Hi everyone. First time poster here.
So the Saturday before Christmas I decided to take two hits of acid that had recently come into my posession (blotters, not sure of the exact dose). I decided to take it alone, which made me a bit apprehensive at first since I'd only ever tripped when others were around. But after reading up on bluelight what other had to say about tripping alone, I decided to go ahead and do it.
I dropped at about 11 pm. The body highs kicked in within about 20 minutes, and by midnight I was having intense visual distortions. The trip was a little bumpy at first since I had to work through all the buried psychological stuff that was coming to the surface. This caused some bodily discomfort in the form of twisting and spasms concentrated especially around the stomach area. Fortunately, I knew that this was to be expected and didn’t allow it take me to a bad place. (This was my fifth trip since 2003).
Anyway, the peak of my trip found me lying on my bed listening to Debussy. It was FABULOUS. I was able to put aside all the psychological 'noise' that had been causing the stomach spasms and give myself over entirely to the music, letting it arrange and re-arrange the underwater dreamscape that was manifesting before me. The world was a mass of swirling coral and fleshy ringlets. Debussy’s arrangements took on a new quality of beauty, becoming almost cold and severe. Caught up in the ecstasy, I began to recite Robert Frost's "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening”, which for me has always been the best poem to recite while tripping – beside any of the late work of Sylvia Plath.
This is when I began to feel myself slipping. I don’t know if the sensation was prompted by the peace brought on by the music and poetry, but I soon became aware that I was gradually sinking into unconsciousness. The sensation was very different from drifting off to sleep, because when you fall asleep you don't usually realize that you're doing so (or if you do, you accept it with peaceful equanimity and eventually become one with the sleep). With this experience, by contrast, a part of me maintained full awareness that in a few more seconds my existence would be no more -- I would be dead. I literally felt my consciousness being extinguished. It was frightening. So I panicked and opened my eyes, which brought me out of it immediately.
My question is: Has anyone experienced this before? And what happens if you don’t open your eyes, if you just let yourself go?
I would say I was on the verge of ego death, but I had thought I already knew what that meant. I’ve had mystical experiences on LSD before (I’ve tripped 5 times since 2003) and in no case do I remember this feeling of impending death. Or could it be that those earlier experiences weren’t in fact genuine instances of ego death but merely precursors to the real thing, and that this time – prompted by the double dose, the most I’ve ever taken – I was on the verge of a new type of breakthrough.
I know LSD can’t kill you – a fact I distinctly remember recalling during the trip. But somehow I seemed to have the realization that everyone had been wrong, that LSD *can* kill you – if you let it.
So the Saturday before Christmas I decided to take two hits of acid that had recently come into my posession (blotters, not sure of the exact dose). I decided to take it alone, which made me a bit apprehensive at first since I'd only ever tripped when others were around. But after reading up on bluelight what other had to say about tripping alone, I decided to go ahead and do it.
I dropped at about 11 pm. The body highs kicked in within about 20 minutes, and by midnight I was having intense visual distortions. The trip was a little bumpy at first since I had to work through all the buried psychological stuff that was coming to the surface. This caused some bodily discomfort in the form of twisting and spasms concentrated especially around the stomach area. Fortunately, I knew that this was to be expected and didn’t allow it take me to a bad place. (This was my fifth trip since 2003).
Anyway, the peak of my trip found me lying on my bed listening to Debussy. It was FABULOUS. I was able to put aside all the psychological 'noise' that had been causing the stomach spasms and give myself over entirely to the music, letting it arrange and re-arrange the underwater dreamscape that was manifesting before me. The world was a mass of swirling coral and fleshy ringlets. Debussy’s arrangements took on a new quality of beauty, becoming almost cold and severe. Caught up in the ecstasy, I began to recite Robert Frost's "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening”, which for me has always been the best poem to recite while tripping – beside any of the late work of Sylvia Plath.
This is when I began to feel myself slipping. I don’t know if the sensation was prompted by the peace brought on by the music and poetry, but I soon became aware that I was gradually sinking into unconsciousness. The sensation was very different from drifting off to sleep, because when you fall asleep you don't usually realize that you're doing so (or if you do, you accept it with peaceful equanimity and eventually become one with the sleep). With this experience, by contrast, a part of me maintained full awareness that in a few more seconds my existence would be no more -- I would be dead. I literally felt my consciousness being extinguished. It was frightening. So I panicked and opened my eyes, which brought me out of it immediately.
My question is: Has anyone experienced this before? And what happens if you don’t open your eyes, if you just let yourself go?
I would say I was on the verge of ego death, but I had thought I already knew what that meant. I’ve had mystical experiences on LSD before (I’ve tripped 5 times since 2003) and in no case do I remember this feeling of impending death. Or could it be that those earlier experiences weren’t in fact genuine instances of ego death but merely precursors to the real thing, and that this time – prompted by the double dose, the most I’ve ever taken – I was on the verge of a new type of breakthrough.
I know LSD can’t kill you – a fact I distinctly remember recalling during the trip. But somehow I seemed to have the realization that everyone had been wrong, that LSD *can* kill you – if you let it.
