RiderOnTheStorm
Bluelighter
Hello everyone, long time reader, first time poster. The following is a story about my first encounter with the substances: Psilocybin, LSD, and MDMA. Prior to these drugs I had gotten drunk many times, and was a regular pot smoker. The following experiences all took place in the bay area, CA. Around summertime 1999, when I was 16.
It was a beautiful sunny day in San Francisco. I had been hanging out with my friends Gary (roommate) and Lee all day. We were at Powell St. station about to catch the Bart train back to the east bay, when we walked by a guy sitting on a bench. He catches our attention with the words “Do you guys want to buy some shrooms?” Gary and Lee were both experienced with shrooms, so they look over at me and ask if I want to trip. With great enthusiasm I bust out my wallet. We pooled together 25$ and Gary being very street wise, haggled with the guy. The guy starts pulling the shrooms out of a paper grocery bag and handing them to Gary. No scale, just straight eyeballin’ it, meanwhile with every handful Gary is like “Hook it up a little more.” He must have said that like three times, but we walked away with about a 1/4, so it must have worked.
Anticipation the whole way home, I knew nothing of these magical mushrooms except that they made you see things. When we got back to my house, we divided up the fungus and proceeded to eat them straight with water. I remember thinking that they kind of tasted like kelp seaweed or something. I wasn’t enjoying the taste, but I’ve tasted worse things before. I estimate we each ate a little over 2 grams (dried) stems, and caps.
We sat and talked about what it was going to be like for a while. It made me feel comfortable knowing that I was with two experienced users, but more so that I was in a safe setting with two best friends. I remember feeling the first effects about 45 minutes after we ate. I felt very giddy and almost like being drunk. I could feel my spirit being lifted. At this point it was just a body high no visuals yet. We decided to put in a (BMX) bike video. The whole video is in black and white, and has a decent soundtrack. I remember hearing the music and it sounding wider and deeper than normal. The next song in video was “Start Me Up” by the Stones. This song was like the cue for the visuals to start. The first thing I noticed was wavy kind of distortion. By now everything was very funny, my friends and I would just bust out laughing at times. Then the colors started, this once black and white video was now in full psychedelic color. Soon the video was over and just a white screen remained. I think we were peaking at this point. We just sat there transfixed by the awesome array of rainbow colors forming out of the white screen. Then the tape stopped, now it was a blue screen and no sound. But I could hear auditory distortions, like a high frequency wavelength was being transmitted through my head. It’s hard to explain.
At this point, Gary had to leave with his girlfriend and her friend to go eat dinner or something. We all walked outside to greet them. This is when I notice the plants around my house seemed very alive. I looked at two trees in the distance that were standing very high. I felt like they were watching me, and then they started to sort of dance in a hypnotic manner. As Gary was leaving I felt a sadness like part of the experience was going too. I then gave him a big hug, something I wouldn’t normally do. Bid them farewell, and returned to my room with Lee.
The remainder of the trip was spent laughing randomly with Lee whenever we made eye contact. I remember thinking about how similar we are as people, and how he was my best friend. We might have smoked weed then, I can’t remember though. Anyways, he left to go home, so I had some time alone on the tail end of the trip. During this time I felt proud of myself for losing my psychedelic virginity, and I knew that this was just the beginning of the spiritual journey.
This next story is of my first rave. I had always been fascinated by raves and ecstasy since I was 14. Not that I knew anything about either except that raves were all night dance parties, and E made you feel good. Lee had been going to raves and dropping E before I met him, so of course as we became closer friends he wanted me to go to onE. Back then I only listened to punk rock, I was pretty close-minded to other types of music, getting loose in the mosh pit was the closest I’d come to dancing. So electronic dance music wasn’t exactly me scene (or so I thought.) But I did want to try Ecstasy, mostly out of curiosity, but partly because I was still angry/sad over being forced to move to California by my Mom five months earlier. In retrospect, the rebellious side of me gave me the courage to experiment with drugs (Thanks Mom!).
So Lee invites Gary and I to go to a Massive with him and his sister Erin (her first rave too.) At first I wasn’t going to go because it was too expensive, 30$ to get in + all other expenses. So I’m walking out to the car just to meet Erin and wish them a goodtime, I get half way to the car, see Erin in the driver’s seat looking beautiful. So told Gary, I am going, he laughed and I ran back inside and hit my mom up for some cash. She knew what it was for, but it was ok, because we’re very close.
So off we were to “Metropolis” being held at Home Base (RIP) or “The International Rave Center” as it said in big lettering on the outside the building. The massives there would draw thousands upon thousands of people from all walks of life. After waiting in a long line, we got in and Lee asked for my 20$. I gave it to him and in a matter of seconds he came back with 2 pills for Erin and I. I don’t remember what kind of pills they were.
So we dropped and started to walk around the party, the place was huge and packed. There must’ve been 6 gigantic rooms, with everything from house, jungle, trance, to live hip hop performances. Of course back then I couldn’t distinguish the difference between the types of music, it was all just beats to me. So Lee takes off to dance and says take care of my sister. So Erin and I start walking around the outdoor area where it was less crowded. When all of a sudden, out of nowhere the E started hitting me hard. So hard in fact, that I told Erin “we need to sit down.” The body high was so overwhelming, I became weak in the knees and felt light headed. We went and sat against a wall. This is where we would spend the majority of the night, utterly floored! At first we just sat there observing the scene. Saying in a very spacy manner, “look at all the different people, everyone is so different.” That line was spoken many times throughout the course of the night. Eventually we got all touchy feely, and embraced each other for most of the night. Her skin felt so smooth, and my body felt like when you get goose bumps from joy. Our friends who were at the party would come ask us how we were doing, only to be replied with "Wonderful” Eventually we go up and attempted to dance. I didn’t feel comfortable dancing, but it did feel good to move to the music. Before we knew it the sun was rising, so we regrouped and went our separate ways. I don’t think me or Gary slept at all until the next night. I never fully grasped or understood the full potential of the drug or the rave until my third time.
So that was the beginning of my Ecstasy honeymoon, which went on for eight months. I became very absorbed by the rave scene (even developed a liking for trance), Rolling almost every weekend, never more than one pill a night though. I never really lost the magic, but I did feel I was living for the weekend, spending all my money on raves etc. But all in all, I think MDMA has made me a better person. It helped me get over my anger issues with my Mom, gave me more self esteem, and has allowed me to open up to people more. I also think that for me, ecstasy was more of a gateway drug than cannabis, it opened my mind to the positive side of drug use. I still use MDMA but in moderation, and still go to raves occasionally but I find that it’s just not anywhere near as ill as it was in 99’.
This next story also takes place at a rave “Cakewalk”, and involves my first run in with LSD. So I’ll cut to the chase on this one. I was inside the party with 5 friends, we didn’t all have enough for E, so we decided to drop acid. It would be the first time for four of us. I had never bought acid at a party before, but knew it was available. Then out of nowhere I see this girl from my school. I didn’t know her all that well, but for some reason I knew she had acid. I asked her and sure enough she had blotter tabs for 5$. I immediately bought 5, and returned to my group with a smile on my face. Handed out the doses, and we all dropped them on our tongues in true hippy fashion. Started dancing to pass the time, I formed our own little dance circle and got down with the glowsticks. Mind set is positive and I am ready for what ever this drug has to offer.
Skip forward about an hour, dancing with this random girl who I am pretty sure is rolling. Then her glowsticks start to leave trails behind them, I was thinking oh cool, the drugs are working, and continued to dance. Little did I know, this would be the last of the dancing for the night. From this point on the visuals only got stronger, along with the body high. My body felt like it was being electrocuted, my brain being fried. At one point I remember throwing my glowsticks on the ground because it felt like they were burning, shocking my hands, like I could feel the light. After that I went to find my friends, found Gary and Erin just staring blankly into each other’s dilated pupils. I say something to Gary along the lines of “I’m tripping hard, something’s wrong, I’ve never tripped this hard before, this is crazy.” his reply to my freaking out was “It’s just acid.” Easy for him to say, he was experience with it. And I could tell that Erin was tripping hard too. They were not much help. I thought, I gotta deal with this on my own and intentionally lost everyone I came with. After wondering around aimlessly through E-puddles, I realized I wanted to find my friends again. Now I’m kind of regretting taking the acid in this environment, and I now wish I had just bought some E.
I found Michael-Ann one of the girls who came with us. I’m surprised at how well she is handling it, as it is her first time too. I pick up a party flier lying on the ground next to us. This is where I got my coolest acid visual. As I looked at the flier something amazing happened, the waterfall on it started to flow so life like it was like watching the discovery channel. I could even hear the water running and splashing. I looked a Michael-Ann and she confirmed the flier was trippy. She then tried to get me to dance, but that took too much effort. I just wanted to sit and look at things. I remember feeling sick at one point, when it was real intense. But I think that was inspired by seeing someone puke. I tried to puke but could not, and figured it wouldn’t help anyway. So I sat down, talking to random strangers, most of who were rolling. Then my friend’s x-girlfriend comes up and starts hitting on me, normally I wouldn’t have minded, but in the state I was in I didn’t want to deal with her. I told her politely that I was flattered, but I’m tripping hard on acid right now. She continued to bother me, as she was rolling. So I went to find my friends to tell them we need to get out of this hectic environment. So we left, there were like 15 cops outside the party, I just looked at them and smiled.
We were all still tripping hard on the ride home. I was the first to comment on how the music on the radio sounded extremely distorted. Everyone agreed, we were still fucked up. Got home, watched plants morph and twist, looked at myself in the mirror for a while. I watched my face evolve into old age and back. Spent the remainder of the trip listening to music and staring at a pine tree out my window. By far one the longest lasting trips I’ve had. I’ve done acid several times since and had much more comfortable, controlled trips. But that was by far the strongest. And so that concludes my summer of love. Sorry for the length. Hope you enjoyed reading. Peace.
:D
It was a beautiful sunny day in San Francisco. I had been hanging out with my friends Gary (roommate) and Lee all day. We were at Powell St. station about to catch the Bart train back to the east bay, when we walked by a guy sitting on a bench. He catches our attention with the words “Do you guys want to buy some shrooms?” Gary and Lee were both experienced with shrooms, so they look over at me and ask if I want to trip. With great enthusiasm I bust out my wallet. We pooled together 25$ and Gary being very street wise, haggled with the guy. The guy starts pulling the shrooms out of a paper grocery bag and handing them to Gary. No scale, just straight eyeballin’ it, meanwhile with every handful Gary is like “Hook it up a little more.” He must have said that like three times, but we walked away with about a 1/4, so it must have worked.
Anticipation the whole way home, I knew nothing of these magical mushrooms except that they made you see things. When we got back to my house, we divided up the fungus and proceeded to eat them straight with water. I remember thinking that they kind of tasted like kelp seaweed or something. I wasn’t enjoying the taste, but I’ve tasted worse things before. I estimate we each ate a little over 2 grams (dried) stems, and caps.
We sat and talked about what it was going to be like for a while. It made me feel comfortable knowing that I was with two experienced users, but more so that I was in a safe setting with two best friends. I remember feeling the first effects about 45 minutes after we ate. I felt very giddy and almost like being drunk. I could feel my spirit being lifted. At this point it was just a body high no visuals yet. We decided to put in a (BMX) bike video. The whole video is in black and white, and has a decent soundtrack. I remember hearing the music and it sounding wider and deeper than normal. The next song in video was “Start Me Up” by the Stones. This song was like the cue for the visuals to start. The first thing I noticed was wavy kind of distortion. By now everything was very funny, my friends and I would just bust out laughing at times. Then the colors started, this once black and white video was now in full psychedelic color. Soon the video was over and just a white screen remained. I think we were peaking at this point. We just sat there transfixed by the awesome array of rainbow colors forming out of the white screen. Then the tape stopped, now it was a blue screen and no sound. But I could hear auditory distortions, like a high frequency wavelength was being transmitted through my head. It’s hard to explain.
At this point, Gary had to leave with his girlfriend and her friend to go eat dinner or something. We all walked outside to greet them. This is when I notice the plants around my house seemed very alive. I looked at two trees in the distance that were standing very high. I felt like they were watching me, and then they started to sort of dance in a hypnotic manner. As Gary was leaving I felt a sadness like part of the experience was going too. I then gave him a big hug, something I wouldn’t normally do. Bid them farewell, and returned to my room with Lee.
The remainder of the trip was spent laughing randomly with Lee whenever we made eye contact. I remember thinking about how similar we are as people, and how he was my best friend. We might have smoked weed then, I can’t remember though. Anyways, he left to go home, so I had some time alone on the tail end of the trip. During this time I felt proud of myself for losing my psychedelic virginity, and I knew that this was just the beginning of the spiritual journey.
This next story is of my first rave. I had always been fascinated by raves and ecstasy since I was 14. Not that I knew anything about either except that raves were all night dance parties, and E made you feel good. Lee had been going to raves and dropping E before I met him, so of course as we became closer friends he wanted me to go to onE. Back then I only listened to punk rock, I was pretty close-minded to other types of music, getting loose in the mosh pit was the closest I’d come to dancing. So electronic dance music wasn’t exactly me scene (or so I thought.) But I did want to try Ecstasy, mostly out of curiosity, but partly because I was still angry/sad over being forced to move to California by my Mom five months earlier. In retrospect, the rebellious side of me gave me the courage to experiment with drugs (Thanks Mom!).
So Lee invites Gary and I to go to a Massive with him and his sister Erin (her first rave too.) At first I wasn’t going to go because it was too expensive, 30$ to get in + all other expenses. So I’m walking out to the car just to meet Erin and wish them a goodtime, I get half way to the car, see Erin in the driver’s seat looking beautiful. So told Gary, I am going, he laughed and I ran back inside and hit my mom up for some cash. She knew what it was for, but it was ok, because we’re very close.
So off we were to “Metropolis” being held at Home Base (RIP) or “The International Rave Center” as it said in big lettering on the outside the building. The massives there would draw thousands upon thousands of people from all walks of life. After waiting in a long line, we got in and Lee asked for my 20$. I gave it to him and in a matter of seconds he came back with 2 pills for Erin and I. I don’t remember what kind of pills they were.
So we dropped and started to walk around the party, the place was huge and packed. There must’ve been 6 gigantic rooms, with everything from house, jungle, trance, to live hip hop performances. Of course back then I couldn’t distinguish the difference between the types of music, it was all just beats to me. So Lee takes off to dance and says take care of my sister. So Erin and I start walking around the outdoor area where it was less crowded. When all of a sudden, out of nowhere the E started hitting me hard. So hard in fact, that I told Erin “we need to sit down.” The body high was so overwhelming, I became weak in the knees and felt light headed. We went and sat against a wall. This is where we would spend the majority of the night, utterly floored! At first we just sat there observing the scene. Saying in a very spacy manner, “look at all the different people, everyone is so different.” That line was spoken many times throughout the course of the night. Eventually we got all touchy feely, and embraced each other for most of the night. Her skin felt so smooth, and my body felt like when you get goose bumps from joy. Our friends who were at the party would come ask us how we were doing, only to be replied with "Wonderful” Eventually we go up and attempted to dance. I didn’t feel comfortable dancing, but it did feel good to move to the music. Before we knew it the sun was rising, so we regrouped and went our separate ways. I don’t think me or Gary slept at all until the next night. I never fully grasped or understood the full potential of the drug or the rave until my third time.
So that was the beginning of my Ecstasy honeymoon, which went on for eight months. I became very absorbed by the rave scene (even developed a liking for trance), Rolling almost every weekend, never more than one pill a night though. I never really lost the magic, but I did feel I was living for the weekend, spending all my money on raves etc. But all in all, I think MDMA has made me a better person. It helped me get over my anger issues with my Mom, gave me more self esteem, and has allowed me to open up to people more. I also think that for me, ecstasy was more of a gateway drug than cannabis, it opened my mind to the positive side of drug use. I still use MDMA but in moderation, and still go to raves occasionally but I find that it’s just not anywhere near as ill as it was in 99’.
This next story also takes place at a rave “Cakewalk”, and involves my first run in with LSD. So I’ll cut to the chase on this one. I was inside the party with 5 friends, we didn’t all have enough for E, so we decided to drop acid. It would be the first time for four of us. I had never bought acid at a party before, but knew it was available. Then out of nowhere I see this girl from my school. I didn’t know her all that well, but for some reason I knew she had acid. I asked her and sure enough she had blotter tabs for 5$. I immediately bought 5, and returned to my group with a smile on my face. Handed out the doses, and we all dropped them on our tongues in true hippy fashion. Started dancing to pass the time, I formed our own little dance circle and got down with the glowsticks. Mind set is positive and I am ready for what ever this drug has to offer.
Skip forward about an hour, dancing with this random girl who I am pretty sure is rolling. Then her glowsticks start to leave trails behind them, I was thinking oh cool, the drugs are working, and continued to dance. Little did I know, this would be the last of the dancing for the night. From this point on the visuals only got stronger, along with the body high. My body felt like it was being electrocuted, my brain being fried. At one point I remember throwing my glowsticks on the ground because it felt like they were burning, shocking my hands, like I could feel the light. After that I went to find my friends, found Gary and Erin just staring blankly into each other’s dilated pupils. I say something to Gary along the lines of “I’m tripping hard, something’s wrong, I’ve never tripped this hard before, this is crazy.” his reply to my freaking out was “It’s just acid.” Easy for him to say, he was experience with it. And I could tell that Erin was tripping hard too. They were not much help. I thought, I gotta deal with this on my own and intentionally lost everyone I came with. After wondering around aimlessly through E-puddles, I realized I wanted to find my friends again. Now I’m kind of regretting taking the acid in this environment, and I now wish I had just bought some E.
I found Michael-Ann one of the girls who came with us. I’m surprised at how well she is handling it, as it is her first time too. I pick up a party flier lying on the ground next to us. This is where I got my coolest acid visual. As I looked at the flier something amazing happened, the waterfall on it started to flow so life like it was like watching the discovery channel. I could even hear the water running and splashing. I looked a Michael-Ann and she confirmed the flier was trippy. She then tried to get me to dance, but that took too much effort. I just wanted to sit and look at things. I remember feeling sick at one point, when it was real intense. But I think that was inspired by seeing someone puke. I tried to puke but could not, and figured it wouldn’t help anyway. So I sat down, talking to random strangers, most of who were rolling. Then my friend’s x-girlfriend comes up and starts hitting on me, normally I wouldn’t have minded, but in the state I was in I didn’t want to deal with her. I told her politely that I was flattered, but I’m tripping hard on acid right now. She continued to bother me, as she was rolling. So I went to find my friends to tell them we need to get out of this hectic environment. So we left, there were like 15 cops outside the party, I just looked at them and smiled.
We were all still tripping hard on the ride home. I was the first to comment on how the music on the radio sounded extremely distorted. Everyone agreed, we were still fucked up. Got home, watched plants morph and twist, looked at myself in the mirror for a while. I watched my face evolve into old age and back. Spent the remainder of the trip listening to music and staring at a pine tree out my window. By far one the longest lasting trips I’ve had. I’ve done acid several times since and had much more comfortable, controlled trips. But that was by far the strongest. And so that concludes my summer of love. Sorry for the length. Hope you enjoyed reading. Peace.
:D
