That’s funny, because that’s exactly how I’d describe the effects of opiates (when I’ve taken legal opiates.) It gives you the same feeling as when you wake up from a nap, sort of groggy but really content and happy. You’re a bit disoriented too but you don’t feel that way at all, you feel simultaneously a bit groggy and in the zone. Now, when you combine that with caffiene you feel peppy and in the zone. Once I felt that way for FOUR HOURS with only 6 ounces of mountain dew and a Vicodin (when I was recovering from a tooth infection.)
Not sure what LSD poopypants was taking, particularly when he submitted the username, but that’s almost the exact opposite of the experience.
With the bathtub acid that must be going around these days, who the hell knows what he was ingesting? I wouldn’t trust anything on the street in 2005 to be LSD-25, which is why I haven’t been near it in many years.
I think psychedelics and certain stimulants are far too subjective to describe with any confidence.
During the eighties and nineties, I consumed a lot of drugs of various descriptions, as did many of the people that I associated with on a regular basis.
There are very few people that I would choose to do certain drugs with, because they affected me profoundly different.
It seems to me that for many of my friends, LSD was primarily a visual experience, and they never tired of talking about what they were seeing. For me, the overriding effect of LSD was a sort of mental hypertext. Yes, there’s definitely a crazy visual thing going on, with everything looking quite plastic and wavy, and much more detail apparent than usual, but I’d never get terribly absorbed by that.
For me, it was mostly about language and synchronicity. Very difficult to describe. It’s like every bit of data in your head is right there, and every possible link between every concept is blindingly, compellingly obvious. (Even if the significance is, in the cold light of day, entirely imaginary.)
If you’ll excuse a long exposition intended to convey this experience as closely as possible:
Say (hypothetically) you’re watching Twin Peaks, and you’re tripping like mad. You know there’s a big occult mystery going on.
You’re at the point in the series where Major Briggs has amnesia after he mysteriously vanished in the woods. He’s just been told his first name, and responds: “Garland… that’s a funny name… like Judy Garland.” This is a huge trigger, and you feel like your amnesia is lifting. Every Wizard of Oz reference in Twin Peaks and even the rest of David Lynch’s movies flashes through your mind, and you see the logic of how it all fits together in a meaningful way. Then the amazing religious significance and mystery of Judy Garland is instantly revealed to you. Agent Cooper thought the killer was in Easter Park – and Judy Garland was in Easter Parade. You remember Fred Astaire telling Judy’s character, “See her nose? One year from now you’re going to put it out of joint!” It sounds weirdly prophetic… he’s talking about time… Of course… Time is out of joint. Fred Astaire is talking to you from the remote past. That’s Hamlet. It goes back even further. But wait… Philip K. Dick wrote a book called Time Out of Joint, and the protagonist’s name was Ragel Gumm. Gumm… that’s a funny name… (is that an echo? It sounds familiar… what?) Holy cow! Judy Garland’s real name is Frances Gumm! And of course, Agent Cooper dreamed about the waiter who said “That gum you like is going to come back in style.” If Gumm = Garland, what has this got to do with Major Briggs? Something… When the Log Lady approached him with her cryptic message at the Double R, the waitress complained about her spitting out her gum on the counter. Double R… Double Mint! That’s “that gum you like,” because everything in Twin Peaks comes in pairs. What does the "R’ stand for, though? Ragel! Ragel’s Hebrew, isn’t it? “Judy” means “woman from Judea.” That means something. Ragel stands in for “Frances.” What’s Frances? Feminine for Frank. Like L. Frank Baum, who wrote Oz. Like Frank Oz! He worked on Star Wars. Star Wars was full of Oz references, too, plenty of scenes done shot for shot. Weird how Judy Garland’s character was split into Luke and Leia. The rescuer and the rescued. Twins. It’s always twins. White Lodge and Black Lodge. Jedi and Sith. The Force. Major Briggs is in the Air Force. Cooper said there’s a powerful Force in the woods. I had amnesia, but now I remember. What about the woods? “Wood” means “insane” in Middle English. Is the Log Lady insane, really? She told Garland her log had a message for him, and he took her seriously. So did Cooper. I’m insane now, but I’m getting the message. This happened to Philip K. Dick. Thomas Didymus – “Thomas” means “twin.” “Didymus” means “twin.” Twin-Twin. Always with the twins. Speaking inside his head, from Ancient Judea. Twinned with him, across time.
…and then an actor on the screen speaks the next line, because that inner monologue was compressed into an impossibly short period of time. The next line triggers a similar cascade of loosely-connected thoughts, and it goes on like that for hours. This makes it difficult to speak, but makes watching movies, listening to music, or reading a mind-blowing experience.
There have been very few people I’ve talked to for whom this is the overriding quality of the experience. (Not that that comes close to really giving anyone more than the most general of ideas about what it’s like.)
I remember sitting on a bed with a girl that I’d decided to trip with, long ago, and she became fascinated by the novelty teddy-bear slippers she was wearing, and did a little footsie puppet show. (She was 23, understand.) Then she turned to me and asked in this awestruck voice, “Wouldn’t it be weird if we just used live animals for shoes? Just walked up to them and stuck 'em on our feet and walked around?” And then she collapsed into hysterical laughter for about twenty minutes.
Oookay, then.
Much shorter contrast for MDMA: I know a lot of people who say that they have to dance when they do E. For me, E is about relaxing. Sit and breath, listen to music, and feel waves of love coming from your friends. Long conversations about how we feel about each other and our situation. I can’t imagine wanting to jump around a bunch.
I’ve had many people tell me that they only do mushrooms, because it feels more organic and natural.
I could never stand to do them, because they invariably made me feel terribly poisoned. Heavy feeling in the body, nausea, and sluggish narcotic thought. Blech. Nothing pleasant about it at all, for me. Feels like being stupified and tossed into an H.R. Giger print. Other people report bright colours and euphoria. Go figure.
Anyway, long story short, I think the more striking effects of most drugs are too subjective to convey. You can safely describe the physiological effects, but there’s not much in that: “Cocaine will speed up your heart.” “Speed will make you grind your teeth, and E will, too.” “LSD will make you more susceptible to cold hands and feet.”
I’ve since come off them, but I remember the first anti-depressant I took about 5 years ago was quite a similar experience to my first ‘e’. Not as intense, but similar nonetheless.
I think stimulants like coke at least in some way share some of the characteristics of a caffeine high at least physically but the mental state of mind is a different picture. It would be extremely difficult to describe a coherent and understandable DXM trip so that someone could imagine it as it actually is. Thats why its called an altered state of mind. 
Count me in. I’d add the feeling that you’re wading through your subconcious, no thought gets suppressed. The weird visual stuff I thought of as a sideshow to the main event. I think you could have a go at describing the visual experience of Acid but I don’t know if someone who’s not been there would believe it, I think they’d insist that you were exaggerating.
Something you didn’t mention was that sometimes your state of mind is such that you don’t know that you are tripping, this is where it can get scary.
Good attempt at describing a trip BTW.