My first and, so far, only spiritual experience on LSD occurred on Boxing Day, 1997. I had been tripping about ten times before, mostly on acid but also a couple of times with mushrooms.
The first six hours of the trip were distinctly unsatisfying. At the time I thought it was the worst acid I had ever taken as I threw up at one point and my stomach was generally unsettled, while at the same time the trip seemed fairly weak. My boyfriend and I eventually managed to leave the house and went to the pub down the road. Although we were enjoying ourselves I felt as though there was something wrong, something missing. I felt a slight repugnance at our conversation, everything we said to each other seemed so pointless and petty.
After a while I begun to feel like I was starting to come down. We decided to buy a bottle of vodka and go home. At that point I felt as if I was half tripping and half not tripping. It was an unpleasant sensation which I'd never experienced before and I just wanted the trip to stop.
We got home, had a few cones and drinks and played with our new puppy. Then the transformation came about and I can't think how. For a moment I thought that maybe the trip was only now really starting to work after six hours but that seemed pretty implausible. I kept saying to my boyfriend 'What's happening now?! Are we coming down? What's happening?!'.
I felt overcome by a huge sense of peace. I felt enormous love for my boyfriend and the pup. I started having amazingly beautiful thoughts which came thick and fast but were so fleeting. And it didn't feel as though the thoughts were coming from my own mind, it felt as if they were being given to me. As soon as I tried to analyse one it would disappear, although somehow the essence would remain. These beautiful thoughts would come faster and faster, one flash straight after another and then eventually they would culminate in a sort of ecstatic explosion inside my head. I tried to explain what was happening to my boyfriend and inevitably failed. I said it was like some sort of mental orgasm but more overwhelming and powerful than anything I had ever experienced. During this phase I was weeping with joy and it seemed an astounding thing - to be weeping with joy. Although I had read of people doing it, before this I never had a clue what it was like. It was as though the tears were pouring out simply because I was overflowing with happiness.
At the time I knew that what I was experiencing was enlightenment, I didn't think about it, I knew. It seemed so strange and sudden because for quite a few years I have been a staunch Marxist and atheist, but at the same time I felt as if this were something I'd been searching for all my life, and especially in the more recent past, without realising it. For the first time in my life I knew that there was a ....(I really don't know what word to give it, I was brought up a Catholic and for most of my life the word 'God' has had very negative connotations for me).
I then started thinking about my mother, who is a very spiritual person. I felt a strong bond with her because now I knew where she derived her inner strength and beauty from. The puppy was trying to jump onto the lounger and I picked her straight up whereas my boyfriend was encouraging her to make it on her own. This led me to think about how, when I was growing up, my parents would do things for me when I asked instead of making me do them myself, things like school projects, cleaning my room, feeding my cat. I suddenly started to feel very confused and upset as I saw the ways in which my mother had passed on to me her insecurities. I felt completely lost and instead of weeping for joy I started to sob with great sadness. I thought about all the fucked-up people in the world and felt so bad for all of us, I felt desolate at having lost my blissful state so suddenly. Then I realized that these things are immaterial, they are of the mind not the spirit, it was my mother's soul I had been rejoicing in, not her human form. Immediately I was again filled with bliss, and all confusion was swept away.
Although it was impossible to pin down any of the thoughts which seemed to be blessing me over and over, the general gist was: Love, do not judge, see all your faults clear and ugly and yet forgive yourself completely, and many, many more in the same vein. Things which I've heard before, many which I thought I believed but completely new to me at the same time. As if YES! this is the meaning of life and it was under my nose all along. I kept exclaiming 'Oh, of course, of course!'
A week later I wrote a long letter to my mum. I sent it with considerable trepidation for she has never touched an illegal substance in her life, and was rewarded with an understanding and acceptance which I hope someday to find elsewere.
It's been almost three weeks since that trip and despite many episodes of confusion and acute frustration I still feel excited and am determined to benefit from the experience in the long term. Though at this stage I am unsure how to go about spiritual growth I am certain that if I keep faith, and stay close to those basic truths which have been so graciously revealed to me, I will find a path.
A 20 year old Australian woman.
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