Questioning reality after LSD

[tawmsoyer]

The following is a recounting of my experiences of a ((hopefully) false) revelation during three different LSD trips.

My first experience with this "revelation" happens during my very first LSD trip. My two friends and I each drop one tab at the park and soon we are tripping. Later during this trip one of my friends mentions something about a police car stopped at a red light near a corner of the park. I see the police car and freak out. I believe the police are after us. I consider running but feel helpless against the seemingly omnipotent police. I remain lying in the park with my friends and await our arrest.

While I wait I have this feeling of deja vu. I have never been arrested but it feels familiar. I "realize" I have been here before several times. I "realize" I am a drug addict who has been released from prison for the umpteenth time. The drugs have ruined my brain and corrupted my reality. My entire life has been a lie I created as a defense mechanism.

The police never arrive and I eventually forget about my "other life". Some other friends of mine meet us at the park and the rest of the trip go smoothly.

My next experience of this kind happens during my sixth LSD trip. I drop three tabs with my friends C, M, and W. My friend C drops three, M drops two, and W only smokes some weed (he has never done acid). W gets the munchies so we decide to head to a nearby liquor store. I become nervous as we approach the store and plan on waiting outside while my friend buys his snacks. We get there and my three friends enter the store. Suddenly, I decide being left outside alone is much worse than going inside with my friends. Big mistake. I enter and immediately feel completely out of place. I nervously walk around the store until I find my friend in line and stand next to him. I am tripping the fuck out.

I'm standing in line and feel like everybody knows. I feel sweat dripping down my face as I clamp my eyes shut. I believe I heard people saying "it's the acid", "he's tripping". I look at the cashier and believe he has a look of disappointment and slight disgust. I believe he said "You're tripping? It's not even funny. It's just embarrassing." I believe my friend W agreed with him, angry at me that I had made a fool of myself in public. I believe the cashier is an undercover DEA agent. Either that or someone involved in the underground drug industry. Whatever he is, I believe he has now sent people after us. My friends and I walk out of the store. A man with a raggedy beard walks closely past me and I believe he looks at me. I take this as a sign that the Feds or Drug Lords are following us. We start walking away from the store and I am terrible confused. I still believe someone is after us but I am not sure. Eventually I decide we are being followed and exclaim "I get it!". My friend W, probably finding my confusion very amusing, looks at me, smiles, and asks "Do you? Do you get it now?". I misinterpret this. I believe he is angry with me. I believe he is blaming me. I interpret this as "Do you get it now? You fucked up your brain on drugs! Now all our lives are ruined!". We arrive at my friend C's car so that my friend W can take a pill of ecstasy. This reinforces the idea that someone is after us. I believe my friend is taking the pill to hide the evidence.

We get to the park and sit at a table. I am still very confused. My friend hands me a paper and asks me if I want to write about it. Again, I misinterpret this as sarcasm. I believe he means something alomg the lines of "You fucked up your brain on drugs! You're a goddamn basketcase! But at least you get to write something 'trippy'." Again, I start to believe my entire life is a lie. I "realize" that I am in some room somewhere in some mental hospital and that everything is my imagination. I believe I am at the park with my friends because they pity me. They are only visiting me in a mental hospital and I'm imagining we are at the park. Eventually I snap out of this train of thought. However, the remainder of this trip involves me acting incredibly bizarre and obscene resulting in my friends holding me down and giving me some xanax.

My final experience of this kind happens during my seventh and final LSD trip. This time I only take one tab along with my friend M. We drop the tab, then about two hours later we meet up with some friends and smoke some weed. Again we go to the same liquor store. I thought I'd be able to handle it on just one tab but the weed completely threw me off the deep end. Again, I was standing in line. Sweating, I shut my eyes. Here come the voices. "Its the acid." "He's fucking tripping." I feel this sensation of urine and excrement filing my jeans, dripping out of my nose and mouth. Utter humiliation. I sense this feeling that my friend M is laughing at me incredulously, laughing at the fact that I can't wrap my stupid head around the idea that my life is a lie. I am in some room somewhere in some mental hospital imagining everything. Or that there is no existence in the first place. I am the only conscious being and everything is fake. I feel that at any moment all the walls in the store and my friend M is going to restrain and humiliate me. I feel he is going to yell at me "you fucked up your brain! Your life is a lie! Why can't you just get it?" in some sort of PSA fashion. This was my subconscious' way of punishing me. We exit the store and I begin telling my friend M I'm having the worse trip of my life. He spends time comforting me and eventually I calm down. Not completely, though. Throughout the trip I feel as if my reality is a lie.

Today is the day after and I am back to normal. However, I am still very afraid. Each of those times it's as if the LSD sobered me. It's as if when I'm not on LSD I'm living in a lie created by my subconscious. Every moment leads me to my destiny of taking LSD so that I sober up and realize I'm a nut somewhere and my life is my imagination.

What do you think? Just bad trips? Mental instability? Am I possibly prone to psychosis or something? Will I ever be able to take acid again? Has anyone experienced anything similar?

Thanks to all input.

 

[Motifoner]

Okay well uh if i was you i would not take acid again for a long time(years).

Someone correct me if im wrong but this is psychosis symptoms isnt it?

I've had some extremely random thoughts on acid good and bad.

But trust me your life is not a lie, the system of consumerism running the world kind of is, but your life isnt.
Ive heard voices on acid, ones i thought were evil and malovent. But you have to remember your tripping(at that time).

I half feel like your grip on reality was not the strongest prior to acid? Not just your first time i mean all of them.
And if you keep having these illusions of your "other life/s" maybe its your subconscious telling you to be careful with drug use.
Idk bout any other people here. But ive known a lot of people who had those "ive ruined my life" type thoughts when starting drug use for extended periods.

But lsd used correctly can be therapeudic and it saved my life, i think a few others here at BL too.
Which brings me to another point, it sounds like your set and setting were not really correct per say.

For example: i would not go near a store or public function tripping, thats asking for trouble. Ive never had a bad trip, but one of my most difficult moments was 3 tabs at a shopping centre.
Scary vibes and shit everywhere, eye contact, strange characters, mishaps and hazards like cars etc.

Acid is not really a drug you just take 3 tabs and go walk round the streets to peoples houses, parks and stores "having fun". You need context, you need something to do for 12 hours. Been in a comfortable(mentally) place is pretty much paramount when tripping.

A last note or two, please try not to jump to conclusions what i mean is when your on acid your thoughts are farrrr far more abstract than your average thought, you can get weird delusional thoughts, but try to think logically. Are you the only real consciousness and everything else is fake?
Then what is my comment.


I dont think your subconscious is out to get you, i think you will find its the other way around. By the sounds of it your subconscious is trying to tell you to be careful of drugs. The subconscious mind is extremely powerful and i think if it was out to get you it would have got you long ago.

Please forgive me if i sound blunt or harsh with any of this. its my opinion and i suck at glazing that sugar coating. I hope things work out for you

 

[tawmsoyer]

You did not sound harsh or blunt. I really, really appreciate the advice and will definitely take a long break. Thanks

 

[tawmsoyer]

Bump... anyone else have input?

 

[Pirre]

I agree, (mind)set & setting. If you really feel like tripping again, do it at your/your friends house where you'll be with people you know and trust, where you won't be disturbed, and make sure to not have any responsibilities for the next 24 hours.
Don't smoke weed unless at the tail end of the trip, make a playlist beforehand of music you love (esp from when you were younger, nostalgia is a ridiculous strong emotion on lsd), have some good food at hand, such as fruits, salad, cheese, olives... Avoid processed food and snacks. You can't really plan a trip, but having good people with you, and good things around you to do and eat and going with the flow works best.

 

[psystim]

This sounds extremely familiar to me.
I had trips that are very similar to what you described.
Believe me, it's not psychosis.
You are perfectly fine.
Acid tends to play with your feelings a lot, so if you feel paranoia while on acid, it will be increased and a much stronger paranoia.
There is a state of mind you can reach while under the effects of LSD that is very similar to psychosis or schizophrenia, things like racing thoughts, extreme paranoia (the cops are after you, the cashier is a DEA agent and so on)
This is a result from having a bad trip.
Don't worry about it, you're fine.
Again it all comes down to set & setting. Try not to trip in the city and walk into shops and such while tripping, it's usually not a good idea. And another thing, from your story it seems that you are not 100% confident around your friends. Are they good friends of you? Or you just do acid together? IMO it is very important that you 100% trust the people you trip with, that you know they will help you if something happen and that you all love each other.
Another thing is smoking weed while tripping, while it may be fun and add a lot to your trip, if u get paranoid from the weed it will increase the paranoia of the acid and can easily send you to that psychosis mind state again.
I suggest you to think about the things I pointed out, and wish you all the best.
Remember that acid is one hell of a drug and it can really play with your emotions. The most important thing is to stay calm (as much as possible) and remember that all effects you get from acid will past eventuality, and every thing you feel is fine.
There is no "is this okay to feel this or be like that", everything is ok.

Stay safe and take care.

 

[Solipsis]

Yes was also gonna post that: you obviously got very paranoid about your tripping and drug use and started feeling very guilty about it, subsequently you manifested your worst fears about where you would end up in your mind.
Typical for psychedelics such as acid.

While not psychosis, it can still go close to drug-induced (temporary) psychosis just like overdose stimulants can - with a similar mega-paranoia and semi-frank hallucinations of e.g. police everywhere.

It's not good to continue with a lot of fearful or guilty feelings, and not addressing what you are comfortable with and aren't may set you up for such experiences. So as psystim said it's good to reflect on this and realize that it was your mind that made this into a huge deal including hallucinations about your fears and guilt-feelings and insecurities, and deciding e.g. that it doesn't matter what other people think about psychedelics and that they don't really ruin your mind, however they can catalyze states of mind and you can drive yourself crazy with unaddressed fears.
If your fear of going crazy kind of drives you crazy it is a self-fulfilling prophecy, but stepping out of those kinds of thoughts breaks the cycle and a psychedelic won't inherently fry your brain - it's not organically damaging.

I doubt you'll really get rekt soon beyond 'bad trips' like this, but maybe it's good to keep an eye on your doses, the combo's (even weed, which really often feeds into paranoia like that), and the setting and where you go in public etc on acid until you deal with such insecurities. Clearly you are overstepping your boundaries by taking enough for such intense effects in settings that make you paranoid.

So I personally would either cut down the tripping, or trip in a safe environment next time with a doable therapeutic dose, only chilled out dear friends present if anyone, and reflect on your fears and insecurities and find a resolution to them which hopefully leads to a breakthrough or if not preclude yourself from tripping in public.