On Thursday night I embarked on another journey with my good friend, Uncle ‘Cid. It was quite an experience so I thought I’d share this one with you all. So if you haven’t tried acid, or any other drugs for that matter, then please read on with an open mind. By the way, this post is rather large…
This was to be a solo trip, as my brother couldn’t afford to take the time away from uni at the moment. I spent the day preparing myself and things in general (music and other stuff to keep me occupied should the need arise). Come about 7:00 PM I cut 3/4 of a Dexter off and hesitated momentarily before taking the plunge…I always have a strong feeling of hesitation before taking acid these days. I know exactly what lies ahead of me…8 hours of heavy psychedelic immersion. Added with the fact that I knew I would be alone, something I had not yet tried, I was more skeptical than ever.
Fuck it, I thought and dumped that bitch on my tongue. Mmm…that familiar subtle tang of blotter, oh how I’d missed it.
Over the next hour or so I slowly began to feel the drug take hold. That fantastic sense of well-being and euphoria, coupled with the anxiety of what awaits. Things were progressing nicely I thought, it wasn’t coming on lot like the train-wreck that is DXM, so I decided to drop the other 1/4. I sat at my computer listening to music and chatting a bit online, occasionally looking at random objects in my room to get an idea of the onset of the visuals. My lamp-pole gradually began to gain a stronger and stronger wavelike motion. Feeling ambitious I decided to make the night one to remember and dropped half a Fractal (some other acid I had been saving for a while).
By this time it was about 9:40 PM. I took a brief glance at my bedroom door and noticed the visuals had finally begun to intensify, as an infinitesimally intricate mosaic pattern washed over its surface. I knew then it was time that I should leave the house and begin the journey around the UWA campus I had planned.
iPod – check, durries – check, water – check, camera – check. I set the iPod playing
“I Don’t Live Today”, by Hendrix and stepped out into the abyss. “Will I live tomorrow? Well, I just can’t say”. Fitting words, I thought. As I walked down that familiar path towards the campus an intense rush of euphoria and anticipation swept over me, this song can invoke such a strong feeling of inspiration.
At this stage the UWA underpasses were still fairly normal looking so I continued through and made my way to
Whetfeld court, overlooking the reflection pond and
Winthrop Hall. Now at around the T+3hr mark, the visuals were still reasonably tame in comparison to previous trips. Forgetting the fact that a redose while tripping will take a good 40 minutes to take effect, I dumped the other half of the Fractal and continued onward. Push the envelope.
A visit to the “Large Animal Facility” (a highly dubious sounding building at UWA that my brother and I discovered last time we tripped) was of course a must. I managed to take a few photos of the place for you all to see, unfortunately they’re rather dark as I had no chance of working out how to use the flash on Dale’s camera at this point. This place was starting to freak me about a bit though…strange, sudden industrial-like noises were emanating from it so I decided to journey onwards. I managed to increase the brightness of the images a bit with photoshop, here they are:
Image1 (Entrance)Image2 (Large animal loading bay) Image3 (Sign)Image4 (Other side)As I made my way back towards Mounts Bay Road along the river front I slowly became more aware of the undeniable fact that my visuals were increasing, at an almost unsettling rate. I decided to take a right turn and journey down along the river aside Mounts Bay Road. At this point the wind picked up markedly and my visuals were pretty much at their peak. If you’ve seen that movie Constantine (yes, I know it was totally gHey), think back to the part where Keanu first goes back to hell. Picture that scene, but without the hellish, red aspect to it, and that’s basically what I was seeing.
Things along the river were starting to get a little too cold so I turned around back towards the campus. The world now seemed cartoon-like, with a somewhat sinister perspective to it. The objects in my surroundings no longer had their own unique range of colours and shades. I instead got my first taste of complete colour shifting, whereby the road, river and buildings were defined only by a single, pastel-like colour. “Heavy…” I murmured.
As I came closer to the campus the engines of passing cars sounded more like the rocket-thrusters of the pod racers in Star Wars. The noise seemed like such an invasion of my senses and caused my visuals to resonate uncontrollably. The subtle, continuous earthquake-like fractures in the road that I had been seeing turned into massive volcanic chasms in the road surface with each passing car. I became paranoid as to whether I was in fact still on the pathway or not.
I came to the upper entrance to the UWA underpasses and peered downwards. At this point I was once again reminded of that ugly, untamed element that LSD can often hold. Wearily I trudged on. It’s amazing how a sudden shift in surroundings can bring about such a reaction with the drug…instantly my vision no longer had the free-flowing, “real-time” feel to it, but rather separated into frames. I looked down the tunnel and my vision telescoped outwards to infinity. It was not safe to be walking at this point as my consciousness was quickly becoming less aware of what reality actually was. My thoughts were spiraling rapidly out of control. Get it together, Neal, I thought and lit up a durrie. Ahhh…focus, just the thing I needed.
I once again made my way up the stairs and sat down facing Winthrop Hall. I set the iPod playing some more Hendrix and had what I can only describe as one of the most enjoyable times of my life. The grass court in front of me lifted up about a metre high in square-like segments, in a continual sequence, each one with their own individual spiraling pattern. The huge pine trees to my side looked at me with thousands of eyes on each part of their leaves, swaying slowly back and forth. My vision took on an indescribable crispness, and I wished that everyone could see this at least once in their life. I closed my eyes and was instantly transported back to the 60’s, with an image of Hendrix smoking a cigarette, surrounded by psychedelic colours flowing at great speed.
Soon after this I said goodbye to
Socrates and regrettably made my way home as fatigue began to set in. I had been out for about 4 hours,
one hell of an experience. I should probably leave it there as this report is rather huge. You might’ve noticed that I tended to concentrate on the visual aspect of this trip, rather than the psychological. The reason for this I guess is partly because that side of the drug is basically too deep to discuss in a blog, also it’s pretty hard to even put into words. I hope this report has made some of you more interested in trying the drug, rather than do the opposite.
