(ETH-LAD / 150 µg) - First Time - Underestimated this Special Ally

[Solipsis]

Yesterday I tried ETH-LAD for the first time. It was really special and it blew me away!

Set & Setting

My mindset was okay, but I had been drinking a bit too much the week before, work involves a lot of deadlines and had an issue with my routines and a lot of tiredness, so I was not 100% sure if I was up to it, to trip at all this weekend. On the other hand, it had been a little while (compared to normally – I trip quite often) and I could use the rejuvenating ‘reset’.

I got up a little later than I had intended and hurried a little bit to eat some breakfast before dropping the dose and do some final tidying up during the onset. Tripping in (or at least departing from) a clean and tidy apartment as my home base has become pretty important to me. I think you are so much more sensitive during a trip that it is important to make decent preparations on factors that influence your state of mind quite a bit. To make sure not too big physical things are bothering you and the atmosphere where you are is healthy and positive. The point is: in my experience it makes a surprisingly big difference!

Coming up

I chose 150 µg ETH-LAD acquired from a trusted Dutch vendor as my dose after a few final comparisons. I had already zero’d in on that dose, but somehow what I read – it seems to be up to 50% more potent than LSD from some comparisons – did not concern me too much, even though I was a little unsure about my mindset. The reason is probably that I have had a number of trips on LSD that fell a bit short of my expectations. Some had been strong enough but others on the weak side. Rarely full-on intense and exciting. So I lowered my guard.

Cut off 1½ blotter making 150 µg total and put it under my tongue. Tidying up ended taking very little time, I left some projects that are under construction be. After about 30 minutes I started like I was coming up, it was just a general and vague but familiar lysergamide feeling. In the second 30 minutes the development was slow which lead me to think that it was going to be easygoing, I was wrong!
I decided to put on a movie, telling myself that it would be to enjoy myself during the further development so that I could do more active things and go outside later. It was bad weather but there was promise of it clearing up now and then.

The movie I chose was “Lion”. Now, I think sometimes it can be a real waste of a trip, but definitely not always!! It turned out to make for quite an adventure! During the first part of the movie I started coming up much more and I could feel the ETH-LAD very well.
It felt more fierce than LSD but still friendly, I became much more emotionally sensitive and watched awesome visuals blossom, though mostly on the walls and all around. Most of the time I found them quite Lo-fi while for comparison LSZ was laser sharp for me. However I don’t really believe that a psychedelic will produce the same sort of effects every time, even if it has ‘tendencies’. LSD can produce both very sharp and fuzzy effects for me, though usually quite sharp.
It was a very good sort of lo-fi this time with ETH-LAD, which I don’t find so natural! (Sometimes it can just be blaah, unintelligible). I have had very euphoric soft pastel rainbow vision before on acid and actually have wished I could experience that again… this was very similar: it felt mature and looked intricate, but also quite ‘neutral’ which can be a wonderful thing for psychedelics like 2C-E or mescaline as well. Entactogenic and second-nature.
(The lo-fi visuals sometimes made it impossible to make out what was on my screen though, very blurry!) It's hard to explain how it could be so pleasant but it was just majestic in it's soupiness!


The true trip and flip

I was watching ribbons of light and energy twist and whirl and there was a continuity of this from what I saw with eyes closed and with eyes open.
Maybe I paused the movie a few times, but actually was still following the plot alright and got sucked right into the captivating story.

At some point shit really hit the fan though: I was starting to get tense from certain scenes, from the powerful acting, the tensions building up between characters and from a handicapped guy freaking out completely more than once (which was actually really disturbing to me and caught me off guard so much that I had very minor flashbacks to it much later when I tried to sleep, also a few more things about the movie+trip). Then there was a scene with the main character browsing the internet and the world, but I began hallucinating things that looked like beautiful corals, freaky flashes of him being unable to forget his mother’s face, and magical fireworks. A sort of portal seemed to open with a wormhole! I have experienced this before but it was more immersive and intense somehow.
I started out thinking that it was done amazingly – not the really trippy stuff but him having a sort of flashback that was somehow synthesized with footage from where he was from, that part looked realistic for a movie and later on I got confused repeatedly about whether it was part of the movie or not or whether I had hallucinated it all. It seemed genious to me that he couldn't forget and how it was supposedly done. Most of that was a hallucination, lol!

At one moment the confusion, the tension and the scenes with people freaking out made me lose it so I paused the movie and felt my heart racing very fast. What was disturbing was I began cycling between the decision to later even finish watching it or not, quite fast, and every time I realized how much I was freaking out, it got me and my heart up even more. I wondered whether it could potentially be fatal if one was unable to get out of such a loop.
It seemed best to speak out loud just randomly one of both decisions to at least break the loop, which worked. Then I went to lay down for a bit in my bedroom to calm down after taking a small dose of etizolam – I believe it was under 1 mg (volumetrically measured though not too exactly), I do not take it lightly to drop a benzo during a trip, but I really felt like I had to calm down asap and could use at least a small hand.
I automatically assumed some yogic postures and meditated for a little while, also without thinking much about it.

Extremely quickly I began experiencing a very altered state of consciousness, that was like crystalline… harmonizing, pulsing, buzzing. I am not a stranger to mystical experiences, especially from meditating on psychedelics. But it was so quickly after being extremely worked up and afraid for my life!
Yet soon enough I was past a point of no return and realized: once you are having an experience like that, there is nothing more to it. It’s there. Being in that state for a while I felt an immense power, that was washing over me. Healing but also ‘blanking me out’.
I assumed other postures and felt centered, but also still a bit scared from before. I had a crystal clear realization that was so simple: ‘make the best of it’. Immediately I felt myself align entirely to that idea, to turn all my energy into positivity.

Coming out of the experience, I was still having bouts of wishy-washy confusion which I pretty much only know from almost any fairly active dose of mushrooms or psilocin, or LSD but at quite high doses only. One moment I could be thinking ‘holy shitt!!!!’ and the next I would be hopping around like a child. My cognition was getting obliterated though, more on that later, but the vibe got more and more playful and cheerful over time, the etizolam might have played a part, especially with the cognition, but I think it was not the main reason I managed better – the key to that already happened before the etizolam started working.


Altered thinking and the attempt of analysis of (within) confusion and dementia

The next phase consisted of me trying to make notes and diagrams that got very chaotic because I was forgetting what I was doing or losing my train of thought the entire time. I was convinced I was able to think in alternative ways though, that at the same time I understood very well technically but trying to bring it into this reality via models proved to be extremely difficult.
A few themes were the one-directionality of my mind exploring possibilities and getting ‘lost’, basically the difference between divergent and convergent thinking to the extreme. I also thought that since I was getting back to the same core ideas, even though I was losing my train of thought all the time it would amount to a sort of word-cloud that could serve as a condensed way of providing all the ingredients as long as I would draw the algorithmic relations one at a time like a flow-chart.

It involved – no surprise there – chaos and confusion, the cost-effect efficiency of explaining something if you can’t finish your sentences, ineffability, whether it matters that something is futile or ineffable. Temporal manipulation of ideas if you are not thinking linear at all anymore. And basically that it’s all “One Direction’s fault”, senility, and that a lot of this was ridiculous in a way that reminded me overwhelmingly of Rick & Morty humor, including the philosophy about mortality and metaphysics (cosmic nihilism humor etc)

I really felt like I was getting a bit old during this trip, at times like I had aged 20 years which is something that has been on my mind a bit now that I am in my 30s and things are starting to 'deteriorate'... I didn't realize quite as much that it was the ETH-LAD that wrecked me, or even the etizolam which I thought I didn't really feel so much apart from having calmed down... maybe also the boozing took it's toll.

You might think that it’s terribly frustrating to try and theorize something when you are unable to think normally, but I had a wonderful time and laughed my ass off trying. It was so elating that I felt a fulfillment of experiencing something very special again, which had been a while.
The rest of the day was spent goofing around. I completely forgot that I had baked a pizza and just forgot about it in the oven (after turning that off though). Ironically it was fine, just too salty…

Here are the notes - lol I'm glad they were so 'helpful' for writing this report 8) wtf is with the "whether", i was getting pretty hung up on that:

NSFW:

I'd give it probably a 9^-/10 despite my freak-out, I do not blame the way this drug works for that, just my hybris. I want to do this again sometime!

Tagged by Xorkoth
substancecode_ethlad
substancecode_lysergamides
explevel_firsttime
exptype_positive
exptype_glowing
exptype_difficult
roacode_sublingual

 

[Xorkoth]

Nice, thanks for sharing. I love ETH-LAD, from my one trial. I found it easier to handle mentally than LSD although the come-up was more intense. Of course as you said, every trip is different, it's hard to judge a substance from one trip.

 

[Kaleida]

Awesome report, thanks for sharing it. :D I also had an unexpectedly intense lysergamide trip yesterday, though on AL-LAD. I definitely underestimated just how LSD-like these molecules can be, I suppose after trying so many other chemicals that just weren't quite the same I became doubtful that any ever could be.... Definitely no more though. Now I really want to experiment more with ETH-LAD too, even more so than AL-LAD, and reading this has now only deepened my curiosity. I think I'm going to take 200 ug for my next time, that should make for quite an experience I'd think.

Anyway, I'm glad you liked it overall even though it was a bit difficult, can't wait to hear more about what you think of it in the future!

 

[Solipsis]

Sure I'd like to share that and hear about your first try and xorkoth's future tries! I adore AL-LAD but mostly because it is such a hedonistic version of LSD to me. I need quite a bit of material from it but it is very enjoyable. ETH-LAD was also very pleasant, it caught me off guard and I am still not too certain how my thinking got so warped but like I said it wasn't really a bad thing to me, some of it was a bit difficult to manage because of how impressionable I got and how much my thinking changed and very importantly from how the movie affected me in ways that movies very rarely affect me, even when tripping.. or it would have to be mushrooms which can do a lot of fucked up things that would technically compare to how I was affected, but I really don't like having to manage mushrooms quite so much and it's much more deeply serious somehow that I just don't find necessary or useful.

I doubt I will be dosing lower in the future unless I would try it at a very unusual setting which I pretty much don't do anymore. I will just be a bit less careless and more prepared. Actually when I try ALD-52 i will take it seriously in a similar way because a big part of this may just be due to LSD doses in the recent past just not being quite that high.

Perhaps I would go for something like equal parts ETH-LAD, LSD and AL-LAD because they all have great qualities depending on the mood and intentions, but I am not sure I want to afford AL-LAD anymore if it takes so much material. I might say that ETH-LAD combines the best qualities of lysergamides since it's power doesn't necessarily feel rough or unforgiving at all. So I don't disagree per se that ETH-LAD can be handled fine, it was just strong and that movie was a doozy.

Oh I completely forgot to mention in the report that I saw very unusual visuals at one point where I couldn't figure out whether I was seeing a couch or something like the beautiful sculpture of the artsy contortions of a swimmer, mostly seen from the side and mostly the arm and the folds in the skin of hands and wrist etc. It morphed into other things after that and I was baffled.

Also, during the trip I was a little worried about whether the confusion was not such a good sign for my 'condition', my mental issues, but the tail end was glorious and had none of those worries and the after effects were therapeutic like those I also like to get from my acid trips: I feel rejuvinated, refreshed, I have refound motivations.

 

[pupnik]

I just say Yeth to ETH!

thanks for posting - interesting organiform spiral text results, must have been on a big piece of paper or part of an endless roll which would be perfect for catching mind drips as they leak between the cracks

 

[Kaleida]

Sure I'd like to share that and hear about your first try and xorkoth's future tries! I adore AL-LAD but mostly because it is such a hedonistic version of LSD to me. I need quite a bit of material from it but it is very enjoyable. ETH-LAD was also very pleasant, it caught me off guard and I am still not too certain how my thinking got so warped but like I said it wasn't really a bad thing to me, some of it was a bit difficult to manage because of how impressionable I got and how much my thinking changed and very importantly from how the movie affected me in ways that movies very rarely affect me, even when tripping.. or it would have to be mushrooms which can do a lot of fucked up things that would technically compare to how I was affected, but I really don't like having to manage mushrooms quite so much and it's much more deeply serious somehow that I just don't find necessary or useful.

I doubt I will be dosing lower in the future unless I would try it at a very unusual setting which I pretty much don't do anymore. I will just be a bit less careless and more prepared. Actually when I try ALD-52 i will take it seriously in a similar way because a big part of this may just be due to LSD doses in the recent past just not being quite that high.

Perhaps I would go for something like equal parts ETH-LAD, LSD and AL-LAD because they all have great qualities depending on the mood and intentions, but I am not sure I want to afford AL-LAD anymore if it takes so much material. I might say that ETH-LAD combines the best qualities of lysergamides since it's power doesn't necessarily feel rough or unforgiving at all. So I don't disagree per se that ETH-LAD can be handled fine, it was just strong and that movie was a doozy.

Oh I completely forgot to mention in the report that I saw very unusual visuals at one point where I couldn't figure out whether I was seeing a couch or something like the beautiful sculpture of the artsy contortions of a swimmer, mostly seen from the side and mostly the arm and the folds in the skin of hands and wrist etc. It morphed into other things after that and I was baffled.

Also, during the trip I was a little worried about whether the confusion was not such a good sign for my 'condition', my mental issues, but the tail end was glorious and had none of those worries and the after effects were therapeutic like those I also like to get from my acid trips: I feel rejuvinated, refreshed, I have refound motivations.

That's definitely how I felt about the AL-LAD too, which is saying a lot because I already find LSD to be one of the most hedonistic drugs there is. The AL-LAD just like took that capacity and brought it out much more compared to everything else and then pushed it into overdrive. I would go as far as to say that it almost felt like it's too euphoric for your average everyday trip, like it needs to be saved for only when you're in need of a truly world-rocking hedonism. At least, that's also what I'm hopeful for because I only have enough to take it a few times and I'm not expecting to get more before it supposedly drops off the market. The fact that it does require such a high dose is a bit of a downer particularly for that reason. I wouldn't mind it if it was cheap and plentiful in a perfect world though, it certainly doesn't detract from the trip in any way.

ETH-LAD on the other hand I'm happy to say I have enough of to take at least as many times as I've taken LSD. This is the report for my first experience with it: A Fascinating Reintroduction. I thought it showed a lot of promise, but the dose of 100 ug was definitely too low for my tastes. I didn't really get much euphoria from it and as a result the body load really weighed on me, but I did strongly suspect that a higher dose might make up for that, and especially now after having that fully satisfying trip on AL-LAD. I'm pretty excited about taking it to 200 ug, and beyond once I've worked my way up!

This is one of the things I'm starting to really like about some of these research chemical indoles actually, that they appear to be able to take you very deep into the rabbit hole even while not impairing your functioning all that much. I also had a feeling on the AL-LAD that I was so much more clearheaded than I would ever be while tripping that hard on LSD, but everything that went through my mind was still as crazy and cosmic and emotional as ever. I'm really looking forward to this quality in ETH-LAD especially now too, since I've heard that like you and others say it's very forgiving compared to LSD but heavier than AL-LAD. I also find this to be true about 4-HO-EPT compared to 4-HO-MPT and 4-AcO-DALT or 4-HO-DPT, respectively, and I feel pretty strongly about those structure-activity relationships, so I've got high hopes....

I think a combination of all three would be great too, I might have to use a couple of my hits of AL-LAD for that lol. Seems like it could be pretty nuts, I can only imagine how they would all interact.... I really wish I had some ALD-52 to work with too, because I'd like to also test it against my LSD expectations and find out what kind of dosages I'm really used to. I was definitely surprised by how strong these both were at 100 ug and 300 ug each, but it wasn't too far off what I'd expect from LSD.

I can actually relate to those unusual visuals too. When I was on the AL-LAD taking a bath I had my laptop with YouTube up and my glasses were off so things were extra blurry, and I kept being convinced I was seeing really erotic pictures go by on the screen, but when I would squint and look closer there often weren't even really people there. I actually get a version of this on LSD as well that is far more vivid and colorful, but the imagery was less developed or realistic compared to the AL-LAD. The ETH-LAD on the other hand didn't make me trip hard enough to really get that, but what I did get was actually comparable both to LSD in vividness and color and to AL-LAD in detail and realism, so I'm pretty excited about the implications of that too! When I took that 100 ug of ETH-LAD I honestly felt that it had the potential to be the only thing that gives me visuals that I like even more than LSD, and so far taking the AL-LAD has just made me think that's even more likely now.

Good to hear that you felt so great in the end too, I definitely felt that way after my trip too and still have a pretty fantastic afterglow going strong today. Lysergamides are wonderful things.

 

[Solipsis]

I'm not sure if it is forgiving per se compared to LSD, but it is IMO when keeping in mind that it can be pretty persuasive and mindblowing - it seems about as forgiving as LSD netto, only a little more bruto. But that's nitpicking.

Yeah the hedonism yet worthiness of AL-LAD reminds me of 4-HO-MET but unfortunately I had an uncomfortable reaction to that when I revisited it not too long ago. Was more of a thorn in my balls than I ever really know lysergamides to be.

The spiral notes looked so pretty when I was tripping but it's quite a mess looking at it sober..

I read your report Kaleida, I follow yours closely but I likely did not reply since I am sure I read it on Erowid instead. Which is where I might submit this report after an addendum. While I think there are interesting differences between ETH-LAD, AL-LAD and LSD... I think that combining them doesn't sound appealing to me. It would likely end up a great trip but I doubt there is really added value to getting what I expect to be a more generic lysergamide sensation. With some 2C-X combinations i have the same opinion, though some 2C-X are unique enough to really make some exceptions.

I love lysergamides too! They are pretty much my go-to psychedelics now since a lot of the time I am not that interested anymore to explore other things. Though infrequently I expect to make an exception here and there... I'd like to just try ETH-LAD again next weekend though, 1P-LSD and ALD-52 can wait.

 

[Kaleida]

Makes sense. That's really what I'm thinking too.... I should clarify a bit when I talk about those structure-activity relationships. With 4-HO-EPT for instance, I find it to be less visual and overtly intense than 4-HO-MPT, but its visionary potential seems even greater and it was able to fully launch me into a strong ego loss experience at 100 mg, one which I wasn't quite prepared to make the most of but one that gave a taste of its extreme power nonetheless. However, while it didn't feel any less deep in a sense than 4-HO-MPT does in this way, it's worth noting that a dose that strong of 4-HO-MPT felt intoxicating to the point that it was like my mind was racing through a virtual neon candyland. On the other hand, on 4-HO-EPT I realized I was going through a powerful mind-bending experience, but was practically sober otherwise. 4-HO-DPT and 4-AcO-DALT then actually took this a step further even, feeling even more sober to the point that the trip is about practically nothing but hedonism and visions anymore, as opposed to the classical psychedelic thought patterns and childlike euphoria and all that, but those visions are still pretty powerful like 4-HO-EPT's. I haven't explored quite as much with the lysergamides yet, but so far this has remained true for me with them too.... ETH-LAD was less interesting visually than LSD at the same dose for me and also felt practically sober in comparison to the wild excitement of LSD, but it still felt no less deep while meditating, possibly even more deep, and the visionary potential was indeed also greater than LSD's. AL-LAD then also had very high visionary potential like ETH-LAD, though less interesting in my opinion (which is also true of 4-HO-EPT vs 4-HO-DPT and 4-AcO-DALT), but felt even more sober to the point of sacrificing most depth other than what I could contribute to it, again being mostly just about hedonism and visions. So, when I say I expect ETH-LAD to remain more forgiving than LSD, I pretty much mean it in this way where the depth overall is in no way sacrificed and is maybe even enhanced, but at least I don't think I'll be as delirious or risk blacking out as much as I have on high doses of LSD. And that's really something I'm coming to treasure more as of late... the psychedelic experiences that are truly deep and yet still functional and intellectual.

That is unfortunate about the 4-HO-MET, though you're not the first person I've heard say something like that. It does make me feel a bit more cautious about it.... I've really loved 4-HO-MET so far, but I do tend to think it feels kind of shallow too. AL-LAD seems like it might hold up better emotionally in the long-term as a hedonistic psychedelic, though admittedly I still find the visuals of 4-HO-MET much more beautiful. There is something to be said about the lack of the lysergamide push too, sometimes it's nice to have a more relaxing flavor of extreme hedonism.

Haha, I think there's still a beauty to them. It may be a little scratchy, but you can tell there's an organization to it... maybe not intentionally, but significantly more than just random. It's easy to see the whole thing as a picture if you so choose.

Didn't you say "perhaps equal parts ETH-LAD, LSD, and AL-LAD"? I think the combination could pretty cool, but it still would mostly be a novelty to me I think. I don't think I've honestly ever had a psychedelic combination trip that I found useful on the level of just taking one psychedelic, but it does make for some crazy sensations sometimes. And I can't help but plan things out when I've got so many options.... I also think mushrooms + 4-HO-MET + 4-HO-DET + 4-HO-MPT + 4-HO-EPT + 4-HO-DPT could be pretty interesting for instance, hehe. But I probably won't end up actually following through on a lot of those ideas for various reasons.... The lysergamides actually scare me a little for one, being that they are ergot derivatives. Who's to say what weird pharmacological potentials could be unlocked by taking the right ones in the right combination?

And I think I'm starting to reach that sort of point too. I wouldn't say necessarily that it's just lysergamides that are my go-to, but I am similarly narrowing myself to select indoles that do tend to be generally the ones closer in structure or function to LSD. I unfortunately never got to work much with psychedelic phenethylamines and would gladly take quite a few of them still if given the option, particularly mescaline which I do still intend to seek out, but aside from that I've kind of made peace with it all and am just becoming happy to have found the group of drugs that seems to be the most perfect and satisfying for me, and as I work through my supply I expect that all but the best of those will be weeded out. It's odd to think about considering my old youthful desire to try every drug under the sun, but I really don't mind feeling so fulfilled.