Experience reports

Not sure if this is the right section for this, but I'd really like to read experience reports of trips from some other members of this community.

I'm not quite sure how people on this forum feel about drugs, but this quote should open up a lot of minds:
[CENTER]"There is no difference in principle between sharpening perception with an external instrument, such as a microscope, and sharpening it with an internal instrument, such as one of these...drugs. If they are an affront to the dignity of the mind, the microscope is an affront to the dignity of the eye and the telephone to the dignity of the ear. Strictly speaking, these drugs do not impart wisdom at all, any more than the microscope alone gives knowledge. They provide the raw materials of wisdom, and are useful to the extent that the individual can integrate what they reveal into the whole pattern of his behavior and the whole system of his knowledge."
-Alan Watts[/CENTER]

The following is an experience report I wrote last week:

T+0:00 Promptly at 10:00, I ingested 5 hits of the acid. I had not eaten anything since the night before. The acid tasted very funky. Kind of metallic, like copper. It caused me to gag once, but I got over the taste, and the paper dissolved after about 15 minutes.

Me and two friends, M and L, got a ride to M's house soon afterwards. M and L had each ingested 3 hits.

Quick note about the setting: M's room is very small, especially for 3 people. It is maybe 20x20 feet. There is a bed, 3 chairs, an ottoman, and a television. It is very dark, too. There is no overhead light, and there are curtains over the windows.

T+0:45 I began to feel a little nauseous, as did M and L, so we decided to smoke a few bowls of cannabis. This relieved the nausea for me, but brought on quite a bit of drymouth.

T+1:30 The acid really began to take effect at this point. I really started to lose my connection with reality and time. I'm not sure of the times of anything that happened over the next few hours, but I will try to describe my feelings and activities.
At one point, I opened a book that I am currently reading: Man is the Measure by Reuben Abel (a great introduction to epistemology and metaphysics, for anyone who is interested). I was able only to read one chapter, but I felt much more connected to the text, and understanding of the nature of words. I felt much more capable of grasping the ideas being presented to me, because I understood the connection between words and ideas. I understood that the words were simply symbols that represented concepts. And mastery of concepts is what 'learning' truly means. One particular quote that sent me on an exciting mind-trip was describing Einstein's idea of the "now."
"Now means something special for man, something essentially different from past and future, but that this important difference does not and cannot occur in physics ... there is something essential about the now which is just outside the realm of science. We agreed that this is not a defect for which science can be blamed..."
Reading this revealed so much to me about the nature of my perception.

The most interesting (or least interesting, depending on how you look at it) thing that happened to me, was a total and complete blackout. I am known among my friends for embracing the fetal position in my sleep, and, more often than not, when on drugs. I was curled up in a ball on M's bed, and before I knew it, I was looking up, totally confused. M and L told me that I had been in the same position for 15 minutes. I don't remember any of it. Then, it happened again. This time, I remember closing my eyes and watching a complex series of colors and patterns appear before the 'blackout' occurred.

T+6:00 At 4:00, and I decided to go meet up with C, S, and G. I looked out the window, and saw about 2 inches of snow on the ground. This was very strange, because neither M, L, nor I had looked out the windows for the past 5 hours. I checked the weather, and saw that it was about 25F outside.

I walked about 3 miles outside in 25F weather, with snow and wind blowing all around me. Interestingly, not once did I have the discomfort of experiencing the sensation of 'cold'. I attributed this to my understanding of what 'cold' is. Cold is nothing alone, it does not exist by itself. Cold derives its meaning from 'hot', and vise versa. Cold and hot must exist together, and must be compared to each other for any meaning to come from them. This was all conscious thought, though. What surprised me even more was that my subconscious understood this idea as well. As I rolled up my sleeves, I expected to see goose bumps and hairs standing up on their ends. Instead, I saw smooth, soft skin. I kept my sleeves up for 5 more minutes to see if the goose bumps appeared, to no avail.

T+8:00 I met up with C, S, and G, and S and G each ingested 2 hits, and I ingested 1 more. Nothing much occurred between this point and 10:00, when we made our way back to S's house for the night.

T+12:00 I conversed with S's friend, X, for 3 or 4 hours. It was one of the most interesting conversations I can remember having, though. We discussed philosophy, religion, the philosophy of science, and the nature of cause and effect. Never have I had so many synapses in my brain occur in one night.
My favorite discussion concerned how each and every event has some connection or relation to every other event. It's just about finding and understanding those connections. And to understand those connections is to know the nature of the universe, including knowing the future. It was at this point that X revealed to me that his ancestors were gypsies from Eastern Europe, and he was a tarot reader.

T+18:00 For the next few hours, until I was able to finally fall asleep, I lay in bed with S and G with the lights off, talking. I felt so connected to them, and able to share ideas. I had quite a number of visual hallucinations throughout my experience, but what was more interesting to me was the nature of a visual 'hallucination.' I realized that it was no the acid that made the walls melt, it was my mind accepting the fact that walls CAN melt.