Share your drug experiences

In My Humble Opinion
41

LSD and psilocybin hallucinations are not “true” hallucinations generally in the sense that you don’t see things that completely aren’t there, like a pink elephant walking across a room or whatever. You see what’s there, but then as you stare at it it changes. A very common hallucination is to see the walls/floor/ceiling pulsating or “breathing”. The shapes of things morph and melt away and then come back to their original form. The more vague and indistinct something is (like a shadow), the more it changes. And if you close your eyes, you tend to get some very vivid mental images, usually abstract in nature (for me it was like looking into a really powerful kaleidoscope).

There’s also a really (really) heightened sense of brain activity. I felt like my thought processes were sped up 10x and brain synapses were all on rapid fire. Almost every thought feels like a profound revelation.

42

Huh. That’s the kind of thing I get on a regulation dose of Benadryl, which I take when my allergies act up. I broke down and took some on top of an also-standard dose of NyQuil once, when I was lucky enough to have a head cold and itchy eyes at the same damn time, and I ended up spending several hours watching glittery phantom flowers grow out of the texture in the carpet. Orange-peel wall finish can be remarkably entertaining when your edge detection systems have gone all wonky. I assume I am some kind of a mutant, but it is nice to know I’ve not missed anything by being too lazy to track down any LSD.

I suspect that I’m prone to visual disturbances for whatever reason I also get visual auras before migraines. It involves much the same sort of flicker or scintillation on areas of fine detail, and the vague feeling that my field of view has gone all fish-eyed around the edges. Migraine-glittering is much more localized than the drug visuals, though; the chemical kind are present faintly over the entirety of my visual field, like film grain. I’ve been told people would pay good money to see what I see in a migraine aura, if it didn’t also involve ‘holes’ in my vision, massive amounts of bloom around anything UV-reflective white, and a lot of owowowFUCKOW at the end.

43

I assure you that LSD does more than simply make the carpet more interesting.

44

Ok I’ll give you I forgot about this board’s rule, but define safe?

No one should take a drug unless they want to, have researched it heavily and have someone who knows the score with them for heavy psychedelics.

There are two legal and OTC heavy psychedelics sold OTC in the USA, one causes absolutely realistic visual and auditory hallucinations and the other causes CEVs and ego death and is only enjoyed by a minority of users. Both safe if you define it as hard to fatally OD on.

I support full drug legalization but I would not encourage just anyone to try them.

45

Absolutely agree.

For extra safety, I would recommend having the substance tested in a laboratory first, to make sure that what you have is indeed a) the correct substance, b) dosed as advertised.

In Europe, there are some perfectly legal, government-supported, E.U.-funded laboratories dealing specifically with that sort of thing - for the purposes of harm reduction, natch. You send in a sample plus 50 Euros, and a couple of weeks later, voilà, you have your results. Don’t know if there is something similar across the pond, but I certainly hope so.

In any case I see your general point, and were it not against board rules, I would certainly much rather recommend a time-tested illegal substance (such as LSD or mescaline) than a new-ish, untested, potentially dangerous legal substance.

As for the relative danger of different kinds of drugs, this graph goes by “harm to others” and “harm to users.” This other graph goes by “dependence” and “physical harm.” Both are from The Lancet, so I’m guessing they’re legit. If not, lemme know.

46

I haven’t done any of these in over two years, but I remember each.

Marijuana

Mildly high - my face feels tight. I’ll realize that is because I’m smiling, and previously hadn’t noticed. Eyes feel dry - like… When you’re really tired. Mouth is parched, even when drinking water constantly. Hungry, and no amount of food will fix it.
Very high - The edges of my vision pulse. Or I’ll feel as though I can only do one thing and use one sense at a time (I’ve covered my ears so that I can speak to someone). My body tingles. It depends on if I have a head high or a body high. I don’t like body highs - I immediately go to sleep if I feel that way. Head highs are pretty fun. Everything is comical and I feel warm and fuzzy. I become ditzy and can’t really think straight. I have the urge to go on a walk - I do not want to sit still (which I’ve heard is uncommon).

Coming down sometimes gave me headaches. If I didn’t smoke enough or I smoked TOO much, I’d get nauseous. It had to be just right.

Mushrooms

Pleasurable - very happy and warm. I could talk for hours about anything.
I’ve had hallucinations while on shrooms, but they weren’t what I expected. Nothing crazy… It was like my mind was taking what I saw in front of me and just making it more vivid and alive.
It was THEN that I realized why my mother loves tie dye. It swam in my vision. And when I looked at a photo she had hanging on the wall (a bunch of maidens in white gowns frolicking through an open field) it looked like a breeze was blowing through the trees.
My boyfriend at the time and I went and laid down in the forest outside of my mother’s house and took everything in. I remember looking at him and noticing that his beard had grown, and suddenly it appeared as though his entire face was covered in hair. I called him Chewbacca. He told me that when he looked at me he thought for a second that I had pointed ears, like a forest nymph.
Another time my ex husband and I were sitting on a park bench in front of a lake on shrooms, years ago, and the more I stared at the night sky the more it looked like a painting. I remember wondering if van Gogh was high when he painted Starry Night.

As for my emotions - all positive. Even coming down was not difficult in any way. It just sort of faded out. I was always hungry and sleepy afterwards.
Meth

It made me feel invincible, extremely aggressive, and outright pretentious. I knew all and I could do all. It literally made me feel like a different person. I only did this once. I remember staying up for two days and cleaning my apartment completely spotless. I spent hours and inch from the mirror, scrutinizing every pore in my skin. It wasn’t a calm, relaxing high like the others. This was manic, excited, frenzied.

Coming down was the worst experience in my entire life. I have a (very mild) heart murmur, so it was a terrible idea to do it in the first place. Every time I tried to move, I fainted. I called my mother in a panic, and she had to come watch me for a few hours until I forced myself to fall asleep. Anyway, I have no interest in trying it again.
I’ve known meth addicts. I can see now, having tried it, how they become unrecognizable. I can’t explain how powerful it makes you feel.

MDMA

This is a friendly drug. There’s a reason ravers do it. The only way I can describe how it felt FOR ME is… Orgasmic. It’s like the feeling you get after having an orgasm - but it remains for hours. I felt warm through my whole body. Tingling in my extremities. It made me extremely empathetic and gentle.
I could talk to anyone about anything and my senses were heightened - especially touch. I just loved everything and everyone. It is described as a hallucinogenic stimulant, but I didn’t experience any of that. My friend tried it with me and we literally held hands and talked nonstop for 6 hours. There was this incredible mental clarity that came with it - I felt like I understood the universe more than I ever had before.

It was a very gradual comedown. I had some heart palpitations, but that was likely due to my mild heart murmur. I was physically and mentally exhausted afterwards. I slept for a day.

** Painkillers **

(Vicodin, Oxy, Tramadol, etc)
These have never been a big deal to me. I have to take them semi regularly for chronic pain from a broken neck a few years ago - but all they do is make the pain go away. I’ll be in pain and take them, and maybe 40 minutes in I’ll just… NOTICE… that I’m no longer in pain. Or I’ll still be in pain, but I won’t care about it.
My mood is increased, but that might be because of the pain going away. The most I’ve ever felt is maybe a floating head sensation. If I take them too often I get very nauseous.

Coming down off painkillers is unenjoyable. I sometimes feel nauseous, sometimes achy, or I’ll just feel the pain gradually return.

** Cocaine **

This isn’t MY experience - I’m too scared to try Coke because of my heart murmur - but a close relative. She explained that it’s her ‘drug of choice’ and if she ‘could AFFORD to be an addict she would happily’. Whatever that means. She said it gives her a euphoric happiness and nonstop energy. She’s just a bundle of intense joy while high. Intimacy is so good while she is high that it sort of ruined it while she’s not. She said that she could easily clean an entire house within an hour while on Cocaine.
She described the coming down as ‘a spiral into despair’ and a depression that lasted for days after.

Hope some of this helps.

47

What are you referring to? I’m guessing salvia divinorum and … ?

48

I just disagreed with the find something, anything legal and do it message.

49

Ah, good old cough syrup trips. I did do that with Robitussin (DXM) back in high school a couple of times. The experience itself was kind of interesting but man, drinking down a whole bottle of that stuff… it still makes me gag just thinking about it.

50

Of course no one said that.

51

Of course. It would be most improper for the prim & priggish temple of abstinence that is the SDMB.

From what I’ve read, shrooms seem to have the lowest dependence risk and toxicity of pretty much any drug and they’re in the same drug category as LSD and mescaline, aren’t they?

Please go on about that.

Was the perception of the breeze in the trees about as sharp as if you has looked at a video of it actually happening?

Again, how sharp was that perception? Did you look away and then back at him and did that change anything to the hallucinatory hair?

Like getting the invincibility star in Mario then : )

More seriously, that sounds like temporary psychotic mania.
I’m wondering: Did you get ideas of doing other things while on meth?

If I felt invincible, extremely aggressive and pretentious, I think I would get in a lot more trouble than cleaning my place and looking at my skin.

This is another thing I’m wondering about. People often say that drugs heighten their senses. I don’t doubt that some of the external stimuli they would normally feel is felt to a stronger amplitude. But is it possible to notice real external stimuli that one would otherwise miss while sober?

It does. MOAR! :slight_smile: Especially the visual and auditory distortions and hallucinations.

52

(double post to make reading easier on others)

Do hallucinations tend to precede or follow delusions? I.e.: Is someone likely to get threatening hallucinations first and then have fearful ideas or have fearful ideas and then threatening hallucinations?

I realize that perceptual distortions and cognitive distortions are a self-reinforcing spiral, I’m asking about which one tends to come first.

As another example, someone once told me that in one of her psychotic episodes, she thought she could swim through the air like a fish in water and that the air felt thick as water. I asked her which came first, the idea of swimming through the air or the sensory perception that the air was as thick as water. She couldn’t remember.

I have an inkling that distorted cognitions and emotions come first and that distorted perceptions/hallucinations then follow in the same direction and reinforcement the cognitions and emotions which then reinforce the distorted perceptions/hallucinations and so on.

Have I got it right that hallucinations/distorted perceptions come earlier and stronger in ambiguous sensory perceptions? I.e.: Comes earlier and stronger in poorly-lit rather than well-lit areas, external sounds that are half-heard rather than clearly heard etc?

Does the same hold for delusions? I.e.: They come earlier and stronger in little-known or unknowable topics like the supernatural, the cosmos, secret conspiracies etc?

53

Was the perception of the breeze in the trees about as sharp as if you has looked at a video of it actually happening?..Again, how sharp was that perception? Did you look away and then back at him and did that change anything to the hallucinatory hair?

Sharp isn’t the right word for it. It’s like when you see something out of the corner of your eye, and then your mind tells you ‘that was a person’, so for a split second you think you saw something and turn to see it wasn’t what you thought it was.
I glanced at the painting nonchalantly, and then turned back to stare at it because I thought it was moving. At first, it was. Then it was like everything except from the specific point I was focusing on was moving, but when I gave it my full attention I knew it wasn’t.
When I looked at my boyfriend’s face, it was the same. I was fixated on his beard, and on the edges of my vision his hair spread across his entire face.
Once I looked away and looked back it was back to normal in both situations, but if I focused on it again it would have the same effect.
I don’t know if that makes any sense. It’s difficult to explain.

Every drug I have ever been on I’ve remained logical. I knew I was high the entire time. So anything I saw and/or felt, I assumed was part of the drugs.

I have had more manic episodes while I was sick with a fever of 104.9 - THEN I wasn’t logical, I thought what I was experiencing was real, I didn’t understand what was going on, and I was in a panic. But never using drugs. It’s a totally different feeling.

Did you get ideas of doing other things while on meth?

You know, I was alone for most of my trip so I was pretty content staying indoors the entire time. Looking back, I think that if anyone had been high with me and had suggested we went out and did something, I would have done it no matter what it was. But, thankfully, that wasn’t the case.
It was like being obsessive about everything that comes into your vision. Looking over every single object you own and scrutinizing its imperfections. Cleaning it until it was clean and pure again, and then moving on to the next item.

Do hallucinations tend to precede or follow delusions?

I think that my hallucinations were very closely tied to my emotions.
I tried shrooms with one of my ex girlfriends a long time ago. She was very verbally abusive and kind of… crazy. And we were high and she looked at me and she said, “Have you ever wanted to… Hunt people? Like animals?” And as the realization of what she said struck me, the shadows played across her face and for a second I thought she had grown fangs and horns. I blinked calmly and realized that it was impossible for that to happen, and they faded. When I came down I thought about why I had seen her that way and decided it was because of the horror of what she had said to me.

I also felt very open to suggestion. If someone said they saw something and I looked, I could see something similar. It’s like my mind was looking for it and created it for my eyes.

**Have I got it right that hallucinations/distorted perceptions come earlier and stronger in ambiguous sensory perceptions? **

I would say yes. The strongest hallucinations I have had - and the strongest that my friends have had, have been at night time where shadows have played tricks, or based purely off of suggesting it to oneself (IE. Hearing a noise and thinking you’re being followed, and as a result hearing footsteps or seeing movement in a shadow).

54

Shrooms are psychedelic, so yes, very roughly speaking they’re in the same category as LSD and mescaline.

Well, there are the closed-eye visuals (CEV’s), for starters. On high enough doses, these can be incredibly vivid and overwhelmingly beautiful, to the point where people cry tears of joy.

The drug may also boost introspection - you may feel as if “the cobwebs have lifted,” so to speak, and you are suddenly able to freely explore yourself, discover deep truths about your own mind, your personality, whatever traumas you have gone through in your life, etc. Different aspects of your own mind may sometimes seem to stand out in individualised form, like a phantom or a god, and speak directly to you, or to other aspects of your mind, in a sort of inner theater of the mind.

Along the way, one may feel that one discovers a wealth of imagery and narrative - that one is temporarily able to take any song or image and thought and immediately “see” or “know” or at least playfully imagine its unimagined depths, its backstory, its secret inner meanings, etc. One may imagine unexpected connections and “themes” manifesting itself in different forms in different settings: “The cymbal in this song is like the whip of the god which is like the lighting-bolt in the sky which is like a new thought as it crashes through my brain which is like…” and so on and so forth.

In the afterglow, some people experience an incredible spike in creativity and energy, staying up all night to finish a painting, a poem, a bookshelf or what have you.

In general, the day after tends to be goddamned fantastic, as you kind of sort through the experiences of the trip, separate the wheat from the chaff, try to learn whatever worthwhile life lessons (if any) appeared along the way, and then return to your life and your routines, just happy to be alive and kicking.