EDITOR’S NOTE: Here at Ruthless, we do not condone or promote illegal drug use, or the abuse of legal drugs. However, we are not naïve and realize that drugs, legal or illicit, will be abused as long as they are available on this planet. Don’t abuse drugs. Nevertheless, we will continue to write about this issue for educational purposes.
A personal guide from me, The Dutchman, to you, people of this planet, into the wonderful world of drugs. Yes.
What it is
LSD, or lysergic acid diethylamide, is a psychedelic drug derived from ergot, a fungus that grows on rye. It was first synthesized in 1938 by the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann, who discovered its powerful effects in 1943 – by accident, while riding his bicycle home. That day is still celebrated as Bicycle Day, the unofficial start of the psychedelic era. In the 1950s, via experimental psychiatric treatments, LSD found its way into the mind of one Ken Kesey. He then helped make the sixties happen.
What it does
LSD works mainly by attaching itself to serotonin receptors in the brain – especially one called the 5 – HT2A receptor, which is heavily involved in perception, mood, and sense of self. Instead of simply “switching things on,” it makes certain brain cells more excitable and changes how different regions communicate with each other. Signals that are normally kept in separate lanes start to mix. As a result, areas involved in vision, emotion, memory, and identity begin talking in unusual ways – which is why perception shifts, boundaries blur, and the sense of self can loosen or dissolve.
What it felt like
Yes. And since that does sound incredibly boring, let me now tell you what it was like.
In my 30-odd years of glorious drug use, I’ve only used LSD twice, but both rank among the very top-tier experiences I’ve ever had. The first time I used it was somewhere in 1995. I was still very young and living in a single, tiny room in a student house (although I was as far removed from any ‘student’ as humanly possible). My drug career had only just started, but in those first few years I experimented with everything I could get my hands on. I was living on social security back then, as I have done for most of my life, and moving in circles of homeless youth, drifting back and forth between various social projects around the city. And this being both the nineties and the Netherlands, trust me when I say that every possible drug known to man was available in huge amounts for little or no money. It was paradise.
Moving in those circles, and still being a somewhat social creature back then, I hardly ever had to pay for anything: people just gave me stuff. Like I said, paradise. And on one of those halcyon days, someone gave me my first LSD trip.
It was a tiny piece of blotter paper, and instead of taking it right there, I brought it home to my little room, wanting to experience it all alone. Since it was my very first time, I figured I’d better take things slow. Back home, I cut the paper in half and took the first piece. And then the waiting started. The “waiting until it begins.” The anticipation. How long it takes varies, of course – per drug, person, and circumstance. In this instance, it took forever. Nothing happened. I started cursing the dude who gave it to me as I took the second half, expecting more of the same. Which is nothing. But I suspect the universe was playing tricks on me by putting all the LSD in that second half. So, some forty-five minutes after taking that one, I stood up from my chair, walked over to the little sink and tap tucked into an old recessed cupboard in my room to get a drink, and when I straightened up again and watched the water drain away, I saw a small, swirling kaleidoscope of colors and patterns emerging from the drain.
Yes. And I remember standing there, in my little room, staring at that friendly, gentle, and exquisitely beautiful little swirl, just emerging from my drain, slowly curling upwards, a little voice in the back of my head went, ‘Yay! It’s starting!’ But honestly, that voice was tiny, because the other 98% of my mind was completely occupied, mesmerized, hypnotized by that swirling kaleidoscope. That was just emerging. From the drain of my sink. In my little room. Yes.
I don’t know how long I stood there, staring into my sink, but at some point I managed to pry my eyes away from that beautiful, beautiful swirl, and I thought, What I should do now is go outside. And I did. And it was one of the very best decisions I ever made.
It was night, you see. And summer, too. So I walked out of my student house and watched what the outside world would look like while under the influence of LSD. It was… glorious.
The student house was located near the center of the city I lived in, and across from it stood a pair of big, expensive apartment towers. Its parking lot was dotted with little ball-shaped lime trees, and it was those that first caught my attention. They were bathed in that strange orange glow from the streetlights, and their leaves were gently rustling and twirling in a light summer breeze. To me, they were just the most beautiful things I ever saw. Like with the kaleidoscope from my sink, I just stood and stared. It must’ve looked funny for any bystander, me just standing there, staring at trees with pupils the size of saucers…
I can’t quite remember how long I stood there staring, but as before, I do remember how hard it was to tear my eyes away and look at something else. Anything. In the end, I finally stopped staring and started walking toward a small shopping center. It was nighttime, so the shops were all closed. In front of it stretched a large, nearly empty parking lot. I crossed it and made my way to the back of the mall, where I knew an overpass would give me a view of the highway running behind it. Once there, I got completely overwhelmed. Again.
The highway stretched for miles across the rolling hillside (yes, we have those in the very south of the Netherlands: actual hills!), its sodium-vapor streetlights and thousands of cars moving in each direction turned the whole thing into one big LSD extravaganza of color, light, many more of those beautiful twirling intertwining patterns and kaleidoscopes, and just utter, utter beauty. Euphoria flooded my system in sweeping, orgasmic waves. For many hours I stood there, just looking, with the biggest grin possible plastered across my face. Watching the world on acid.
But it didn’t end there. I had to get home at some point. So, eventually, it must’ve been somewhere deep into the dead of night by now, I started making my way home. Slowly. Oh, yes. Oh, so very slowly… And then, when I was halfway back across the parking lot, I made the mistake of looking up. Yes.
But what a glorious mistake it was… I stopped. Again. And stared. Again.
Was the swirly thing from my sink beautiful? Yes, it was. Were the little ball-shaped trees and the highway beautiful? Yes, and YES. But this… I was staring at the entire universe.
And I just stood there, in that big, empty parking lot, in the middle of the night, a lonely kid with his head tilted back, looking up at the sky.
Can you get lost in… staring at something? Where your mind just disappears completely and you are no longer ‘someone’ but you become the thing you’re staring at? Did I become the universe, if only for the briefest of moments?
I guess I did. Yes.
It took ages to get home. Once I did manage to take my eyes away from that… that truly glorious, vast and endless expansion of stars and energy and consciousness and nothingness that stretches into infinity in every direction all around us, I could only take two or three steps before my mind and my gaze were drawn upward again, as if by some powerful, irresistible magnet, and I stood staring once more.
Eventually, though, I did make it home, and I went to bed. When I woke up the next morning, I felt reborn. A new man. A new universe.
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