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Puppet Show
LSD
Citation:   Basso. "Puppet Show: An Experience with LSD (exp84976)". Erowid.org. Dec 27, 2020. erowid.org/exp/84976

 
DOSE:
2 hits oral LSD
  1 shot oral Alcohol - Hard
BODY WEIGHT: 160 lb
Puppet show
Walking Masks
Sad but True
Fucked up Epiphany
or
How could I forgot the mirror!

I dont know how to call this letter. Take your pick. This was the good old naive days, when I was eager to learn, certain of the inevitable samadi, but still a bit scared by bad LSD propaganda. I was a beginner, but done enough trips to realize that if I had any latent psychotic trait or susceptibility to prolonged depersonalization or derealization syndrome, than I would have had it by now. In retrospective it wasnt the brightest period of my life. I was listening to blues and grunge, drank a lot and wasnt the best friend of myself.

I took a few days off, stocked my fridge, bought some blotters, barricaded all entrances and was planning to give a good slap to my shadow. To see if it fights back. I soaked two tabs in a shotglass of water at 4am, drank it at 5, and was watching the sun come up a little later. I wasnt yet affected, but it was still very pretty. I got sleepy in half an hour, laid down on the couch and closed my eyes. The kaleidoscopic hallucinations were in gold, red and green metal colour. First they tended to be in the forms of rapidly changing geometric snowflakes, then the size of the individual units got smaller, finally they assumed a pulsing fractal pattern. It started to change too quickly for comfort, so I opened my eyes. I was still sleepy and felt very cosy on the couch. I drank some water, and watched the walls starting to smoke. The walls are never perfectly white, and the shade of the little imperfections or flyshits or old nail holes started to move away from their sources, leaving nightblack afterimages behind them. It was a bit like smoke, or undulating grass in the wind. It was breathtaking.

I was sitting there for a long, long time. All objects and surfaces seemed to breath, inhale and exhale on their own accord, not in the same rhythm. Everything was alive and vivid and cryptic as if there were layers of meaning of everything that couldnt quite burst through my incomplete reading of them. I dont care if it sounds pretentious. Thats how it felt. I thought I want to dive into this noire atmosphere so I put on the headphones, and listened some Dead Can Dance, then on impulse I had put on the Hive soundtrack. I was trying to read a book, but the words evaporated very prettily as soon as my eyes moved over them. My periferic vision climbed closer to the center somehow. The „s”, the „g” and „y” letters grew slender offshoots and tendrils, and continued to overgrow the text as long as I didnt focus on them. I went back to bed because my skin became very sensitive to all contact as if my nerve endings got tripled. I thought the blanket will feel very nice on my skin. I was right. First I got a strong urge to share this experience with someone, but then I realized I just want to fuck, or rather make love slowly and lazily for a day or two.

I didnt want the trip to take this erotic turn, because I felt that something serious is about to happen. Something illuminating. So there is a long pause in the Hive soundtrack. I didnt notice that the music is gone until the next track started with a frightening 100db percussion. I was scared shitless. Then I got scared even more, because the big bang was partly caused by the door that slammed at exactly the same time, when the music started. I went out to the kitchen for I thought I left the window open, and the draft slammed the door between room and kitchen. The window was closed. I stayed scared for a while, but then I find a logical explanation: The window must have slammed the same time as the door did. Maybe it did. I had enough of Marilyn Manson. Changed it to Pink Floyd, but still felt restless. Finally I went out into the morning sunshine. I was walking the streets in a random pattern. It was about 9 or 10am, but few people around.

I had put on sunglasses to avoid pedestrians noticing my intense scrutiny. I was watching them because there was something very wrong with each and single last one of them. There was something wrong with their faces. They didnt change like a shapshifter’s, the features didnt flow or bloom like tar bubbles or moving reflections in a curved mirror. That was to be expected, but no. The faces were dead masks made of petrified organic matter; dead, unchanging, carved into a sometimes evil, sometimes idiotic, but mostly sad facial expression. I dont remember meeting any kids, but young people were not much different, than the old ones. I became very agitated, because I couldnt change this perception. Then I saw that there was something dark behind these masks that everyone was wearing, or attached to or appeared to be. First it was out of focus, I couldnt make out the details, but when I didnt concentrate on them, they became sharper.

There were pits behind the masks, with someone laying in each pit’s bottom laying in the foetal position. They were sleeping bodies –malnourished looking- in various states of decomposition. It didnt take a high IQ to know that they were the real dwellers of the body in deep sedation. I didnt know if they were dreaming the masks and the outside world through them, or the masks were parasitic organisms feeding on the sleepers. If they were the latter, the masks didnt seem to be aware of being parasites. It was a very disturbing experience. I felt an overpowering sorrow for mankind
I felt an overpowering sorrow for mankind
, and I wanted to cry but I didnt, because in my country men dont cry, especially not on the street. The whole thing was very sad, but I didnt want it to be over. I walked up and down the streets to meet anyone who was different. I guess I met 200-250 people on the streets. They were all zombies.

I went home, and tried to take my mind off this revelation. By mid afternoon only the physical sensations remained, and the closed eye visuals. I dont remember if I was familiar with C.G. Jung’s concept of persona at the time of this trip, but for me these masks and the persona mean the same thing now. When all the effects subsided did I realize that I missed my chance to look into the mirror and see if I was the same comatose stiff in the bottom of the pit like everyone else. I am still angry with myself ever since. I had a couple of acid trips since, all with lower doses, but I didnt gain anything even remotely close. I dont know if these were hallucinations. I am afraid I saw the truth.


Exp Year: 2002ExpID: 84976
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: 27
Published: Dec 27, 2020Views: 631
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LSD (2) : Entities / Beings (37), General (1), Public Space (Museum, Park, etc) (53)

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