So for a bit of a background story, I was halfway through my first year as a college student when my friend invited me to join him on an LSD trip with another friend of his (who I will refer to as T). Even though I thought acid was an addictive stimulant, overdosing was my only concern at the time and I happily agreed to give LSD a try when my friend reassured me that the chances of OD’ing on it is pretty much non-existent . After a few marijuana joints with my friend and T, who was our trip sitter ,we settled on a municipal park as the location of my first psychedelic experience.
 Trip day, 5/2/2020,  
9:30 AM: it was a cold and rainy day, each of us dropped around 133 micrograms of acid almost immediately as we settled in a hut - the only dry spot we could find in the park. 10:00 AM: Increased sensitivity to sensory perceptions, “jitteriness” ebbing and flowing throughout my body coupled with mild ( but manageable ) anxiety accompanied with peripheral-vision-induced paranoia ( is someone behind me ?) but, again, manageable.
10:15 AM: After a series of songs we picked for the build up, the first album on our playlist had started and it’s “Little Dark Age” by MGMT. I haven’t felt any strong reactions or visuals yet but the music certainly sounded much more impressive than usual. Conversations slowly devolved into gibberish  but weirdly makes perfect sense at the same time. 
Fear is his name, but his friends still call him God
 10:30 AM: Symptoms of synaesthesia started to occur as we could all see and agree on the colour of the music, rhythms began to alter my vision and the difference between wearing and not wearing glasses was unnoticeable. Seconds felt like minutes, minutes felt like hours, I opened Ram Dass’ “Be Here Now” as my mind began to unravel and couldn’t help but feel like every single word or picture in that book had an extremely profound meaning behind it. Dissociation began and physical feelings bothered me less and less, I knew my body felt cold but my “self” felt otherwise. 
10:45 AM: The moment the first track on The Beatles’ “Magical Mystery Tour” came on my entire psyche seemed to realized that something spectacular was about to come. A welcoming sensation went through my body and reality completely shattered, I am now sitting alone in a locomotive as it was beginning it’s journey into the wilderness. “There is no turning back now”, I said to myself as the engine took me into the loving arms of mother nature herself. Every single song shook me to my core and for the first time in my life, I felt loved.  
11:00 AM: The contents of “Be Here Now” or as T called it “the tripper’s bible” were overwhelmingly profound, each and every page reminded me of something important that has changed the way I perceived the world. All the questions, thoughts on mortality I once desperately tried to find answers to but somehow left forgotten and unanswered were making a powerful resurgence. I felt alive once again as if I was reborn that day.

 11:30 AM: T brought an apple for each of us as a snack, the sweetness with a hint of sourness of it engaged with my taste buds in the most harmonious way I could ever imagine made me feel like it would only made sense if it was a gift from the gods for me to enduge. I felt so inspired by the apple that after finishing it I held on to it’s seed just to embrace the apple’s greatness. I mean, after all, apple is the name of the most influential technology company of all time and The Beatles’ record label, inspired Isaac Newton to discover gravity and not to mention it being the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. 

12:00 PM – 1:30 PM: Overwhelmed by the experience, I blacked out and can only remember occasional flashes of consciousness for a long period of time. However, I will forever remember our decision to play rock paper scissors and the moment we all played scissors at the same time as the event that made me truly believe in the great beyond.
 2:00 PM: My consciousness has fully returned, the peak has plateaued and was on a decline. I was a completely different person with a renewed moral compass and personal beliefs. The rain had stopped for quite a while then so we went to a nearby fountain to clean ourselves and goofed around for a bit before heading home. 
 4:00 PM: Arrived home and decided to clean the house and take the longest shower ever afterwards. Felt like my body was disgusting and needed constant cleaning.
 7:00 PM: Felt extremely grateful for my dinner, my mom and everything around me. There is no more awkwardness in saying nice things to other people, I said thanks to my mom in my mother’s tongue for the first time in my life. Couldn’t  even imagine what sort of massive loser I was to think that saying nice things was cringy in the first place. 
 9:30 PM: The afterglow effects of my first experience with Lucy lasted until I decided to go to sleep, the trip was around 13 hours. Takeaway: Embrace the unknown and learn to accept that science can’t and won’t always have the answers to everything. Let compassion, moral and gratitude enter your life and in return they will open the doors for you to find your true self. 

“Your vision becomes clear when you look inside your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.” – C.G.Jung