After several missed opportunities to attend another rave I finally was able to get everything together and go again. My roommate's parents loaned him their van. Since we had such a big vehicle we got everyone we could to go with us. There were seven of us all together.

We thought the rave was about an hour from where we live, but when we got to map point we found out it was actually more like three hours. It was a long way to drive, but we were all determined to go out and dance, so off we went.

The drive down was boring and uneventful. We arrived at about 1:45 a.m. It was a huge outdoor location in the middle of nowhere. We walked about a half-mile from our parking space to the rave itself. We all split up to go dance, score, or whatever.

Twenty minutes after we got there I took two and a half hits of acid. I sat down with two of my friends to wait for it to start working.

The location was beautiful. The moon was out, it was a lovely summer night, and there was nothing around for miles. Before long (maybe 40 minutes) I was starting to feel the acid come on, and got up to dance.

There were two problems with that. One was the DJ who was spinning. He would play a decent track or two, then a bunch of boring stuff. Worse though was the fact that the ground was very uneven. I was constantly afraid I was going to fall over or twist my ankle. This definitely prevented me from getting totally into the experience.

I took my shoes off to see if that would help. It did to some degree, but not enough to offset the difficulty I was having. Discouraged, I sat down. I was somewhat disappointed. I had driven three hours and talked a bunch of my friends into going with me and now it looked like I wasn't even going to be able to dance much. And I was unimpressed by the DJs I had heard so far.

I walked around checking everything out and tripping. The sky was quite beautiful and I remember looking at it for quite a while, watching patterned halos crawl around the moon. I returned to where my friends were and sat down to chat with them. We all agreed that the DJs so far had been an entirely mixed bag. Even so, everyone seemed to be having a good time. I got up and danced on and off. Each time I would dance until I would stumble, and then sit down to rest. I was getting more and more discouraged about the dancing prospects of this rave.

My roommate came back from dancing and I voiced my complaints to him. He told me it was a lot flatter up front, near the stage. I decided to go up there. Right about that time (it must have been 4:00 or a little after) a new DJ came on. He started spinning some awesome beats and I moved up and started dancing.

As I have previously noted, it seems like there is a "membrane" I have to break through when dancing on acid. When I start I usually feel somewhat stiff and uncoordinated. Once I work up a sweat and get going, it becomes much easier and more natural. It didn't take me long to really get going. I danced until I was tired, then went to lie down and rest.

As I lay on the ground catching my breath I noticed that the exercise seemed to kick the acid into high gear. Although I had been tripping at a decent intensity before, everything was now much more animated and colorful. The sky seemed to throb and pulse in time with the beat while wavy patterns crept across it.

Once I caught my breath I moved out to dance some more. Earlier I had been somewhat disappointed in the event, almost sorry that I had come. Once I found my groove I was having a great time. I have noticed that even if there are elements I don't like at a rave, if I ignore them and just dance, I have a great time. Dancing was wonderful, but I didn't experience anything like my previous out of body experience this time.

I danced for an hour or so, until the sun was well on its way up. I went back to my friends and we realized that no one had seen S, one of our companions, since we had arrived. I started to worry, since this was his first rave. I began walking around looking for him, becoming more worried as I failed to find him. I had these visions of him taking some acid and wandering off into the desert…

I spent the next forty minutes or so wandering around the party looking for S. As far as I could tell he was nowhere to be found. I was pretty worried by this point, but tried to reassure myself that he was fine. Finally he turned up out of nowhere. I was very relieved to see him. One of the other people we came with said she was ready to leave soon. I talked to every one else and decided we would stay for another hour and then leave.

For the next hour I danced on and off and talked to S, asking him what he thought of his first party. He thought it was great (of course) and was eager to go again. By 6:00 a.m. the sun was pretty much up and we decided to head out. As we walked back to our vehicle I loaded up a bowl and we smoked it, which kicked my trip back up a notch.

Halfway to the van we ran into the other half of our party, who had left to go crash in the van a few hours before. They wanted to walk down and check out the area in the daylight, so we waited for them at the van. I talked to one of the girls we came with, a friend of a friend from out of state. She was standing outside looking at the mountains around us. She was literally awed by them. I was awed by the patterns I was seeing crawling over the icy blue sky and the deep, vibrant colors of the nearby trees.

Before long the rest of our party arrived and we piled into the van and headed home. Luckily I didn't have to drive home, since I was still tripping. By the time we got back I was down and quite tired. I went to bed soon after we arrived and slept until the early evening.

My appreciation for raves grows with each one I attend. Although I do see some things that concern me, including a lot of reckless drug use, the overall scene is great. Most everyone I have met is friendly, there is little or no violence and people have a great time in a fairly healthy way. Plus, for some at least, it can be a place to experience the divine, opening their consciousness into mystic dimensions with the help of lights, rhythms and sacred psychoactives.