SWIM had read about LSD for a long time. He was only 14 if I recall correctly. He was a very mature teenager, already very reliable, very intelligent, and very scientifically minded. He was seeking out LSD for its legendary mind expanding effects. He tried getting some at all the usual places and found it nearly impossible to get until one day he tries the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. He and two friends go there and begin their search for LSD. It was actually quite easy to find there to SWIM’s surprise. It was a first time experience for all three teenagers. We take it, each one hit. It was blue blotter paper, and rather large. Larger than the typical blotter. As it was getting late, we decide to go our separate ways and head home.

SWIM was riding the bus home when the effects started to kick in. Things looked a little odd, more real than that normally did, as if reality was revved up. SWIM felt excited. As he was looking out of the window of the bus, he could see all the building going by. It was late, the streets were light up with street lights, the sky was pitch black. As SWIM looked out the window at all the buildings passing by he noticed that he could mentally paint a picture of the interior structure of the building. This was happening without him even thinking about it. His mind was filled with all the internal stairs, walls, pipes, etc., as if he was looking at the buildings passing by with X-ray vision. Now this was not a hallucination, it was a mental image of the depth of the buildings being painting in his mind’s eye. SWIM was totally blown away by this. The scale of this mental image was gigantic. It wasn’t just happing with one or two buildings passing by, but happening with the entire city. He could mentally see through the buildings and imagine all their interior structures for miles past each building. At any given moment this mental image of all the building easily covered very thousand buildings for as far as the eye could see and beyond. SWIM could not believe this was happening, and had no idea the brain was even capable of such massive scale thoughts.

SWIM’s bus stop was just ahead and he got off the bus. He had no trouble walking home from there. When he got home he turned on the radio. He was strangely bored with his typical rock station and kept moving the dial to different stations and stopped at a station playing music in a foreign language. SWIM never before appreciation any music unless it was in English, but on that that he found he could feel the music and passion in the words, and he felt so connected to the music. It was a deep spiritual connection like nothing he experienced before. This opened up a multicultural part of SWIM that he didn’t know existed. He wanted more. He wanted to experience things from all over the world. He was suddenly fascinated by the other languages and other culture experiences. He turn the station and listened to some African music, with all the drums and chanting, it was amazing to hear it. For the first time SWIM could actually relate to the music. You have no idea what a revelation this was for SWIM. It was no longer like he was listening to African music. It was as if he was listening to music of his own people. Suddenly, SWIM realized how close minded he had been about different people. Before this LSD experience, he never realized how narrow minded he was. He saw everything from a white American’s point of view and didn’t appreciate anything beyond that. LSD seriously opened up a part of SWIM that has locked away his whole life. LSD has shown SWIM how to see others without prejudice or narrow mindedness, but instead to see others as he saw himself. This was a transformation that forever made SWIM a better person.

SWIM remembered his other two friends and decided to give them a call to see how things were going. They were both tripping together on the other side of town. One friend was repeatedly hitting himself on the leg and could not stop. The other friend didn’t want to talk. As SWIM was talking to him SWIM realized he was far more affected by the LSD than SWIM was. While talking, SWIM noticed that everything seemed to be slowing down. SWIM moved his hand and there was a delay. SWIM would see his hand move after he moved it. SWIM told his friend to try moving his hand and see if he too saw a delay. He said he saw his hand as if there were multiple hands smearing around but couldn’t stop hitting his leg. He said he had no control of his hand. This was making me a little uncomfortable. He started talking about all sorts of weird typical teenager crap and SWIM got really bored with it and decided to end the call pretty fast and go explore the world.

SWIM next turned on the TV. He turned it to a documentary about different cultures. He was completely fascinated with other cultures and kept watching.

SWIM was amazed at how everything seemed more real than it usually does. SWIM could feel things with much more depth and appreciation than was ever possible before. This was a very mind opening experience and because of SWIM’s new found interest in other cultures and his realization of his own prejudices, SWIM was forever a better person because of this experience.

SWIM is very thankful to Albert Hofmann for inventing LSD and also very thankful to Timothy Leary for promoting its use as a mind expanding drug. It truly is a mind expanding drug, more so than all the other psychedelics.

From that day onward, SWIM was a better person. However, his friend did not have a very enlightening experience with his first LSD trip. He got into lots of repetitive loops that day, and realized he was not completely in control of himself. He learned that he was just sort of coasting along in life, doing things by habit, and not really aware of it. The LSD showed him this, and this was disturbing to him.

LSD is a great mind opener. When used properly, it can greatly help a person to advance their intelligence. SWIM honestly believes he is more intelligent because of his past LSD use.

Great report Ron. Lsd is such an amazing thing! Swims first attempts at obtaining some and getting somewhere with it was very hard. Being on the east coast seemed to make it harder. Through friends of friends that toured with the dead (post-jerry), swim finally got some potent stuff. Taking a good dose blew swims mind. Taking all those weak doses and getting threshold effects, swim finally felt he was where he was supposed to be.

There was no asking my trip buddy if he was feeling anything yet lol. Swim was immersed in the most elegant loving psychedelic realm. Swim kept getting these energy surges through his body, coming from the root up to the crown. Swim felt like he was glowing and radiating an intense energy of some kind. Swim was also opened up to some multi-cultural effects. Swim was outside on his deck listening to his portable record player. There was a house a block away playing some Mexican fiesta music. At first this bothered swim until the synesthesia kicked in! Swims music merged with the distant music creating a beautiful array of melting tones just as the sun was setting. Truly a sight and sound swim will never forget.

Swim also feels that his Lsd trips left him a better person, a more caring understanding person, and also a smarter person. When swim looks at some of the friends he took it with now, they seemed to never fully get it. They just wanted some effect, not insight into themselves, life and reality. Swim would love to take it a few thousand times more like you have!

Would you both say that there is something really unique about LSD, something you just can't get with other psychedelic substances?

Without a doubt. The few times SWIM has had pure L they were the best most fluid and harmonic days of SWIM's life.

Nothing even comes close. Especially not these crappy bromo dragonfly tabs SWIM found recently. Might as well just toss them out.

swim would have to agree with slidewinder, theres just something so different about it. Also being so active in such small amounts is amazing! So far its swims fav, its so gentle and loving natured.

Absolutely, without a doubt, there is something very unique to LSD. The only other compound that is similar is LSH. LSD has the typical effects of most psychedelics such as time dilation, increased color perception, visual distortions, etc., but it also has the ability to open up the mind and allow you to see things as if you are viewing them for the very first time. This is probably the single most beneficial part of the LSD experience. You are detached from your normal narrow minded view of things. All of your preconceived ideas about reality are no longer applied to reality. Object association is dramatically altered. Things don’t just look different, they feel new, as if you never saw them before, like you are a child seeing something for the very first time. There’s no amnesia associated with it. You know what you’re looking at is familiar, and yet the thoughts and emotions associated with it are generated as if you are seeing this object for the very first time. This is a very powerful part of the experience. This is the hallmark of LSD and what makes it so special to so many people. No other psychedelic can really do this at the level LSD can (except LSH).

This effect is often called the “insight” effect. Basically its caused by object association alterations in the brain. Instead of your normal set of mental associations being triggered when you see or here something, a totally new set of associations are made up on the spot. It’s almost like having amnesia, but still being able to remember everything. It’s really hard to explain to someone who hasn’t experienced it. Along with this altered perception of things, there’s also a feeling of excitement and awe, sort of a butterflies in your stomach feeling, or like you’re about to go on stage, or as if something wonderful is just about to happen. This feeling is part of the altered perceptions of reality. Your brain and body are in a mode where they’re expecting something new to occur. That’s why you feel the butterflies in the stomach. This feeling causes the brain to process things differently. You have a heightened sense of awareness because of it, and your brain processes things as if its looking at them for the very first time because it thinks the things it’s seeing are new because of the LSD flowing through the brain and body causing this “something wonderful is about to happen” feeling throughout your whole being. This effect can get tiring at time because it lasts and lasts and doesn’t go away. Through most of the trip you have the feeling “something is about to happen”. It’s exciting. This is one thing some people really love about LSD.

There's also an effect of increased “intelligence” that is very difficult to explain, and is mostly had only at the lower end doses. For example, when SWIM was looking at the buildings passing by on the bus, in his mind he was constructing an entire blueprint of the whole city, all the pipes, walls, rooms, etc., of all the buildings stretching across the entire city of San Francisco. SWIM cannot do this on his own. It’s impossible for SWIM. With LSD, somehow these kinds of thoughts become effortless. He could visualize massively complex structures in 3D. But this increased “intelligence” is had at a cost. Some of your other skills are impaired. It’s as if there’s a shift in consciousness and the mind is able to perform amazing visualization tasks. But some normal every day tasks might become difficult to accomplish. You can easily become distracted and lose focus. Doing things like tying your shoes might become a real task. There’s no magic to it. It’s just a shift in your brain power. What I mean is that as certain areas of the brain become more active because of the LSD, others areas start becoming less active. The brain has only so much power. All of your skills cannot be enhanced at the same time. As visualization skills are greatly enhanced, other skills are decreased.

I think those are the main things that make LSD so unique. It has strong “insight” effects, gives you this excited “happening” feeling as if something wonderful is about to happen, and it greatly increases visualization skills. The only other compound that has all of those effects that SWIM knows of is LSH. 5-MeO-DMT has some similar “insight” effects but it has a lot of mentally intoxicating “mind fuck” along with those effects, and it lacks that magical “happening” feeling, and lacks the “intelligence” boosting effect.

I can relate so much to all mentioned above here. The first time i took acid was almost a religious experience. It also seemed that things where made of different material sometimes; a biscuit seemed to be made out of wood, while it looked just the same, but it felt different when i held it...it 'felt' like it was made of wood. Very odd. That feeling of 'excitement' also made me laugh incredibly, as if some great cosmic joke that was there all the time but i and everybody else just never saw as it was, suddenly was revealed.
Some mushrooms resemble it, though not that energy it has.

Many people agree that LSD has unique properties. This observation is also supported by the pharmacological profile of LSD as it binds to a variety of accessory receptors. Some researchers have even stated it is not a classical hallucinogen. I would agree my experience with LSD was very unique it is much more psychological than other indole and the phenethylamines. I recall the rapidness of my thoughts, it felt as they were just streaming through my head thousands at a time and the strange thing was I was aware of all of them rather than normally being aware of just one thought. I was able to visualize them like a matrix of thoughts moving through my head BW my ears from one side to the other.

Also LSD visuals are in many ways different. I have noticed with LSD that whatever you are looking at will begin to change and morph. It is definitely category specific it is not like mushrooms were faces and things are overlain on the visual world (or incorporated). LSD works on the objects in the visual field. Such as the pattern in the floor will begin to crawl up the wall or a plant will turn into a person. The cracks in the walls will start to grow and fracture. These things are less common with other hallucinogens although they can occur w other hallucinogens they typically create novel things overlain on the visual world whereas LSD alters objects in the visual world in a complex manner. I just think these types of effects are more common with LSD than with other hallucinogens.

I do not agree that the visuals are thát unique. I find musrhooms visually superiour to LSD. The complexity of 'shroom' patterns is far greater. In many ways shroom visuals are the same as LSD-visuals, but when LSD-patterns are 2-dimensional, shroom-patterns are 3-dimensional and where LSD visuals are dominated by red and green, shroom visuals are so rich in colours i never even attempted to count them. Yet they share some characteristics.
That's (after the electric feeling in the throat)even a very good way to tell whether you have real LSD instead of some novel RC; if the visuals have that typical tryptamine character, there's a good chance it's actually LSD.

There are tryptamines which have appeared on blotter paper sold as LSD (5-meo-AMT, PRO-LAD, ALD-52, etc.). New compounds are appearing all the time on blotter paper.

Non-LSD blotters are everywhere now. This used to be rare, but now non-LSD blotter is more common than LSD blotter. None of SWIM’s friends have been able to get real LSD for over 10 years now. The DEA reports that blotter containing LSD is now actually rare.

We’re seeing the end of LSD as a common psychedelic. The RCs are fast replacing it. It’s sad. LSD is many times safer than most of the RCs.

LSH is the closest thing to real LSD. If your acid is like LSH, then you can be 99% sure its the real thing.

I think LSD is truly a mind expanding compound. In non hallucinogenic doses it has a mentally stimulating effect that is astounding. It has mental effects similar to caffeine in low doses, but works much better. It’s better than caffeine, ginkgo biloba, ginseng, and all the other mental stimulants SWIM has tried. It really revs up the mind. Thoughts seem to flow so easily.

LSD in non hallucinogenic doses stimulates your mind to a fantastic degree. The stimulation is selective though. It seems that creative processes are increased while non-creative processes are decreased. It has the ability to put the mind into an “everything is new” sort of mode. In this mode the brain is analyzing things as if they are new and so it’s applying all the same processes it would for a new object on everything you’re mind is focused on. With this altered mode of thinking, you can see things you’ve been previously blind to. For example, when looking at your mother, you might see her as just a woman, and not your mother, and notice things about this woman that you could never see before because you always viewed her as your mother, and not a new person. This ability to process reality as if everything is new is a fantastic effect that LSD has. This part of the mind is greatly stimulated on LSD. I don’t know of any other compound other than LSH that has this effect to the degree that LSD has.

When used properly, this “everything is new” mode LSD puts the mind into can be a very powerful mental tool. It’s extremely helpful for ending “writer’s block”. It’s also great for stopping habitual behavior like smoking. It can really get you out of a rut.

A lot of people take LSD for fun, but that’s really a waste. It’s got such amazing powers to help people when used properly. I cannot stress this enough. It can help you stop negative habits, help you see things from a fresh point of view, and open you up to new ideas and new possibilities in life. It’s an amazing tool. It’s really a catalyst for change and personal growth. This is why so many psychologists were interested in it before it became illegal. It had great potential to help people. It’s so unfortunate that it was banned. Its because of people using it recklessly for fun that it got banned.

Well ALD-52 and PRO-LAD are technically LSD analogue's. ALD stands for Acetyl-LsD and with all the LAD's: LAD stands for Lysergic Acid Diethylamine. The 'S' in LSD stands for 'saure', wich is german for 'acid'. So it's just because of albert hofmann being german speaking or those other compounds being made by english speaking people that they sound different. Thechnically al the LAD's should be called: PRO-LSD, ETH-LSD, PARGY-LSD, etc.
There are probably some differences in effects, like with all the DMT's. But like with the DMT's there must be some of them that are very much like the original compound.

On the other hand many of them require that you have LSD first to produce them and most countries nowadays, have some sort of analogue act. And although they technically differ they more or less have the same consequences:that if you get caught, selling the stuff as if it where LSD, you go to prison.

I haven't had real LSD for the past ten years, but in the 90's it was very available (at least where i live). Even so much, that LSD was sometimes being sold as a new research chemical!!. At a certain moment there was a 'new substance' called B-sting, that actually was nothing more then a small dose of LSD.

In small amounts it is indeed a very stimulating compound that not only enhances creativity and intelligence, but also stamina. It can make you practically immune to pain, not like morphine does, but by enabling you to 'turn a switch' inside your head, so you can simply switch it of.

Nowadays LSD i cannot get my hands on real LSD either.
I believe though, that it would be possible to completely re-create the LSD experience, or even to make something better: if you would take a large amount of LSH and combine it with an amount of shrooms that's large enough to have visual effects on it's own, but not large enough to completely take over the LSH experience and maybe combine it with a little datura or a similar compound, i think you could get something that has very much the same quality as LSD. I will test this theory soon.

That's funny. I was just thinking the exact same thing yesterday. SWIM took some LSH yesterday (made by letting HBWR extracted LSA sit in iced peppermint tea overnight) and was analyzing it’s effects, comparing it to his real LSD experiences. It was a low dose, just enough for light visual effects. All the LSD style mental effects were there. The feeling tone was similar to LSD, but it doesn’t have that strange “electric” or “metallic” feel to it.

I made a new thread to talk about this in detail. See here:

Recipes for Organic LSD (LSH)

Ron, would you recommend extracting from HBWR over MG or Rivea? Also is there a good tek to get this done?

The best tech is a double A/B using DCM as the non-polar solvent (naphtha doesn’t work, but d-limonene might). HBWR gives the best yields, but needs to be cleaned up the most. Morning glories also need to be cleaned up and so they aren’t worth it because they don’t give very good yields. Ololiuqui (Rivea corymbosa) doesn't need to be cleaned up at all but doesn’t give good yields.

thanks, swim was dreaming of trying an extraction, but might just stick with the cold water method.

I know what you all mean about acid...

SWIM's only 19 and just started his drug years...So when he tried his first drug, the second one was gonna be acid...



Well 7 months later, he was at a rave selling fake blotter to pay for his ticket (90 dollar ticket =/, they shouldnt be so expensive) and he traded his fake one for a real one.

It was extremely low dose....wore off in 4 hours, and he went to sleep.


But was mind opening.


SWIM wants more...but cannot find any...

You can justify getting ripped off by selling fake blotter, eh? Were your ecstatic customers aware that it was "fake"? and are you even aware what was laid out on them?

Mind opening how?

Absolutely. It's an amazing chemical.
Everything becomes a toy. Anything you say makes you laugh. It teaches you to be worldly and how to be a good person.
The visuals are lucid and flowing. There is no mistaking it when you got the good stuff.

Ok WTF obliguhl I mean selling fake blotter to pay for your ticket...how is such an act contributing to the positive energy that should come out of psychedelic use? You screwed ppl over just so you could have a taste of the real thing. It's ppl like you that cause others great distress when they happen to run into an immature kid just trying to make a buck. There's probably a reason good quality trips aren't coming your way...you should work on some morals becuase that is just not right.