Acid: good or bad?

[Screwdriver]

I was dropping acid almost every weekend for a couple years back in the early 80's. Window Pane, Blotter and liquid. Some would have me feeling like I was on speed along with the visual effects. Some, like the WP and liquid had a really clean trip. I ended up with a really high tolerance and rarely had a bad trip. I even went to High School a few time after taking a single hit and was able to maintain the appearance of normality. Once in my AP Physics class we had a pop exam and I had to measure the angle of a laser beam split through a prism. The beams where actually wavy and all i could do was guesstimate the angle. Got an A+

I only had hardcore visual hallucinations a dozen or so time....most of the time it was mostly light warping, breathing walls and floors and odd sounds. One time though I was hiking with a friend of mine and we both dropped four hits of WP. We were sitting on these rocks and just talking and tripping. Then a German bomber came at us and dropped his bomb load. My friend and I both saw the bombs falling towards us so we started running and screaming. Just before the bombs hit the ground it all disappeared. It was unbelievably real. Another time I was at a friends house tripping and we were all hanging in the living room watching MTV. All of a sudden this old man, who had clothing from the 1930's walked into the room and stood in front of me. I asked him where he came from and he wouldn't reply. My friends where like, WTF...who the hell are you talking to. I was kinda freaking out because he was as clear as day, but no one else saw him. He stood there starring at me for 20 minutes or so....then he just walked away...I followed him into the kitchen but he just disappeared.

These days I won't touch it because I have had much shit happen to me over the years, I think I'd loose my mind. Worst drug I do these days is weed.

 

[greystr0ke]

I was dropping acid almost every weekend for a couple years back in the early 80's. Window Pane, Blotter and liquid. Some would have me feeling like I was on speed along with the visual effects. Some, like the WP and liquid had a really clean trip. I ended up with a really high tolerance and rarely had a bad trip. I even went to High School a few time after taking a single hit and was able to maintain the appearance of normality. Once in my AP Physics class we had a pop exam and I had to measure the angle of a laser beam split through a prism. The beams where actually wavy and all i could do was guesstimate the angle. Got an A+

I only had hardcore visual hallucinations a dozen or so time....most of the time it was mostly light warping, breathing walls and floors and odd sounds. One time though I was hiking with a friend of mine and we both dropped four hits of WP. We were sitting on these rocks and just talking and tripping. Then a German bomber came at us and dropped his bomb load. My friend and I both saw the bombs falling towards us so we started running and screaming. Just before the bombs hit the ground it all disappeared. It was unbelievably real. Another time I was at a friends house tripping and we were all hanging in the living room watching MTV. All of a sudden this old man, who had clothing from the 1930's walked into the room and stood in front of me. I asked him where he came from and he wouldn't reply. My friends where like, WTF...who the hell are you talking to. I was kinda freaking out because he was as clear as day, but no one else saw him. He stood there starring at me for 20 minutes or so....then he just walked away...I followed him into the kitchen but he just disappeared.

These days I won't touch it because I have had much shit happen to me over the years, I think I'd loose my mind. Worst drug I do these days is weed.

Your experiences are very similar to my own. I was dropping acid up to 3 times a week in high school at one point. I've tried everything to blotter, gels, and those damn sugar cubes.... I too would also take mine at school as did just about all my friends. I pushed the envelope even further a few years later by dropping cid at Disney World with 3 of my best friends. To do this day, that was one of the most amazing days of my life.

While most of the time I would only have mild hallucinations, there were a few times that I recall where I really didn't even know what to do with myself. Most notably while sitting in my World History class. I spent the whole class starring at the floor and watching patterns of birds swirl up the desks.

I've seen quite a few friends react very negatively to it though. I on the other hand, never once had a bad trip. However, I'm not fond of the duration of the trips. With shrooms, I've never tripped more than 8 hours which is nice and I can fall asleep. With acid, I've tripped some days from 8am til 2am that night. That's not even including the come down. But then again, I guess that's the price you pay for eating 3 hits at once.

It's definitely something that you need to be ready for and you almost need to be having a perfect day in order for it to work out well for you. If you have a problem while your tripping on acid, it's not going away.

 

[Screwdriver]

greystr0ke

Speaking of bad trips and how they effect certain people.

I was camping at the beach with a few friends and we were all blazing. My one friend who drove us there started freaking out that he saw something up in the hills on the other side of PCH in Malibu. He then just got up and ran for it. His dog went after him and he just disappeared in the brush. About an hour later his dog come back all freaked out. So then we hear this yelling from on top of the ridge and we see our friend naked holding a long spear like stick. So we waited till morning to comedown before we called the cops. When the cops came we explained that him and his dog went up in the hills just to look around. The cops where looking at us like we "got rid" of him....foul play etc. So the cops drive us to our friends house and they ask his mom if she had heard from her son. She laughed and said he was in his bedroom asleep. So the cops leave and we go check on our friend....He is asleep, naked and covered in dirt, cuts and bruises....feet all cut up etc. He wakes up and tells us he does not remember anything.....he said he had no idea how he got home.

Now here is the freaky part. From the beach to his house is a 30 mile drive through canyons. Then when you get to the valley side, it all residential. And he did it buck naked in less then 8 hours.

Honestly, the guy was never the same.....he became Mormon, stopped doing all drugs and alcohol.

I ran into him about 20 years later and asked him about the event. He told me that when he was 8 he was having Sunday dinner with his family and his older brother got up to use the restroom, went to the parents room, got his Dad's gun and committed suicide. When we were at the beach, he saw his brother waving at him from the hill and yelling for help. He said he and his brother had to fight demons all the way back home....He said the demons had been keeping his brother from getting back home all those years since the suicide.

Seriously sent chills up my spine when he told me.

 

[jeffp]

Right. But you may not even know you have a problem until you start tripping - what was buried in the back of your mind becomes fore front because there's no longer a sense of front and back or even distance and perception of time. All lost. What's not lost, though, is how you feel deep inside and what you're thinking deep inside. It's like there's two kinds of thought - thoughts you "manually" think, and thoughts that spring forth effortlessly. The manual thoughts are pretty much reactions to the effortless thoughts, it seems, or at least you become much more aware of this process when tripping.

One of the more interesting aspects; I don't know if this classifies as "hallucinatory," a melding and confusion of the senses. Like if there's music on, you're not just hearing it, you're seeing it, smelling it, tasting it - on one hand with equal dominance but on the other hand intellectually you still know it's sound.

In a sense you're consciousness splits in two - part of you is not tripping and is observing the tripping; like a witness, and the other part is your subconscious lit up completely.
It's almost like you went to sleep and you're dreaming this but you're 100 times more awake. It's a paradox on top of a paradox. It's heavy shit and not for the weak or fragile.
There are stages to this and when you're at the peak everything drops as mere clothing, including your personality and sense of identity.

Alot of people report having had profound religious and mystical experiences on LSD. I understand this; it's like running way too much current through the appliance and just like vaporizers, this could cause a fire - ergo the expression "burn out."

 

[Plotinus]

I once fell asleep on acid. It was a crazy feeling, like falling asleep with an angry bear.

It's probably not the answer you would be looking for but I would almost recommend purposefully trying to fall asleep the next time you're on acid, if only for the weirdness of the experience.

 

[jeffp]

yeah once i fell asleep at the "end" of the trip and dreamed I was awake in my bed staring at the letter "J" sitting on top of the chair next to my bed. the letter had an animated vibratory quality, it had consciousness. Like a cartoon but it was sound; or a tone, sort of. the visual letter formed from the sound. the difference between waking and sleep were only subtle in this state.

 

[WhispOfVapor]

Nice thread.
I have 2.5g of shrooms, have had them like year but not eaten them. Planning to take them this summer when my vacation starts. I have taken shrooms couple of times before, about 7-8 years ago when i was 19 or 20. Nice experience, but nothing really dramatic. The doses were pretty small. Now I know lots more about psychedelics than back then. Hopefully I get experience that teaches me to be a better person and helps me to solve couple of "problems". Hard to explain, so I won't try it =)
And don't worry, I don't have any traumas or anything like that. Just hoping to get educational trip rather than just fun party stuff.

Where I live getting acid is really hard. Really like to try it but I have heard that some people sell some RC shit as acid. Bromo-dragonfly mostly I think. My friend took bromo yesterday, but haven't had a chance to ask him about the trip. He bought it as bromo, not acid. Funny that he took it, because he freaked out on shrooms years ago and swore that he would never do psychedelics again. Hopefully he had nice time, cause I'm sure he has no idea what set&setting means. Irresponsible. :/

 

[jeffp]

i wonder if there's money to be made in creating a "bad trip tent" franchise.

 

[bcleez]

I tripped on St. Patrick's day before and remember trying to drink a beer but it felt like I was drinking powder, not a liquid.

 

[abhs]

In a sense you're consciousness splits in two - part of you is not tripping and is observing the tripping; like a witness, and the other part is your subconscious lit up completely.
It's almost like you went to sleep and you're dreaming this but you're 100 times more awake. It's a paradox on top of a paradox. It's heavy shit and not for the weak or fragile.
There are stages to this and when you're at the peak everything drops as mere clothing, including your personality and sense of identity.

May I recommend a book - Michael Brown's The Presence Process

A how-to on finding and identifying with that observer by meditation.