Surprised at the Depth
AL-LAD
Citation:   cletusvanderbilt. "Surprised at the Depth: An Experience with AL-LAD (exp110657)". Erowid.org. Sep 18, 2017. erowid.org/exp/110657

 
DOSE:
150 ug buccal AL-LAD
BODY WEIGHT: 190 lb
An Important Experience in My Life

Male, 35 years old, 190 pounds, 150 μg AL LAD, buccal. Previously, I have had tripped on 1.5 grams psilocybin, taken 25 mg Adderall by prescription for seven years (which I quite five years ago) and smoked cannabis daily for approximately five years (also quite five years ago). I have used ETOH for the last ten years.

My supplier was a reputable Canadian source. The reason I decided to ingest this substance was long term curiosity and, after lots of reading, the belief that psychedelics in general might provide a benefit to my general wellbeing; including depression, alcoholism, and lack of inspiration.

For two weeks, my excitement built as I waited on its arrival. I planned the trip mostly based on internet advice; only one tab and at home. I also made a set list of music and a list of difficulties in my life I’d like to work on.

I managed to wait for two days after the arrival of the package. I knew I could take a Thursday off, and would have the house to myself. I planned to wake up at 09:00 and take it after fasting for the night. I expected that onset would occur after 25-60 minutes, and the trip would last 6-10 hours, with moderate visuals and a controlled mindspace. My mood going into this event was extremely excited and positive, building for several weeks. I think that this may have had a significant effect on my experience.

I woke up to a phone call that I had to go into work, and an agonizing neck-ache. I brought my tab with me and took it in the toilet, after resolving the work problem at 11:55, after a cup of coffee. I had a moment of hesitation before I put it in my mouth. I felt confident because of having resolved the problem at work, but my neck was killing me. I walked home in the rain, through a very busy city, playing with the tab with my tongue.

I resolved to take notes when it felt I had something worth saying. I was overly enthusiastic about that and I think it may have limited my trip.
I resolved to take notes when it felt I had something worth saying. I was overly enthusiastic about that and I think it may have limited my trip.


00:00 Ingestion.

+00:15 The patterns on the curtains at home seem more intricate than usual. Previously, I have always hated our curtains, they are gold and kitschy. Despite the rainy skies, the curtains seem to be backlit, almost like the sun is coming out. I notice some small changes in depth perception, like the lids of containers in the kitchen seem twice as tall as normal.

+00:25 My head feels odd. I can hear gentle rain outside. I swallowed the tab with a spoonful of yogurt. I start cleaning the house nervously.

+00:28 Noticeable peripheral vision change. I’m playing music I like, and it starts to sound alien. I noted that my short term memory is a “a little weird.”

+00:35 I feel shaky in my legs. I keep thinking the freezer door is open as I clean, from the peripheral.

+00:40 I’m dusting the house. I feel a little nausea. I start to feel worried that “this is as far as it’ll go, but actually, I’m fine with that,” in my notes; “It’s not a bad way to clean the house on a rainy day.”

+00:45 “Sub +,” from my notes, and increase in awareness of tensions in my body, mostly nausea but especially an increase in neck pain (it was already so strong I almost didn’t dose, but now it’s excruciating).

+00:53 I’m slowly and deliberately cleaning. Our apartment has steep stairs, and I had been a little worried about falling down them if things got out of hand. I note that it feels like, “I’m about to kiss my apartment for the first time, like teenage-going-in-for-the-first-kiss-with-no-fear-of-rejection.”

+00:58 First thought of redosing. Thankfully, I’ve done a lot of reading, and I decide, “Never Redose on the Come-Up.”

+01:01 I now have very methodical movements. I am sure that I am being very careful, especially about falling down the stairs. I note, “interesting thoughts,” but unlike Adderall, I don’t feel panic or anxiety, and I’m not afraid of losing the ideas as they go through my head. I feel drugged and lethargic, but “although mistakes might be made, they won’t be from rushing or from the internal engine.”

I now have noticeable auditory distortion, and as I write notes, there is some movement on the page. It’s a blueish, asymmetric Aztec sort of labyrinth, on the edge of being noticeable, like the paper is water-stained with it, or like the paper was under other paper that has been written on, and I can see the imprints what has been written before.

I wish that I was better at writing, and note that attempting this is like a “dry bite from a pen.” My neck is total agony, radiating pain from my ear to my fingertips to my knee.

+01:06 I try to massage my neck. I note “very much tension in neck and back of head.” I decide to “clean the floor the way an artist paints. I want to clean the floor like how Picasso wanted to paint warcrimes.” As I note that, there are neon wood-grain patterns on the page.

I turn around and see a photo of my wife and our old cat on the wall. In the photo, her hair is waving, and I can smell our old cat’s fur. It was a sunny summer day in the photo. I suddenly recall some poetry I knew from years ago, and note it down at length. My hand doesn’t seem like my hand. It writes, “ The moving hand writes, and as it writes, moves on. Not all thy pain nor suffering shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash away a word of it.”

+01:16 I’ve been staring at my wife’s photo for a long time. I resolve to take more photos of her. I think about how she is at work now, and we are apart, and one day, one of us will die, and my eyes well up with tears. I have a moment of feeling that transcends language.

I abruptly shift into “a mode of relaxed and careful observation.” I feel very privileged that I can look at her picture. I notice that, “fabrics and strings seem to follow more than they should unto themselves.” I feel like an author of King James’ Bible. I write, “the old stress wound, aggregated by the iphone neck injury...” and forget to finish the sentence.

The music on my phone has some visual display. The effects of it are leaving the borders of the phone’s screen. It’s something like fireworks. Every word I note down increases the tension in my neck and shoulder. I think that maybe if I have enough pain-per-word ratio, I’ll start to write better words and not spit out so much bullshit.

+01:35 I have the second thought of re-dosing. I’m seeing faces in the pattern of the kitschy gold curtains. They are inky and oily and breathing if I focus on them, vaguely themed like the ones that were on my notebook page. Layers of fractals are shifting on them, glowing gold and icy, like frost growing across a window, mixed with Aztec jaguar warriors. It’s all amber and warm. Suddenly, when certain timing coincides, tiny blue sections of the fractals activate and flash very bright blue, maybe 5 at a time out of 1,000 sections. It seems completely random at first, like fireflies, but then I realize there is some sort of pattern there, on an order higher than I can understand; “There is a difference between true randomness and a pattern that you haven’t understood.”

+01:46 “Astonishingly beautiful curtains. Back-lit, like looking into heaven. Amber crystal ice shards of glowing neon edged patterns. I can’t tell what the original pattern on the curtains was. It’s flowing, breathing and ecstatic. I have so much neck pain. I take a hot shower to try and relieve the neck pain.”

+01:53 I have to clean first. I can’t believe I live in this filth, but I feel that in a loving way. I see it as a metaphor for myself and my life. “It’s going to take a while to clean myself up. It’s going to be fun though. I’ll never be perfect. There is always another layer of filth to be cleaned away.” I’ve always been frustrated by the frequency of cleaning and my inability to clean things completely. At this moment, I realize that it’s supposed to be that way.

As I write the notes, I hear grinding and thudding construction noises outside, and it resonates through my body. It’s so nice to hear that I note, “I can’t wait to take 450 ug”. The curtains now make me think the sun is coming out from behind the clouds. The glow behind them is intense, but when I look behind them, it’s grey and rainy like Iceland (I’ve been listening to Sigur Ros this whole time).

+02:06 I try to write with my left hand because of the pain. I write “left hand thoughts are more fleeting.” It scares me because the writing is so shaky that looks like something an insane person would write. I think, “there are different kinds of windows,” and, “I’ll have to learn how to loosen my shoulder if I ever want to write without pain.”

I put an icepack on my shoulder and to my dismay, instantly feel sober.

+2:20 The overhead light in my living room looks like the sun breaking through the clouds, shinning down on my table from 6 feet above. I am briefly enveloped in total whiteness.

+2:30 “descending into moments of sobriety.”
+2:30 “descending into moments of sobriety.”


+2:45: “Sober. Is it or isn’t it moving? At some edges, things feel fuzzy... [I can’t read several lines of notes. I don’t think I was very sober].

+2:55 I try to watch a math documentary. Youtube opens with a green zombie who was the “mindfulness instructor” I tried to listen to the night before. The math documentary is at once talking down to me like I’m a child, but also discussing ideas that are far above my understanding. I can’t tell how loud or quiet it needs to be. This TV show seems to be have been made for mad men. It’s a weird Italian man narrating, who understands this math and is writing in on a sidewalk with chalk, then someone filmed it. It’s hilarious. I can’t stop laughing or finish my thoughts.

+3:20 I’m much further back down. Work messages me, “Hope you can recover quickly,” regarding my neck pain. It feels much more personal than it normally would, like they really care about me.

I try to listen to my playlist. It’s lame, and I stare at the curtains, “willing them to break apart again.” It doesn’t work, but I can remember how I want it to look. I’m starting to notice a bodyloading like Adderal;, but without elevated heart rate. I go “off-setlist to traditional psychedelic music” and it sounds hilarious, like the soundtrack of an old cartoon. Casey Jones is like they didn’t know how things should sound, so they made the dumbest sounding music they could imagine.

+04:15 I can’t wait for my wife to come home. I have cleaned the house. It’s not because it will make her happy and I’ll get some reward, it’s just because I love her and I did something good for her. This is an improvement in our dynamics, and I recognize it.

04:25 I note, “Man, I hate the Grateful Dead.... This [allad] can be very good, this can be a way to make myself better, but I can’t tell anyone why I’m getting better, or they’ll put me in the loony bin. Aphex twin just did a live set and I just found it.”

04:40 So much cleaning. I take another shower and try to shave without a mirror. It doesn’t work. I get out with patches of beard all over my face. “It’s kind of strange behavior. Well, the fun shit’s over, back to work cleaning.” “I’ve cut so many corners. It has to change. Even the simplest things. I’ve been too sloppy. I’m going to be neater now.”

04:52 “No one can make the argument that I’m any less productive today than normal. However, I’ve been pretty agitated, to be honest. It isn’t that I’m over ascribing the therapeutic effect of allad, it’s that I’ve been systematically ignoring the effect of cleaning my house. Maybe I’ll start a cult based on cleaning our living space.”

+05:24 I disassembled and cleaned out our fan.

+05:30 I look in the mirror see my face as if I’ve had a stroke from alcohol abuse. It feels like a distinct warning about drinking too much.

+05:27 Reddit photos look like anime drawings.

+05:50 Still strong nausea. This is definitely medicine for fixing mental illness. Fuck.

Notes end here. I kept cleaning for three more hours. I walked around the city in the rain, and its the colors looked especially beautiful, but I knew that I was just noticing them in a different way. The rain was very gentle and soothing. I sat in a park for a while and watched the neon flashing reflections on the sidewalk. The city is absolutely magic to walk through. So much color that I never appreciated before.

My wife called and I walked to meet her to have late supper. My eyes were still wide like an owl’s and I was afraid she would notice, but she didn’t mention it. We went to get a quick massage on the way home, and as I looked at the floor, little fireworks of tension danced across the tiles, like how water beads can dance on tile if they aren’t absorbed.

+14:00 I still have visuals disturbances on the ceiling as I try to sleep.

+24:00 I went to work without affect.

I took AL LAD because I read that it was a good introductory psychedelic. I was surprised at the depth of the experience, and I am glad that I didn’t take another dose when I considered doing it. I feel much more motivated about my life, two days later, but I have no guess how long this will last. The peak was a profoundly vivid, dreamlike experience. The bodyload was significantly more difficult to deal with than I anticipated, but I’m that I went into with a strong neck pain. I feel like I can better manage a higher dose now, if I don’t have that pain. At no point did I feel endangered, although most of the 14 hours were very uncomfortable. How much of that can be attributed to my neck pain is uncertain.

+96 hours I still feel increased motivation and general peacefulness.

Will definitely trip again.

Exp Year: 2017ExpID: 110657
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: 35
Published: Sep 18, 2017Views: 5,738
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AL-LAD (603) : Personal Preparation (45), First Times (2), Alone (16)

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