LSD & Cannabis

DOSE: T+ 0:00 1 hit sublingual LSD (edible / food) T+ 1:45 1 hit sublingual LSD (edible / food) T+ 2:00 3 bowls smoked Cannabis (flowers)

BODY WEIGHT: 124 lb

11:00 am: Me and four good friends arrive at the trailhead. I was the only with previous experience with Lucy, as well as a few boomer trips. We decide it is time to take our first hit. I select the blue sweet tart and place it on my tongue. We begin to walk.

11:15 am: We have walked a little under a mile and arrive at the falls. That familiar metallic taste and intense surge of energy is slowly creeping up. Everyone is in a great mood, the positive energy is flowing. I know we are ready. We find a map and decide we will continue our journey north until we find a good spot to make camp.

11:35 am: At this point, everyone has remarked multiple times how they feel different but they couldn�t quite place the strange sensation. No one seems anxious, everyone feels safe.

11:45 am: Success. We walked about five or so minutes off the trail (we thought it was much, much farther) and found the spot where we would set up our chairs, right next to a fallen tree split halfway down the trunk.

11:55 am: Camp is set up. We each have a lawn chair and our pre-assembled backpack. In the distance, we hear thunder. It was supposed to be a very hot, very sunny day.

12:00 pm: We decide the best option would be to create shelter and make a fire. Frantically, all five of us are scrambling around, spewing idea after idea. After a good 15 minutes of work, we found the once broken tree to be a full tent with enough room for all of us and a nice, controlled fire burning. We were a machine. No task was too great. We effortlessly moved log after log without a second thought. It began to rain. The cool drops felt great on my skin, especially while contrasting with the warmth of the fire on my legs and arms. Pure bliss.

12:15 pm: This is when the trip really started picking up. The rain had quickly passed. I had so much energy and was absorbing all of the energy from the fire, the trees, the sun, and everything. I had to run. I take off in one direction, running full speed through the woods. I was jumping over creeks, climbing mudslides, and dodging logs. I was on fire. Every time I found an awesome spot, another just as far away would catch my eye. At one point, I found a nice log and sat. The wind was carrying the entire woods back and forth, and I was swaying with it. Laying in the woods alone, knowing that there isn�t a car, building, or anything of the sort for miles, is breathtaking. Nature is all I needed The woods are powerful. I knew they were aware of my presence and that I was in for the ride of a lifetime.

12:20 pm: According to my friends, I was only gone around five minutes. I felt like it had been hours. The �campsite� looked like a new place. Two friends were still adding logs to the tent. Hauling massive, fallen tree trunks and balancing them along the base tree. Our brief idea to build shelter had become a full-blown construction operation. We were a force to be reckoned with and had a palace to prove it. From here on out any time reference I give has little relevancy as I hardly remember any specifics.

12:30 pm: I take a seat in my chair. Sitting after my run was amazing. Relaxation, which I pictured as a warm, purple kind of sludge was slowly moving from my feet all the way over my head. I was content. I lean over to see my friend, S, as he is very focused on a drawing he was constructing. He had every color of sharpie he could want. The artwork was beautiful. I couldn�t have summed up how I was feeling better.

12:32 pm: Just seconds later, I realize my really good friend, T, was gone. I ask where he went and was told he said he had to go and took off. I have tripped on shrooms with him a few times before this and knew he could handle himself. Regardless, I decided to go off looking for him. I needed a change of scenery.

12:32 - 12:40 pm: I reached the top of the nearest hill and spot T at the bottom before he just goes out of sight. I run down to the bottom, look around, and spot his glowing white shirt just slip behind a tree at the top of the next hill and disappear. I�m not sure how long this pattern continued but eventually I found him, sitting on a log. I ask him how it�s going and he just grins. He says that he understands everything, that the woods had called to him, shown him their way, and he was now part of them. I listen in envy and suggest we head back towards camp.

12:45 pm: We arrive back at home-tree and decide it is time to take our second hit. This time I take a purple sweet tart and T takes the blue. I sit back down in my chair and began to concentrate my breathing. I watch as the branches of trees form a kaleidoscope of greens, and blues, and browns, and millions of colors I had never conceived before. The kaleidoscope would swirl and concentrate in to a sphere of what I perceived as the essence of nature. This feeling would intensify the more focused I became on my breathing. I could feel roots from the ground wrapping around my legs, urging me to accept them, and I did. A feeling of balance overtook me. On my last shrooms trip, which happened to be with T, a large focus of the experience was the balance of the universe. About how in the end, the sum of all energy, positive and negative, will always equal zero. I had found zero. Each breath I took a strong wind would rush one way and as I exhaled that same wind would pull back on itself the opposite direction. My heart and body was pulsing with the earth. �M, do you want some?� The words that brought me back to reality as I look to the right, face to face with my friend�s bong. I take a hit and enjoy the sweet taste of the smoke as it courses through my body only to exit my mouth, moments later.

1:00 pm: Me and T decide we need to go somewhere else. We decide to explore until we find a perfect spot and smoke a bowl. We grab our packs and set off, with a make-shift bamboo mat in hand. After five or so minutes of walking we both set our eyes on a spot. Four huge trees from each corner of the woods bent and converged at this spot. There was an opening in the canopy and the rays of sunlight were pulsing on this spot. We laid out the mat right under the where the trees met and packed a bowl. I took my first hit. I felt as if the mat we were sitting on was a sort of portal in to another dimension. Similar to a portkey in Harry Potter, I felt the mat slowly spinning, growing in pace, like our own magic carpet. Or was it the woods spinning around the mat? The more we smoked, the more intense the feeling became. After what seemed like an eternity and a 100-hit bowl, it was time to head back to camp. I have never been more disoriented in my life. Somewhere in my mind I knew how to get back but I couldn�t fight the tricks my eyes were playing on me. Everything was backwards. Looking back, it seemed like we walked in circles and by some stroke of luck, ended back at the campsite.

1:20 - 4:00 pm: When we got back, the other three were all over the place. The one who was very focused on the shelter was still finding heavy logs and moving things around. He had built an entire wall made of various sized sticks. His brother, S, was still sitting and drawing. The other guy was the most wild. He had a bamboo stick and explained that once you are conscious of your neutrality in the universe you can tap in to limitless power. Conscious neutrality, what a thought. T and I watched as he effortlessly snapped hundreds of branches with a flick of his wrist. I was in awe. I decided to sit. The next two hours or so are quite a blur. We all just gathered and talked about all of our feelings, trying to figure everything out and put it in to words. It was useless, none of us were saying the same thing or following each other�s train of thought. But we all were seeing the same thing, feeling the same indescribable force that was so present in us and everything. It was after a few moments of silence when I tuned in to the sound of the birds and the roar of the wind tearing its way around the trees, that one friend mistakenly picked up a smoldering log. The process of getting that taken care of was long and confusing. I was in my chair and knew I wouldn�t be moving for some time.

4:30 pm: It was at this time that S and C had decided it was their time to go on a solo journey as me T and Chuck had suggested. All three of us had already had our trip-changing, personal experience and loved it. They each packed a bag of things they wanted to bring and headed off in different directions. I decided, after some long cycling thoughts, it was time for some music. I made the long walk over to my stuff and grabbed my iPod. At this time T also grabbed his iPod and Chuck began to draw. I put my pre-assembled playlist on shuffle. Dark Star by the Grateful Dead came on. Every note strummed on the guitar, every hit to a drum or cymbal, was absolutely perfect. I anticipated the next perfect note after the previous and was overtaken by joy each time it came. I zoned out.

4:55 pm: This is when shit started to get real. I open my eyes from my musical daze and realize we are not alone. A park ranger is walking towards us. Somehow, me and the three others were able to keep our cool considering our state of mind. I was coming down but everything was still going pretty strong. He told us it was illegal to have a fire out here and that it was illegal to move fallen trees and such to build a fort. We had to help him take it all down. From what I remember, I kept picking up the same log, throwing it, walking over to it only to pick it up again and throw it back. The other two were still on their hike and who knows where they were. Luckily, this park ranger was clueless.

5:00 pm: S returns from his hike. The park ranger asks for our information. But what was my name? what was my birthday? address? etc. Instinctively, I knew what to say and everything went smoothly. Another park employee arrived and went to get some water from a nearby creek to put out the fire. We explained to the first ranger that there was one more guy with us and that we weren�t sure where he was. We waited with the ranger for what seemed like hours before we gave up and headed back towards the parking lot with him. It on that walk that I had time to piece everything together. I knew the only way to return from such an intense experience was a sudden reality check and a guide to bring us home. I was so happy that we made it this far but I was worried about C as he had his bong with him. We arrived at the parking lot after the longest, most tiring hike I have ever been on. The four of us had to carry what the five of us had barely managed to get out there in the first place. Still no sign of C. The ranger informed us that he wouldn�t be charging us with anything and that he just wanted to go over some basic rules of the park. After that, he went out in an ATV in search of C.

5:30 - 6:00 pm: We put our stuff in the van and went to a picnic table to sit and wait. Trying to comprehend what had just happened to us was tough but we were all ecstatic that we made it. Long conversation ensued as we tried to reflect.

6:30 pm: I see the ranger�s golf cart come back to the information center with what looked like C in the passenger seat. Uh-oh! Me and Chuck walk over to center to see what the story is. It turns out the ranger had seen the bong and found C�s stash. We were told to sit with C in the waiting room. He was still tripping pretty hard. Before we knew it, two county sheriff�s arrived and they took C outside. He was searched and put in the back of one of the squad cars. I was next being the only other minor. I had nothing on me but was told that I was going to be taken to the station and that my parents would have to come pick me up. They couldn�t let me drive under the influence but I wouldn�t be charged with anything.

7:00 - 8:45 pm: The next segment of the trip was the most meaningful. Set and setting are everything on acid. In the woods, you think about nature, about pure nothingness, tranquility, and the like. The back of a cop car in 80+ degree weather with no water is a whole new story. I began to question our entire legal system. Set and setting are everything on acid. In the woods, you think about nature, about pure nothingness, tranquility, and the like. The back of a cop car in 80+ degree weather with no water is a whole new story. I began to question our entire legal system.