#I just wanted to watch Psychonauts stuff on my living room TV and got my freaking eyes assaulted | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

power-chords · 3 years

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Post-trip round-up, integration, thoughts (cut for length & some Heavy Shit)

WOW I needed that and I am so glad I realized I needed that. It has been well over ten years since I last took LSD, and my reluctance to indulge in psychedelics again was rooted in a long and complicated history that I don't really need to hash out here, but doing a mild dose of mushrooms last weekend gave me the confidence and conviction that I was ready.

Would it have been wiser to take a less bonkers dose for the first time in a decade plus? Probably! Do I regret a single moment of it? Not a whit! It's tough to overstate just how powerful, therapeutic, and restorative a good acid trip is, even an occasionally intense, uncomfortable one. I do not recommend eating multiple tabs of extremely good blotter on your first rodeo, but Adam's even more of a veteran psychonaut than I am, so I was 1000% well cared for, totally safe, and in a comfortable, familiar environment. In that setting, and in a positive frame of mind, acid is not going to throw anything at you that you are not equipped to handle. I would love to make this an annual or biannual thing.

The cool, funny, wacky delightful stuff:

Put it under my tongue at 10 AM-ish. Went to go listen to some music and doodle until it kicked in. I forgot that the come-up is like, do not make any fucking plans involving hand-eye coordination LMAO. I was trying to doodle Bowery Ballroom in an old sketchbook, and that devolved quickly. The markers were old so some of the caps were really stuck on there, and I wound up devolving into fits of laughter from the absurdity of pulling the caps off with my teeth.

Ink stains on my hands started writhing and trailing and were very cool. That was the first thing I noticed. I got very sad that I stopped drawing and making art, which was something I did all my life and almost went to school for but stopped doing as an adult. And then I realized I could start drawing again any time if I wanted to, and I didn't have to be GOOD at it or a proper artist for it to be worthwhile and fun. Felt immediately happy again.

Adam decided to watch Lethal Weapon???? I was like, Don't Like That. Even though he had headphones on and I couldn't hear anything. I am ambivalent about screens at best when I'm tripping, and at worst I don't even want to be in the same room with them. Guns and violence seemed comically, brutally stupid. Turned my back to the TV and continued drawing and writing until I could no longer hold a pen. Eventually Adam got on my wavelength and was like yeah, this is too much! (He took like, twice the dose that I did. I have no idea how he was even able to talk to me, but he managed!)

Felt the need to message Liana while peaking, picked up my phone, and saw that she had already sent me this:

I thought that was HILARIOUS (tbh it actually was, and it was not just the acid talking)

For the first few hours of teeth-grinding, reality-shearing intensity, Adam and I mostly lounged in bed with the shades pulled all the way up and the window open, cuddling and petting Ernie. Fantastic bonding experience for the whole fam.

Looking at every surface in the apartment became like looking at a stained glass ceiling, or an infinite mandala, or the muddied rainbows in oil-slicked puddles. It looked like Ernie's fur was breathing and someone had colored all over the white parts of him with a highlighter. Adam agreed with this assessment. Formica on the kitchen counters was bananas. So were the trees outside, rippling like celluloid and brighter green than I had ever seen them.

The two of us spent a good 15 minutes doubled over with laughter because Adam suggested a contraption for funneling Fancy Feast directly into Ernie's mouth, kind of like shotgunning a beer

Adam: "I can't believe I used to to this and get on the subway and try to do things with people." Me: "What? How did you even figure out how to get from Point A to Point B?" Adam: "I mean, we didn't, really. We usually got lost. It was fine, though." Truly, it's about the friends you make along the way!

The second half of the trip, when things are starting to mellow out a bit, is when you become a real rock star. I went outside for a walk around the neighborhood, and to sit in the park with my headphones on while watching kids play on the playground, and it was ECSTATIC. I was just overjoyed. My face still hurts from smiling.

Forgot that I needed money to realize my goal of obtaining a popsicle, so I had to detour back into the apartment and explain all of this to my husband before resuming the popsicle quest. He thought it was very funny, but sympathized.

Fresh air, popsicles and San Pellegrino on acid. On another level! 100/10.

Bathrooms still universally suck, LOL. -10/10. Not a fan of that bathroom while tripping face! Every time I had to pee it was like WELL here we go again into the Pink Squirming Hell Chamber (I am making this sound like more of a big deal than it actually was)

15 HOURS. 15 HOURS Jesus Christ lmao I did not stop seeing weird shit on screens and surfaces until like 1 AM. And even then, if I stared long enough, funky colors and patterns would re-emerge. It's a commitment. I feel happy and refreshed, but also totally exhausted. Definitely have to budget a full weekend of No Plans for any future trips.

The Heavy Shit:

There is some Cronenberg-level body horror right before the visuals get super rainbow-stained and stereotypically psychedelic, which sounds bad, but I promise it isn't. It's watching the veins pulse under your skin and change into very saturated colors, pores and hair and scars become very defined and wiggly, and as someone who has so much bodily anxiety related to my alopecia/IBS, it was weirdly... freeing? You get to experience all this stuff in an entirely new frame of mind, shedding judgment and old thought ruts. I remember thinking, "I do not need to feel shame about my body," and letting go of so much baggage.

At some point mid-afternoon I decided to retrieve my phone from the drawer again, and saw that I had a missed call and a voicemail from my dad. I decided to play it back, and he was just phoning to tell me that he was listening to a live version of "Sally Simpson" and Keith was doing this thing where he wasn't even touching the cymbals, and had I listened to that specific performance before and noticed the same thing, and wasn't he truly the greatest drummer that ever lived? "Anyway, no need to call me back, just wanted to let you know. I love my bubbie!" (His term of endearment for me.) And I went to go sit in bed and weep for a straight 15 minutes, the most cleansing, purging cry you could possibly imagine, while Adam hugged me and rubbed my back. I was overwhelmed, overcome by this feeling of cosmic Love and Connection with my family and my husband and all of my friends.

I had been sitting on and burying so much fear and distress from the past 18 months, the chronic, low-grade trauma that was worrying if COVID was going to kill my father, my best friend and closest confidante and the one person on earth who I feel truly Gets Me on a spiritual level, and all of that came out. Fully processed and released every ounce of grief. What replaced it was the absolute, unshakable faith that no matter what happens — including my greatest fear, which is inevitable, no matter how far off it may be — he will always be with me, and a part of me, in the music we both love, and I will never, ever lose that.

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