The Little Big Trip With Lucy
My personal experience with LSD
Hey friends,
This week I’m in London saying hi to friends who’ve flown in and saying bye to friends who are flying out.
I wrote a post called The Joy of Missing Out, but haven’t had time to edit it. So, I’m cheating a lot and reposting something I wrote over on Medium.
Five years ago, a week after breaking up with my girlfriend, I tried LSD.
Curiosity is the most accurate word I can think of that drove my desire to experiment with the psychedelic drug.
I had done enough research to know that LSD is a physiologically safe drug. The only danger of something going wrong was having a “bad” trip. Despite reading numerous accounts of bad trips, it still didn’t deter me from wanting to try.
There was something frighteningly exciting about it — a venture into the unknown black vault that sits between our ears.
Other than getting high, I did have some preconceptions of what an acid trip was like. But I under anticipated what I was getting myself into.
I knew that LSD could arouse a transformative experience, yet I didn’t really comprehend how powerful the capacity, force, and depth of the experience would be.
But the possibility that I would have an experience that seemed to make comprehensible the essence of nature. That I could re-experience and release the emotional engravings of distant memories that had a deep entrenching impact on my life. To travel through the recesses of the mind. To observe a chaotic and unrestricted consciousness. To realise the divine as a renounced catholic and self-proclaimed atheist… I didn’t expect any of this.
Entering the Minds Stratosphere
Around 12 PM, I ingested a paper tab the size of a micro SD memory card containing 150ug of LSD.
While waiting for it to kick in, I sat and watched How I Met Your Mother. An hour later whilst messaging my friend Katie I noticed the words on my phone started to come alive and float out of the screen. I looked up from my phone and everything in the living room glowed with divine novelty. It was as if I was seeing the world for the first time. The room was bathed in truth, beauty, and love.
I wondered if everything I saw was breathtaking, what would music feel like? I played some deep house and closed my eyes. When the beat dropped my body teleported to a new dimension. I’ve never heard music that sounded so evocative, so beautiful.
Music had become something much greater and more intense than mere sound. It was freely trespassing the borders of all my senses. The melodic notes became palpable enough to touch, forming 3-D spaces I could move through. It was magnificent. Orgasmically magnificent.
With each new song, the visuals in my mind’s eye would shift and form to the lyrics. Different layers and dimensions would enter my mind. So it went, song by song, for hours. Listening to those songs I had a sudden burst of insight about the nature of reality — everything is constantly moving and changing.
Hidden Skeletons
I stepped outside onto the balcony to smoke.
As I stared out into the vast sky, struck by awe, I felt as though I had left my body. I felt like another person looking at myself. But at the same time, I felt complete and whole. Like I had become one with nature.
My sense of self was no longer there. I, me, the poker player, that was all gone. My new identity felt so deeply connected to the universe — a stream of cosmic energy running through my body out of my head. In a sense, I felt part of the divine and, dare I say it, like I was God.
As I watched the glowing sun begin to fall asleep, a crisp circle in the orange and purple sky illuminating the city below, Frank Ocean’s Thinking About You, came on.
🎵 “I’m thinking ‘bout you (Ooh no, no, no)
I’ve been thinking ‘bout you (You know, know, know)
I’ve been thinking ‘bout you
Do you think about me still? Do ya, do ya?”
I felt something wet on my cheek. Open and undefended, a ghost of my past arose out of the Mariana Trench of my subconsciousness. I was expecting to meet the angels and demons inside of me, but nothing prepared me for this entity. I thought I had buried this skeleton a long time ago.
There was someone who I had in my heart. Someone I longed for. Someone that would visit in my dreams, but I pretended didn’t exist anymore. It wasn’t my girlfriend I had just broken up with. It was Cecelia — the one that got away. This was unfamiliar territory and not the person I expected to find myself thinking of. Hot tears streamed down my face. I squeezed my eyes shut in hopes the tears would stop. But my eyelids were a broken dam.
Before we went off to university, we had a summer of love together, but the timing wasn’t right. We had promised each other that we would find a way back, but it never happened. She had moved on, and I was stuck in the past. To cope with it, I lied to myself and pretended I was over it, but secretly I was trying to hold out for her. The question what if? haunted me, but instead of finding peace with the regret, I selfishly used somebody else to try and displace that feeling.
By some sheer act of fate or nature’s will, the next song I heard was Frank Ocean’s White Ferrari.
🎵 “I care for you still and I will forever. That was my part of the deal, honest.”
A tide of self-compassion overflowed the banks of my heart. It was selfish of me to want her even if she was in a relationship. If I truly cared for her, I would want her to be happy, whether that was with me or with someone else. It was time for me to let her go, stop holding on, and wish her all the best. It was time for me to make peace with myself.
My sense of self re-connected with my physical vessel. I laid down on the sofa, and a waterfall of love cascaded over me. I had the love of my parents, my two younger brothers, and a small close group of friends. I felt united with who I am. I felt healed.
Coming Back to Earth
Staring at the ceiling, watching the fractal patterns in my vision gently glowing away, I realised the beauty of being human. There was a clear sense of profound universal mystical mystery.
For the first time, I understood what ancient religions meant. I can’t put it into words, but I had a glimpse into the visions and ideas of the spirituality of nature.
The trip reinforced my sense of what was important — creating and building great things, giving back to the world, and leaving it in a better place.
We’re so close to Earth that we sometimes forget its beauty. We forget that we are part of the earth, and the earth is a part of us.
As the last fractal slowly faded away, I felt free.
I felt at peace.
I felt joy.
I felt at one with the entire universe.
— Jason Vu Nguyen
This is not a recommendation for psychedelics. This was written for educational and entertainment purposes only.
Not all psychedelic experiences result positively. Psychedelic experiences can be very confusing and painful.
Please, if you plan on taking LSD, do so with lots of research and be careful and responsible.
Thank you to Foster.co: Elizabeth Michael, Christine Cauthen, Rika Goldberg, JUDE KLINGER, Kym Ellis, and Rodrigo Lopez for contributing to this piece.