So, I've been hesitant to post here. I've posted on a couple of other drug forums and received decent advice, but something tells me that some of the most knowledgeable and seasoned users are on bluelight. About a month and a half ago I had the worst, most uncomfortable LSD trip I've ever had in my life. It wasn't even that intense in terms of visuals or anything like that, but the mental and energetic disruptions were so powerful that I am still screwed up. I'm going to do my best to post the whole trip report here. In other forums I've only talked about the effects of the trip, it's hard to talk about the trip itself because it is so personal and it was so profoundly disorienting. For some background, I've taken LSD dozens upon dozens of times in the past. I'm 24 years old, my first trip was when I was 16. Tripped a lot when I was 18. Then a couple times a year after, and then a lot between 21 and now. To be honest...it's been about 3 years since I've actually tripped with the goal of self-discovery and reflection. Since then nearly all of my psychedelic usage has been limited to psychedelic rock concerts and partying scenarios. It feels weird to actually say that, as that was never my goal or intention. Anyway here is my story. Over labor day weekend I decided to go see Phish in Colorado. I've seen them many times before, and it was always a thrilling experience. This was my 20th or so show. I had previously seen them 3 other times this past summer, each time I took acid and had a mostly great time. I say mostly, because for the past year or more I've had various hypochondriac episodes. It started out worrying about my heart due to occasional cocaine use. Then I got it checked and it was fine. Then last fall after a series of trips and Phish shows I jerked off improperly and it basically felt like my prostate was fucked for over a month. Dick wouldn't work right, it always felt like I was sitting on a golf ball, yet when I went to the doctor they could find nothing wrong. I've since come to believe this an energetic or psychosomatic problem. Earlier this year I was hypochondriac about something, then this summer, I saw the Grateful Dead shows in Chicago w/ Trey. Tripped at those, almost thought it was the apocalypse one night but was able to focus on love and light and it was amazing. Second night there I also almost freaked out but ran into a friend who got me drunk and brought me back down, ended up having the best night/weekend of my life. Then, at the start of the phish tour this year I was at my friend's house doing whippets while watching a stream of the show. I didn't do a lot, but I freaked out and convinced myself I had brain damage. My head just didn't feel right for a while, it scared me. I had headaches, went to the doctor, she basically said I was fine and couldn't have done any damage, gave me some steroid shots and b12 and said I'd be good. 2 weeks later I saw my first phish show of the summer, still worrying about this in the back of my head but generally feeling good. I took some acid with friends, and had a mostly great show. It was dramatic, but during the second set at one point I convinced myself I had had a stroke or aneurysm of some kind. Went to the medical people, talked to them, they told me I was fine and not to worry, so I chilled. Ended up having a long conversation with my friend about how I should stop taking acid and doing drugs. Well I ended up seeing Phish in Wisconsin 2 days after that, we drove up there on Saturday and saw the shows that night and sunday. This time, during the first show I became paranoid that I broke my ear drum or something. It still goes along with the theory of the nitrous damage, but my ear was popping frequently and I convinced myself I could hear much better out of my left ear than my right ear. I even went so far as to buy earplugs for the show on Sunday, and wore one earplug in my right ear for most of the show. Consequently this paranoia led to me not enjoying the shows as much as I could. I enjoyed the music, but was glad when it was over. That being said, I ended up having so much fun with my friends at the hotel and everything. It was truly a great time. Anyway, after this I went back to the doctor to find about my ears. She looked in them and saw I had some fluid buildup and told me to take some allergy medicine. FINALLY! My anxiety subsided, I realized I was making all of this up, I was extremely relieved that my ears were fine. For the time after this, I finally felt healthy again and was not having hypochondriac episodes and worrying about my health. Yet, I was still very depressed. I didn't realize how depressed I truly was. I ended up ruining my mom's birthday dinner by breaking down and basically crying about my job, which I've hated for a while, and then the weekend before my bad trip I remember feeling particularly lonely and went to the art museum and was just rather depressed. Ended up driving around town the whole sunday with nothing to do, looking at various graffiti spots. Was actually really nice in hindsight. So, to take my mind off the depression I was pumped to go see Phish in Colorado. My mom had offered to let me use her new car, which she had previously let me use to drive me and 2 friends to wisconsin. I was going to ride with 2 guys, but then they weren't able to go all 3 nights so it ended up being me, my female friend J and my male friend E. J I've known for a year, had a crush on her but we ended up just being friends. E is someone I've known for a while but who in the past kind of annoyed me because he could be stingy with weed (from 2014 trip to colorado for phish). Yet, I found out he was going to go to these shows 8 hours away all by himself, and to me that felt silly when he could ride with us and we could all chip in on gas etc. So I talked to him and it was settled that the three of us would ride together. We were to leave on Friday and come back on monday. Well, I was going to take my mother's car, but then my Dad bitched at me about it and screamed and didnt want me to take it, since he had purchased it for her and didn't want me using it to travel and go to concerts. Eventually I won the argument and he relented...but then I just felt bad for some reason. I had these thoughts about disrespecting my father and I didn't want things to be like that so I ended up deciding not to take my mother's car. This was mistake number 1, since I always like to drive on road trips, I feel weird and out of control if I don't. So I talked to E and he was fine to take his car. My car is old and gets bad gas mileage and needed an oil change so it was pretty much out of the question, or at least I was not ready to take it one day prior. Two days before this, I had friends come in town for a show in my city, and I ended up taking some type of sassafras what I assume is MDA. Ended up staying up til 4am with old friends, slept for a few hours then went to work that day. I was supposed to go on a Tindr date with a girl I was talking to but I was so tired after work and had packing and stuff to do that I blew her off. I slept Thursday night but not very well, figured since I wasn't driving I'd sleep in the car. Unfortunately I was not able to sleep in the car at all. Upon getting to Colorado I was very tired. I ended up getting 10mgs of Adderall from J to keep me up, and then we talked and talked and we both decided to trip for the show. Initially I didn't want to trip. I told her I wasn't going to trip. But she convinced me to, saying she didn't want to trip by herself and wanted me to trip with her etc. So I figured why not? I've taken LSD plenty of times before and aside from freaking out about perceived medical issues (which I wasn't worried about this time because I just got a clean bill of health) I decided to take a little because I thought it would also help keep me up. And also, anyone reading this who's gone to a phish show knows that taking lsd at a show is very sublime. I took 2ish hits of lsd. Then I met up with some other friends, and one of my friends there convinced me to take another hit. I didn't want to, and after it was in my mouth for a bit I took it out. He said his gf didn't want it, and so I took it to shut him up and because I figured I could handle it. So the show starts...and I enjoyed the first song very much. Then later in the first set they play a song called Undermind, which deals heavily with the subconscious. I became very introspective during this song, and I had the sensation that something in the song was trying to change my mind. To be frank, it felt like the song was trying to change my sexuality from straight to gay. I know that sounds bizarre but it kind of creeped me out during the song, but then I didn't really worry about it. I've kind of gotten "gay vibes" for lack of a better term, during one or two of their songs, and to be truthful, for whatever reason Phish shows are sausage fests, definitely many many more dudes at shows than chicks. This never bothered me before, I kind of figured it was for the same reasons that men use drugs in higher amounts than women, and phish is a very druggy band. Anyway, so the first set ends, and me and J and E decide to go down to the floor since we had wristbands. We go to the floor, and end up meeting up with a bunch more of our friends who were there (J and I's friends, E did not know them but I introduced him). I then started to get worried and think that my friends would think I'm uncool because I brought E along, and he kind of can talk a lot during shows. He was fine though. So, it's the start of second set, and I decide to smoke a joint I had previously rolled. This is where things get fuzzy, can't remember if I smoked one and went to smoke another or if it was just the one. Either way, at one point I'm looking for a lighter, can't find mine, so I ask a girl in my group who was walking by me if she had one. And then she looked at me and said "Ask one of the boys.." and kind of rolled her eyes. I know she probably didn't mean anything, but I ended up internalizing her comment and thought she was poking fun at my masculinity because I didn't have a lighter. I ended up getting very anxious, and decided I had to leave my friends to get a beer. I got a beer, and was still too paranoid to go back. In hindsight I should have, but I thought if I just got away from my friends and stuff I would calm down. So I end up looking behind, and see this cute girl running through the crowd, I kind of follow her but then realize she has a boyfriend/husband. Really I just wanted to smoke this joint with someone. End up talking to them, he has a lighter, but she has to pee. He was gonna smoke with me but then I got super paranoid that if I smoked with a dude it would mean I was gay or something, and I really didn't like that. So I backed off and he called me an asshole. Fair enough. Then I proceeded to go through the stands, which were not that crowded, trying to smoke my joint with random chicks. At the time I felt like I absolutely had to do this. Long story short it ended up being embarassing, either I would have my joint and the girl wouldn't have a lighter, or I would lose the joint as well. It was all really embarassing to be honest. I ended up going up to the main concourse where there is lots of space and just kind of dancing on my own. This was during a song called Fuego. I was walking and dancing and "strutting my stuff" so to speak and then I stopped for a second. And I felt this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. For those who buy into it, basically it felt like my Second and/or Third Chakra completely reversed. My inner "umph" for lack of a better term seemed to disappear. At the point I no longer felt normal. I no longer felt like a "man". It felt wrong and dirty. Basically I felt gay...but more than that even is I felt so worthless that I was only worthy of getting fucked in the ass. It was very upsetting. So bad in fact, that I wasn't even able to really hear the last few songs of the show. This bad feeling persisted after the show. I met up with my friends again. Basically E had already booked a hotel room for himself, J and I know many people there so I was just kind of winging it. J had an air mattress, and initially the plan was we were going to say with E and use the mattress, since he initially just booked a room with a single bed. Well, his room was like $200 a night so we ended up staying with other friends. My friend who gave me the other hit and his gf are who we stayed with. So we had to walk back to E's car to get our stuff and walk all across the parking lot of the stadium to my other friend's car. During this whole ordeal I was paranoid, my sense of direction was off, and it seemed like I was constantly the butt of all sorts of gay jokes. It seemed like everyone I walked by, even my friends were making the jokes. But a lot of it was me just being paranoid. Also the venue was Dick's sporting goods park, so lots of people were talking about "dicks" anyways. This whole thing was not fun. We got back to my friends house, drank a beer and smoked some weed then he and his gf went to bed. I was still really spun out, so J and I walked around the neighborhood and found a park. She tried to talk me down and talk me through things but it was such a visceral feeling. I ended up yelling at her and getting angry just because I was freaking out so bad. I also got paranoid that everyone else was "in on something" that I wasn't. I thought J was going to go back and have sex with my friend and his gf and I would be left out. I know that's me just being paranoid, but that was my thought at the time. We got back to the house and tried to sleep. Luckily their roommates were gone so there were multiple rooms and I had my own bed. Couldn't sleep a wink though. In the morning, they were going to a beer festival thing, I was going to go, but at the last minute had them drive me home so I could try to sleep and rest more before the 2nd show later that night. Went home, tried to sleep, got paranoid, tried to look at porn and jack off, didn't work. Figured I was just nervous though. Still just really freaking out about the whole gay paranoia thing. And the reason I was freaking out so much is I've always considered myself straight. And I'm pretty open minded, I've contemplated homosexuality before, and thought that if I ever was going be gay it'd have to be with a really feminine dude, and I would be the "top". Basically because I consider myself straight so if I was gonna be gay I'd have to be attracted to a girly dude or transsexual. I've had girlfriends, and although this past year had been kind of a dry spell I had a few one night stands, and I had amazing sex after a show with an older woman just barely a couple months before this trip. In the weeks prior I had looked at porn sometimes and it's always straight porn. I like titties and ass and the female form really turns me on. Basically even if I had gay tendencies I'd consider myself like 90% straight. It's not even something I've ever really questioned in the past, never found myself attracted to dudes or anything. I'll be honest there were a couple times when I was really lonely when I'd think about maybe hooking up with a dude but after thinking about it for like a minute the thought would gross me out so much. I even met up with some dude once a few years ago and had to leave right away because the reality of things was just way too gross for me. I figured this meant I was straight, like I had contemplated and even sort of acted on things and guys really turned me off. So to have this acid paranoia make me think I was gay or not a man all of a sudden was very disconcerting and upsetting. So that night, my friend who we stayed with offered to sell me some mdma. At the time I thought since I had a bad trip the night before, if I rolled a little bit I would be in a good mood and I'd shake the bad vibes off. Well, I ended up getting drunk before the show, and then during the show I took some molly, and then decided to take a little bit more L too. I was out of it, I barely remember the show, I remember having those weird gay type thoughts again, and mentally rebelling against them, because it really felt like a foreign thought. I'm 24 years old...I think I would've known my sexuality by now. I ended up throwing up on myself even. I basically broke all my cardinal rules for tripping and going to shows. I got drunk and took molly, whereas normally if I would do it I would drink mostly water. I ended up splitting up with my friends because of this paranoia, didn't ride back to the hotel with them, and ended up getting a cab and getting back there late. Unfortunately, even though I drank more I was too wound up that night to sleep. I tried to, but it just didn't happen. J was gone as well, she went to party with other friends so I was kind of worried about her. The morning came, and we all got breakfast. My sense of right and wrong was also screwy. At one point I went to buy a lighter from this liquor store, the clerk was way in another aisle and I realized I could steal one...thinking that I should do so and that would make me straight or whatever. That I had to "go for it". Agonized over this decision but didn't steal it, then the dude gave me matches for free. There were lots of these instances of me overthinking everyday situations. Then the rest of the day was kind of weird. My friends had known about my bad trip and paranoia. So my friend takes me over to these guys' house. It was like 3 or 4 dudes at this place. They seemed cool enough but I got kind of a gay vibe from them and thought it was some kind of test or whatever that my friend was putting me through. It was all just very weird and surreal to me. One guy talking about his brother and his bro's gf cross dressed one halloween at a show, and his bro had to leave the show cause of the looks he was getting. It seemed too relevant to my trip. After being there for a bit I asked my friends if we were going to our other mutual friend's pre-show keg party. We ended up going there, and I felt relieved because there were more girls there. And they were hot, I found myself checking them out. Which made me feel good and secure. But then there were other weird coincidences. We were smoking hash oil. I had some oil, this girl had some oil, and this other guy had some. We were using his rig and dabber, and it was all very strange. Basically like the oil rig/dabber was a phallic symbol, and this chick being like, no you don't want to use his... At one point she hands me the dabber, and the guy is like "use this side, the other side is dirty (resin)" and so I put what I thought was the clean tip into my oil but I guess it was the dirty side? My perceptions were either mixed up or he was fucking with me, but I really don't think everyone was in on some conspiracy. Every decision seemed extremely monumental. I was talking with this girl who had oil, and we start talking about food. She mentioned to me that she was a vegetarian. I used to be a vegetarian, but I told her how when I went to Spain I stopped because they're big on ham and its a carnivore culture. And then as I'm talking I felt like talking about eating meat was metaphorical in a sexual way and meant I was gay. At one point I told a story about ordering a veggie sandwich there and it had tuna on it (because in spain they really don't have a concept of vegetarianism) and then in my head I'm tripping up over things and thinking that mentioning I don't like Tuna is some kind of metaphor that means I don't like pussy. It freaked me out at the time. This one guy there who was gay had brent mydland shirt on, and I love brent mydland, my favorite keyboardist from the dead, and then I got paranoid thinking that made me gay too. Even though I know plenty of people that aren't gay that love brent mydland. Anyway during that day J wanted to get her shoes from E's car, but he wasn't around, and I was reluctant to hit him up, thinking that if I did it would make me gay or something. Eventually when we got the lot for show #3 I contacted him and met up to get these shoes for J. It was so fucking annoying, because I met up with him, walked all the way back to his car, which took him forever to find. I also had J's ticket that I was going to sell her. She called me, and said she could get another one if I wanted to sell mine but I told her I'd sell it to her. Then on the walk I see this gorgeous woman who I want to sell the ticket too. I get it in my head that selling the ticket to her would cement my straightness but then I called J and she was unable to get another ticket. And furthermore got mad that I was thinking about selling it. So basically I go back and meet up with all my friends, proceed to get hammered on fireball. At this point I decided that doing any other drug other than alcohol was a bad idea. I really though getting drunk would bring me back to normal.Long story short I also had a bad time during this show. Barely remember any of the first set. The second set contained some rare tunes and Trey, the lead singer, even talked about nitrous during one song. Which further freaked me out because I did a very small amount of nitrous on Friday even though after my experience a couple months ago I swore off it forever. Basically the whole weekend felt like some type of cosmic punishment for not living my life in the correct way. As if God/the universe was going to forcibly change my sexuality/gender because I had gone against my morals and was basically just partying all the time and not taking things seriously. So, that night, I had previously purchased tickets for an after party show but didn't go. I was so drunk, and just decided to go back to E's hotel. He didn't know I was going to be there but I showed up and he was outside and I was able to use the air mattress on the floor. Another eery coincidence, during one show I talked to random girl about my gay paranoia, and she told me a story about how she thought she was gay once when she watched the trampoline scene in The Big Lebowski. Well...when I met up with E that night at the hotel he had a big lebowski shirt on!!!! WTF!! This freaked me out, but I couldn't decide if it meant I was gay or that I only thought so, and actually wasn't, like the girl I talked to earlier. As you may be able to guess, I was not able to sleep this night either. The next morning we pick up J, she had stayed with friends, and we get back on the road. E ends up going through mcdonalds to get food, I wasn't hungry but decided to get some too, then agonized over my decision and wondered if I just did because E did, and if that was a reflection of my sexuality. The whole 8 hour drive home was horrible. Way too many synchronicities for me/psychosis. It felt like the radio was talking to me/extremely relevant. Google had just changed their symbol/text, and I thought it was metaphorically related to me "changing" over the weekend. Every song freaked me out. It felt like some songs were trying to convince me to "come out" which was unsettling. At one point Hotel California came on and I got paranoid that I'd be trapped in hell forever. Basically any song we put on or was on the radio made me paranoid, and it felt like I was hearing songs from a female perspective, something I did not previously know was possible or that women heard songs differently from men. At one point I go to put on a Daft Punk song, because it was something we all agreed on. So I put on the song Giorgio, which features Giorgio Moroder, godfather of disco (also on saturday when in the car with my friend his gf and J, he put on disco at one point and talked about how he liked it, and I got paranoid that it was some kind of trick to convince me I was gay or something). But during this song I got paranoid because my very good friend's nickname is Giorgio and I thought it was some subconscious thing that I was attracted to him like that even though we're just bros and I've literally never thought about him that way. I basically insisted on many periods of silence during the car ride home or only instrumental music. Couldn't sleep on the car ride. Then I get home, and these girls are hitting me up. My ex, and then this other girl T. T is asking me if I can come over and show her how to roll a joint, and I kind of wanted to , but I also had been up for 3 days straight and had to work the next day and desperately needed sleep. Also left my glasses in colorado, so I told her another time. Again, this felt like some kind of cosmic test. Yet I was also paranoid that if I went over there I would be awkward and weird cause I'm super paranoid and had been up for 3 days. So I tried to stay home and sleep, I was unable to sleep. Went to work the next morning on 4 nights of drugs and not sleeping. Again, this trip continued at work. I thought people were laughing at me. I work at a call center, and thought the universe was speaking to me through callers. I think my first call of the day the last name of who called was Cox. At one point there's these decorations near my manager's cubicle and I ask what those are for and where they go, and she tells me they go in this box that's in the closet. I Tell her I can go put them back but she insists I don't know where this box is. I then internalize this to mean I can't get laid/pussy (box is a term used for pussy) and furthermore that the box was in the closet so if I went in there then I'd have to "come out of the closet". All of this freaked me out. So I ended up leaving work 2 hours after I got there. Called my friend K, she came over to my house ( I was going to go to her house, but she lives off a street called Wyoming, and I got near her place and there were these cowboy dudes outside of a truck. I got paranoid they would beat me up cause they would think I was gay...basically my mind associated Wyoming street with the murder of Matthew Shephard, a gay teen in Wyoming in the 90s) and gave me a ton of xanax and dabbed me out. I even tried to make out with her which freaked her out, but she was ultimately cool and just wanted me to be better. I took a bunch of xanax, finally slept for multiple hours for the first time in days. But unfortunately it doesn't end there. I missed the next two days of work. Had very bad luck, odd synchronicities. On the third day back I end up hanging out with my ex. We go to the bar and drink and laugh and its like old times. I'm even getting turned on and got somewhat of a boner so I felt awesome and assured in my sexuality. We get back to my place, have food, cuddling on the couch and things are great. Then I decide to do a dab, it didn't sit well with me, and then she mentions the last time she dabbed was a long time ago with me and E. This sent me back into the paranoia. This all transpired over labor day weekend this year. Since then I've had horrible symptoms. I can barely sleep. I'm getting 3 or 4 hours of sleep a night, tops. I have very little appetite. My sex drive is absolutely gone most of the time. Porn does nothing for me. I'm constipated most of the time and my piss stream is weak. I can't really enjoy music because it still all sounds weird to me unless it's just instrumental. Things I normally enjoyed don't bring me much pleasure. I did hang out and hook up with my ex a week ago, a little over a month after this started. And I was thrilled that my dick worked but I came super fast and it was just bad. I've had vivid dreams, though that's partially because I've stopped all drug usage and smoking. Basically I've been somewhat paranoid/psychotic since then. I'm seeing a psychologist, he's confident I'll chill out eventually and get back to normal, as are my parents who I ended up moving back in with (it was planned before this all happened). I know this has been an extremely long post but it's the first time I've really laid out all the details. And there are some more smaller details but I figure it's irrelevant at this point. I just want to get back to normal and be how I was before the trip. I want to be able to sleep at night. I want to be able to eat and enjoy food again. I want to not have psychotic thoughts and think everything is relevant to me. I'd like to be able to smoke weed again without getting paranoid. I want to be able to socialize without being so preoccupied with myself. I want my dick to work properly and I want to be attracted to women like I was before all this. The thing is it's not even like I feel attracted to guys now, it's just nothing in my body is working. My running theory is that taking drugs and that kind of activated my kundalini, which has risen before on psychedelic trips, but that because I did something wrong the energy system malfunctioned and blew out my nervous system resulting in all of these symptoms (insomnia, no appetite, no sex drive, no desire for anything really). It still feels like a punishment, someone I work with invited me to volunteer feeding the homeless that weekend but I went out of town to party. I feel like this is punishment for my selfishness.