LSD / one and a third tab - intermediate experience - Bliss then Vasoconstriction

I have a decent experience with psychedelics - mainly about 100 trips on magic mushrooms - but only 6 LSD trips. The worst part of this LSD experience I have also experienced with magic mushrooms. I performed 2 tests with the blotter I got: looked at the portion of the sheet that I got under a black light, saw it glow, and noted the variation in brightness across the 4 x 5 tabs and tested a small piece with an Ehrlich reagent kit; by deduction, the chances that it was not LSD is very unlikely.

This trip report is based on my 6th LSD trip. The overall experience was positive but my negative reaction certainly was a big component of the last 2 and a half hours of my trip.

I decided that I was going to take 1 and 1/3 tabs and to take half of that to start and then about 30 minutes later take the 2nd half to make onset and coming up a little easier - which worked well and the effect was certainly stronger than the last time I took 1 tab from the same sheet. Onset was mild and occurred before taking the second tab. After taking the 2nd half I had a shower and relaxed. I noticed that I was coming up in the shower but it wasn't overwhelming. I felt quite relaxed. As the water drops from the shower were hitting my skin, they tickled. It almost seemed like I could feel every drop hitting me and every drop tickled me - that lasted for about 5 or so minutes when I got back to washing myself. I still felt very relaxed.

My shower lasted about 30 minutes. When I got out I blow dried my hair; normally it doesn't burn but this time it felt really hot on my scalp (I always use a diffuser with the #2 (of 3) heat setting and full fan speed - which was the same setting used last night). After I was finished in the bathroom, I went to my room, got my pajamas on, got a glass of water, and plunked myself down in bed.

The next 30 or so minutes wasn't that eventful. At 1 and a half hours I noticed that it was hitting me pretty strong. The closed eye visuals were vivid and beautiful: hard to describe the shapes I saw but they changed colours and were bright; Yellow and white were the dominate colours that I saw. I was also very relaxed and at peace, the most relaxed I have ever felt and I also felt very wonderful (it was the best feeling I have ever experienced - like LSD was an orgasm for my brain).

2 hours in, I started to feel drowsy and sleepy. Either that or I was going into blackout periods where the LSD was completely taking over but I recall periods where I don't think I was conscious. The last time I went into that state was about 2 and a half hours. I am not sure how long I was out for but I saw a fractal in great detail and got pulled out of the fractal at a very fast rate but yet I could see every single detail of that fractal; as I was being pulled out of the fractal a surge of energy pulsed from head and traveled down and through my body. It was a bit alarming and I literally jumped up out of bed. My heart started to race but quickly came back to resting heart rate once I realized what had happened and calmed myself down.

For the next 2 hours I had visual distortions, some open eye visuals, and colours shifted. My peripheral vision was pulsing. Closed eye visual were still vivid.

4 and a half hours into my trip things started going downhill due to vasoconstriction. My noes, hands, fore arms, and feet felt really cold. My heart rate was very high but wasn't beating very strong - so each beat was weak. I tried to get up but I was too weak. I knew I had to counter the vasoconstriction, and have stronger heart beats and slower heart rate. I needed to get circulation back to the rest of my body. Laying in bed for about 3 hours certainly didn't help with avoid vasoconstriction. I ended up laying there for another 30 minutes trying to figure out how to get up since sitting up was enough of a challenge. I managed to get on my hands and knees and then noticed taking very very deep breaths caused my heart to respond the way I wanted it to and was able to get up. I then forced blood to my arms and hands by swinging them and saw them get colour and feel warm again. I got another glass of water and made drank 2 cups of tea within 10 minutes. I paced around the house for about an hour. It took me another 2 hours to get my heart rate down and feeling safe. Throughout this whole ordeal, I remained relatively calm - freaking out and panicking would have added extra stress to my heart which I didn't need at that time.

So now at 6 and a half hours I felt comfortable enough to lay down again. Heart rate was still above normal but it was now in a good range. During that 2 hours of complications my trip seemed to have paused; very little visual distortions, not many open eye or closed eye visuals, color shifting seemed to be the only thing that kept happening. Now the visual distortions returned, the walls and ceiling were warping and colours shifting again. I started to see trailing as well. I don't how much longer I was up but I decided that I needed to get to sleep and worked myself into a sleep.

I guess I slept for about 9 hours, waking up at 2:30pm. The after effects were minimal. At night or dimly lit rooms I can still see some open eye visuals kind of like a static; though, I've always seen static even before using psychedelics but after a psychedelic experience that static becomes more noticeable for a couple days but it's certainly not distracting nor disruptive to me. This LSD experience has certainly caused that after effect to be more noticeable than previous experiences.

To sum it up, I had a positive experience for the first 4 and a half hours, a negative experience for 2 hours, and slight positive experience after 6 hours until I fell asleep. I do wonder if LSD has a cumulative vasoconsticting effect especially since I haven't let my tolerance completely dissipate between trips. I have read that sufferers of cluster headaches experience a lasting vasoconstrictive effect from psilocybin or LSD long after consuming it. It seems I should wait a few weeks now before trying again: 6 trips in 5 weeks.

Your case of vasoconstriction sounds an awful lot like just a normal anxiety episode. I've been there exactly as you have, the best thing to do would've been to get outside and get moving around. I've only ever had vasoconstriction issues when im laying around indoors for an entire trip lol!

I know this thread is a bit old but I figure I should follow up.

I reflected on that experience and recognized it (in hindsight) as an anxiety attack (which I used to get about on a weekly basis - for years - from mild to severe when not taking anything). That experience didn't dissuaded me from continuing using LSD though. I learned from that experience and in just the weeks prior I had read an article about using MDMA in the treatment for PTSD and how a patient can openly talk about their traumatic experiences. Also knowing that LSD makes it hard to hide from my thoughts, I figured I could conquer my anxiety attacks by continuing to use LSD and learning to cope and control the anxiety attacks (though I didn't know if LSD was going to work in a similar capacity).

In the following 8 weeks, I took a half tab every weekend. At first the anxiety attacks were moderate but I learned to cope. In the last 4 weeks, the anxiety attacks became less and less severe until they went away. I've been using LSD every weekend since then and I still do get a little bit of anxiety on the come up but I have never had another anxiety attack since then; I mean completely gone when I'm sober or tripping.

I am so glad that I did manage to overcome my anxiety attacks as those experiences became quite valuable when I tried mdma; my first 3 experiences were relatively mild (I was be cautious with how much I took), but my 4th experience I made it up to 85mg. It was this 4th experience where when I was coming up the rush seemed to be almost overwhelming and I came close to having an anxiety attack; I remembered the things I learned from my LSD experiences and calmed myself down and focused my mind on enjoying the high instead of fighting it. The rest of the night was peaceful and enjoyable