First trip

LSD, what an amazing little drug. It was 1974 and I was a junior in high school. My buddy John bought 3 hits of a blotter acid called Black Pyramid. Basically it was white construction paper with a black pyramid and an eye in the center. So tiny. So innocent. How could this little slip of paper do anything to me?

We skipped out of school around noon and met in the woods behind the school. I hold the magic paper in my fingers and contemplate the stories I've heard about what happens. Colors, shapes, laughing. Seemes like it will be fun. Everybody likes colors. So down it goes and we smoke a joint or two waiting for it to kick in. We decide to walk the few blocks to John's house and hang out in his basement.

We have to walk down a half width sidewalk by a pretty busy street, the cars go whizzing by and I begin to think of it as a slidewalk. The cars seem to be getting longer and longer as they pass by. The colors glow and pulse and each one is longer than the last. Traces.....cool. I raise my hand and wave it in front of my face. I freak. My hand spans 90 degrees of my field of vision, like car headlights at night. We turn a corner and a group of pidgeons fly away and I laugh hysterically. It's funny! Really funny!

By now I'm experiencing synesthesia; seeing sounds, feeling colors, hearing touch. The world begins to buzz and pulsate like the air is electric. I can hear and feel the air buzzing. OK, this is getting serious. We walk in his front door and the air is thick and hard to move through. I've been here many times yet my senses are so hyped out I notice things I've never seen before.
We head down to his basement and with each step down I feel the pressure changing, the dark is a cloak that surrounds me, I can feel it touch me. It begins to be too much.

We define ourselves by our ego. I am me because I understand my thoughts, my body, my reactions. LSD breaks the ego down to nothing. You're not you any more. Will I ever be me again? Panic. Am I going to be stuck in this non-me forever? Bitter panic. I pull my coat over my head and begin closed eye visuals. Flying playing cards, pulsing colors, throbbing electricity covers me in darkness. My friends are concerned. John says I look like a mouse and he laughs hysterically. He's a million miles away yet he seems inside my brain. The throbbing air won't stop. Moving makes it worse, like an amplifier. My other friend suggests I eat an apple. I hold the red ball and take a bite. It tastes like nothing but feels like razor blades as I swallow the unchewed chunks.

Amazingly it's been several hours and I am mercifully beginning to come down. I actually start to enjoy the sensation of eating razors that look like an apple. By 4:00 I feel like I'm back in the drivers seat of my brain again and begin the half hour walk home. I was too stupid to have learned anything from this experience. I did acid again many times after that but never had the same intense experience. Most acid we bought after that was laced with strychnine, rat poison, that makes for some pretty cool colors. Also some pretty violent cramps in stomach and back.
There are times when I'd like to experience that again. I'm quite sure I won't as I like being in control and I'm too old to let it go.

Not the stupidest thing I've ever done. More to come.