing some video games later in the night.
We arranged it so that my playlist started first and that my album played last meaning that after my playlist had ended I wouldn't hear any music that I had chosen for nearly two hours.
Selflishly, I just could not enjoy my friend's music for the most part and spent the first two hours distracting myself with a Bridget Riley art book which contained a bunch of opitcal illusions. Like in all of my previous trips, I had cellotaped some multi coloured lights to the ceiling which bathed the room in some pretty glorious light. Usually staring at these lights was a pleasant sight but this time I looked up to see patterns of skulls surrounding each light bulb. I was kinda alarmed as I had not seen anything like this before so I took my eyes off the celing and retreated back to reading my weird art book.
For some reason I soon became unreasonably irritated by my two friends. I felt that one of them was fidgeting far too much and ruining my vibe, the other was just kind of losing it, not really in a negative sense just laughing and dancing like an idiot.
Once my album began my mood dramatically improved, and by the 4th song I felt incredible. I asked my friends whether they wanted to take down the lights off the ceiling and hold them in our hands as we had done during previous trips. Once we took the lights down (which was a bit of struggle but felt at the time as epic as raising the American flag over Iwo Jima) and I held them in my hands the trip really began to pick up. I'm confident I experienced some form of ego death. For a few minutes at a time I began to stop feeling as if I was a person and felt like I was just expereincing raw sensual stimuli. The second half of my album was probably one of the best feelings I have ever felt. It was just pure ecstasy. Once my album finished Dylan started and we were all just amazed by the power of the experience. I switched on my tv which was hooked up to my pc and brought up some trippy images of Dylan and we sat and just laughed hysterically at how joyous we all felt. I began to have the morbid thought that if I had to die it may as well have been at that point in time because although I'm happy with my life I just couldn't imagine feeling any better than I did at that moment.
Around 10 minutes later I experienced some uncomfortable sensations in my chest and began to slightly panic. I left my room (which was swelteringly hot) and went next door and lay on my friends bed to get some air. Even with the discomfort in my chest I was still feeling overwhelmingly euphoric.
It's at this point in the night that my memory begins to fail me. My friends came into the same room to have a cigarette. After I had calmed down and my chest discomfort had subsided we talked about how good we felt, just general positive things. I then went next door picked up my guitar and amp and brought it into my friend's room. For some reason I was under the impression I could play guitar really well (I can barely play the thing) and started telling my friend's that I needed to practice because for some reason I believed that the trip had enabled me to know how to play. Just after this I had the strange thought that my friends and I were sharing the exact same thoughts.
The next period is really hard to remember. For some reason I went back into my room in a panic and threw a massive bag of crisps (chips) against the wall. That's the last memory I have of being in my halls that night.
At this point I can't rely on my own recollections to explain what happened. I have fragments of memories of running around the city but nothing distinct, it was like being in a really murky, unclear dream. I have hazy images of walking up to people and experiencing strage delusions about the universe that I can barely recall. Something about shouting out letters and colours in different orders and combinations so that I wouldn't die or I would become immortal or something crazy.
At some point I remember being forced down to the ground and later being put into a van whilst handcuffed. As I said at the time I didn't think any of what was happening was real and I tried to "unimagine" the handcuffs around my wrists as If I was in a bad dream and could change my reality just by thinking it. After this point I have some confused memories of being taken into a hospital by police and being asked questions by nurses. I kept hearing the police and doctors mention that I was on LSD and couldn't remember telling them what had happened so I continued to believe that I was dreaming.
My first lucid memory after this point was lying in a hospital bed on the A&E ward. I was completely confused as to where I was, what had happened to me and even whether I was still alive. I looked down to see that my ankle and wrists were severely inflammed and I had wounds all over my body. I was being watched over by some terrifying looking Somalian security guard with a lot of missing teeth. I asked him what happened and he told me I needed to wait for the doctor to arrive. Shortly after a nurse came to see me and told me that I had fractured my ankle and that I had been brought in by the police who I had been violent with. I could barely believe what she was telling me because generally I'm pretty terrified of confrontation and I have never been in a fight in my life.
I went though a series of scans and various nurses asked me questions about what happened but I still wasn't confident that what I was expereincing was reality and thought that I might wake up at any moment. I made a trip to the bathroom and saw that my face was just a mess. I had a massive bump on the side of my head, a gash above my eyebrow and a lot of brusing around my right eye and cheek as if I had been punched.
I think that I was brought into the hospital around 5 am and I was discharged around 4pm.
Once I limped back home on crutches my friends came into my room looking pretty angry and asked me to explain myself. I told them that I had very little memory of what happened that night and that they would know more about what happened to me than I would. They informed me that I had ran out of my room without any shoes whilst talking gibberish that started with full sentences about discovering the meaning of life and then just degraded into individual words. Apparently I was screaming this nonsense as I ran down the stairs and into the building's foyer, a security guard tried to help me but I pushed him off and ran into the street. After scaring a lot of people and doing myself harm someone called the police who restrained me for my own safety and took me straight to hospital.
The whole experience was just a nightmare. I can barely remember anything let alone fracturing my ankle and being arrested.
What I'm curious to know is why did this happen? As I've said I've done LSD 4 times previous to this in almost the exact same circumstances (same room, same people etc.). I didn't feel any different to how I've felt the previous occasions I tripped, I'm not depressed and I don't suffer from any mental health problems or anything.
