epicurus519
Greenlighter
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2017
- Messages
- 2
I want to preface this by saying a few things about this trip - it was a few months ago, and the distance combined with memory loss from the drug itself has maybe altered the exact truth of the story. However, this is how I remember it and what I think now that I have had time to reflect on it.
This was my third acid trip, however fourth psychedelic as the first time I tried to trip I was given research chems, likely a N-BOMe or something similar. Before this trip I considered myself relatively well-versed on what I was in for, considering I had done the drug (in small amounts, 125ug and 100ug) and read many trip reports online. I was incorrect - I had only broke the surface. This was the first trip where I saw what LSD was truly like.
This spring, I made plans to visit New York City to see some friends (I really made the trip just to see one friend, a girl I?€™ve been in love with for awhile now, named P). I planned on tripping with her since we weren?€™t able to on my last visit, due to an unreliable dealer and lack of cash, but this time I made sure I was prepared - I ordered two 175 ug tabs of ?€™Shiva?€™ acid from the dark net and they were delivered to my house within two days. I made the flight to NYC with some nervousness about the drugs in my bag, but the foil package I put them in was obscurely hidden in my suitcase and it went through with no problems. When I landed in JFK, however, immediately I received a series of Snapchats from P detailing how she wasn't going to be able to make it to NYC during the time I was there because of lack of money and transportation. I decided to make the best of it, though. I called up an old friend who I attended film school with, J, (who I was told also dropped a lot of acid), and we made plans to take the tabs together, later that day, in the MoMa. J and I were not terribly close at film school, although we were certainly friendly and felt an emotional bond that existed between every suffering member of that class. I was comfortable tripping with him, at least, and we certainly would become closer by the end of the day.
So, I headed downtown with nothing except my phone, wallet, and the tabs. In retrospect I find it surprisingly brave that just dropped acid in downtown Manhattan with no plans to get home, but this was at a time where I was almost craving a crazy trip. I had taken those previous doses and had a satisfying trip the first time, although I smoked weed with it and it decreased my visuals a lot. The second time was not really enough to see anything, but after smoking a joint I was definitely mentally tripping. This time, I was adamant that I have a real trip. So J and I met up at a halal food cart and got some food before the long day ahead of us. We left the cart with our food in hand and ate the tabs on the street in front of the MoMa, looking for a place to sit and eat.
My first thought as the acid hit my tongue was, ?€œOh, shit.?€ The tab was bitter. It tasted different than the N-BOMe tasted (i.e. no tongue numbing), but I wasn?€™t convinced this was real acid. I texted a friend who was more experienced in tripping, who also happened to be tripping that day. He reassured me and reminded me that we still had fun when we did the N-BOMes. So, I resolved to make the most of my trip, much like I had resolved to make the most of my NYC trip. J and I ate our food quickly and entered the MoMa.
The second we stepped inside, we looked at each other, both wondering if the other was feeling it. It had only been 15 minutes, but the familiar fluttering was already starting in my body, each breath feeling better than the last. A sense of nervousness agitated the spicy halal in my stomach and I began hoping that I wouldn?€™t need to vomit in the MoMa. We each bought tickets, although his was free as he went to NYU, and we crossed the dividers, the security guards waving us through. Once more unto the breach.
J suggested we start at the top floor and work our way down. This seemed agreeable to me, figuring if we made our way closer to the exit as we started to trip harder, it would be easier to get out. We reached the top of the highest escalator and I was starting to feel it. We walked into the exhibit and began to walk around, although I could not tell you what I was looking at - I forgot it the second I saw it. No visuals yet but the body high was beginning, and I often found it hard to not burst into laughter. We entered a dark room that was showing three separate videos on three screens. I was comfortable in the dark as nobody could see me laughing to myself, but after a certain amount of time (maybe seconds, maybe hours) we decided to leave.
This was when I started what I would call tripping. As we exited that specific exhibit I couldn?€™t look the security guard in the eye, purposefully turning my head away to look at something as I passed by. We went down a floor, maybe two, and entered a room with a few large, abstract paintings.
Now, if you?€™ve tripped before, you know what it?€™s like to see new things - or at least, you might understand what I was feeling. I walked into the exhibit, pretending to look interested in the paintings but not really seeing them at all. This room, for some reason, was much more crowded than the last, and that really gave me some paranoia. I?€™ve tripped around people before, and have been high around people too many times to count, but this was something else. The smallness of the room combined with the people was suffocating. My stomach started to turn, the spicy food amplifying the effect. My sense of awareness of objects around me began to warp - I began stopping well before I needed to to avoid running into people, I would accidentally back into someone trying to walk, and was just generally disoriented, as I had never visited the MoMa before. My anxiousness began to escalate so I sat down in front of a large, landscape oriented abstract piece and stared, trying to look normal. I breathed and body waves pulled my body into the trip. The lines formed into tentacles and started to breathe, reaching toward me, encircling my vision and enveloping the rest of the painting.
I shook my head and turned away, realizing that I hadn?€™t seen J in what felt like hours, although it might have just been five minutes. I finally saw him at the corner of what had become a larger room than it was a few seconds before. I walked up to him, giving him a head nod. He whispered - or shouted - ?€œDid you see the Pollock??€. I turned and realized that the painting I had been staring at was a Jackson Pollock. That stirred some recognition in my forgetful, LSD-addled mind. I realized that the whole exhibit had famous paintings.
I began to walk, seeing Dali?€™s The Persistence of Memory on one wall. I turned my head to avoid the gaze of another security guard as I entered another room. There, I found a Picasso, the painting of the three men playing instruments. The shape of their bodies warped, and I stared at it intently along with the group of German tourists next to me. I moved onto the next room, then the next, all of them blurring together as I attempted to seem like a run-of-the-mill museum-goer who wasn?€™t tripping balls 45 minutes after he dropped acid. Distortions formed like lenses in my vision, distorting things differently depending on how I turned my head. This entertained me for a bit. I kept walking around, and around, until eventually I found myself back in the Pollock room. I remembered that I was at the MoMa, here to see some paintings while I trip. I also remembered I had come with someone, J, who was nowhere to be found. I ventured off into the maze of rooms, looking for him.
After a long period of searching, I found him moving among a crowd. We talked briefly about our individual crazy experiences thus far, and decided to keep moving through the MoMa. We left and I sat on a bench, trying to work my phone while he used the bathroom. The keyboard was wavy and moved as my fingers got closer to each key, the light from the iPhone seemingly filtered through a prism, there were so many beautiful colors. I was too distracted to notice exactly what I was doing on my phone, but that was all right seeing as J walked out in the next instant.
Next, we went down the escalator. We reached the next floor, and without thinking, I turned right to continue down. I only realized my mistake as I looked up and saw J looking at me, not coming down the escalator. This caused me a momentary period of panic in me - the only way I can describe it is like being separated from your mother in a grocery store. The best description of LSD I have ever read is that the drug puts you in a child-like state of mind, in which small things can affect you greatly, and I whole-heartedly agree with that description. My heart stopped as I went down the escalator, my brain trying to remember how I could get back upstairs to my friend. For a few harrowing seconds I was alone, trying to navigate to the escalator fifteen feet away, trying to look sane. I made it back up, still shaken by the slight trauma that incident caused. We went into another exhibit, and another, each one containing all new anecdotes and feelings.
Eventually, J and I decided to leave. We weren?€™t really looking at the art anymore, and I was tripping too hard to even be near a security guard. To this day, I have no idea if I was normal or if I looked crazy. Either way, we made it out without too much trouble and then was left with what seemed like the eternal question: what to do? We decided on Central Park because ?€œthat?€™s what everyone who trips in NYC does?€ according to J. To get there, however, we had to walk a few blocks. We set off in one direction, then turned around almost immediately because that was the wrong way. J was guiding us the whole time - I am in no way a seasoned New Yorker, I can barely figure out the streets sober, much less tripping ballsack at 2pm on a Sunday. Each block looked the same - as I walked I didn?€™t seem to be getting any closer to the next street. When it came time to cross, I had no concept of how far away the cars were or when to go, relying on J to get us across. My vision was still distorted, and rather than getting any sort of patterned or fractal visuals, specific colors took on more saturation and made everything look idyllic. Although it was daytime, one way to describe this walk was like the opening credits of the movie ?€œLimitless?€, in which there is a fractal zoom through the city. That was what my walk was like. That sequence still gives me acid flashbacks.
We made it to Central Park after all of our trials and tribulations and tried to decide where to walk. We eventually settled on a sloped rock looking out onto a small, grassy field. The longer I looked at it, the more overgrown it became. Through a hole in the trees, I could see a sign atop a skyscraper that read ?€œEssex House?€. I remember thinking that cluster of buildings was very quintessentially New York, and looking around, I felt a moment of peace. I laid down on the rock, gazing at the clouds, but as I became aware of all of the exciting sights and sounds, I tilted my head to look around with my body still horizontal. This was a strange position for sure, only made stranger by the intense stare I placed on everything. Some sort of group, a family perhaps, had a picnic on the lawn below. The man serving food was wearing a rainbow drug rug and had long braided hair. I remembered wondering if he was tripping, and how he could be as calm as he was if that was so. J pulled out a speaker and put on "Swimming Pools" by Kendrick Lamar, a throwback for sure, but I think he was having trouble working the music on his phone and that was the only option. We discussed in low voices how hard we were tripping and laughed about it, secretive in only the way people who are on drugs together can be. The sun shined, the leaves on the trees multiplied in my vision. All was nice until the song ended and I sat up, noticing that all of the leaves had turned into eyes, looking at me. This was around when I began to peak.
J and I wandered aimlessly for a bit. I checked my phone and tried to do some math. We had been tripping for around two hours at that point - it was 4:05 PM. The numbers danced on my lock screen as I tried to understand them. What I was experiencing was more than I had experienced before on acid - I think due to the quality and the increased dosage - and as a result, our journey through Central Park became mostly a blur for me. I will relate two anecdotes about our experience that I remember clearly, two of two thousand that occurred in the eternity that we spent in the park.
#1: We were trying to find a new spot to ?€œlook normal?€ in, when we noticed some bleachers. A man stood by the first row that was short enough to climb onto, dusting his cleats. J and I climbed them and sat down. This was the moment in which I peaked, I believe. Due to the quick onset of the acid, it occurred around 2 and a half hours into the trip, and remained that way until at least the third hour. While sitting on the bleachers, I watched what seemed like a baseball game and thought. My thoughts turned inward, like they tend to do when I trip, and it occurred to me that I had taken a drug. Yes, this seems obvious now, but for awhile I had forgotten that I was on LSD, the memory seemed so faint in my mind. So much had happened since then! The more I tried to remember what had happened leading up to that moment, the more I forgot. I barely remembered that I had visited the MoMa. This was happening to J too, I believe, as at some point he was verbally working out the sequence of the day?€™s events in his head and struggled to place exactly why we had met up and dropped acid in the first place. Eventually I felt like I had forgotten everything, my life, my girlfriend, at some points I couldn?€™t recall my own name. I came to realize that I couldn?€™t recognize reality around me, thinking that even if something crazy happened - maybe I freaked out and somehow ended up getting arrested or going to the hospital, I probably wouldn?€™t even recognize the situation as it was. This was frightening for a moment, but as I started to look around again, I realized the sun was shining, and as the people on the field threw a baseball to each other, trails echoed off into infinity behind it.
#2: At some point, either hours or minutes after the last episode, we decided to define our objectives, so we didn?€™t get caught in the LSD loop of wondering what was going on, remembering, then forgetting again. We decided that we were ?€œjust chilling, just two normal dudes chilling in Central Park?€. J?€™s voice was distorted as he said this and it made me laugh. We sat down under a random tree that I think was looking toward Central Drive. We discussed how interesting it was that humans are naturally attracted to society rather than isolation (there are exceptions of course, but as a whole). J?€™s way of phrasing it: ?€œWhy do all of these people, instead of living by themselves, choose to live together, in a city??€ We talked about how every person has the same amount of complexity that we do, and how mind-blowing that was to think about, considering we could see about 50 people in our vision. Or maybe we were just tripping. J pulled out his speaker again and played ?€œDrippin?€™?€ by Young Thug. In a moment of elation, I urged him to blast it, and we vibed hard to the aggression and the bass. The leaves on the tree above us kept multiplying, and I took another look at my phone. My girlfriend had texted me, just checking in on how my trip was going. Feeling bubbly, I texted back, verbatim, ?€œGoooooooood.?€ Then, ?€œCan?€™t see me phone sorry?€. She told me it was ok and that she loved me. I sent back. ?€œHahahaha I'm just sitting under this tree at Central Park. Love you too?€. This moment sobered me up. As I mentioned at the beginning, I had been in love with the girl I was supposed to be visiting for awhile now. I had also had a girlfriend for awhile now. You can see the conflict. I knew it was wrong, to date someone when I loved someone else, but the thing is, I could never be with the girl, P. She lived too far away and also had a boyfriend. So, I tried to fill the void with my girlfriend, who did a great job but it was never enough to fully distract me from P. Maybe that makes me a terrible person but I don?€™t really care. Maybe that?€™s why I took all of these random drugs, because I don?€™t care. Is it bad to not care? Just then, Drippin?€™ ended and J and I were faced with a whole afternoon left to trip balls.
Next, around hour 4 of the trip, J decided to call one of his friends, M, to see what he was doing. The phone call did not go smoothly, his disorientation and lack of a plan made the call last longer than it needed. When he hung up - we outlined the plan.
The Plan:
Step 1: Meet up with M.
Step 2: Go get food with M, who said he was hungry.
Step 3: Go back to the apartment I was renting, and chill out while we start to come down.
Step 1: Meet up with M.
J and I navigated out of Central Park well enough, I had no idea where we were going at any time but J seemed to be familiar with how to get out. As we walked, we almost chanted to ourselves, ?€œRemember - we gotta meet M?€, forcing ourselves not to forget an and stand him up because we were looking at a rock or something for an hour. We stood at East 62nd Street next to Central Park and waited. And waited. We talked about a lot while we were standing there, finally coming to grips with the trip and being able to control it a little better. Memory was still difficult but we could handle it. Looking at people who passed was still a struggle, however. After half an hour (or half a second), M showed up, loud and East Coast. He shook my hand, introducing himself. He seemed confused by our strange actions - we quickly made it clear that we were still tripping hard. He said not to worry - that we would find some food then head to my apartment. That brought us to step 2.
Step 2: Go get food with M, who said he was hungry.
We began to walk. M walked fast, difficult for my inebriated self. He talked at length, loudly, about LSD. I was nervous that someone would hear but I kept it together. At one point he stopped, and said ?€œThat must be some really good shit.?€ I agreed, realizing for the first time that I must not have taken N-BOMes. There was no way I would be getting so many visuals, so many vibrant colors, or such a distinctive body high. He asked me where I was from. I had to think about it for a minute before I answered. We eventually came to a large, crowded restaurant. The people eating outside had white napkins and steaks. M walked straight up to the door and J went to follow, but I stopped him. I said, ?€œShould we - should we go in there? I don?€™t really, and I bet you don?€™t either, want to be in a place that we can?€™t get out of fast if we start to bad trip.?€ He agreed. M seemed a little miffed but he understood and resolved to order barbecue to the apartment.
Step 3: Go back to the apartment I was renting, and chill out while we start to come down.
We hailed a taxi. As we were driving, I rolled down the window and looked out. Everything was so wonderful from the safety of the taxi. J and M chattered about different things, using non-specifics like ?€œsome of that?€ and ?€œwhat you?€™re doing?€ to refer to drugs. My daydreaming was broken by the driver asking what the address was. I had no idea, as I was only renting the place. Eventually, I gave him a street and we started to go there.
The taxi driver let us out at the street I told them. We got out and I didn?€™t recognize the apartment anywhere. We had to walk for a few minutes until we found the door, and I let them in, taking them to my encampment for the weekend. The second the door closed, J and I let out all of our breath. ?€œHoly shit. I can?€™t believe we made it.?€ We had been tripping without a moment of privacy for close to 6 hours now. I looked out of the window and started to trip out when I saw the tree outside. The apartment had a very nice view of the Brooklyn bridge and all of the brownstones between us and it. We sat down, and I put on a couple of Youtube videos I found trippy, and drank a glass of Coke. I barely tasted it.
Eventually, we got bored, M ate his barbecue, and J and I were coming down. We ventured outdoors to Central Park, but the part next to Spanish Harlem, where there were very few people. The sun began to set as we reflected on our day. We determined that the MoMa is a weird place to trip in. We determined that New York is a weird place to trip in. M said that the way you can tell if acid is good is if it makes you feel almost drunk. We determined that we got some really fucking good acid. We sat on a rock behind Conservatory Garden that looked over a bunch of buildings and talked for ages about different things, how nice it would be to just be a farmer, etc. M mentioned that Strawberry Fields is actually in Central Park. J and I couldn?€™t believe that we were tripping and didn?€™t go there. We ended the night by going back and watching Pulp Fiction. I walked them to the subway after an hour or so - they had to get back to where they were staying. J and I said goodbye, short in the way that men sometimes make them, but meaningful. I haven?€™t seen J since then.
I walked to McDonalds and got a burger. I ate half of it and threw it away - I wasn?€™t hungry and it tasted strange. I listened to a recording of Pink Floyd?€™s Comfortably Numb from 1988 at Nassau Coliseum and lost myself in David Gilmour?€™s delay pedals. I played my guitar, drew in a notebook that I have started to draw in while I?€™m tripping, and listened to Beatles songs, hearing John Lennon sing ?€œI am he as you are he as you are we and we are all together?€ on a loop in my brain as I drifted off to sleep, awash in the afterglow of my experience.
This may sound pretentious, or maybe retroactively adding a moral to the story, or any other storytelling ?€œdon?€™t?€, but one thing I think about a lot after I thought about it on that trip is a poem that Jimi Hendrix wrote the night that he died. I?€™ll spare you the whole poem but here is the last verse.
The story of life is quicker
Than the wink of an eye
The story of love is hello and goodbye
Until we meet again.
Tagged by Xorkoth
substancecode_lsd
substancecode_lysergamides
explevel_experienced
exptype_positive
exptype_glowing
roacode_sublingual
This was my third acid trip, however fourth psychedelic as the first time I tried to trip I was given research chems, likely a N-BOMe or something similar. Before this trip I considered myself relatively well-versed on what I was in for, considering I had done the drug (in small amounts, 125ug and 100ug) and read many trip reports online. I was incorrect - I had only broke the surface. This was the first trip where I saw what LSD was truly like.
This spring, I made plans to visit New York City to see some friends (I really made the trip just to see one friend, a girl I?€™ve been in love with for awhile now, named P). I planned on tripping with her since we weren?€™t able to on my last visit, due to an unreliable dealer and lack of cash, but this time I made sure I was prepared - I ordered two 175 ug tabs of ?€™Shiva?€™ acid from the dark net and they were delivered to my house within two days. I made the flight to NYC with some nervousness about the drugs in my bag, but the foil package I put them in was obscurely hidden in my suitcase and it went through with no problems. When I landed in JFK, however, immediately I received a series of Snapchats from P detailing how she wasn't going to be able to make it to NYC during the time I was there because of lack of money and transportation. I decided to make the best of it, though. I called up an old friend who I attended film school with, J, (who I was told also dropped a lot of acid), and we made plans to take the tabs together, later that day, in the MoMa. J and I were not terribly close at film school, although we were certainly friendly and felt an emotional bond that existed between every suffering member of that class. I was comfortable tripping with him, at least, and we certainly would become closer by the end of the day.
So, I headed downtown with nothing except my phone, wallet, and the tabs. In retrospect I find it surprisingly brave that just dropped acid in downtown Manhattan with no plans to get home, but this was at a time where I was almost craving a crazy trip. I had taken those previous doses and had a satisfying trip the first time, although I smoked weed with it and it decreased my visuals a lot. The second time was not really enough to see anything, but after smoking a joint I was definitely mentally tripping. This time, I was adamant that I have a real trip. So J and I met up at a halal food cart and got some food before the long day ahead of us. We left the cart with our food in hand and ate the tabs on the street in front of the MoMa, looking for a place to sit and eat.
My first thought as the acid hit my tongue was, ?€œOh, shit.?€ The tab was bitter. It tasted different than the N-BOMe tasted (i.e. no tongue numbing), but I wasn?€™t convinced this was real acid. I texted a friend who was more experienced in tripping, who also happened to be tripping that day. He reassured me and reminded me that we still had fun when we did the N-BOMes. So, I resolved to make the most of my trip, much like I had resolved to make the most of my NYC trip. J and I ate our food quickly and entered the MoMa.
The second we stepped inside, we looked at each other, both wondering if the other was feeling it. It had only been 15 minutes, but the familiar fluttering was already starting in my body, each breath feeling better than the last. A sense of nervousness agitated the spicy halal in my stomach and I began hoping that I wouldn?€™t need to vomit in the MoMa. We each bought tickets, although his was free as he went to NYU, and we crossed the dividers, the security guards waving us through. Once more unto the breach.
J suggested we start at the top floor and work our way down. This seemed agreeable to me, figuring if we made our way closer to the exit as we started to trip harder, it would be easier to get out. We reached the top of the highest escalator and I was starting to feel it. We walked into the exhibit and began to walk around, although I could not tell you what I was looking at - I forgot it the second I saw it. No visuals yet but the body high was beginning, and I often found it hard to not burst into laughter. We entered a dark room that was showing three separate videos on three screens. I was comfortable in the dark as nobody could see me laughing to myself, but after a certain amount of time (maybe seconds, maybe hours) we decided to leave.
This was when I started what I would call tripping. As we exited that specific exhibit I couldn?€™t look the security guard in the eye, purposefully turning my head away to look at something as I passed by. We went down a floor, maybe two, and entered a room with a few large, abstract paintings.
Now, if you?€™ve tripped before, you know what it?€™s like to see new things - or at least, you might understand what I was feeling. I walked into the exhibit, pretending to look interested in the paintings but not really seeing them at all. This room, for some reason, was much more crowded than the last, and that really gave me some paranoia. I?€™ve tripped around people before, and have been high around people too many times to count, but this was something else. The smallness of the room combined with the people was suffocating. My stomach started to turn, the spicy food amplifying the effect. My sense of awareness of objects around me began to warp - I began stopping well before I needed to to avoid running into people, I would accidentally back into someone trying to walk, and was just generally disoriented, as I had never visited the MoMa before. My anxiousness began to escalate so I sat down in front of a large, landscape oriented abstract piece and stared, trying to look normal. I breathed and body waves pulled my body into the trip. The lines formed into tentacles and started to breathe, reaching toward me, encircling my vision and enveloping the rest of the painting.
I shook my head and turned away, realizing that I hadn?€™t seen J in what felt like hours, although it might have just been five minutes. I finally saw him at the corner of what had become a larger room than it was a few seconds before. I walked up to him, giving him a head nod. He whispered - or shouted - ?€œDid you see the Pollock??€. I turned and realized that the painting I had been staring at was a Jackson Pollock. That stirred some recognition in my forgetful, LSD-addled mind. I realized that the whole exhibit had famous paintings.
I began to walk, seeing Dali?€™s The Persistence of Memory on one wall. I turned my head to avoid the gaze of another security guard as I entered another room. There, I found a Picasso, the painting of the three men playing instruments. The shape of their bodies warped, and I stared at it intently along with the group of German tourists next to me. I moved onto the next room, then the next, all of them blurring together as I attempted to seem like a run-of-the-mill museum-goer who wasn?€™t tripping balls 45 minutes after he dropped acid. Distortions formed like lenses in my vision, distorting things differently depending on how I turned my head. This entertained me for a bit. I kept walking around, and around, until eventually I found myself back in the Pollock room. I remembered that I was at the MoMa, here to see some paintings while I trip. I also remembered I had come with someone, J, who was nowhere to be found. I ventured off into the maze of rooms, looking for him.
After a long period of searching, I found him moving among a crowd. We talked briefly about our individual crazy experiences thus far, and decided to keep moving through the MoMa. We left and I sat on a bench, trying to work my phone while he used the bathroom. The keyboard was wavy and moved as my fingers got closer to each key, the light from the iPhone seemingly filtered through a prism, there were so many beautiful colors. I was too distracted to notice exactly what I was doing on my phone, but that was all right seeing as J walked out in the next instant.
Next, we went down the escalator. We reached the next floor, and without thinking, I turned right to continue down. I only realized my mistake as I looked up and saw J looking at me, not coming down the escalator. This caused me a momentary period of panic in me - the only way I can describe it is like being separated from your mother in a grocery store. The best description of LSD I have ever read is that the drug puts you in a child-like state of mind, in which small things can affect you greatly, and I whole-heartedly agree with that description. My heart stopped as I went down the escalator, my brain trying to remember how I could get back upstairs to my friend. For a few harrowing seconds I was alone, trying to navigate to the escalator fifteen feet away, trying to look sane. I made it back up, still shaken by the slight trauma that incident caused. We went into another exhibit, and another, each one containing all new anecdotes and feelings.
Eventually, J and I decided to leave. We weren?€™t really looking at the art anymore, and I was tripping too hard to even be near a security guard. To this day, I have no idea if I was normal or if I looked crazy. Either way, we made it out without too much trouble and then was left with what seemed like the eternal question: what to do? We decided on Central Park because ?€œthat?€™s what everyone who trips in NYC does?€ according to J. To get there, however, we had to walk a few blocks. We set off in one direction, then turned around almost immediately because that was the wrong way. J was guiding us the whole time - I am in no way a seasoned New Yorker, I can barely figure out the streets sober, much less tripping ballsack at 2pm on a Sunday. Each block looked the same - as I walked I didn?€™t seem to be getting any closer to the next street. When it came time to cross, I had no concept of how far away the cars were or when to go, relying on J to get us across. My vision was still distorted, and rather than getting any sort of patterned or fractal visuals, specific colors took on more saturation and made everything look idyllic. Although it was daytime, one way to describe this walk was like the opening credits of the movie ?€œLimitless?€, in which there is a fractal zoom through the city. That was what my walk was like. That sequence still gives me acid flashbacks.
We made it to Central Park after all of our trials and tribulations and tried to decide where to walk. We eventually settled on a sloped rock looking out onto a small, grassy field. The longer I looked at it, the more overgrown it became. Through a hole in the trees, I could see a sign atop a skyscraper that read ?€œEssex House?€. I remember thinking that cluster of buildings was very quintessentially New York, and looking around, I felt a moment of peace. I laid down on the rock, gazing at the clouds, but as I became aware of all of the exciting sights and sounds, I tilted my head to look around with my body still horizontal. This was a strange position for sure, only made stranger by the intense stare I placed on everything. Some sort of group, a family perhaps, had a picnic on the lawn below. The man serving food was wearing a rainbow drug rug and had long braided hair. I remembered wondering if he was tripping, and how he could be as calm as he was if that was so. J pulled out a speaker and put on "Swimming Pools" by Kendrick Lamar, a throwback for sure, but I think he was having trouble working the music on his phone and that was the only option. We discussed in low voices how hard we were tripping and laughed about it, secretive in only the way people who are on drugs together can be. The sun shined, the leaves on the trees multiplied in my vision. All was nice until the song ended and I sat up, noticing that all of the leaves had turned into eyes, looking at me. This was around when I began to peak.
J and I wandered aimlessly for a bit. I checked my phone and tried to do some math. We had been tripping for around two hours at that point - it was 4:05 PM. The numbers danced on my lock screen as I tried to understand them. What I was experiencing was more than I had experienced before on acid - I think due to the quality and the increased dosage - and as a result, our journey through Central Park became mostly a blur for me. I will relate two anecdotes about our experience that I remember clearly, two of two thousand that occurred in the eternity that we spent in the park.
#1: We were trying to find a new spot to ?€œlook normal?€ in, when we noticed some bleachers. A man stood by the first row that was short enough to climb onto, dusting his cleats. J and I climbed them and sat down. This was the moment in which I peaked, I believe. Due to the quick onset of the acid, it occurred around 2 and a half hours into the trip, and remained that way until at least the third hour. While sitting on the bleachers, I watched what seemed like a baseball game and thought. My thoughts turned inward, like they tend to do when I trip, and it occurred to me that I had taken a drug. Yes, this seems obvious now, but for awhile I had forgotten that I was on LSD, the memory seemed so faint in my mind. So much had happened since then! The more I tried to remember what had happened leading up to that moment, the more I forgot. I barely remembered that I had visited the MoMa. This was happening to J too, I believe, as at some point he was verbally working out the sequence of the day?€™s events in his head and struggled to place exactly why we had met up and dropped acid in the first place. Eventually I felt like I had forgotten everything, my life, my girlfriend, at some points I couldn?€™t recall my own name. I came to realize that I couldn?€™t recognize reality around me, thinking that even if something crazy happened - maybe I freaked out and somehow ended up getting arrested or going to the hospital, I probably wouldn?€™t even recognize the situation as it was. This was frightening for a moment, but as I started to look around again, I realized the sun was shining, and as the people on the field threw a baseball to each other, trails echoed off into infinity behind it.
#2: At some point, either hours or minutes after the last episode, we decided to define our objectives, so we didn?€™t get caught in the LSD loop of wondering what was going on, remembering, then forgetting again. We decided that we were ?€œjust chilling, just two normal dudes chilling in Central Park?€. J?€™s voice was distorted as he said this and it made me laugh. We sat down under a random tree that I think was looking toward Central Drive. We discussed how interesting it was that humans are naturally attracted to society rather than isolation (there are exceptions of course, but as a whole). J?€™s way of phrasing it: ?€œWhy do all of these people, instead of living by themselves, choose to live together, in a city??€ We talked about how every person has the same amount of complexity that we do, and how mind-blowing that was to think about, considering we could see about 50 people in our vision. Or maybe we were just tripping. J pulled out his speaker again and played ?€œDrippin?€™?€ by Young Thug. In a moment of elation, I urged him to blast it, and we vibed hard to the aggression and the bass. The leaves on the tree above us kept multiplying, and I took another look at my phone. My girlfriend had texted me, just checking in on how my trip was going. Feeling bubbly, I texted back, verbatim, ?€œGoooooooood.?€ Then, ?€œCan?€™t see me phone sorry?€. She told me it was ok and that she loved me. I sent back. ?€œHahahaha I'm just sitting under this tree at Central Park. Love you too?€. This moment sobered me up. As I mentioned at the beginning, I had been in love with the girl I was supposed to be visiting for awhile now. I had also had a girlfriend for awhile now. You can see the conflict. I knew it was wrong, to date someone when I loved someone else, but the thing is, I could never be with the girl, P. She lived too far away and also had a boyfriend. So, I tried to fill the void with my girlfriend, who did a great job but it was never enough to fully distract me from P. Maybe that makes me a terrible person but I don?€™t really care. Maybe that?€™s why I took all of these random drugs, because I don?€™t care. Is it bad to not care? Just then, Drippin?€™ ended and J and I were faced with a whole afternoon left to trip balls.
Next, around hour 4 of the trip, J decided to call one of his friends, M, to see what he was doing. The phone call did not go smoothly, his disorientation and lack of a plan made the call last longer than it needed. When he hung up - we outlined the plan.
The Plan:
Step 1: Meet up with M.
Step 2: Go get food with M, who said he was hungry.
Step 3: Go back to the apartment I was renting, and chill out while we start to come down.
Step 1: Meet up with M.
J and I navigated out of Central Park well enough, I had no idea where we were going at any time but J seemed to be familiar with how to get out. As we walked, we almost chanted to ourselves, ?€œRemember - we gotta meet M?€, forcing ourselves not to forget an and stand him up because we were looking at a rock or something for an hour. We stood at East 62nd Street next to Central Park and waited. And waited. We talked about a lot while we were standing there, finally coming to grips with the trip and being able to control it a little better. Memory was still difficult but we could handle it. Looking at people who passed was still a struggle, however. After half an hour (or half a second), M showed up, loud and East Coast. He shook my hand, introducing himself. He seemed confused by our strange actions - we quickly made it clear that we were still tripping hard. He said not to worry - that we would find some food then head to my apartment. That brought us to step 2.
Step 2: Go get food with M, who said he was hungry.
We began to walk. M walked fast, difficult for my inebriated self. He talked at length, loudly, about LSD. I was nervous that someone would hear but I kept it together. At one point he stopped, and said ?€œThat must be some really good shit.?€ I agreed, realizing for the first time that I must not have taken N-BOMes. There was no way I would be getting so many visuals, so many vibrant colors, or such a distinctive body high. He asked me where I was from. I had to think about it for a minute before I answered. We eventually came to a large, crowded restaurant. The people eating outside had white napkins and steaks. M walked straight up to the door and J went to follow, but I stopped him. I said, ?€œShould we - should we go in there? I don?€™t really, and I bet you don?€™t either, want to be in a place that we can?€™t get out of fast if we start to bad trip.?€ He agreed. M seemed a little miffed but he understood and resolved to order barbecue to the apartment.
Step 3: Go back to the apartment I was renting, and chill out while we start to come down.
We hailed a taxi. As we were driving, I rolled down the window and looked out. Everything was so wonderful from the safety of the taxi. J and M chattered about different things, using non-specifics like ?€œsome of that?€ and ?€œwhat you?€™re doing?€ to refer to drugs. My daydreaming was broken by the driver asking what the address was. I had no idea, as I was only renting the place. Eventually, I gave him a street and we started to go there.
The taxi driver let us out at the street I told them. We got out and I didn?€™t recognize the apartment anywhere. We had to walk for a few minutes until we found the door, and I let them in, taking them to my encampment for the weekend. The second the door closed, J and I let out all of our breath. ?€œHoly shit. I can?€™t believe we made it.?€ We had been tripping without a moment of privacy for close to 6 hours now. I looked out of the window and started to trip out when I saw the tree outside. The apartment had a very nice view of the Brooklyn bridge and all of the brownstones between us and it. We sat down, and I put on a couple of Youtube videos I found trippy, and drank a glass of Coke. I barely tasted it.
Eventually, we got bored, M ate his barbecue, and J and I were coming down. We ventured outdoors to Central Park, but the part next to Spanish Harlem, where there were very few people. The sun began to set as we reflected on our day. We determined that the MoMa is a weird place to trip in. We determined that New York is a weird place to trip in. M said that the way you can tell if acid is good is if it makes you feel almost drunk. We determined that we got some really fucking good acid. We sat on a rock behind Conservatory Garden that looked over a bunch of buildings and talked for ages about different things, how nice it would be to just be a farmer, etc. M mentioned that Strawberry Fields is actually in Central Park. J and I couldn?€™t believe that we were tripping and didn?€™t go there. We ended the night by going back and watching Pulp Fiction. I walked them to the subway after an hour or so - they had to get back to where they were staying. J and I said goodbye, short in the way that men sometimes make them, but meaningful. I haven?€™t seen J since then.
I walked to McDonalds and got a burger. I ate half of it and threw it away - I wasn?€™t hungry and it tasted strange. I listened to a recording of Pink Floyd?€™s Comfortably Numb from 1988 at Nassau Coliseum and lost myself in David Gilmour?€™s delay pedals. I played my guitar, drew in a notebook that I have started to draw in while I?€™m tripping, and listened to Beatles songs, hearing John Lennon sing ?€œI am he as you are he as you are we and we are all together?€ on a loop in my brain as I drifted off to sleep, awash in the afterglow of my experience.
This may sound pretentious, or maybe retroactively adding a moral to the story, or any other storytelling ?€œdon?€™t?€, but one thing I think about a lot after I thought about it on that trip is a poem that Jimi Hendrix wrote the night that he died. I?€™ll spare you the whole poem but here is the last verse.
The story of life is quicker
Than the wink of an eye
The story of love is hello and goodbye
Until we meet again.
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I got chills reading the Jimi poem excerpt at the end... did he really write that the night he died? If so, whoa.