It
was around 1am and four of us were sat around the kitchen table. The
room was dimly lit, the mood subdued; we were tired from the night
that'd stretched out before us. I took the small squares from the bag
they'd been in for days. Looking around, nervous glances. Two of the
group were first timers, and the rest of us not what you'd call
experienced. I pulled apart the card, almost imagining a tingle as my
skin came in contact with the doused material. We placed one
each on the centre of our tongues as instructed. I definitely felt the
tingle now, that almost familiar taste; the sensation of the drug
pulsing around my body – the nerves, and the excitement. The tab sat
there for a few minutes before I swallowed it down with a drink. It was
all now just a matter of time. It must've been half an hour later
when I felt the tension in my stomach. We were in the bedroom now,
getting warm, chatting and listening to music. Passing the time. I
could feel a nausea creeping over me, and a growing tension as my
weight seemed to shift from it's normal point of sensation, my
heartbeat starting to race and it's pulse move around my body. I was
pacing around, then sitting or lying, trying to get comfortable. Maybe
the others felt it too. I felt my stomach turn uneasily, and excused
myself. In the bathroom, I reached the toilet just in time before I
gagged. After spitting and some deep breaths I felt a lot better, and
almost instantly saw flickers of future visions in the corner of my
eyes, just on the periphery of my field of view. The bathroom tiles,
the frosted glass. It was like perceiving the textures and colours for
the first time. I felt good. Back in the bedroom I lay down,
enjoying the music. My heartbeat seemed to fall into the groove, the
bass drum on the third beat of each bar. A reggae beat. I lay on the
floor now, next to the heater. I stretched my muscles, scanning the
room with my eyes as I felt my body succumbing to the first effects of
the drug. Rushes tingled around my body, feeling light then heavy, back
to light. I felt restless. I felt alive. My mind started to race how it
does with a head full of acid. An unquenchable stream of consciousness,
that would be with me for the next twelve or so hours. I stood up now,
and started to sway with the music. The movement felt good, the mood at
this point was giggly as we each privately came to terms with the
weight of the situation. The music was loud but I needed more, I needed
bass. I could feel the music, I could almost see it - the synaesthetic
nature of the trip was becoming apparent. This posed little problem in
a house with such comprehensive sound equipment; the main challenge in
connecting a bigger speaker being remembering the task in hand, and
finding the appropriate leads – my state of mind was becoming
increasingly different from that of sobriety. Now the music was loud
and the bass was deep – whilst others drew pictures or simply attempted
to perceive their environment I focused my energies elsewhere and stood
close to the speaker. I could feel the floor vibrating. Some well
picked records brought out of me an explosion of euphoria and I started
to dance, slowly at first and then wildly and free. Loud hip-hop beats,
then jazz and deep electronica. I conducted an invisible orchestra, and
flailed almost recklessly. I was back. Some more mild discomfort in my
stomach led me once again to the bathroom. The bright light reflecting
on the tiles started to induce some of the more complex hallucinations
in contrast with the dimly lit bedroom – swirling shapes in
tessellation, a spectrum of colour previously thought impossible. I was
back. It felt refreshing and exciting, just what was needed after some
of the more testing months of my life. In the hallway different
lighting, and new surroundings also caused my imagination to run wild.
This house, almost museum like it's décor was surreal and strange –
it's vibe however overwhelmingly positive. Relics everywhere of it's
everyday existence as a family home. Back to the
bedroom. I was no longer the only one on my feet. The music now was
screeching, impossibly loud and every note, lyric or beat an
affirmation of all of our lives. Again I moved, sometimes perching on
top of the speaker and surveying the room from a greater hight. This
was my platform for large portions of the evening. The vibrations under
my feet were empowering almost, I felt on top of the beat. Increased
restlessness and curiosity seemed to overwhelm the general consensus of
opinion and so we left the room – the music still blaring and filling
the empty house with a constant energy. Now we explored.
With childlike inquisitiveness, we looked in every room, picking up
books and ornaments. Our eyes darting around, imaginations running
wild. We laughed and chatted, drawings similarities between our
experiences and pooling information. The time dilation was evident, how
long had we been upstairs? Being in the pub that evening felt like a
week ago. Our normal lives felt like another lifetime. In reality I
think we'd dosed around 2 hours previously. One of us wasn't feeling
much, and described not even the symptoms we'd felt at first. Was the
tab a blank? She dosed again and soon seemed to catch up. After
sometime the four of us settled in the front room, with an acoustic
guitar and the warmth of the fire. The music echoed from upstairs, my
twisted perceptions adding it's own effects and modulations to the
sound. We spoke, sometimes bursting into hysterical laughter as our
minds no doubt functioned at different levels of understanding. But
hey, perception is reality. I waved my hand in front of my eyes,
textbook acid trails formed behind it like writing with a sparkler as a
child. I carried on making new shapes and patterns, focussing on
different things in the room and letting the visuals take control. I
thought about the link between perception and reality, action and
belief. Motives and thought. The power of the human mind. Anything I
saw above the furniture and colours that existed in that room was of my
own creation – and it was beautiful. Patterns more complex that those
created by any graphic artist, and colours more real and vivid that any
photograph. Movement, dancing in time with the distorted music that
seemed to come from beneath us, from within us almost. My mind raced
far beyond the it's assumed potential. We were all getting inside the
mind of God. God is consciousness. The beats emanating from upstairs
took on a tribal like quality, and my visuals made references to
ancient imagery – Aztec? African, I wasn't sure – probably the remnants
of some television documentary or website lodged deep in the
subconscious. The power of the human mind.
Days passed,
lifetimes. Ideas expired and were reinvented. Come up, comedown,
sunrise, sunset. Cycles. In 'reality' I think it was around 5am. More
exploration of the house followed, each room had a new energy and
kindled new conversation and activity. People found instruments,
sustained piano notes fascinating our sensory perception far beyond
only the sonic field. Synaesthesia. Bliss. Again upstairs I danced to
music of every genre, busy jazz arrangements or deep pounding house.
Each song I embodied, the movement and feeling they induced, no doubt
what the artist intended. A gap in the curtains gave me a glance of
outside, and the garden to the rear of the house. Outside. I'd forgot
it existed. Outside was beautifully unreal. The sky, deep
shades of blue and purple as the first birds could be heard singing –
the sounds echoing through our very beings. After an equally animated
exploration of the garden we lay on the grass, and the experience
shifted to that of a collective. Guitar in hand I started to strum a
folk song, and we sang – delicate and vulnerable staring into the
branches overhead. Ecstasy swept my body, as if this was the climax of
my life's existence. My mind raced to other moments of intensity. I
thought about drugs, and about music. I thought about sex, pure and
beautiful. We sang 'First day of our Lives', the sentiment so relative.
The words took on meanings that I'd never before appreciated. Another
stroll around the garden induced jaw-dropping visuals, trees became
hands intertwined and the grass and sky a stunning canvas displaying
splashes of colour as if from the hand of a tortured, ingenious artist.
Some things remain impossible to accurately express in words. For
better of worse, maybe the entire night falls into that category.
More hours spent inside and out, more distorted perceptions and ideas
too big for the head of children. The sun came up and revealed the
beauty of the garden in a different light. Even the derelict shed, in
an aura of it's own perfection. The earth had turned, the sun had
stayed still. We get happy, sad, we are born and we die but the
facticity of our existence remains the same. Perception is everything.
These ideas later spawned an interesting conversation outside, probably
echoing a conversation had by millions of first time LSD users. “Don't
you think if everyone in the army did this, they'd just quit?” asked
one such user. “You can't cure the world's problems with a drug, this
is just a gateway” I said. “Don't you think the kind of guy who joins
the army needs a gateway?” Good point. It was strange, we never
discussed why they'd 'just quit'. It almost went without saying. Once
you've seen objects alive purely with the energy of their own existence
I guess it puts the idea of going to war for money, or power in a new
perspective. Kids leave home and sign up, what to find themselves? Well
you don't have to go to war and kill a stranger to find yourself. What
about world leaders and CEOs? It reminded me of a Streets lyrics –
'They could settle wars with this if only they will. Imagine the worlds
leaders on pills, then imagine the mornin after wars causing disaster”.
Good point. Like I said, it's just a gateway to the truth. A door in
the wall of perception. More hours passed and it
became harder to find such moments of clarity – we'd been awake for a
long time. Around 7am I resumed my position on top of the speaker for
another dance, and I'd scream along to songs that brought back some
part of my past. More euphoria. It felt like enlightenment was just
around the corner. Who knows, maybe it was.
It's strange
returning to our reality after a night like that. It is good enough to
learn these lessons, but then just apply them to the life we've already
built for ourselves – as if we got it right, rather than making some
fundamental change? A Bright Eyes lyric comes to mind – 'the picture's
way to big to look at kid, your eyes won't open wide enough'. But what
if we can all see a section, communicate and share ideas to make up the
big picture. 'You're just a piece of the puzzle, so I think you'd
better find your place. And don't go blaming your knowledge on some
fruit you ate'. Good point
No wonder acid is illegal. Once
we crack the bigger picture, there becomes no need for war, for money
or for industry. That's why we're kept separate and alone. That's why
we're taught, from day one to separate action and belief. Think what
you want, as long as you conform. That's the message. From education,
from advertising, from media, from government. That's why our best
minds are wasted on industry. So they can get As, and get paid to be
the biggest hypocrites.
