LSD and Body Image

[Assassin of Youth]

Hi everybody!

Do any of you who are familiar with LSD ever have experiences concerning your body and the way you feel about it - your relationship to your physicality, your shape/size/texture/feel, your 'gravity' as physical being, while tripping? Does anyone know what I'm rambling about?

Words escape me, as they always do, but if anyone has any input on this topic, I'd be much obliged if you'd share it with me. I understand that the issues you might face while on acid are ones that you face in your day-to-day life - I know that body image is a big concern for me in mine - but I was wondering if anyone else has a similar story or stories to share, thoughts, ideas, explanations, hypotheses? Any realizations, revelations, epiphanies (I know these are rife on any acid trip, but specifically concerning your relationship and view of your body)?

I'd probably be interested in speaking to people who take acid in private, and higher dosages than one tab - but if you have any input at all, I'm not excluding you. It's just that I might see how this setting could be more conducive to psychological exploration and introspection.

*PS: There's a big chance I have no idea what I'm talking about, since I have only taken acid twice (First time - 1.5 tabs / Second time - 5 tabs). Don't hate.

tl;dr

How does acid make you feel about your body?

 

[Assassin of Youth]

Damn.

While I was tripping - both times - I had about five to seven absolute body image meltdowns. Getting undressed, redressed, over and over and over, getting all dressed up just to tear my clothes off again in disgust, clutching at my flesh, feeling the ugliest I have ever felt - but in the end, just accepting it. So, in a way, acid has helped me to make some positive changes to the way I view my body, but only in hindsight.

I'm a girl, for anyone who was wondering.

 

[anarchogen]

AW maybeyou sjould think about strings
you evern ever noticed how many strings are in a curtain? TOOMA NY TO COUNT AHH!!
cyou couldn't be that so ugly

 

[Assassin of Youth]

I know I'm not that ugly. It's about deep-seated insecurities and doubts that are brought from the subconscious to the surface, hard and fast, relentlessly beating down on one's consciousness and never letting up.

But in the end, one recognizes this - the acid makes one more aware of the subconscious processes the mind conceals in daily rationalizing and thought in the way it constructs its relationship with the body.

 

[ikkyu]

LSD, along with yoga, has been an integral part of what I like to think of as my increasing bodily awareness. For most of my teen years I didn't exercise or really engage in any physical activity; I spent most of my time reading/writing, drawing/painting, etc. With all of this I gradually lost awareness of my body over time, or rather my mind became further separated from my body.

But after I began practising yoga, and not long after that tried LSD (with a few subsequent trials done while fasting), I found the division between mind and body becoming less. I realised that this dualism was only conditional, and that I was as whole a person as I wanted to be in any given moment. Over time I got more into hiking/backpacking and cooking lots of different foods I'd never tried before, and this helped me learn to read and respond to my bodily signals, such as eating until I'm satisfied rather than stuffed, or adhering to a more regular sleep schedule.

It's not that I've had any self-esteem issues with re: to my body, but it was more a matter of remembering that I'm not just some disembodied mind that exists only to engage in symbolic activity and that simply needs to be recharged once in a while. This progression from yoga through LSD to lifestyle changes (better diet, exercise, and sleep habits) basically made me feel more human (whatever that means! ), and of course did wonders for the crippling depression I struggled with as a result of all that poor mental hygiene.

In a way it has all come full-circle now, since my understanding of this functional identity between my body and mind now informs much of my art, especially my writing which I think of as being modelled after my own personal rhythms, i.e. those of speech, breath, circulation, etc. I now feel more connected to these artifacts than ever before; they are practically just as alive to me as I am.

OP, I can see what you mean about making positive changes with body image only after the fact. Seeing my body and/or face undergo horrific transformations while on LSD has always been one of the more difficult things I face while tripping, but combing those murky depths can yield some stunning pearls indeed.

 

[sjlowhay]

don't really care how my face looks, but i think humans look a little strange, and i'm not so attracted to the appearance. compared to others who lust over hyperreal photoshop airbrush images.maybe cause i'm myopic and have 'expired' glasses and so when i would watch tv tripping it was like it was 'less glossy' seeing the facial textures more clearly and badly applied 'pancake' make-up on males and females alike

concerned about how i was underweight, how weak i felt.. like trying to strain cannabis milk while peaking, and how pale my skin seems while tripping

maybe not as related, but i also don't like the feeling of my sweaty armpits rubbing against my arms during the summer

 

[swilow]

I've felt two dimensional on LSD; just a flat sort of cardboard cutout. Felt good

 

[Assassin of Youth]

don't really care how my face looks, but i think humans look a little strange, and i'm not so attracted to the appearance. compared to others who lust over hyperreal photoshop airbrush images.maybe cause i'm myopic and have 'expired' glasses and so when i would watch tv tripping it was like it was 'less glossy' seeing the facial textures more clearly and badly applied 'pancake' make-up on males and females alike

concerned about how i was underweight, how weak i felt.. like trying to strain cannabis milk while peaking, and how pale my skin seems while tripping

maybe not as related, but i also don't like the feeling of my sweaty armpits rubbing against my arms during the summer

Haha, I never watch TV tripping, but I agree. Humans are like little worms, hairless and grubby and squidgy. Yuck.

My skin seems to become yellow and blue, and I see every single little flaw on it. It's quite intriguing.

 

[Big)Sky]

I usually feel each limb is a different organisim while tripping. Im always like Arms? What are these thing?

 

[Assassin of Youth]

Haha, yeah... It does shake the way you see the world and yourself up.

 

[Roger&Me]

LOL, I love when I'm tripping really hard and I lose all sense of familiarity with the human form. It gives you a sense of just how random our biochemical forms actually are.

For example, a girl who would normally be very attractive to me might start to appear very strange and elf-like, the antithesis of how I would normally view her. :D Feels weird, man.

 

[Roger&Me]

Im always like Arms? What are these thing?

"They call them fingers but I've never seen them fing..."
-Otto

 

[raui]

During our last trip my gf and I shared how we didn't like how we looked. I then thought about people who are genuinely attractive and how there are some of them unhappy with their own looks as well. I wondered how they could possibly come to such a conclusion and what standard they were using to measure their own image, then I realized that I was no better than the people I thought already had everything when it came to looks and yet were still unhappy.
Another interesting thought was where a line is drawn, saw between a man who is just muscular enough and a man who looks horribly disfigured like a mutant because he is too muscular.. is there just a large gap in between or is it really just a fine line. Or perhaps it's just perception. Is there really a standard to measure perfection by? I think it's all about acceptance and what's on the inside, if I beat myself up over my appearance than I just bring my inside down to match how I think I look. I know I'm not ugly but I can't find the confidence to be secure with myself, I'll always be aware of my flaws.

 

[greenmeanies]

everyone has flaws. if we were all perfect, then we would all be the same and you wouldn't be able to tell yourself apart from your mother or your brother.

embrace the flaws you have, work to change the ones that are harmful to you, and above all... love the person, not the fleshsuit they are trapped inside!

 

[raui]

Indeed, it's the nice thing about perfection... the whole impossibility of it. Just need to practice on accepting it and letting go.
Sometimes I get overwhelmed about doing everything perfect.. I have a brother like that who does everything exactly perfect. It reminds me of when I watch Alton Brown and I'm just like ah the hell with it, fuck this... I'm always going to be unhappy that I could be doing something better in some way. This is what being raised by a neurotic family does to you.
Seriously though, that trip really helped give me perspective on body image. It was a very positive experience.

 

[Assassin of Youth]

Hey raui - I'm glad you posted: what you discussed rings true for me as well. I remember having a lot of the same thoughts, finally collapsing in a heap with the realisation that I don't need to be perfect, because it's an unachievable goal and was driving me crazy, exhausting me and turning me into someone I didn't want to be.

Acid isn't magic though, and I still have so many body issues, obsessive compulsive behaviour and thoughts... But they're nothing near what they could've become.

 

[Assassin of Youth]

Thanks for the positive input, greenmeanies!

 

[X3DFX]

Man, Alton Brown why do you have to be so enthusiastic and believable!? I wanna be like that, just not necessarily about food!

 

[Med Head]

I lost all feelings about my body. Like I didnt care if I were dirty or if I were ugly or asnyhting. I dont shower for a few days afterwards becasue I just feel to comfortable.

 

[Tunnelfission]

I was trying to do some pushups on acid when i was 17, and could barely do that, or hold myself up in certain positions, i realized the weight of this being a 17 year old male but physically frail. So after that day specifically i've taken to excersize and health with an effortless passion, hard excersize feels elating and after 5 years of continuous LSD inspired physical activity I now have an athletic build, can do 40+ pushups, weight train regularly, can run for 10+ km without being much more than winded and I feel it as one of the most important aspects of my current life.

The trip caused me to stop feeling sorry for myself and see the body as a project, gains in performance became very sentimental to me and I learned to be confident in what I had, everything is relative so I look and feel pretty damn good now after all that effort! I hated being skinny and would just play video games and sulk about what I wanted instead of working to achieve it. Now all options are interesting to me and even if i'm still skinnier than I want to be I also see the effect of inspiration and consistent work. Because 5 years ago I would be puking if I tried to run a block, now I just keep on marching for miles out of animal capability.