PRE-CONDITIONS
(mind)Set: Prior to first experience, excited by the colorful descriptions of trip reports
(physical condition) Set: Slightly obese, not eating healthy. Lots of soda and junk food
Setting (location): Suburbs, living in an appartment
time of day: Morning
recent drug use: (list also any kind of medication) No prior drug experience
last meal: (Time and type) Chicken

PARTICIPANT
Gender: (m)
body weight: 65, 17 years old
known sensitivities: soda addict, coffee addict
history of use: First timer

BIOASSAY
Substance(s): LSD
Dose(s): 100mcg
Method of administration: sublingual blotter, then swallowed


EFFECTS
Administration time: T=9:00 AM
Duration: 15-18 hours (later discovered I am susceptible to prolonged effects)
First effects: T=10:23 AM
Peak: T=11:45
Come down: T=23:45 -> T=+26
Baseline: Next morning

Intensity (overall): A+++: Transcendental experience beyond time and space
Evaluation / notes: Positive in retrospect

OPTIONAL
Pleasantness: 2 (0-4)
Implesantness: 1 (0-4)
Visual Intensity: 3.5 (0-4)

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AFTER-EFFECTS
Hangover: 0 (0-4)
Afterglow: 4 (0-4), positive outlook and self-acceptance for months if not years to come. Possibly impacted by my other two experiences shortly after, but the outlook remained a positive one.


REPORT

After the anticipation of the come-up was overtaken by a physical feeling spanning from my stomach to my throat, it became clear that there was a physical reaction that would take place after my administration. It was a feeling of being in one's own body but much more physically there. Sensations of tension and pain from my posture could have easily been confounded with sensations coming from having used my limbs minutes or hours ago, also because of a sense of restlessness and stimulation. I might have quickly paced to drink a glass of water not realizing the strain on my ankles but the physical sensations persisted across larger timespans, like filling the glass of water was still happening while sitting cross legged 10 minutes later with the two pain sources becoming confused across time.

Shortly after this stage in the come-up, I realized physical sensations and hallucination were merely a reflection of the way I was perceiving time with my other senses as well: sight, hearing, taste and smell. In fact, there was a pattern recognition starting to onset much before the visual patterns became detectable or relatable. In some way, they were always there, and there was no way to describe the visuals because there was nothing new to describe. There was always this feeling. This is owed to what I now believe is the work of deep cortical neurons, of which there are many cortical layers.

The third stage of the come-up was the onset of the visual pattern recognition, one of my favorite aspects of the LSD experience. I always feel so at home when I encounter them. The pattern recognition across my grid cells mapping my environment to perceive symmetric sensation was now spilling over into my visual cortex, dubbing everything in my short term memory onto visual patterns on the walls that were infinitely rich in detail, but it felt like they were exactly the way they should be as well. It was like neural language, I could explain what I was seeing, just not fast enough for my normal ways of communication.

The plateau was filled with temporal loops where I would greatly enjoy the sunny day and explore the world in conversation with my buddy. The temporal loops were very interested almost second to the visual patterns. The qualia had a sense of being events that have always been happening. I was merging with an alternate reality created long before I was born, and accepting that possibly, my being born was a result of that particular slice of the experience, meshing perfectly with the rest of the universe.

At the comedown, I had some difficulties accepting the length of my journey. In a later report I might explain what my genetic profile contributed to this. Regardless, it was a lesson that becoming comfortable with oneself is a constant battle. I had to love myself enough to let go of bad habits, and that was the theme of my experience.

I had to become comfortable with alien sensations in some sense, and to become comfortable with not having shelter from all aspects of existence. There are always risks in life, and one time I would have to take them, but during that experience, I was glad to have had a safe space.

Bioinspired,

Thank you so much for sharing this experience. How long ago was this? How has the integration been going?

Have you managed to actually make long term changes? How is it going? How are you feeling in the aftermath?

I love the way entheogens open up and show us our minds. Sometimes simply by temporarily inducing a different way of thinking and perceiving. I feel your report illustrated that.

Thanks again,

Aha! So I did leave out some details...



Almost 10 years ago. My curiosity was very hard to satisfy. I had repeated breaks and sessions ranging from 25mcg to 200mcg for the next 7 years. At the end what satisfied my curiosity wasn't permuting the doses or having more or less frequent experiences, but having a way to start understanding the language of psychedelics and interact with them in ways that do not require substances. In fact, one of my most powerful motivators in life and difficult aspect of my integration was my sheer curiosity. I was never in an environment without distractions where I could experience the pure nature of the substance, and I longed for that.



I did, positive changes, and it has always been with a thought about how I would perceive myself if I returned to the place I was during the experience. In fact I consider myself during experiences to be a friend I can always come back to.

Sometimes the difficulty of reaching the states again, due to setting limitations or such, I have seen the experience even as a valuable resource. One time though, I had a good stockpile of entheogens, and felt like I might have more than I have time or energy for. But it always felt kind of limiting when they depleted. One time I was having a very hard time accepting that I had to pause my exploration for various reasons relating to set & setting safety, but I've learned to deal with that and even live with people with who you can't even have conversations about psychedelics about.

Pandora I see you did not ask about the genetic variant! I feel the need to open up about this, as I haven't discussed it with anyone. It does not seem like a popular subject. So please follow up soon!

I have a HTR1-A, or HTR2-A SNP variant which produces changes in my arrestin pathway. Arrestin is a protein involved in decoupling the LSD molecule from their binding site in the coupled receptor of the membrane. This is a subject that has been studied in connection with assessing the potency of LSD analogues. It was discovered that variants affecting arrestin can cause a delay in its action and cause either the effects to be more potent or to last longer. My first experience lasted from 18 hours up to 24 hours, and some others lasted even more with long periods of sleeplessness.

1P-LSD however might induce less restlessness for my particular SNP but I would have to test again to confirm. As far as I can recall, I had no such issues with 1P-LSD.

Some analogs of LSD can have 10 times the potency or even more when taken by individuals with certain types of this genetic variant. I only discovered this later in my experimentation and it was interesting to consider it. I am curious when the day will come that I can test it and investigate with a scientist.

So there we go. Thread!