Note to self:
Do not talk to judgmental parents in French on acid.
We just called them “cartoons”.
Not in my experience.
The closest I’ve ever been on a “bad trip” on LSD was on a mid-sized dose: Neither a “microdose,” where my life would basically continue as usual, but with extra energy and openness etc., nor a “heroic dose,” will full-blown visuals and psychedelic introspection. I ended up feeling stuck between two worlds or “modes,” neither here nor there, and incapable of committing to either. Didn’t feel too good - BUT at no point did I ever forget that I was tripping.
The only properly bad trip I’ve ever had wasn’t on LSD at all, so I guess that one is irrelevant to this thread - but that time, too, I always knew that I was on drugs. Didn’t make the experience any nicer, though. 
[QUOTE=Joey P]
We (and I think most people) just called them “visuals”.
[/quote]
We just called them “cartoons”.
[/QUOTE]
I’ve tripped many many times and never had any visual manifestions, with one exception that I eventually came to regard as a side effect: at a certain focal distance, usually 6-10 feet away, nonmoving things would appear to be moving, sort of gently writhing. No white rabbits, singing tyrannosaurs, melting friends, brick walkways that weren’t really there, nothing like that — just a vague sense of things moving languidly as if covered in a nice fuzzy blanket of caterpillars slowly crawling over each other. Never saw any actual caterpillar-body details, mind you. Whatever I stared directly at would quickly resolve to its own native appearance, but just off the dead-center focus of my vision other parts of the chair or tree or whatever would still be doing the lazy crawl.
Not even closed-eye hallucinations? May I ask what size doses you were taking?
In my experience I usually have a sense of how a trip could go bad, like an option of a road to go down that you just don’t take.
I would also imagine that if anything was unpleasant it could be changed in an instant. When tripping, every experience or thought can be so fleeting, the entire world can change in the blink of an eye. Sometimes the thoughts and feelings and understandings come so fast there is hardly time to examine them, never mind articulate them. So if something is unpleasant, take a sip of orange juice, change the music or go into another room and everything, literally everything, will be entirely different.
It seems to me bad trips are mainly the result of inexperience and people doing things that are simply a bad idea on LSD. Set and setting, yes, and of course your own state of mind at the time, and the people around you. I would only ever do it at a time I was happy with myself, in a comfortable place I know and with people I completely trust.
Regarding micro-dosing: I haven’t tried it myself, but I have some friends who do it for parties (because they’re on SSRIs). At very low doses they report light euphoria and everything being interesting, but no tripping.
JoeyP, last time I spent the longest time thinking it was so strange that I didn’t know this amazing Miles Davis album, only to be told we were listening to the Doors. 
Quality control is a huge issue as well. It would be interesting to obtain hits from various sources and have them analyzed.
Surely that’s been done at some point.
Here in the Netherlands you can easily get any drugs tested. We’ve never had anything dodgy come our way, and we always test. Man, I am so grateful we have that option! 
Good trip: While in college in my dorm room I recall being able to see the music waves coming out of the speakers. Others saw it too, it was very much a group bonding experience. Very cool.
Bad trip: Sitting in a double wide trailer during a winter storm with the whole environment swaying around all night. Just never feeling safe and relaxed, especially when looking out the window at the storm. Creepy feeling that wouldn’t go away, just thinking about it now gives me the chills.
LSD quality control is routine on the darknet markets. I can’t think of any major seller who has not had their product tested in a legal, professional, above-board laboratory (usually in either Holland or Spain). That goes for both qualitative tests (“is it actually LSD?”) and quantitative tests (“how much LSD is it?”).
You can ask, but it’s not like Dealer McDope was selling them in identified microgram doses through most of my tripping-life experiences. It was seldom “I have 250 microgram blotter” and most often “I have some really kickass ‘Orange Sunshine’, you’ll like it, good mellow high” and so forth.
Generally speaking, I would take two “hits” at a time, on a few rare occasions 2.5, sometimes just one. But no dependable info on how much lysergic acid tartrate 25 was in each “hit”, ya know?
I hear ya, man. God I’m glad to live in a time when proper testing is hella easy, and precisely dosed product is readily available.
Guess I’ve always dealt with less scrupulous dealers. 
:: Stares avidly at Steken with his pen and paper handy ::
For about two years, I did acid every weekend. After that period, I probably took it about two or three times a year, due to its unavailability, for another eight years. I cannot recall ever having a bad trip, though there were a few times when I was uncomfortable for short periods of time.
Usually, I took it with others that were also dropping, in small get-togethers. As I became more comfortable with it, I started doing other things while tripping as well. Walk down to Dunkin’ Donuts, because they’re open all night long. Drive over to Dallas to see the Underground Flicks. Go to the local all-night diner. Tripping at the Atlanta Pop Festival in 1970.
A couple of things worried me from time to time: looking in a mirror and watching the features on my face swim around, not being able to identify just what the hell is in the road, until it suddenly resolves into a cow walking the center stripe of a back road. Oh, and you know those arrows made of reflectors on highways that point the way you are going in white one way, but point AT you in RED if you turn the wrong way? That was a few scary moments.
I took some acid before going out with my (at the time) wife and another couple, without telling anyone. We ended up at an adult movie theater, during which I wondered if I could orgasm without actual contact with my penis. Later, we ended up at the other couple’s home to spend the night. (Sex while peaking is not a good idea.) I drifted off to sleep, but kept waking up to Navajo Blankets, through which I had to “swim” to reach the “surface”. In the middle of the night, a thunder storm occurred and that was just marvelous!
I took doses from 100 uG all the way up to 1000 uG (there is some saturation associated with taking acid every week). No flash-backs (so far…).
Hallucinations, very few, visual effects, always. I could spend hours watching myself waving my hand around in the air to see the tracers. I was a smoker at the time, and watching cigarette smoke curl up into the air was like watching stop-motion animation. Some people reported seeing the walls “breathe”, but I could never see it. Whatever I saw, however, I always knew what was real and what was not.
I never tried psilocibin or mescaline during that time, as it was rumored that the preparation of mescaline was more expensive than the preparation of LSD, and shrooms were not common, but when dealers couldn’t move their weak-ass acid, they called it mescaline or psilocibin, saying it is a much more mellow high.
I can’t tell you where to get the stuff - that’d be against board rules - but I’m pretty sure I’m allowed to tell you that I have discovered that the results of legit LSD tests performed at legit laboratories are regularly posted both here and here.
You’re frequenting different darknet markets then ones I’ve…err…heard of. I’ve heard of some third party testing being done, but nothing that is routine. Seems it’s not uncommon for one of the NBOMEs to be substituted. Probably still better than trusting your local supplier.
I owe you one, thanks.
Weeee! Energy rush, happy, giggly, some visuals (small movements), weeee! lots of energy, sweating, slight confusion…
“oh wow, I’m really tripping” weeee! energy rushes, more sweating, more confusion, stronger visuals - swirling, fading, greying, black & white,
colors, COLORS COLORS, MUCH CONFUSION, “OH MY GOD, I’M TRIPPING BALLS”, paranoia, much swirling, melting, melting, mmmmmeeeeelllltttiiinnngggggggg,
holy crap, what was that? who am I? what am I doing here? “oh yeah, we’re tripping, right? RIGHT?” “so what were you just saying? was I talking?” “OH MY GOD, I’M TRIPPING BALLS”, paranoia, much swirling, melting, melting, mmmmmeeeeelllltttiiinnngggggggg,
holy crap, what was that? who am I? what am I doing here? “oh yeah, we’re tripping, right? RIGHT?” “so what were you just saying? was I talking?” Weeee! Energy rush, happy, giggly, some visuals (small movements), weeee! lots of energy, sweating, slight confusion…
“oh wow, I’m really tripping” weeee! energy rushes, more sweating, more confusion, stronger visuals - swirling, fading, greying, black & white,
colors, COLORS COLORS, MUCH CONFUSION, “OH MY GOD, I’M TRIPPING BALLS”, paranoia, much swirling, melting, melting, mmmmmeeeeelllltttiiinnngggggggg,
holy crap, what was that? who am I? what am I doing here? “oh yeah, we’re tripping, right? RIGHT?” “so what were you just saying? was I talking?” “OH MY GOD, I’M TRIPPING BALLS”, paranoia, much swirling, melting, melting, mmmmmeeeeelllltttiiinnngggggggg,
holy crap, what was that? who am I? what am I doing here? “oh yeah, we’re tripping, right? RIGHT?” “so what were you just saying? was I talking?”
And that’s just the first two or three hours after an average (IME) dosage kicks in, after eight or nine hours there will have been many ways it could have gone well or badly. I’ve had complete disassociation with reality but it was a good experience, had pretty crappy experiences with bad (weak or poorly made) substances, bad people, or an uncomfortable environment; there are many ways it can go well or badly, and many degrees of good/bad.