Acid as a Catalyst

I did acid for the first time roughly a month and a half ago and then again last week. I had many trips on shrooms before trying acid but none of them were as revealing to me as my two experiences with acid. This may have been because I was younger when I began experimenting with shrooms and less aware of the insight that was being thrown at me. It's impossible to know for sure.

The first time I did acid my friend and I drove to an aqaurium in Baltimore. We dropped the acid about a half hour before arriving because the onset doesn't occur until after 45 minutes or so.

As we arrived at the aquarium my heart swelled with joy and excitement. My head felt light and everything about the world was right and full of possibility.

During the course of the trip my friend and I drifted through the different exhibits, exploring them, I figure, as naturally as they could be explored. The tragedies that plague "ordinary" people became obvious and then hilarious. The zoo-like quality of the whole thing was another tragedy we laughed about a great deal.

I felt like a little kid. I was beautiful and free. My insecurities and inhibitions were tossed like the garbage they are and the world unfolded around me as gracefully as the blossoming of a flower.

The next "trip" I went on was within a trip out west to a friend's house in Wyoming. We all decided to take two tabs and drive out to this nearby place to see some buffalo. It was evening when we got there and after we saw a few buffalo we stopped at the foot of some insignificant hill somewhere in the Tetons and decided to climb it.

I carried this small travel guitar with me on my ascent to the top. I tried to capture (in song) how I was feeling while climbing the hill. The acid was kicking in and that somewhat familiar feeling I got from the aquarium was emerging.

When we got to the top the stars were out in all their cosmic wonder and that feeling of being invaluable and free was on me once again.

I became someone else. A transformation had taken place. I was still myself but myself magnified and unrestrained. I could not hit a wrong note because my conviction was unfaltering.

It was the end of the world and nothing mattered... but at the same time, why not?


The reason I've shared these experiences is because I've found a common link between them. In both trips I felt a return to a child-like state. I have, for some time, been on a spiritual journey. I have made a conscious effort to know myself on deeper levels.

I believe that the mind-state of a child is superior to that of the average adult. This is why I think these experiences have such significance.

I know that LSD is not the one and final answer. It's cheating in a way. It's a peeking hole into the true potential of the self.

I want desperately to know who I am with absolute certainty. I want that conviction without the aid of a chemical. This is the driving force behind the reason I have constructed a MInd Portal (introduced in the community research area.)

Does anybody know where I'm coming from?

I understand you more than I can put into words.


I can tell something has changed just by the way you're typing.

You realize that taking drugs is about the fucking dumbest thing you will ecer do?

C'mon, why do you need to take that to be happy? You dont and if you think you do that you have made up a fallacy about the world in your own head and need to break through that to see the world as it is.

Whether this was you first time I dont care, do yourself a favor and look for a non-drug induced happiness.

I wouldn't say I take them for happiness... I'm not fiending for a fix. If anything, unless I'm delusional, I'm taking them for insight.

Anyways, what makes you the authority on what brings people happiness? Are you even happy yourself?

Drugs as a means of escape I don't agree with but I don't think what I was talking about in my opening post is about escape.

I'm wondering, have you ever tried acid or shrooms Restless?

Restless there is a difference between doing drugs to aid a high and doing them to drown out negative emotions.

I think Chris was just talking about a feeling of openness that he had as a child that he had forgot about and used a hallucinogen and rediscovered this feeling.

The real negatives that come from drugs, come from when people take them to take care of emotions instead of confronting them.

It sounds like he was really happy going into the trip because it seemed very positive and like Chris had control though out most of it.

My guess is that he started the trip while already being on a very solid natural high.

Drugs normally come with negative effects, but I do find there are times and good reason to try them. I not advocating drug use but in certain situations they can be helpful.

Chrisd situation in my mind is a good case for drug use. From what I have read they can help for self exploration. I believe that drugs such as shrums, acid, lsd, contain properties that can unlock doors that normally could not be tapped in to.

So as long as you are using these drugs for knowledge and self exploration with out abusing them then you are justified.

I have had many friends who have both abused drugs and used them for self exploration. The main difference between them Zach touched on with the fact people use them as an escape from reality. The people who I know that used them positively went in to their trip with happy, positive, goal orientated mind set. This in turn gave them life altering trips.

So chrisd go ahead exploring your in depths, but be wary not to abuse the substance. Good luck in your journeys peace

What are you people missing here..............?

What part do you not understand that drugs are an abuse that no good will ever come of it.

I am not going to sit here and lecture over the internet.

quote:

---

used a hallucinogen and rediscovered this feeling

---

And is this your true feeling, how can you be sure? You cant because your true state of mind is altered. Thus it is useless in using it to re-discover anything.

Writing in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, the Johns Hopkins researchers note that most of the 36 volunteer subjects given psilocybin, under controlled conditions in a Hopkins study published in 2006, continued to say 14 months later that the experience increased their sense of well-being or life satisfaction

Most of the volunteers looked back on their experience up to 14 months later and rated it as the most, or one of the five most, personally meaningful and spiritually significant of their lives," says lead investigator Roland Griffiths, Ph.D., a professor in the Johns Hopkins departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Neuroscience.

Fourteen months later, Griffiths re-administered the questionnaires used in the first study -- along with a specially designed set of follow up questions -- to all 36 subjects. Results showed that about the same proportion of the volunteers ranked their experience in the study as the single most, or one of the five most, personally meaningful or spiritually significant events of their lives and regarded it as having increased their sense of well-being or life satisfaction

This is a truly remarkable finding," Griffiths says. "Rarely in psychological research do we see such persistently positive reports from a single event in the laboratory. This gives credence to the claims that the mystical-type experiences some people have during hallucinogen sessions may help patients suffering from cancer-related anxiety or depression and may serve as a potential treatment for drug dependence. We're eager to move ahead with that research."

Quote

"What part do you not understand that drugs are an abuse that no good will ever come of it"

If you choose to believe that because you take a drug you are an addict or are abusing that drug you are wrong. I can count the times on two hands that I have taken done anything alcohol, weed, ect in four years sense i tried drugs for the first time.

I did not do these things under peer pressure to fit in or because me and girl friend broke up. I did them because i felt great and by using such substances it created a experience different then what i am used to.

I have not touched anything in six months plus because me a my former gf were having relationship problems and we eventually broke up all leading me to stop well before it ended.

So if you would like to call me someone who abuses substances i would like to ask you what defines addiction. Will I do these things again. Yes. Is that to say it'll be 2 days from now or 4 years from now i couldn't tell you. But when i feel like i will gain something from participating in such activities.

There is nothing wrong with doing drugs in moderation. Runners get highs greater then any batch of weed could ever give you. I'm smoked a little bit and the feeling one gets after winning a 5k competing against 300 other people makes you feel amazing. Greatest high ever

But the long term effects of running are pretty bad as well. So should people not exercise because it displaces chemicals in a new way that makes one feel better.

Quote

"how can you be sure?'

Sometimes don't you think back on your childhood and wonder what was different. What made the world look the way it is. That feeling can be brought back out.

The faintest of memories are still memories not to be forgotten just faded and needing some new color. Some people can bring these memories back in full and others need assistance that is all. The same emotion and new prospective is gained. Just the means of obtaining it were changed.

Most drugs are not bad in moderation, if you would like to think that, then next time you get a head ache don't reach for tylenol. You are altering your brain chemicals by taking it and by your definition also addicted.

Acid is great, best drug I ever took. And, when I took it long ago, periodically over the course of a few years, it helped me to understand the power of my own mind to think in creative ways.

I would be careful not to take it frequently, though. I've seen folks lose their minds doing it, and years later they still haven't found them. I'm thinking right now of Joe Rickey's big brother, dropped so many hits of acid that he believed he was Neil Young. He could play and sing every Neil Young song. Last I heard, he's still nuts. You might know a Joe Rickey's older brother in your life, already.

It's really hard for me to advise people not to do drugs as I did so many in my youth and believe it helped me to survive a really tough period in my life when no other help was available to me. But, I do hear the warnings being issued in this thread, and I can't say they aren't good advice as well.

"What part do you not understand that drugs are an abuse that no good will ever come of it."

Restless, do you really think "because I said so" is going to convince anybody? Please give backing to your posts if you're going to continue trying to force your opinion on everybody.

"I am not going to sit here and lecture over the internet."

Too late.

"'used a hallucinogen and rediscovered this feeling'

And is this your true feeling, how can you be sure? You cant because your true state of mind is altered. Thus it is useless in using it to re-discover anything."

What is a true feeling in the first place? You can't prove a feeling or a memory. You can only, if anything, prove it to yourself. You, restless, can only speculate about what I experienced and what I know so that's exactly what you're doing right now, speculating.

I'm guessing you've never tried any hallucinogens or if you have, had a bad experience or "bad trip" as people like to call it and condemned them in much the same way as you're doing right now.

I wouldn't think of you any less or any more if this was the case, it's none of my business what you do with your body. I do disagree though with what you're doing now. And that is stating an opinion without putting any reasons behind it.

Hallucinogens actually have a very rich history if you weren't already aware. Do some research on shamanism if you're interested. The creator of LSD, Albert Hoffman, wrote an interesting book (LSD: My Problem Child) which is a pretty quick read.

To Robespierre:

I do know a Joe Rickey's big brother so I'm well aware of that trap!