One evening a friend of mine, J (who happens to be a DJ) invited me to trip over at his house so he could spin his set for me. Since I'd been wanting to trip with him for a while anyway, I was glad to accept. My girlfriend L and my roommate M came along as well. In addition to us there were several of J's friends present. Although I didn't really care for them much I figured I would be able to deal with their presence in order to trip with my friend.
We dropped about 11:45 p.m. I took two hits, and everyone else present took either one or two as well. While we were waiting for the acid to come on we were sitting around, talking about nothing in particular and reading the Onion (a funny fake newspaper). L and I decided to go outside and get some fresh air.
While we sat outside and talked I began to feel the acid. It began as a slight feeling of stimulation and a heightened sense of awareness. I asked L if she was feeling anything yet and she told me she was. The night was very nice, just a little too chilly to be perfect. Before long I was sensing faint visual effects. Everything began looking slightly cartoonish and unreal. At approximately 12:25 J came out and told us he was ready to start.
L and I went downstairs and sat down in J's music room to watch him do his thing. He got set up and began spinning his set. It sounded pretty good. I was enjoying it, but his friends in the next room were not only being loud, they even heckled him once or twice. I found this rude and annoying, not to mention distracting. I tried not to let it detract from my enjoyment of his set.
As the set progressed I began tripping harder and harder. The air seemed to congeal and form intricate patterns in front of me. The lighting in the room (blacklight and a red bulb, plus whatever filtered in from the next room) only added to the trippy effect. J's set was minimalist/hard techno and was quite trippy as well. I was watching J as he mixed records and could tell that he was having a harder time of it as he started to peak on the acid. As he reached his peak he gave up and confessed that he was just too high to continue. I thanked him for playing for me and assured him I'd enjoyed it.
I'd brought over a few CDs I wanted to hear, so I asked J is we could listen to them. He led me into his bedroom where his CD player was. He and I and L went inside and shut the door behind us. A few minutes later his girlfriend T came in as well. I was relieved to see that none of his other friends tried to follow her in. They were still talking loudly about nothing in the next room. We turned off the light and started one of the CDs.
Music on LSD is one of my favorite things. The heightened state of awareness it brings one into allows you to really focus on the music. I'm often able to figure out lyrics I had previously found incomprehensible, or focus on aspects of the music that had been lost in the mix, etc. In addition, I often have beautiful synesthetic visuals that are triggered by the music, sort of like my own private light show. I had brought along several CDs that I'd been wanting to listen to in that state. J started one of them and we all sat and listened to the music pour out of the speaker. After it ended I realized I had left the rest of the music I'd brought along in the other room. I got up to retrieve them.
I stepped into the other room, where everyone was still chatting noisily and seemingly about nothing. To me it seemed as if they were having a contest to see who could be the biggest jackass. I tend to take acid pretty seriously and find it an introspective and spiritual experience. Even in my early "just for fun" trips I was more into listening to music or looking at art or nature than sitting around telling stupid jokes and having conversations that weren't worthy of a six year old. I just didn't want to be around the people in that room.
When I returned to the other room we put on some more music. I lay on J's waterbed as the song Slide Away by the Verve started. I seemed to be floating in space, surrounded by the music and pulsing, swirling fractal shapes in brilliant colors. I was literally transported by the music. It was great. After it ended we put on another disc and started talking a little. I complained that J's friends were really annoying. I sort of went off about it. After a few minutes I realized I was being rather unkind and that J probably wasn't enjoying me ragging on his friends. I stopped and apologized about it.
While I was sitting there I began thinking about the fact that I simply did not like many of J's friends. I have tried, but there seems to be a serious personality conflict of some sort. I consider most of them to be your basic dumb ass. They don't seem to have much to say or much to offer the world. I began feeling that I am just not a very nice person. I have tried, with varying degrees of success, to be nicer and more tolerant of people on and off throughout my life. Recently I seem to be going through a particularly intolerant stage. I am a bit of an intellectual snob. I really only enjoy the company of my intellectual equals for the most part. More than that, I really like people that are fairly quiet and reserved. People that might be labeled buffoons turn me off like nothing else.
Strangely, I wasn't very disturbed by this. I seemed to be OK with the fact that I just wasn't very nice. This is not how I generally conceive of myself. The only thing that did disturb me a little bit was the fact that I seemed to be OK with the whole thing. That and the fact that I couldn't shut up about it. Every time the music would end we'd hear them out there and I felt compelled to make a comment about how annoying I found them.
After an hour or so we left and as we walked home I asked L what she thought of the evening. I was feeling some small amount of guilt about being exclusionary and not nice to J's friends. She had found them quite annoying as well and tried to reassure me that it wasn't a big deal. She did agree with me that I should have shut up about it long before I did, rather than spending so much time going off about it to J, who was almost certainly as annoyed by my bitching as I was by his friends.
After we got home we sat on my step and watched the sky. It was a beautiful night and I was feeling good to be alive. L and I made small talk and enjoyed each others company as the acid wound down. This was some four and half or five hours after we dropped, but we were still going fairly well. We went inside and began making out on the couch. Before long we moved into my room to have sex.
The sex was incredible, as sex on acid usually is. My entire attention seemed focused on what I as doing. Unlike last time, I didn't feel as if I was other people or places. I did occasionally feel as if I was picking up on L's sensations in addition to my own, which I found highly erotic. Also like last time, when I reached orgasm I didn't actually ejaculate the first time. Instead we continued to have sex and I had another orgasm a few minutes later, this time a normal one with ejaculation. This is a very interesting phenomenon and I am now curious to see if I can manipulate the effect for subsequent orgasms. The idea of being multiorgasmic under the influence of LSD is a truly enticing idea!
Afterwards we talked for a while, then got dressed and went back outside. We sat on my step as the sun came up talking and enjoying each other's company. Before long I decided I should be getting to bed (I had commitments the next day). I drank a beer to help me relax and then headed to bed. I was able to sleep and felt all right the next day. I was very tired, however, since I only got four or five hours of sleep.
Subsequent to this trip I have given my thoughts during the peak some consideration. I have decided to make a concerted effort to be more tolerant of people I don't like. I have also decided to be more selective about who I trip around. I had wanted badly to trip with my friend J and figured I would be able to tolerate his friends, who I already knew I didn't much care for. I vastly overestimated my tolerance, as it turned out. I feel my fault wasn't so much in not liking his friends as it was in putting myself in a situation where I had to be exposed to them in a highly sensitized state. While not under the influence of a psychedelic I can at least be civil towards them, and I don't feel I have to close myself off in another room like I did the night of the trip. Liking or not liking someone is acceptable, but I feel I should be polite and civil to everyone I interact with, regardless of circumstance. Disliking someone isn't mean, but treating them like they are less than you is. I will be making a serious effort to not do such a thing in the future.