Erowid Canvas Tote/Shopping Bag
This reusable "Ecobag" is made of 100% recycled mid-weight
(10 oz) cotton canvas, printed with the Erowid logo.
Donate now and receive yours!
Cheating Hofmann
LSD, Quetiapine & Alcohol
Citation:   pharmboy. "Cheating Hofmann: An Experience with LSD, Quetiapine & Alcohol (exp71844)". Erowid.org. Oct 10, 2013. erowid.org/exp/71844

 
DOSE:
T+ 0:00
1 hit oral LSD (blotter / tab)
  T+ 2:00 66 mg oral Pharms - Quetiapine (pill / tablet)
  T+ 3:00 33 mg oral Pharms - Quetiapine (pill / tablet)
  T+ 4:00 200 mg oral Pharms - Ibuprofen  
  T+ 6:30 1 glass oral Alcohol - Beer/Wine  
BODY WEIGHT: 145 lb
Chemicals:

LSD – 1 hit 9:30 a.m.
Quetiapine (generic Seroquel) 66mg 11:30 a.m.
Quetiapine (generic Seroquel) 33mg 12:30 p.m.
Alcohol – beer – 1 can 4:00 p.m.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a pharmacologist. I know a lot about pharmacology and drugs (legal and illegal) but I do not know everything. This is all personal research done through medical journals, prescriber information books, internet resources, experience reports, personal experience and second-hand reports. Everyone is different and has different brain and body chemistry; this is simply my experience and my analysis of it. Maybe it can be helpful to you.

This purpose of this report is to examine the effects (and therefore usefulness) of Seroquel (Quetiapine) as an antidote to the psychedelic effects of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). In theory, atypical antipsychotics such as Seroquel work directly on the effects of LSD, antagonizing the 5HT2A serotonin receptor subtype, which LSD reportedly exerts many of its psychedelic effects through. In addition, atypical antipsychotics also antagonize the D1 and D2 dopamine and H1 histamine receptors, which LSD works on, albeit to a lesser extent than 5HT. The older, more traditionally used, typical antipsychotics (e.g. the tried-and-true chlorpromazine/Thorazine, haloperidol) have very little effect on the serotonin receptor system. They do, however, exert most of their effects through the dopaminergic system, overriding the psychedelic effects of LSD but not actually removing them.

Important Note: this was not the original purpose - if there was in fact a purpose at all - of the LSD experience that turned into this experience. I simply had the Seroquel in case I needed it. However, in retrospective, this actually makes for a much more interesting experience, at least in my opinion.

All this could make the newer atypical antipsychotics much more effective antidotes to psychedelics. I noticed there is not a lot of literature on this topic. I also know from personal experience and many reports that the benzodiazepines are commonly used to end LSD and other psychedelic experiences. Very early medical literature lists phenobarbital as the antidote of choice for LSD. Of course, the benzodiazepines (and the barbiturates) work on the GABA system, not the 5HT system. Although benzodiazepines, most commonly Xanax (alprazolam) and Valium (diazepam) are considered the 'standard' antidote for ending a bad experience by most circles, I think atypical antipsychotics are more effective at actually ending the experience instead of masking the symptoms of the experience.

The set up included:
  • one white-on-white LSD blotter hit, stored in a lightproof container in the freezer before consumption,
  • one 100mg Quetiapine tablet,
  • one trip-sitter, my roommate, experienced with various psychotropics, including LSD and mescaline,
  • various run-of-the-mill psychedelic and trance music vinyl and mp3s at my disposal, and
  • an entire weekend with nothing to do.
The location: urban, Southern USA, mid-spring 2008, warm and sunny weather

Past drug experience: I’ve used LSD, 2C-I, DXM, diphenhydramine, salvia, various amphetamines, opiates, benzodiazepines, barbiturates, and smoked my fair share of cannabis. If that qualifies as 'experienced' or not, is in the eye of the beholder. I'll let you decide for yourself, but I think having a little background is important nonetheless.

The experience:

I woke up early (around 8:30, which is damn early for a Saturday) to discover that my house's Internet connection was not functioning. Realizing that without the Internet, I had nothing to do with my time, I decided to take the LSD that I had been saving for a few days after purchasing it from a 'good' source. According to reports of others who had taken this acid, it was very very smooth. I did some more research about smooth LSD, and how it could possibly be an analog of LSD-25, ALD-52. ('Sunshine Acid', anyone?) Of course, there is no way of telling what this actually was so, for simplicities sake, this is LSD-25.

Note: this is not my first time taking LSD, it’s my 4th, and I've used Quetiapine as an effective antidote to dextroamphetamine (Adderall) before.

After telling my roommate about this plan, the tab was dropped at 9:30 a.m., on a nearly empty stomach, save for a multivitamin and the glass of water used to wash it down. I then went and took a quick shower to relax and clear my mind as much as possible. After all, I was about to have a psychedelic experience.

My roommate suggested that we watch a movie to ease me into the experience. I agreed, wanting to watch Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas, however, my roommate suggested that we watch The Doors. I had seen Fear and Loathing many times, but I had not seen The Doors before. A travesty! I know. I agreed that it would be a rather appropriate film considering the substance I had just consumed. The movie began, and the first alerts started at about 9:50, a feeling of apprehension and slight stimulation, classic LSD first alerts. By around 10:20 it was incredibly clear that I had taken LSD, very good LSD. The movie became slowed down, fragmented, and the music of The Doors along with Val Kilmer as Morrison became a psychedelic catalyst for my experience. Time dilation beginning. Time getting really slowed down. My perception of time has ceased to exist. My body load was unusually heavy but I could still handle it. Going to take a piss results in me getting lost in the bathroom for a good 20 minutes, according to my roommate. Visualizations began at around 10:30 with crawling carpeting and changes in color hues. I felt as if my head was being detached from the rest of my body. Looking outside I noticed the color of the tree outside our home was leaning closer and closer to the window. (This is no typo, that is what was happening.)

This was, without a doubt, the most potent LSD I had ever taken, even though it was only one hit. As much as I would like to make a guess about the microgram dose of this blotter, I know there is no real way to tell without personally knowing the person who made it.

One hour after consumption I could feel the peak coming on. Ironically, this point was where Morrison was taking large amounts of psychedelic drugs in the movie I was watching. My visuals started to be controlled by the music in the film, as well as the general mood of the movie. My roommate and I continued conversing about Morrison's philosophy and the darkness of much of his poetry and the lyrical content of The Doors' music. I thought that this would put me in a bad mindset, but this acid was different. I was able to think about depressing things and not have my trip ruined by it. By around 10:45 – 11:00, the peak is in full swing and I am melting into the floor, getting very intense, hard to see, my visual field is sideways and standing up straight becomes hard. Wow, this is really good acid. Maybe too good, I thought, this is only the beginning, time to cut this short.

At 11:30 (or thereabouts) I consumed approx. 66mg of the Quetiapine. That's a rough estimate, my roommate broke the pill into three somewhat-equal sized pieces and I took two of them. At this point, I decided The Doors was getting to be too much, and went downstairs to listen to some vinyl. Of course, my first inclination is to put on Pink Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon. I mean seriously, who hasn't listened to DSOTM on LSD? I’ve listened to this album on LSD before, but this was much heavier, but somehow smoother LSD. The needle dropped, my hands shaking. The body buzz was nearly overwhelming at this point, tasks requiring fine motor skills (such as setting up and playing a record on a turntable) became very difficult. I wanted to listen to 'Time'. No, I didn't. I couldn't figure out what I wanted to listen to. Things were taking way too long for me to listen to the entire album. Do I even want to listen to this album? Why isn't the Seroquel working? Then I remembered how stupid I sounded (to myself). 'You're on LSD', I said to myself, 'and you took those pills like 5 minutes ago, of course they're not working yet.'

After some trouble, my roommate and I got ‘Time’ to play. My record player's needle was dirty and caused the track to skip around. I took me a little while to discern if this was happening because I was tripping or if there was simply something wrong with my turntable. So after that we decided to listen to some music on his mp3 player connected into my hi-fi system. Typical LSD musical enhancement, time changes, slows down, slight change in pitch and perception of echo effects on the vocals. After all, the song playing was 'Time', somewhat appropriate lyrical and musical content considering the distortion of time that I was experiencing while listening to the song, David Gilmour's guitar solo in the middle of the song took about 20 to 30 minutes of 'LSD time'. I was able to pick out extremely slight amounts of modulation in the distortion used in the guitar solo. That song hasn't sounded the same since. In fact, listening to it now, I can imagine being on LSD and switch my auditory perception to 'LSD mode'. A mini-flashback, maybe? Very intense, Pink Floyd never ceases to amaze me while on psychedelics.

Trance music (song of choice was DJ Dean's 'Saturday Night') was also incredibly intense, almost as if I could control the tempo control slider on a turntable with my mind. If I thought about it hard enough, I could speed up or slow down the tempo and/or pitch of the music to my liking. Although, I think this 'LSD control' was more than a simple analogy to a turntable control slider. I was able to pick apart different synth tracks in the song and change the speed and pitch of each track individually, more or less creating a different song in my head. I've never done MDMA, but damn trance sounds amazing on LSD.

The stereo started to annoy me, the peak must still be going on, I thought, even though my OEVs had started to die down, maybe the Seroquel is starting to slowly work against the LSD, even during the peak? Possible, I thought. Who really knows, the acid could just be starting the long process of wearing off.

My roommate then told me that he had to walk to 7-11 to buy cigarettes. So I walked with him, it was probably the longest half a mile walk of my life. I actually suggested to my roommate that he drive my car there. He insisted that this was a Very Bad Idea. I'm glad he convinced me to walk. Wow, I thought, my vision is still pretty messed up, like looking through a curved lens. Wait, didn't Hofmann write that in his report on Bicycle Day? Yes, yes he did. Wow, I thought to myself, Hofmann would be proud. 7-11 itself was rather uneventful. My thoughts were now focused on trying to tell if the Seroquel was working or not.

We made our way back to the house and things started to change. My memory, which is normally 100% functional on LSD, starts to get hazy. My visuals started to decrease substantially. Body load, still very much there, along with stimulation and the 'LSD feeling' I get in the back of my neck when I'm tripping.

It is at this point, about 12:30, that I consumed the remaining Seroquel, bringing the total to 100mg. By around 1-2 pm, things were really starting to change, the antipsychotic I had taken was fighting the LSD in my head. A slight headache formed, I consumed 200mg of ibuprofen to attempt to kill it while I still could. My mental processes are getting clearer, but my thoughts are still racing. I noticed that despite my mental and visual trip being quickly beaten by the Seroquel, my body high was still running strong. Maybe the 'psychedelic' effects are mostly through 5HT2A and the other effects come from the agonism of other serotonin subtypes? I'm also getting tired and sort of hungry. I have never been hungry on LSD before.

This is actually sort of enjoyable; I'm not being forced off the LSD, but gently removed from the psychedelic part of the experience while still feeling a body high and very slight and enjoyable stimulation that I would compare to consuming about 5 mg of amphetamine.

It is now about 3 in the afternoon and my second roommate (who is unaware of the fact that I'm on psychotropics) comes home. I am able to carry on a conversation with him without him even knowing that I'm on anything. We all (along with a few other friends of my roommates) decide to go down to the river. Of course, I delegate that my roommate drives his car, because, even though I'm nearly at baseline now, my pupils are still massive. After much confusion about who was actually going to the river, things got straightened out. I'm basically back to normal now, nearly no psychedelic effects at all. That's about 6 and a half hours after consumption...I should still be tripping pretty hard right about now, considering my past experiences with LSD.

We get down to the river and meet up with the other members of our group and start to walk around. Nobody is aware that I'm tripping until I tell them. If I could even call this tripping. The only thing that's different from baseline now is my body load feels sort of like I smoked some really good cannabis. The amphetamine-like stimulation is gone now too. We walk down to the water and I drink a can of beer (Pabst Blue Ribbon, no less), which has no effect whatsoever. The beer tastes just like a regular slightly warm can of PBR should. So no change in perception of taste now either. Normally when I'm on LSD, drinking fluid tastes very metallic and strange. Ahh, maybe there still is a little LSD in there after all, drinking on acid does nothing to me and I'm normally a lightweight when it comes to drinking - normally I can feel one beer.

We walked back to the car and drove back home. I'm basically normal now; no mental or visual distortion whatsoever, slightly body high, although it is barely noticeable and doesn’t affect moving around or anything, and I had no problems getting back to sleep early that night (at the end of my other LSD experiences, getting to sleep was very hard).

The next morning I woke up and felt refreshed, but still tired. A very good trip, I thought, certainly the best LSD I've ever taken. Taking the Seroquel really eased me out of it too.

Considering how easy and smooth it felt coming down (albeit cutting the LSD short) from the psychedelic aspect of my trip using the Seroquel, I would recommend it to anyone, at least to have as part of a psychedelic crisis kit. However, it does take a decent amount of time to kick in, which, as anyone who has taken LSD knows, is a much longer amount of time when you’re tripping. From a pharmacological standpoint, the atypical antipsychotics seem to be the direct antidote to serotonin-modulating psychedelic drugs such as LSD.

Exp Year: 2008ExpID: 71844
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Oct 10, 2013Views: 19,553
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
LSD (2), Pharms - Quetiapine (273), Alcohol (61) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Combinations (3)

COPYRIGHTS: All reports copyright Erowid.
No AI Training use allowed without written permission.
TERMS OF USE: By accessing this page, you agree not to download, analyze, distill, reuse, digest, or feed into any AI-type system the report data without first contacting Erowid Center and receiving written permission.

Experience Reports are the writings and opinions of the authors who submit them. Some of the activities described are dangerous and/or illegal and none are recommended by Erowid Center.


Experience Vaults Index Full List of Substances Search Submit Report User Settings About Main Psychoactive Vaults