my first acid experience

4 guys, an airport hotel, 5 tabs of Parvati acid, a lot of Kush. Some ballsy tripping.

Hold up, Rewind… before I get into all this let me tell you how crucial it is to not keep expectations. Like every other article based on LSD, this article may disappoint you because, no matter what, everyone always has questions. Acid cannot be imagined by someone who has never stuck their tongue out and decided to just let go. Before you drop acid on your tongue, in your water, in your soda, or on that sugar cube, it is necessary to let go completely and let the acid take you on its journey. If you keep expectations from acid, you’re going to have a downer. Let acid show you what it’s got rather than taking control and trying to impose your expectations on acid. At the end of the day, psychedelics are still drugs, they don’t have a mind of their own. It uses your mind as a vessel to take you on the journey. It makes you tremendously aware of your thoughts, actions, and movements. One who takes acid consistently cannot have the same trip twice. The simple reason being that one is always experiencing different thoughts and reactions. That is the way of the mind. In a few words, acid unlocks the most potent form of awareness of mind and body that you may not be able to achieve through years of meditation. You can hear something going on 3 blocks away or maybe you’re just imagining it. One moment you’re standing in front of a mirror smiling, the next, you see your face melting.

LSD places a seed in your brain that makes you realise the power your mind holds and the power you hold over your mind. Power can be tricky, but it all depends on your perception. Perception plays the most significant role when on LSD. One may lose one’s mind on acid because it toys with the mind and not with the body. Few people, during their lifetime, really dive within themselves. People know very little about their own selves and so it is very easy to believe everything you hear and see on acid. The trip is like climbing a hill. In approximately 5-6 hours, you reach the peak and then you eventually start to descend. You generally trip for 12 hours. Then comes the afterglow for a couple more hours, sometimes lasting days.

Going back, it was my first trip so I didn’t know anything about what it feels like. So I had no other option than to let go and let the acid show me it’s true colours. This is the best thing you can do when going for LSD. We were 3 first timers and one veteran. We all knew each other very well which is a very big comfort when you do psychedelics. Do not do it with someone you are not fond of or with someone you don’t know as that may have a very big impact on your trip. It is very easy to form perceptions of people on acid. Ours was an acid called Parvati Tears which our in-house druggie claimed was the best acid he had ever taken. We dropped acid at 7:11 pm and my dosage was 110ug. We had Keiichi Tanaami’s artwork to let us know that acid is spreading in the system. It usually takes 30-40 minutes for the trip to start after dropping acid.

Mr. Keiichi’s pictures are full of stimuli. For me, the flowers would dazzle, the eyes would all blink, the ray of sunshine would cover the room and a story would start to build. The acid in closed doors can be a little tricky as you don’t have as much stimulus as you would have outdoors. Because the only way for acid to go is inside the mind. However, in open areas and nature, acid is very different. (Yes, you can even hear flowers breathing. Imagine it. Isn’t that beautiful?) I would close my eyes and could feel the ceiling right above my nose. I would look into the mirror and my mirror image would make funny faces at me. Mirrors are like a swimming pool for your inner self and only people who are open to self-reflection must dive in. Mirrors can be very dark, trust me. (This one time, I was looking into the mirror and I could feel the presence of two other people standing behind me. Spooky huh?). Hallucinations keep rising with the dosage. My first dosage was more than usual for a first timer. After 8-9 hours of tripping, we went to an eatery in Bandra called Bhaijaans to stimulate our taste buds. Acid enhances your sense of flavours, so each flavour pops up. (especially lemon and all Indian food). You generally don’t get very hungry and it is advisable to not eat too much. We came back to the hotel at around 5 am, watched “Enter the void” (a good movie to watch during the afterglow), and then went straight to breakfast.

Acid can make you aware of things you are repressing and bring them out. It may attack your insecurities, but it is up to your perception to treat it with acceptance or get into denial. The best thing about acid is that you hold the reins. Acid brings to light a lot of things you’re not aware of. The trip is meant to be observed, not searched. Let acid take its course, try not to panic and if you are not ready to take acid, do not do it in peer pressure. Acid is completely safe, but you need to do your research on it. It can do wonders for you and entirely change the way you think. For most people, it’s for the good. 

Perception is the basic phenomenon of life. Everything is perception. And acid is fuelled by perception. If a bird sits on your hand, you can either go ballistic about the little inconvenience it’s claws are causing you or you can entirely fall in love with the species, it is all up to you.

HAVE A LOVELY TRIP!