LSD usage has been known to trigger altered thoughts and feelings as well as increased awareness of one's surroundings. LSD has been used for reasons both recreational and spiritual.
This was the basis behind today's burning question from Redditor ZealPoseidon, who asked: "Redditors who have tried LSD, what was your most profound realization?"
"That memories..."
That memories are more deeply ingrained in our minds than we will ever understand. The first time I did it was with my older brothers. We got caught in a beautiful wormhole of childhood memories that none of us had thought about, or even recalled in years.
"That we are all connected..."
That we are all connected together as humans in a communal system, held together by the framework established by social expectation and a desire to achieve something greater.
Basically we live in a society.
"It was the first time..."
My dad committed a murder suicide when I was little and LSD made me realize he was actually a human being with feelings and not some monster in my imagination. It was the first time I realized I had a father. It was a hard trip, that's for sure.
"I remember trying..."
I remember trying to count ducks in a pond. When I couldn't figure the exact amount (purple microdots and a pitch black night) My friend told me "Who the f*ck cares?" Oh my GOD. It was the most amazing realisation I ever had. I've applied the attitude "who the f*ck cares" to everything ever since!
"People never remember small good things."
People never remember small good things. At the end of a day, people will be like. "Man. I had such a bad day. Not a single good thing happened." But chances are a bunch of small good things happened. Like those little conversations you have in hallways and on sidewalks. Just the "Hey! How are you?" "Good! Haven't seen you in awhile, how are you?" "Can't complain". The little conversations like that. Not a single part of that conversation was negative but you forget about it the second it ends. Small stuff like that gets forgotten.
"That there isn't always..."
GiphyThat there isn't always a meaning and sometimes it's just fun to experience.
Every trip isn't some "vision quest" where you rediscover yourself and tap in to "vibrations of the universe" or some such thing.
"My senior year of college..."
My senior year of college I was doing LSD fairly frequently. My housemates decided to trip during the day while I decided to drink. I took a nap in the afternoon, woke up, and decided "Oh, this is the perfect time to trip sack" and so I did. I peaked late that evening and spent about 6 hours on our swing on our back porch. I brought my guitar with me to make music. There was an empty Hurricane 40 that someone had left on the side table. I spent quite a long time watching a hornet that had fallen in try to fly out.
Every unsuccessful attempt ended up with the hornet falling back into the residual alcoholic liquid. And slowly it became uncoordinated. This is over several hours that I am just playing the soundtrack to this dying insect. I dropped out of school weeks later. Other things influenced my decision to leave, but that experience certainly had an impact. I wouldn't trade that experience for anything.
"I feel like..."
I feel like it totally changed my relationship with food, like I see it as fuel rather than sin and virtue now, and that has stuck years later and I'm down 30 lbs since then despite never dieting.
Probably because everyone else I was tripping with went skinny dipping while I stayed in the van because I was too fat to climb the fence.
"I watched Free Solo on acid a couple weeks ago."
I watched Free Solo on acid a couple weeks ago. The whole time I was so bummed out... I was thinking "damn... what am I doing with my life, look at what this guy did." And then when I realized Alex Honnold was the only person to ever do anything remotely close to free soloing El Cap, I was relieved. And then I ate some hummus.
That everything that could happen has already happened and that the passage of "time" is a man made concept that allows us to process reality in a fashion that we can more easily comprehend.
I was obviously tripping balls. That same night I dropped a cigarette in my lap and it took so long for me to pick it up the chair caught on fire.
"I was looking at myself..."
I was looking at myself in a mirror (shirtless) with just laptop lighting. moonlight sonata was playing over my speakers and throughout the whole song I watched my body shift. At times I would look very muscular and at other times i looked very bloated. It was almost like a glimpse into what my body could become. It was very interesting and I came out of it with a very clear focus on wanting to become healthier. I'm a male 6'1 about 210 pounds.
"I realized..."
GiphyI realized that every single one of us came from the same ancestor. That were are all the same life form.
I also realized that all of my organs touch, and it hurt a little.
"I became incredibly depressed..."
I became incredibly depressed when I had a vision of the solar system fast forward until all the planets got too close to the sun and burned to dust...
No evidence we were ever here. Everything you, me, our ancestors and microbial precursors struggled so hard to achieve... Just... Gone.
Nothing matters.
Then, a simple perspective shifted and I realized, "so in reality, THE ONLY THING I truly have is RIGHT NOW.... And I'm squandering it in sadness.".
Don't squander your now in sadness if you can avoid it. Allow yourself to feel and express, and move on :)
"How preposterous..."
How preposterous all our societal edifices are.
LSD deconstructs high-level concepts and behaviors into their constituent parts. It allows you to observe common things without any of the usual pretense or context in all of their unadulterated absurdity.
As an example, it might occur to you while tripping that a software engineer is someone whose purpose is to concoct special arrangements of silicon atoms so that she has enough special pieces of paper to sleep in her preferred brick box.
It helped me stop taking everything so seriously.
"That infinity..."
That infinity, unlike what they teach you in math class, is something you can experience and is actually happening all the time everywhere and nowhere. "All is one" is literally true, and what hides this secret mindf*ck from humanity is the ego (the self) and our base level of consciousness. Psychedelics are powerful tools to access profound states of consciousness, but the actual realizations don't always come unless you're looking for them and ready.
"The last time..."
The last time I dropped acid I was also by myself. I had this overwhelming feeling of simply being okay. I tend to overthink everything and stress over details. What I felt in that moment was a sense of healing, like I was forgiving myself for being so critical and rigid. I try to remind myself of this, to go easy and focus on progress instead of perfection.
Also, "Sitting" by Cat Stevens complimented this and brought me to tears, in the most beautiful way possible.
"That my body..."
That my body doesn't exist as a spectacle, it's a tool for me to use to enjoy my life, how intricate it is is amazing. Like a whole ass eco system of its own that I exist in. I've felt more connected to my body than at any other point & just at peace existing in it with lsd & shrooms.
But the the stress of life takes over and I inevitably fall back into my eating disorder, which really isn't even about my body anymore, but knowing I can feel that peace gives me hope for an eventual recovery.
"I realized..."
I realized how much the quality of your voyage through life is affected by the "mental frame" that you view things through. Right after that, you realize that you can control these mental frames like you change channels on a TV.
"I've resolved..."
On LSD, people drop their walls and bare their true selves, and anything they've been holding in comes out and I've found that most conflict and animosity is usually caused by misunderstandings and lack of communication. I've resolved so many interpersonal issues while tripping. The visuals and stuff are fun, but I wish I could retain while sober that honesty, unconditional love, and openness. I think that's our default setting, and I don't know why people hide that and try to be so tough.
"My demons aren't gone..."
It's hard to crystallize into a succinct "aha!" sort of realization. What people don't always remember that everything you see while on acid is a manifestation of your own thoughts or experiences viewed through the filter of your own perception. Everything I felt, from angst over girls to worrying about my college grades or my future was a lens through which my experience was filtered through. Once I realized I was looking at a lens, it was easier to figure out why I felt the way I did and how I could counteract that which I deemed a negative perception.
My insecurities stopped being associated with reality but instead with my own perception. Reality wasn't telling me I was worthless, I was. And so I stopped. My demons aren't gone but they are significantly weaker than they used to be and that's because I figured out that they were me along.