yardbirdrc
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2011
- Messages
- 160
Date: March 7, 2012
Time: 12:30pm - 7:00pm
Drug: LSD
Dose: 1/2 Blotter (Mayan Calendar)
There is nothing to be said about LSD through this experience that hasn't already been said before. I did want to take a moment to talk about a few nuances I found interesting, and things that I learned that day.
Yesterday we dosed our second psychedelic session of our spring break. There were 5 of us including myself, all of us on different drugs, with myself being the only person who had taken LSD. I kept the dose low (1/2 a Mayan Calendar, which is still about equivalent to a full hit of typical USA GDF fluff) as I'm still getting my sea-legs with psychedelics after a long hiatus and the plan was to go to a museum, so I wanted to be functional. This was my first time using LSD since July of last year.
Our destination was an installational art museum across town in one of the most eclectic neighborhoods in the city, and to get there we had to pass through the bustling downtown. On the bus-ride downtown (from whence we would walk), I was coming up quickly. There was a slight pressure in my head, as if some stuff was "opening up" that hadn't been in a while. I was slightly anxious, not really knowing how I was going to react to the LSD or how the day was going to go. I did my best to put that aside. By the time we got downtown I was eager to get off the bus.
Suddenly we were in a veritable sea of people. It was 60 degrees in early March, an absolutely unheard of anomaly in this climate, among many more such anomalies that made up the warmest winter I or any of us could remember here. I was still coming up as we made our way to the park.
Faces. All different colors, configurations, classes and creeds. A high powered businessman in an expensive suit standing outside to smoke a cigarette, only a few yards away from a wind-calloused flower salesman, just trying to make ends meet selling carnations to passersby. One subsisting by manipulating the flow of capital - a system that rests solely on concepts of debt and exploitation. The other just getting by on random springs of love and compassion, on the hope that just a few of the people walking by him that day would feel inspired to express their feelings to a person they cared for with a gesture as old as humanity itself. Or simply for someone to see some beauty in a flower! The businessman put out his cigarette with a frown, and I lit mine with a smile. Skyscrapers have a way of making you feel small. Not small as in belittled, but small as in fetal. A womb of concrete and steel. You're surrounded by thousands of people, but in that you are somehow even more aware of just how alone and insignificant you are. Some people don't like that feeling, so they live in the sticks where they can have complete control over their lives. I like the chaos and lack of control of the city. I crave to be constantly reminded how unimportant my life is to anybody but myself. That's liberating to me I guess.
We reached the park and prepared to cross the bridge. We stopped to smoke a joint first, although I abstained until later on. Marijuana just muddies LSD for me, although its invaluable at the come-down. At this point, I felt myself hit the plateau. In an instant the anxiety and rush of the initial crescendo was gone and I was serene... floating.
We entered the Mexican War Streets. Every time I come to this neighborhood I'm instantly in love with it. Similar to the Haight-Ashbury area of San Francisco, this is an area that was basically forgotten and then repopulated entirely by people who couldn't afford to live anywhere else. In their communal poverty there is an incredible (and palpable) sense of harmony. Not to mention the neighborhood literally oozes art, much of which is thanks to an eclectic personality named Randy. Randy is a local waiter who uses all of his tip money to fund various art projects throughout town. Primarily, he is the curator of RandyLand, an old property that has been turned into a Mad Hatter's tea-party-esque ghetto oasis surrounded by murals on all sides, a constant work in progress. Wonderful tripping, just wonderful in general. He has similar projects all over town. This is all walking distance from the art museum we were visiting.
I couldn't help but say hello to people there, as we passed them on the street. We chatted up a friendly crossing guard about art, and the neighborhood. A young black couple walked by with a young child. I don't really consider myself a racist, but we all get that sense of "different" when we pass people of different races. At least those of us who were raised in small, almost entirely white towns such as myself. I'm sure they felt it just as much as I did. It's not recognizing these differences we should fear, but using that feeling to justify injustices. I hate when people say "I'm colorblind, I don't see black or white I just see people". There are black people and white people, and brown people and all the shades in-between too. And its great! You shouldn't just block out some aspect of reality like that because you fear you might be politically incorrect.
Well, these were some black people, and I'm a white man. Let's be honest, there's some context there. Whenever I pass black people on the street who are strangers to me, I often find myself caught in the same predicament as when I pass the disabled. I become suddenly conscious that I should neither look directly at them, nor appear as if I'm averting my gaze entirely. This is something I do unconsciously for white people, but with black people it's like I suddenly psych myself out about that process and hyper-examine it.
I've thought about this a lot in the past. I've even asked other white-folk about it, and most if not all have said they experience the same thing (I wonder, do black people feel some reciprocating subtle emotion towards white people?). I think it has to do with a sense of guilt more than anything. I feel guilty that I inherently will get opportunities that many black people will never have in my country, simply due to the color of my skin. I'm not directly responsible for that, but I still feel guilty about it just by unconsciously reaping its benefits. There are things like non-discrimination laws and affirmative action (which I don't support, but still), but subtle tensions such as the one I delineated above still exist in individual's minds all over our society, and it's done a hell of a lot to throw African-American culture into turmoil - filling much of it with anger and a sense of hopelessness, which only reinforces the degree of separation between us. Fuck that!
"Hey! How are you doing?"
"Good! How are you guys?"
"Great!"
Smiles all around. The racial divide is shallower here, in general. Race aside entirely, people at the university just don't say "hi" to each other like that. Why don't we? Fear? Fear of what? We stop over in nearby Deutschtown. I'm buying a hoagie from a Pakistani man while he chats up Asdaq. Behind me is an old Italian woman - you can tell she's in here all the time. A young black man and the short-pink-haired woman at the deli counter are bickering playfully. Outside, I hear drug sales being brokered. Later, the young black man leaves the store as I'm walking for a trashcan and I obstruct his path. He mumbles under his breath about how I was in his way, but for some reason I felt love resonating off him, like it was more advice than scold. I felt like I had just stumbled into a living organism. Everything in this neighborhood fit together like clockwork. I felt like I was home, but I felt alien at the same time. Above all else people were encouraged to be themselves here, whoever that self may be.
The cornerstone of LSD is its attention to detail. Inferences, contexts, raw observations... these all blend into some kind of magical pool of information that can be tapped into at any time... manipulated, observed, appreciated. Connections are made. Lasting change is felt. Neurons that fire together, wire together. Anybody who values thought at all should take this drug at some point.
I tripped earlier this week on 4-Aco-DMT, and I mentioned in my report that by half-dosing it I undershot all of the insightful effects and only got the physical/visual. By half-dosing LSD, I found that even at low doses it brings about its unique brand of introspection. The dose I took was ideal for a day out on the town appreciating my surroundings - not visually or physically cumbersome, but just what the doctor ordered for a rich and satisfying yet completely navigable headspace. I've had some intense LSD experiences in the past, but I've found that the more often I take it the more I gravitate towards low and medium doses (1 hit of these Mayans is a great level, for instance). I think the fact that it only takes 75 to 100 micrograms or so to get that headspace is the reason behind this. Anything more and we're just increasing visuals/euphoria/bodyload and the novel but sometimes annoying "thought-loops", and honestly there are other drugs I'd rather take to get those effects (like 2C-B, visually). LSD is sophisticated, and her true beauty lies in her nuances. This is not to say its not fun and valuable to get totally blasted into outer space by Lucy from time to time, but I think its true therapeutic value lies in its low doses. And I guess that's the point of this report - slow down and really appreciate your acid from time to time. You won't regret it.
Time: 12:30pm - 7:00pm
Drug: LSD
Dose: 1/2 Blotter (Mayan Calendar)
There is nothing to be said about LSD through this experience that hasn't already been said before. I did want to take a moment to talk about a few nuances I found interesting, and things that I learned that day.
Yesterday we dosed our second psychedelic session of our spring break. There were 5 of us including myself, all of us on different drugs, with myself being the only person who had taken LSD. I kept the dose low (1/2 a Mayan Calendar, which is still about equivalent to a full hit of typical USA GDF fluff) as I'm still getting my sea-legs with psychedelics after a long hiatus and the plan was to go to a museum, so I wanted to be functional. This was my first time using LSD since July of last year.
Our destination was an installational art museum across town in one of the most eclectic neighborhoods in the city, and to get there we had to pass through the bustling downtown. On the bus-ride downtown (from whence we would walk), I was coming up quickly. There was a slight pressure in my head, as if some stuff was "opening up" that hadn't been in a while. I was slightly anxious, not really knowing how I was going to react to the LSD or how the day was going to go. I did my best to put that aside. By the time we got downtown I was eager to get off the bus.
Suddenly we were in a veritable sea of people. It was 60 degrees in early March, an absolutely unheard of anomaly in this climate, among many more such anomalies that made up the warmest winter I or any of us could remember here. I was still coming up as we made our way to the park.
Faces. All different colors, configurations, classes and creeds. A high powered businessman in an expensive suit standing outside to smoke a cigarette, only a few yards away from a wind-calloused flower salesman, just trying to make ends meet selling carnations to passersby. One subsisting by manipulating the flow of capital - a system that rests solely on concepts of debt and exploitation. The other just getting by on random springs of love and compassion, on the hope that just a few of the people walking by him that day would feel inspired to express their feelings to a person they cared for with a gesture as old as humanity itself. Or simply for someone to see some beauty in a flower! The businessman put out his cigarette with a frown, and I lit mine with a smile. Skyscrapers have a way of making you feel small. Not small as in belittled, but small as in fetal. A womb of concrete and steel. You're surrounded by thousands of people, but in that you are somehow even more aware of just how alone and insignificant you are. Some people don't like that feeling, so they live in the sticks where they can have complete control over their lives. I like the chaos and lack of control of the city. I crave to be constantly reminded how unimportant my life is to anybody but myself. That's liberating to me I guess.
We reached the park and prepared to cross the bridge. We stopped to smoke a joint first, although I abstained until later on. Marijuana just muddies LSD for me, although its invaluable at the come-down. At this point, I felt myself hit the plateau. In an instant the anxiety and rush of the initial crescendo was gone and I was serene... floating.
We entered the Mexican War Streets. Every time I come to this neighborhood I'm instantly in love with it. Similar to the Haight-Ashbury area of San Francisco, this is an area that was basically forgotten and then repopulated entirely by people who couldn't afford to live anywhere else. In their communal poverty there is an incredible (and palpable) sense of harmony. Not to mention the neighborhood literally oozes art, much of which is thanks to an eclectic personality named Randy. Randy is a local waiter who uses all of his tip money to fund various art projects throughout town. Primarily, he is the curator of RandyLand, an old property that has been turned into a Mad Hatter's tea-party-esque ghetto oasis surrounded by murals on all sides, a constant work in progress. Wonderful tripping, just wonderful in general. He has similar projects all over town. This is all walking distance from the art museum we were visiting.
I couldn't help but say hello to people there, as we passed them on the street. We chatted up a friendly crossing guard about art, and the neighborhood. A young black couple walked by with a young child. I don't really consider myself a racist, but we all get that sense of "different" when we pass people of different races. At least those of us who were raised in small, almost entirely white towns such as myself. I'm sure they felt it just as much as I did. It's not recognizing these differences we should fear, but using that feeling to justify injustices. I hate when people say "I'm colorblind, I don't see black or white I just see people". There are black people and white people, and brown people and all the shades in-between too. And its great! You shouldn't just block out some aspect of reality like that because you fear you might be politically incorrect.
Well, these were some black people, and I'm a white man. Let's be honest, there's some context there. Whenever I pass black people on the street who are strangers to me, I often find myself caught in the same predicament as when I pass the disabled. I become suddenly conscious that I should neither look directly at them, nor appear as if I'm averting my gaze entirely. This is something I do unconsciously for white people, but with black people it's like I suddenly psych myself out about that process and hyper-examine it.
I've thought about this a lot in the past. I've even asked other white-folk about it, and most if not all have said they experience the same thing (I wonder, do black people feel some reciprocating subtle emotion towards white people?). I think it has to do with a sense of guilt more than anything. I feel guilty that I inherently will get opportunities that many black people will never have in my country, simply due to the color of my skin. I'm not directly responsible for that, but I still feel guilty about it just by unconsciously reaping its benefits. There are things like non-discrimination laws and affirmative action (which I don't support, but still), but subtle tensions such as the one I delineated above still exist in individual's minds all over our society, and it's done a hell of a lot to throw African-American culture into turmoil - filling much of it with anger and a sense of hopelessness, which only reinforces the degree of separation between us. Fuck that!
"Hey! How are you doing?"
"Good! How are you guys?"
"Great!"
Smiles all around. The racial divide is shallower here, in general. Race aside entirely, people at the university just don't say "hi" to each other like that. Why don't we? Fear? Fear of what? We stop over in nearby Deutschtown. I'm buying a hoagie from a Pakistani man while he chats up Asdaq. Behind me is an old Italian woman - you can tell she's in here all the time. A young black man and the short-pink-haired woman at the deli counter are bickering playfully. Outside, I hear drug sales being brokered. Later, the young black man leaves the store as I'm walking for a trashcan and I obstruct his path. He mumbles under his breath about how I was in his way, but for some reason I felt love resonating off him, like it was more advice than scold. I felt like I had just stumbled into a living organism. Everything in this neighborhood fit together like clockwork. I felt like I was home, but I felt alien at the same time. Above all else people were encouraged to be themselves here, whoever that self may be.
The cornerstone of LSD is its attention to detail. Inferences, contexts, raw observations... these all blend into some kind of magical pool of information that can be tapped into at any time... manipulated, observed, appreciated. Connections are made. Lasting change is felt. Neurons that fire together, wire together. Anybody who values thought at all should take this drug at some point.
I tripped earlier this week on 4-Aco-DMT, and I mentioned in my report that by half-dosing it I undershot all of the insightful effects and only got the physical/visual. By half-dosing LSD, I found that even at low doses it brings about its unique brand of introspection. The dose I took was ideal for a day out on the town appreciating my surroundings - not visually or physically cumbersome, but just what the doctor ordered for a rich and satisfying yet completely navigable headspace. I've had some intense LSD experiences in the past, but I've found that the more often I take it the more I gravitate towards low and medium doses (1 hit of these Mayans is a great level, for instance). I think the fact that it only takes 75 to 100 micrograms or so to get that headspace is the reason behind this. Anything more and we're just increasing visuals/euphoria/bodyload and the novel but sometimes annoying "thought-loops", and honestly there are other drugs I'd rather take to get those effects (like 2C-B, visually). LSD is sophisticated, and her true beauty lies in her nuances. This is not to say its not fun and valuable to get totally blasted into outer space by Lucy from time to time, but I think its true therapeutic value lies in its low doses. And I guess that's the point of this report - slow down and really appreciate your acid from time to time. You won't regret it.
jokes lol