Tenderheart Bear
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Feb 6, 2006
- Messages
- 33
I hadn’t taken acid in three weeks and I felt up for a trip when my friend C told me he had blotter for us next weekend. Two hits were for me and two for him, which sounded okay but I would have preferred more; I usually want a strong experience when I take acid. But then, my friend E called me and told me that he would be down from college the same weekend with a vial of liquid. I was pretty pumped about all this, because I never got my hands on liquid acid and I never tripped with E and C before. By Saturday, the group had grown to B (whom I have tripped with fairly extensively) and L, who would not be tripping but volunteered to be our sober sitter. I remember encouraging L to take a couple hits with us, because I thought we would have a better time if we all tripped; my opinion as of lately has been that trip-sitting is unnecessary for experienced travelers. Fortunately, L declined taking anything that night.
My hits were spaced apart a little unevenly. I took the two blotters with C at my place, and then we drove down the road a bit to pick up the liquid hits and my friend E. I took one hit of liquid there, then C, E, B, L, and I drove to C’s apartment to give some sugar cubes to his friends back at his apartment, J and A. So now there are six people tripping and one sitter. I took a sugar cube at C’s apartment, making a total of four hits. I’m not entirely sure about the timing of these four hits but they were all definitely well before the three hour mark.
I was having a pretty great time coming up at C’s place. We were originally planning on leaving for the woods or heading back to my apartment, but these plans never came into action as the acid took stronger hold of us. The apartment was pretty agreeable, except there were a few sober strangers hanging around that made me feel a little uncomfortable, although I don’t know for sure if they played a part in my trip. But anyway, I was having a really nice time coloring with markers and smoking cigarettes outside.
After a little while, I could feel I was beginning to peak. I was definitely having a great enough time, but I thought it was really important to smoke weed right then to bring out the wavy LSD visuals that I love so much. So I ask C if we can smoke in his room, he thinks it’s a good idea, and before long we’re all huddled in his room taking bong rips. It’s definitely worthy to mention that I don’t smoke often these days, so when I do I tend to get really, really high. Nobody put water in the bong, which we didn’t realize until later, so the hits hurt like hell. I cleared the chamber for J when she couldn’t finish it, and took another painful rip myself when she was finished.
Holy shit. God damn. Fuck, I need some air, and I push myself out of the smoky little room. I get myself a drink from the bottled waters I brought and try to get my bearings a bit; my throat still totally burns from those bong rips. I walk up to get a paper towel, but while I’m walking around the room I realize with awe just how surprisingly hard I’m tripping. I felt like I was looking through someone else’s eyes while I moved around, and my mind began racing a bit. My mind wasn’t really racing in a bad way, because I could tell I was peaking and I knew it would be ridiculous in ways I can’t even begin to properly articulate. I was, however, seriously disoriented, because the intensity crept up on me so damn quickly. One minute I was in C’s room with complete control of my situation, and a couple minutes later I realized that I was deep within the depths of a psychedelic trip that was far, far deeper than I could keep a grip on reality. Now, I like these sort of trips, but there’s usually a nice transition phase where I can just lay down, listen to music, and slowly allow my ego to fade away. But having my ego suddenly torn away from me, with burning pain all through my lungs, was definitely a disorienting experience and I was not entirely sure what to do.
I beckoned my friend E out for a cigarette. I enjoy the act of smoking, so I think everything’s going to probably be a-okay. This next moment was extremely crucial to my trip. I was outside, and I could tell that I was high, high up in the clouds, about as far away from reality as possible. I did not know, however, which way this was going to take me. I yearned for my trip to blossom into an ecstatic joy of white light that you can feel flowing through you, but I also felt aware that my trip, with all this powerful potential, had the ability to turn dark if it so chose. I’m confused. What mind trick can I use to direct this? I reach out with my hand and grab onto the thick metal rail, in an attempt to take hold of reality myself.
PANIC. PANIC. The metal rail was freezing, being winter and all. But it was like the deep, freezing pain of the rail went right to my central nervous system and shot a message to my head way up in the clouds, and the message was just simply BAD. My friend E keeps talking to me, giddy and laughing, but I was just tormented both trying to think of myself and what I should possibly do (I think I knew how important it was to turn this around ASAP) but I also wanted to keep up a happy front so my darkness doesn’t spread to E.
My front does not work well, and eventually E asks my quizzically why I’m acting so sober all of a sudden (I was basically just saying “yeah...” to everything he said, while my mind raced trying to find the right course of action). I turn to him and say “Oh yeah, tripping” in a mock thrilled tone, and E looks back at me with a fear and disgust that I actually felt for myself. “Who are you?” E asks, and the way he looked at me sent fear all through my body. At this point I abandon the idea completely of trying to get through this on my own, so I give E a big hug, apologize, and ask him to bring me L.
Eventually she’s outside, and I try to articulate what I’m feeling purposely without using the phrase “bad trip.” At this point, I didn’t even want to admit to myself what I was going through. I say things to her like “It’s all crept up on me” and “it’s all so much all of a sudden,” but L is very gentle and reassures me that I’m doing fine. It’s amazing what a gentle voice does when you’re in the panic state. I’m doing a little better now, but the problem is still kinda there; it’s like L helped me calm down but I was still running in a “bad” mode and I wanted to get back to the way I felt less than ten minutes ago.
I walk inside to get another drink of water, and I realize with terror that L is no longer beside me for reassurance. I walk back outside (about ten feet away) and I ask L, where were you? She tells me that I was the one who left, and although I did understand that L’s absence was not her fault, I also understood that I really did feel fear when I discovered her gone. Basically, I think I was trying to convey to L that I needed her support for a while, but I guess I was saying it in a roundabout way. More people come outside now, and although I stayed right next to L the whole time, all the talking people confused the hell out of me. “It’s all so confusing,” I say to L a few times desperately. She gives me a hug, which helps a bit.
This part is actually pretty funny: everyone was smoking cigarettes, and I turned one down when L offered me one because it seemed too confusing. But she says to me, “Are you sure? A nice, repetitive motion?” And I repeat this back in my head: “A nice, repetitive motion.” A nice, repetitive motion sounds good to me, so I tell L “Actually, I would like a nice, repetitive motion.” We all have a little laugh at this, as E notes that it’s strange how I was offered an abstract concept.
Oh, but things aren’t really getting better. It’s been about five or so minutes by now, and although L makes me feel better when she says soothing things and calms me down, it only takes my mind ten seconds after that to ramp up into negativity again. I need a real solution, I need real help, so I bite the bullet and ask to speak with L, and when I get her alone I tell her I’m having a bad trip. I wish I had done this sooner!
We walk into the apartment and she holds my hand for a while, as I explain how everything is bad, bad, bad, and I’m surely going to die any second now. She tells me otherwise. “Oh, thank god,” I say to myself, and three seconds later my mind has found another reason for things to be bad, bad, bad. But L is persistent and calm throughout. She never looks at me with panicky, fearful eyes; she just stays calm and positive. After a little bit she gave me a blanket (absolutely fantastic idea), and I realize around then that getting out of this will require some effort on my part, and I can’t just sit around and wait for her to change my state of mind. I held the blanket and stroked it for a while, all the while repeating either in my head or audibly (I’m not really sure) “soft and gentle, soft and gentle, soft and gentle,” a phrase L used to describe the blanket. Perhaps five minutes later, I was coming out of the darkness, and five minutes after that I was so relieved and full of joy I could have burst.
I felt guilty about having a bad part of my trip, because my friends were all tripping too and they all definitely knew something was going on with me for a while, but it all turned out fine. I’ll never forget playing Mario Kart that night; watching all the colors melting off the screen was just so intense. The majority of my trip was amazingly awesome (L later told me that I was only miserable for about fifteen minutes), but I don’t really feel like going into too much detail about the good aspects because they were all pretty typical: coloring with markers, video games, music, and looking at the posters bleed off the wall. Amazing fun!
The lesson I learned is that there’s no shame in facing up to having a bad time and seeking outside help, and the sooner you do this, the better. Without L I have no idea how long I would have been in that horrible state. Be safe and happy tripping!
My hits were spaced apart a little unevenly. I took the two blotters with C at my place, and then we drove down the road a bit to pick up the liquid hits and my friend E. I took one hit of liquid there, then C, E, B, L, and I drove to C’s apartment to give some sugar cubes to his friends back at his apartment, J and A. So now there are six people tripping and one sitter. I took a sugar cube at C’s apartment, making a total of four hits. I’m not entirely sure about the timing of these four hits but they were all definitely well before the three hour mark.
I was having a pretty great time coming up at C’s place. We were originally planning on leaving for the woods or heading back to my apartment, but these plans never came into action as the acid took stronger hold of us. The apartment was pretty agreeable, except there were a few sober strangers hanging around that made me feel a little uncomfortable, although I don’t know for sure if they played a part in my trip. But anyway, I was having a really nice time coloring with markers and smoking cigarettes outside.
After a little while, I could feel I was beginning to peak. I was definitely having a great enough time, but I thought it was really important to smoke weed right then to bring out the wavy LSD visuals that I love so much. So I ask C if we can smoke in his room, he thinks it’s a good idea, and before long we’re all huddled in his room taking bong rips. It’s definitely worthy to mention that I don’t smoke often these days, so when I do I tend to get really, really high. Nobody put water in the bong, which we didn’t realize until later, so the hits hurt like hell. I cleared the chamber for J when she couldn’t finish it, and took another painful rip myself when she was finished.
Holy shit. God damn. Fuck, I need some air, and I push myself out of the smoky little room. I get myself a drink from the bottled waters I brought and try to get my bearings a bit; my throat still totally burns from those bong rips. I walk up to get a paper towel, but while I’m walking around the room I realize with awe just how surprisingly hard I’m tripping. I felt like I was looking through someone else’s eyes while I moved around, and my mind began racing a bit. My mind wasn’t really racing in a bad way, because I could tell I was peaking and I knew it would be ridiculous in ways I can’t even begin to properly articulate. I was, however, seriously disoriented, because the intensity crept up on me so damn quickly. One minute I was in C’s room with complete control of my situation, and a couple minutes later I realized that I was deep within the depths of a psychedelic trip that was far, far deeper than I could keep a grip on reality. Now, I like these sort of trips, but there’s usually a nice transition phase where I can just lay down, listen to music, and slowly allow my ego to fade away. But having my ego suddenly torn away from me, with burning pain all through my lungs, was definitely a disorienting experience and I was not entirely sure what to do.
I beckoned my friend E out for a cigarette. I enjoy the act of smoking, so I think everything’s going to probably be a-okay. This next moment was extremely crucial to my trip. I was outside, and I could tell that I was high, high up in the clouds, about as far away from reality as possible. I did not know, however, which way this was going to take me. I yearned for my trip to blossom into an ecstatic joy of white light that you can feel flowing through you, but I also felt aware that my trip, with all this powerful potential, had the ability to turn dark if it so chose. I’m confused. What mind trick can I use to direct this? I reach out with my hand and grab onto the thick metal rail, in an attempt to take hold of reality myself.
PANIC. PANIC. The metal rail was freezing, being winter and all. But it was like the deep, freezing pain of the rail went right to my central nervous system and shot a message to my head way up in the clouds, and the message was just simply BAD. My friend E keeps talking to me, giddy and laughing, but I was just tormented both trying to think of myself and what I should possibly do (I think I knew how important it was to turn this around ASAP) but I also wanted to keep up a happy front so my darkness doesn’t spread to E.
My front does not work well, and eventually E asks my quizzically why I’m acting so sober all of a sudden (I was basically just saying “yeah...” to everything he said, while my mind raced trying to find the right course of action). I turn to him and say “Oh yeah, tripping” in a mock thrilled tone, and E looks back at me with a fear and disgust that I actually felt for myself. “Who are you?” E asks, and the way he looked at me sent fear all through my body. At this point I abandon the idea completely of trying to get through this on my own, so I give E a big hug, apologize, and ask him to bring me L.
Eventually she’s outside, and I try to articulate what I’m feeling purposely without using the phrase “bad trip.” At this point, I didn’t even want to admit to myself what I was going through. I say things to her like “It’s all crept up on me” and “it’s all so much all of a sudden,” but L is very gentle and reassures me that I’m doing fine. It’s amazing what a gentle voice does when you’re in the panic state. I’m doing a little better now, but the problem is still kinda there; it’s like L helped me calm down but I was still running in a “bad” mode and I wanted to get back to the way I felt less than ten minutes ago.
I walk inside to get another drink of water, and I realize with terror that L is no longer beside me for reassurance. I walk back outside (about ten feet away) and I ask L, where were you? She tells me that I was the one who left, and although I did understand that L’s absence was not her fault, I also understood that I really did feel fear when I discovered her gone. Basically, I think I was trying to convey to L that I needed her support for a while, but I guess I was saying it in a roundabout way. More people come outside now, and although I stayed right next to L the whole time, all the talking people confused the hell out of me. “It’s all so confusing,” I say to L a few times desperately. She gives me a hug, which helps a bit.
This part is actually pretty funny: everyone was smoking cigarettes, and I turned one down when L offered me one because it seemed too confusing. But she says to me, “Are you sure? A nice, repetitive motion?” And I repeat this back in my head: “A nice, repetitive motion.” A nice, repetitive motion sounds good to me, so I tell L “Actually, I would like a nice, repetitive motion.” We all have a little laugh at this, as E notes that it’s strange how I was offered an abstract concept.
Oh, but things aren’t really getting better. It’s been about five or so minutes by now, and although L makes me feel better when she says soothing things and calms me down, it only takes my mind ten seconds after that to ramp up into negativity again. I need a real solution, I need real help, so I bite the bullet and ask to speak with L, and when I get her alone I tell her I’m having a bad trip. I wish I had done this sooner!
We walk into the apartment and she holds my hand for a while, as I explain how everything is bad, bad, bad, and I’m surely going to die any second now. She tells me otherwise. “Oh, thank god,” I say to myself, and three seconds later my mind has found another reason for things to be bad, bad, bad. But L is persistent and calm throughout. She never looks at me with panicky, fearful eyes; she just stays calm and positive. After a little bit she gave me a blanket (absolutely fantastic idea), and I realize around then that getting out of this will require some effort on my part, and I can’t just sit around and wait for her to change my state of mind. I held the blanket and stroked it for a while, all the while repeating either in my head or audibly (I’m not really sure) “soft and gentle, soft and gentle, soft and gentle,” a phrase L used to describe the blanket. Perhaps five minutes later, I was coming out of the darkness, and five minutes after that I was so relieved and full of joy I could have burst.
I felt guilty about having a bad part of my trip, because my friends were all tripping too and they all definitely knew something was going on with me for a while, but it all turned out fine. I’ll never forget playing Mario Kart that night; watching all the colors melting off the screen was just so intense. The majority of my trip was amazingly awesome (L later told me that I was only miserable for about fifteen minutes), but I don’t really feel like going into too much detail about the good aspects because they were all pretty typical: coloring with markers, video games, music, and looking at the posters bleed off the wall. Amazing fun!
The lesson I learned is that there’s no shame in facing up to having a bad time and seeking outside help, and the sooner you do this, the better. Without L I have no idea how long I would have been in that horrible state. Be safe and happy tripping!
