Acid Reflux

I think enough time has passed for me to admit that in the 1990s, I dropped a lot of acid.

I think I’m comfortable admitting this now for two reasons; one, LSD-25 is about as easy to get as quaaludes (which is to say not very), and two, I might as well have said I did a lot of quaaludes in my opening statement. The average person under 40 has no earthly idea what I’m talking about anyway.

I don’t know if I’m making much sense- I used to do a lot of acid- but my point is this. Acid is not for you. Here’s why.

1. You have to look at your phone.

When my buddies and I used to trip, we would prep all relevant areas by hiding the clocks and covering all the mirrors. Time is your enemy when you’re on acid. Clocks tell you exactly when you’ll have to return to the real world. Mirrors are terrible traps, that will snare you and force you to gaze more deeply into your own soul than is healthy. You could spend hours staring at millions of imperfections you never knew existed until the drug took hold. I once dared myself to look in the mirror while tripping, and saw my face bisected with that of a glowering devil.

When everyone began to come down, we would start pulling the clocks out of drawers and putting them back on the walls. Often, what seemed like days would turn out to be a mere couple of hours, which would delight everyone into peaking again. I know I’m making this sound like a lot of fun, and it was. But you can’t do it.

You are utterly shackled to an electronic device that functions as a mirror and an alarm clock. In order to have a decent trip, you and your friends would have to all shut off your phones and hide them somewhere. Then, while under the influence of an extremely powerful psychedelic drug, you would have to forget about your phone, your Facebook, the internet, and anything else that might cause you to have a bad trip.

Good luck with that.

You’ve probably never dropped acid, but I’ll wager you’ve had to hide being drunk from a parent or coworker. Imagine pretending to be sober while leprechauns scream obscenities in Latin and you’re breathing ants. That’s what it’s like when you’re tripping and someone surprises you with a phone call.

Oh, and once your irises are wide open, looking at your phone is like watching an eclipse through a magnifying glass.

2. You scare way too easily. 

Are you unnerved by “creepypasta”? Do you freak out at the sight of that “Slender” whatever? Did the Internet’s “deep dreaming” keep you awake at night? Then stay far, far away from LSD.

The first time I ever tripped, it was in a group that included my friend Kristy, who was experienced in matters of psychedelica. An hour after we all dropped, she became incensed because I didn’t appear to be tripping yet. “You’re trying too hard,” she said, as I remained glued to a La-Z-Boy. I felt weird, but nothing special. I started to get embarrassed that I was letting her down; everyone else was clearly tripping balls at this point.

Finally Kristy stomped out of the bathroom with a determined look, wielding a large rectangle. She slammed the object into my lap, revealing it to be a mirror. I was suddenly looking at an exact reflection of myself, in perfect detail. Except I had no face.

Thus began an incredible night of introspection and spiritual growth. Kristy had been trying to pull me through the barriers necessary to free my mind. Currently, we are in an era where people build layer after layer of image over who they truly are. Acid tears all that down and allows you to learn about your true self. Trust me, you’d hate it. It’s too scary.

I brought up the “deep dream” stuff because it’s the closest I’ve seen anything come to the visual effect of acid*. If you looked at any deep dream image and were even the slightest bit uneasy, stay far, far away from psychedelic drugs. You won’t be able to handle it when that shit is on the inside of your eyelids.

*The lobby scene from Terry Gilliam’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas has an uncanny depiction of the onset of acid, when the carpet pattern begins to slither up the walls. Another great example is Bruce Bickford’s clay animation from Frank Zappa’s concert film Baby Snakes.

3. You aren’t cut from the right cloth

Acid is a good 14-hour commitment, and you can’t go to work the next day. If it was cut with strychnine, you’ll feel like you fell down a flight of stairs afterward. If you take too much, you won’t come back. And once you’ve dropped acid, you will never truly know what “normal” feels like again. Or do you? What is real? Your understanding of reality begins and ends with your own perceptions, after all.

Can you deal with that kind of shit? I doubt it. People complain because a monster in a movie ate somebody. They can’t comprehend channeling a distant ancestor, or sharing a circulatory system with a house. (Also on my first trip, I rested my elbows on a windowsill, and as I gazed into the moonlit night, the veins in my arms emerged, and pierced the moulding. Before long I was providing blood to the entire floor, and the beating of my heart was echoing uncomfortably loud. I had to gradually convince myself I could move away from the window without bleeding to death.)

I hope I’ve been successful in steering you good young folks away from psychedelic drugs. You’ve got so much going for you; social media, smartphones, new “Star Wars”. Why screw it all up with a big hairy mindfuck?

“I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.” -Hunter S. Thompson