Effects of acid on your mind

[cassetoi]

LSD first timer question...

This coming spring, I plan on taking acid for the first time (just one tab) with 2 or 3 good friends of mine. I've established what I think will be a magnificent setting - outdoors in the woods, and by some fields, a river and beautiful mountain views (gotta love upstate NY ).

I'm really excited about it, however I realized I don't quite know what to expect mentally... it's kind of hard to explain without seeming really vague but I realized I'm not quite sure of what to expect in terms of the effects LSD has on your thoughts and state of mind. What I'm hoping for in a trip (never tripped on psychedelics before) is a happy, free, mystical, wonderland-like quality... I'd like to gain some new insights on everything that is going on in my life, see the beauty of the world magnified, see some trippy visuals, and achieve some personal growth. A lot of people stress the value of the "mental trip" being more important than the visual trip, but I don't quite understand what exactly that mental trip includes. For instance, what types of thoughts might come to mind? Maybe some examples of others' thoughts or insights might be helpful. Of course each trip is very personal, and I won't truly know until I've tried it, but I'd still like to hear some opinions.

Again, sorry if this sounds too vague, but hopefully someone will understand what I'm asking.

 

[TheAppleCore]

Honestly, I'm going to have to tell you not to believe anything anyone says about the effects of LSD. Including me. :D I read countless trip reports before I did it -- my preconception of it was WAY off.

For me, I'd say that it's a deeply cleansing experience, washing away any negative or conflicting or self-deluding thoughts and desires, and leaving a very pure perception of your own life and aspirations, and a powerful connection to the beauty of the here and now -- whether that's the beauty of nature, music, artwork, or even your own body.

This is a broad generalization -- effects can range from a sickening, flu-like experience to religious ecstasy, IME. I have never experienced anything traumatizing by any means...

 

[sekio]

Sounds like acid is for you

 

[TheAppleCore]

^ I agree.

 

[readthenewsohboy]

For many people the internal monologue is what constitutes thought. Be prepared to blow that concept wide open. Thinking isn't about linguistic syllogisms, it's about *being*. In my experience if you aren't comfortable being, then you aren't going to be comfortable with LSD. But if you're read to be in the moment without distractions, without plans, without thoughts, and experience the miracles that are existence and change then you are going to have an amazing ride.

 

[skatr0830]

^^ Beautifully stated

 

[Sentience]

No matter what anybody says, nothing will truly prepare you.....but just remember, acid is non-toxic at recreational levels. You are perfectly safe as long as you dont do anything stupid, like drive.....I drove once during the comedown, but I had habituated to it and learned to function in that state. When you first enter a strange new state you will feel like a newborn, like you might forget how to talk but you will relearn how to operate in an altered state and you can have some very profound interpersonal experiences.

When you take a psychedelic, you COULD just giggle and have a good time and maybe see colors and trials, but you also have the potential for your conscious and subconscious to merge.....you wont be able to hide ANYTHING from yourself.

All these subconscious ideas and judgments will become impossible to suppress, and you just have to accept it as there is nowhere to hide. This can also be a beautiful experience. Dreams, visions at high doses, vivid daydream experiences, colors, increased tactile sensation, possible euphoria, everything is lucid and glowing and animated and alive.

Acid is great fun, and potentially more than that.

 

[cassetoi]

For many people the internal monologue is what constitutes thought. Be prepared to blow that concept wide open.

Very very interesting. I hadn't thought about thinking on acid in ways other than the inner monologue... I just expected those inner thoughts to go into hyperdrive and reveal new ideas and perceptions.

 

[she phoenix]

^^
I thought that too, I suppose because when I'm on other hallucinogens (have not tried acid yet) I come up, start the intense inner monologue and don't stop till after the comedown. Sometimes it it's cathartic, beautiful, comforting but sometimes it's just a ball ache, just wanting to be able to be quiet and relaxed.

 

[PriestTheyCalledHim]

Nothing that you read about on here/on erowid, or what people write about acid here or tell you about LSD is going to really explain to you what tripping on LSD is like.

It's different for everyone some people like myself have very spiritual trips full of heavy visuals, ego death, and losing the ability to comprehend hearing/language and some do not see any visuals at all or just see minor ones and reality gets altered some or is off some but it's not a heavy trip for them.

Really it's something that you have to experience for yourself.

Make sure that you are in a good state of mind while you're on acid, you're not driving, and be prepared to have an experience that lasts for at least 12 hours.

 

[PandaGun]

I found LSD not to be very spiritual the first time I took it, most of the time I was pretty much thinking 'WHAT THE FUCK is happening'. There is pretty much no way you can understand what it does to you untill you try it. To put it in words, you can feel your mind being kicked in a corner repeatedly, not saying this is a bad experience at all.
Coming off of it can be quite 'cleansing' in a way and you feel like you are at peace with the drug and yourself. However this is how I feel in my trips nowadays. Expect to start getting fairly scared whilst coming off of it. The 'surface patterns' start to scare you and you feel like you really want to associate yourself with something sober. This can be someone completely wasted on anything BUT acid. You also may question if it is ever going to end. It will end, I promise!
Overall though you will thoroughly enjoy it and it's 'magic' so to speak.

 

[abstrakt]

To put it in words, you can feel your mind being kicked in a corner repeatedly, not saying this is a bad experience at all.
Coming off of it can be quite 'cleansing' in a way and you feel like you are at peace with the drug and yourself. However this is how I feel in my trips nowadays. Expect to start getting fairly scared whilst coming off of it. The 'surface patterns' start to scare you and you feel like you really want to associate yourself with something sober. This can be someone completely wasted on anything BUT acid. You also may question if it is ever going to end. It will end, I promise!
Overall though you will thoroughly enjoy it and it's 'magic' so to speak.

A lot of what you just said is not blanket truth about LSD. Most of it is obviously pulled from your personal, subjective, LSD experiences. This is fine, but the expectations you are recommending, I disagree with completely and have not felt the same way. The point is, every LSD trip is different, and every person is different. The only thing I agree with is the cleansed feeling.

To the OP: Don't read too much. Educate yourself, but don't build too many expectations. It sounds like you have a great plan for where to do it and who to do it with. Just be willing to let go and be. Expectations gained from other people's subjective experiences will only clutter -your- experience, which is personal.

I know you want to understand what it does to your mental process, but you really just have to experience it for yourself. All I'll say is that it has the power to give you a lot of depth in your thought, and even power to take you beyond "you " thinking - don't worry about that (loss of self/ego) on one hit though. It'll be beautiful, and your thoughts will be deep and productive. Good Vibes %)

 

[cassetoi]

To the OP: Don't read too much. Educate yourself, but don't build too many expectations. It sounds like you have a great plan for where to do it and who to do it with. Just be willing to let go and be. Expectations gained from other people's subjective experiences will only clutter -your- experience, which is personal.

I know you want to understand what it does to your mental process, but you really just have to experience it for yourself.

Word. I think this is some pretty sound advice. I'm excited about it so I wanna learn more and more but you're right - reading too much is only gonna clutter the first time. Time to chill out and once it's time to dose, I'll be ready to go wherever Lucy decides to take me %)

 

[Psychedelic_Lover]

I've found that lsd, like most mind altering substances, starts off treating you very well. The first many trips for me and most people I know were filled with nice visuals, hilarious distortions and and overall good time. As I repeatedly induldged the experiences started turning more philosophical and introspective and eventually led to a very intense "bad trip" type of experience which in reality was the most eye opening spiritual experience of my life. These "bad trips" which were, at the time frightening, have changed my life forever in a positive nature as I feel lsd stripped away the blanket that is over our heads for the majority of our lives...

It's odd though because I recall the trips as being bad trips because of their intensity, not because of actual horrifying things that I experienced. I've personally never seen anything really demented and crazy happen while I was tripping, instead I've seen everything so inter-connected with itself that I felt that the world was one beating heart of existance, one unit which we were all part of.. connected together in a manner that could only be understood in a quasi-religious manner. It has changed my life forever and because of these experiences I have found my life's passion in philosophy, which I am now studying in college.

So in reflection I would say lsd is a wonderful tool to isolate your thoughts and bring them about in your surroundings. When I wanted to have fun, it was fun, when I wanted to know, it showed, when I wanted to change, it showed me why, and when I wanted to stop it gave me a reason. Lsd for me was the greatest lover I've ever had. Now it's just waiting for her to show up again so we can experience each other... lol. Have a great trip it sounds like you are creating a wonderful setting, which will help lead to a great experience.

 

[CherryPoppinz]

subjective to the individual (their thoughts, experiences, and environment/setting)

 

[Spoken Word]

My first and only trip was magnificent. I had all the usual physical effects; giggles, euphoria, hallucinations, the clouds moving rapidly - environments breathing...all that. And also mental effects. Which for me was re-thinking reality. I thought about family, friends, the way i am with others...each thought took me to it's own reality and from there i analyzed it further, all in a matter of seconds. Almost like my brain was being scratched by a dj lol

But thinking and thinking created more euphoria so it was welcome. i cried tears of joy listening to certain Pink Floyd songs...it sounded like the first time i'd heard the song...the intense part lasted 5, 6 hours and then it died down. probably because i had to do something that called for a clear head but i was by no means, "sober." the whole expierence does last 10+ hours, remember that. plan accordingly.

for my next trip coming up in two weeks, hopefully. i plan to stay at my house, invite some friends and drop together. we have my surround sound, backyard, shower all at our disposal and i'm off the next day to recover. I can only HOPE it's HALF of what my first time was.

 

[jamaica0535]

You sound like your doing this for all the right reasons.

Eat 2, that may be the best advice i can give you here. In all likelihood, 1 would make you noticeably feel something, but get rocked with it.....

2 isn't exactly earth-shattering unless its some very special doses that would not be given to newbies, especially 2 of them.

Its nothing like what you would expect, people perceive the experience differently and quite frankly, no matter how many trip reports you read, what will happen to your brain will be like nothing you expected.

The experience itself in some kind of very broad descriptions.... The experience is birth, life, death, the universe and cosmos, feeling at one with everything. Ideas flow, strange thoughts worm out from your subconscious. Often times, thoughts race through your mind at great speeds. Art is wonderful, whatever your creative outlet is, try it on acid and watch it flow. if you draw or paint, have your tools. My outlet is performance art, I spin fire poi, and it is one of the highest forms of meditation i have found.

Its much more important to think about the psychological nature of the drug, you can imagine a curtain blowing in the wind with nothing there, things morphing and such. Expect also a lot of impossibly intricate patters form on some stuff, if your outside, stare into the trees and watch them fractal. Its aided by the fact that trees are sort of a natural fractal.

That's probably something you might see on DMT or like 15-20 hits of acid. But you can see crazy patterns in things.

In the daytime, expect much more color than you are used to.
At night, more stars than you have ever seen.... It is beautiful beyond measure, but so is kayaking across a lake under a purple and blue sky while the ripples in the water radiate with what looks to be electricity.

That being said, i have a personal affection for this one. I feel it honestly saved my life. My first trip was the happiest i ever felt, like the degree of my happiness was magnitudes upon magnitudes greater than anything i have ever felt. Give me everything i have ever wanted and it wouldn't have compared.... Think more along the lines of the collective joy of the universe being shot out of a cannon into my synapses. That night cured me of a depression that had been going on for years up until that night. I went from having hardly any reason to live, to cherishing every day as a gift and the knowledge that things get better, they really can.

Like i said, you are doing this for what seems to be ALL of the right reasons. Consider doing 2 your first time, even without previous experience... I don't recommend it to a lot of people but you have until spring for this. I say take 2 because you seem to know what you want out of this experience, and i think LSD has the potential to do what you want to do with it. If your a pretty mentally stable individual, good control over emotions and such, 2 won't be insane but it will probably put you in a much more open place for some of these things. And if your worried that pushing it a little farther might get out of hand, keep a xanax bar on hand... If things are not to your liking, pop half of the bar and chill... in 30 minutes you will be free of anxiety and still probably tripping. Eat a full one if you might want to try and sleep it off.

Also its just my personal opinion after having eaten a wide assortment of psychedelics over years is that its almost always preferable to do a little bit more than you probably should. As far as with most psychedelics, i would rather overshoot a dose than underdo it and feel underwhelmed. An exception would be something like DOB, know what its like to be given 10mg of DOB? You don't..... seriously... never do any more than 3.5mg of DOB if you do it at all.... 10mg is an overdose by more than twice..... 24 hours of pure amphetamine filled powerful psychedelic what the fuck is happening kind of hell.

Your mind becomes better at handling itself, or i think it does.... I never get anxiety on acid though.... I could do like 10 and walk around an arena music event amongst 20,000 people and be fine, it would be a little uncomfortable, but i wouldn't start screaming gibberish.....

Now an equivocal amount of mushrooms for that sort of effect, no way in hell would i be anywhere near an area..... I can't do shrooms in public, its kind of terrifying....

I feel that LSD has done great things for me. It is a powerful tool when used in the kind of context you describe, I have only seen a couple acid freakouts in my time, but all of those people at the special doses that i mentioned earlier. your hits will probably be 75-100ug hopefully. I feel comfortable in saying that the ones that caused the freak-outs were >500ug each. So imagine taking 5 average doses and then making them one single dose.... And then eating 2 of them. Now that is a beautiful experience....

Just let go, do not fight it because its a battle with your own mind and fighting it does nothing but make it more unpleasant for you. If you drop a little while after dark, just keep in mind that it will be over when the sun comes up... I find that day/night cycle is a little better than an actual clock... LSD makes time slow to a crawl.

You might close your eyes for what feels like hours, processing all of these thoughts and information, only to open them and look at the clock to see that 3 minutes have passed.

 

[n3ophy7e]

Consider doing 2 your first time, even without previous experience...

I personally do NOT recommend that a first-timer takes 2 tabs. There is absolutely no need for this. In my experience, from my friend's experiences, and from what I've read from other peoples' experiences, 1 tab of acid is perfectly fine for a first time. Some people I know have even taken 1/2 tab for their first time to just warm up to the experience. There is absolutely no need to take any more than 1 hit of acid for your first time.

 

[readthenewsohboy]

Any standard of how many tabs to take is meaningless. Have someone who's judgement you absolutely trust who has experience with the batch make the judgement.

 

[jamaica0535]

I personally do NOT recommend that a first-timer takes 2 tabs. There is absolutely no need for this. In my experience, from my friend's experiences, and from what I've read from other peoples' experiences, 1 tab of acid is perfectly fine for a first time. Some people I know have even taken 1/2 tab for their first time to just warm up to the experience. There is absolutely no need to take any more than 1 hit of acid for your first time.

Being around good people you know well in a quiet setting, with some xanax on hand just in-case. 1 tab is pretty astounding, and in all likelihood going to leave him feeling like it didn't live up to expectations.

Im not trying to downplay the power of this drug, im just saying, its far more of an enlightening experience when you are actually in for the experience. 1 will probably result in some light change in headspace, little more color, hallucinations if you really look for them.

2 hits of acid is not any kind of extreme amount, there have been no allergic reactions or anything to warrant taking half a hit. I would rather come back from a trip and be at a loss for words to describe what happened the night before than just kind of sit awake all night kind of gitty with that comeup that never comes feeling you get from dosing low.

If op himself does not have any mental disorders or family history of mental disorder with a xanax on hand just in case, i say that if your going to trip, you might as well trip at least at a mildly intense level.