Bad Trip Report from 20+ years ago - Ass Backwards Ego Death

Hello,

The whole things seems rather petty and trivial now but was a seminal growth experience long ago . . .

This happened at a concert in October 1989 at a venue that was new to me. My husband and i routinely went to public places and consumed rather heavy doses of LSD on an approximately weekly basis, actually at every possible time given the reality of tolerance and their schedules. i was 21 years old at the time, had lost half my family in a horrible accident at age 19 and was rather experienced with various types and doses of psychedelics as well as a daily cannabis consumer. My husband and i prepared for their psychedelic evening by fasting, resting, smoking pot, etc. We were stuck using our second-favorite blotter because a sleazy housemate had recently stolen our primo stash. i have no way of estimating the doses but am confident in saying we probably shared 3-5 hits. i do not know the potency (who really does?) but probably 80-100 mcg per hit. i understand that it may have been much lower or much higher and that there may not have actually been any indole substance on the blotter at all, that it could even have contained nothing more active than sugar . . .This does not bother me(now). The experience was in me, i was primed on some level. i suspect it would have happened (or something similar) one way or another, sooner or later . . .Difficult to explain.

i felt damaged by my experience because it was beyond anything i had ever thought possible and went against everything i had been taught and it's implications regarding death (a recurring theme for me) were kind of horrifying on a certain level to me at the time. i had experienced synesthesia, i had experienced ego-loss, i had felt my perceptions and thinking process change radically then reintegrate as i came down from my experiences . . .but nothing like this. Also with this experience, i had experienced what i describe to this day as a psychotic and delusional reaction, definitely something i never had experienced before. It made me believe i was vulnerable to significant mental illness and that life had already thrown me a lot of curve balls and tests . . .i didn't want any potential future psychedelic-fueled "break" to be the genesis of the bad trip i could never come down from . . .

We had taken the LSD before departing for the show which involved driving the van, taking a train and connecting with a bus. We routinely did stupid stuff like this. Here's my journal entry written about 18 months ago:

i have no intact memories of actually entering the venue, but i do remember initial impressions of: setting up our spot on the lawn, settling in, noticing what a pleasant night it was and what pleasant, beautiful people we had around us. Things were beginning to sparkle, white lights were beginning to send out rainbow, crystalline spear-shaped rays of color. Colors were pleasantly bright and saturated. i was very much in love with my husband and wanted to be nowhere else, doing nothing else. It was truly going to be a beautiful night!

The band began to play. Their performance was top-notch. i seem to recall that we began the evening sitting, stood up when the band came out on stage, but rapidly sat down again as things began to increase in intensity. But, there came a point where i was literally feeling "too high" to sit. i had been getting progressively higher and was really enjoying the experience and the show. The effects were hitting me in progressively stronger waves and were beginning to get dramatically beautiful and profound.

i have always been highly susceptible to what i call the "visual suggestion" aspect of tripping, especially with LSD, and this night was no exception. A bright, colored light would be used as part of the show and that light would be moved, turned on or off as needed to enhance the music. i kept seeing thick streaks of saturated colors emerging from the stage area, as suggested to my visual processing system by the colored spotlights. Wow, this was really visual! i was really tripping hard.

The show was fantastic, my experience continued to intensify and deepen. Incredibly visual. i was standing up but barely attached to the ground. Not quite floating, but not experiencing a full measure of gravity either. Something was beginning to happen to the people around us. They almost seemed to be slightly phased-out from the space that was still inhabited by my husband and myself.

i was standing, nearly floating and getting progressively higher. i remember my breathing being deep and rapid as i was hit with what can only be described as a physical blast of PURE EUPHORIA. It traveled through me in progressively more intense, electrical-type waves, starting below my feet and exiting out the top of my head. i could have happily died at that moment! i was having a body/soul-orgasm! i was caught in tremendous time dilation and this body/soul-orgasm was fantastically long lasting! My breathing was becoming physically manifest. Iridescent, liquid streams of rainbow light were entering me upon inhalation and the same were exiting my physical self upon exhalations.

i remember almost standing on my tiptoes, stretching myself out, putting my arms down at a 45-degree angle and literally "going with the flow," letting all of this crazy sensory input flow right through me. There was no resistance. It felt so good and right. i re-iterate that i could have died at that moment and been completely joyful and satisfied. Building waves were flowing through my physical, almost-floating being. The iridescent, liquid streams of rainbow light began emerging from other my hands/fingers and the top of my head. i could feel, see and sense them.

i looked around at the people around me and they had these liquid streams emerging from their heads and extremities, noses and mouths also. My husband did not! But he did not appear to be glowing in a type of rainbow bubble. The people around us continued to be even more "phased out" than before. My husband did not!

It was starting to get a little weird. i was beginning to distinctly feel not like myself.

Synesthesia inputs were EVERYWHERE. i had never experienced such an intense and heavy synesthesia before. All of my senses were powerfully confused.

My physical body/self were beginning to melt. Not in an entirely pleasant or unpleasant manner. It felt very strange and like i was losing my self but it also felt kind of wonderful in that i felt i was melding with the wider Universe around me. This melting/melding was happening in a distinctly and wonderful synesthetic manner. i could see (liquid rainbow iridescence) how it felt. i could taste (sharp) how it sounded. i could feel (intense stabbing) how it looked. . . This list could be developed quite a bit more, but i think I’ll stop here because language sucks in the psychedelic landscape.

i remember looking at the stage. i was almost completely gone/melted/melded with the surrounding Universe. My insides had melded with the outside. My self had simultaneously expanded tremendously and shrunk down to the size of a large molecule. i wish i could begin to describe what i saw. Incredible Light! Fantastic slices of pure color layered infinitely on top of each other were radiating outward from the stage. These slices were the musical note synthesis that the band was creating on the stage. i did not perceive this sensory input as sound or music.

i was down to a mote of self/ego. Everyone around us had completely phase-shifted out of the Universe/dimension that my husband and i currently inhabited. Huge, fantastic blasts and slices of pure color were radiating from everyone and anything (e.g. the lawn) that even might remotely be alive. i had seen this life energy before and have seen it since, but never like this - it was not a subtle effect - it was overwhelming.

i looked forward again and the stage was gone. It its place was a fantastic White Light. A Light that by its pure and fundamental nature had every possible color in it. i could see these billions of colors making up this fundamental Light. This must have been the “color” of the Big Bang. The beginning of the Universe. i wasn’t really sure who or where i was. i had already managed to completely forget that we had begun the evening by ingesting a significant dose of LSD! :banghead:

Well, all I can say at this point, is: This is where things started getting REALLY fucking WEIRD! This is where i truly and utterly lost it. It being my self/Ego/sanity. The “break” was complete and utter. Undeniable, irresistible, fundamental, organic and natural. There was no “i,” no “self” or “Ego.” There was no separation or difference between what had been body/self and the outside/Universe. Whatever semblance or veil of difference that had existed had melted away millennia ago.

The only thing that kept me even remotely connected to anything on this planet/dimension was my husband. He had not phased out with the other people He was still serenely in his bubble. This actually brought me back a bit. Part of my Self/soul got dragged back into my rainbow iridescence leaking body/container. This was VERY weird and hard to understand/process (given my youth and intoxication level). i went from literally being nothing, being everything, being one with the Universe and understanding viscerally that all of these states are fundamentally interchangeable and the same thing, . . . To being very slightly embodied and very much confused and not feeling like “myself.”

i looked at the stage area again. The Big Bang Light was beginning to spiral into a 3-dimensional vortex. As this happened the fundamental Whiteness of the Light broke up into its myriad billions of different color components, which all looked like swirly parts of the vortex. Theses colors tried to “escape” the black-hole like pull of the White Light vortex, but failed in every attempt. It was fantastic - beautiful and terrifying at the same time.

This vortex appeared to be growing/expanding. i had no idea who i was or where i was, but i did know that i was with my husband. Strangely contradicting as one requires the other. How could “i” know that i was with my husband if i had no idea who “i” was?

Suddenly the terrifying aspect of things completely overwhelmed the beautiful. No more “going with the flow.” Resistance made manifest. i was panicking, pure and simple. My trip went bad very fast - i believe this happened because i was already in a tremendously delusional and dissociated space. It hit me like a classic panic-attack. i noticed that the phased-out people no longer had the iridescence emerging from them - in fact they now appeared to be bluish-grayish-white. The more i looked at them, the more i realized that they did not appear to be fully “alive,” nor did they appear to be fully phased into my husband’s and my current dimension. Some had obvious terminal wounds visible, some appeared to be from different historical eras. They also looked terribly disconnected, almost “spirit-like.”

i recall telling my husband frantically that we had to get out of there. i felt we were in danger of dying ourselves if we didn’t get away from this dimensional rift that appeared to have opened up. The effect had clearly appeared to spread to those around us and was expanding.

My next memory is of us exiting the venue. Here things get fractured, spotty and more than slightly amnesiac.

i was very deeply disoriented as we huddled on the street. My husband kept me contained and tried to keep me calm but he was also tremendously “fucked up.” i was still feeling the urgent need to escape, feeling panic. By the time we were outside the venue it seemed like we had failed in our escape attempt. Although the White Light vortex had not completely caught up with us, we had somehow completely phase-shifted into the Realm of the Dead. These dead people or “spirits” for lack of a better word were terribly disconnected. They looked lost and confused. All of these adjectives describe my state at the time. Although they showed evidence of their causes of death, they did not appear to be in any sort of discomfort. Just lost, wandering, searching, disconnected, drifting and totally confused.

Once i landed in the Realm of the Dead it was really hard to get out. i stayed there for many hours. i saw spirits everywhere we went, whether there were really people present or not. Although these people did not seem to be in any discomfort, i was terrified. How had this happened?!? i started questioning if my husband and i had even a remote shred of a chance of still being alive.

The entire time we were actively pursued by the expanding vortex.. We had to get away! i wasn’t sure if we were dead or alive but i was sure that if we were absorbed into that vortex we would be completely and utterly lost - not just our selves (a tolerable concept) but from each other (inconceivable and terror-filled). i did not want to go into the Light or even let it get close to us. i was willing to do whatever it took to accomplish this goal.

After panic-filled and exhausting hours, there came a point where i gave up. This was not a good thing. This was not acceptance or integration. This was fundamental loss of all hope. Complete and utter despair - extracted and concentrated into a neutronium-solid, singularity-like point. i was now ready to go into the Light.

We never did go through that White Light. i kind of wish we had. i suspect i would have felt a lot better when it was all over and that if i had i would never have had to write the paragraph preceding this one. Again with the self-contradictions that (for me) appear to be inherent to psychedelic experiences.

i have snapshot memories of coming down. i am fairly confident saying that it took me a lot longer to come down, back to consensual reality than it took me to get completely blasted out of it.

i finally became manageable enough for my husband to get me on the bus and train and drive us home. i was appalled at what had happened to me and what i had dragged my husband through. i was shell-shocked. i was humiliated at my insane ramblings. i spent a long time in this mostly-down, circular thinking space. Not baseline by any means of the word. Also, i really needed to rest/sleep. My mental landscape felt like it had just been attacked with a thermonuclear device.

i remember slowly recovering over a period of days, mostly coming back to the self i had been before this experience. It took me a long, long time to get back to what I would call baseline. Also, after this i abstained for 20 years from all psychedelics. This is when i started some rather mild HPPD symptoms that actually last to this day. My husband has some of his own too. We rewired our brains, but not in a hard-to-manage way. Actually easy to ignore. It just kind of reminds us of those days (mostly wonderful) back then . . .Truth be told, . . . we kind of like it. i get peripheral entities and he gets "perma-trails."



i have had a lot of time to work on this, needless to say, though i have done most of the work in the past 10 years . . .i no longer blames myself for a “psychotic break,” and truly believes that it was a horrible failure of planning and setting. If i had been in the proper set and setting i suspects the experience would have been terrifying and harrowing but much more manageable and would have ended/resolved in a much better manner.

Peace & Love,
Spicey Cat
Purrrrrrr!

 

damn that's wild. was your husband getting shared visuals with you?

 

That's crazy. Very detailed and long. Makes my look rushed and child-like

You wanna' hear something weird man? I've had HPPD since birth. I see air as a visual static, trails behind moving objects, auras, and sometimes very clear hallucinations and I hear people saying my name or just random noises. The detailed hallucinations were more frequent when I was younger. Like, blue ghosts that look like bad quality holograms from Star Wars or something. Moving pictures and people walking through the house (whom are in the house) but like, they'll walk past and I'll go into another room and they'll be there but for real. Sorry if that doesn't make sense

 

that happened to me when i was young too. i used to hear voices saying my name in different intonations all the time..and saw little human-shaped objects in my peripheral vision that seemed to always dart away as soon as i became aware of them and tried to look. it always scared the hell out of me and no matter who i told they always just laughed at me and said it was nothing

 

Exactly haha. Glad someone else had the same shit

Well not glad but, you know what I mean.

 

Damn. That is a classicly epic bad trip. Always fun to look back on from a "sane" point of view. But yea, bad trips are one of the worse things anyone could ever go through IMO.

And the thing is is that you might not even be able to call that a bad trip. That shit just purely becomes Reality. It's beyond bad or good, it just IS, and it happens to be terrifying, confusing, desolate, hopeless. That's why i've decided myself to not trip anymore.

 

You make some interesting, good and insightful points. One thing i am still working on (slowly getting better) is observing without judging. Just try to be pure observation and figure it out later after the trance or peak breaks or whatever . . . Overall, i find that it is helpful if the stimuli get a bit too hectic or "ugly," as they are sometimes want to do with non-measured (changa + Glass Vaporgenie) DMT doses.

Peace & Love,
Spicey Cat
Brrrrp!