1. My Acid Trip
! And as soon as it had begun, it was over. And by “it,” of course I mean the most
intense, life altering weekend of my life.
♓
Disclaimer: I don not know what was going through my two friends, Nathan and Reed’s
heads. All I know are the thoughts and experiences that went through my head, so
please forgive me if I seem to be putting thoughts and ideas into their heads.
! It all started when two of my closest friends decided to have one last hurrah
before our last summer together would come to an end. We all knew, of course, that the
weekend would involve drugs, as we were three friends who smoked together often.
The perfect way to end a summer. A drug binge. The only question that still needed to
be answered was, which drug? We had all smoked marijuana, we had all taken 4-
acodmt, and we had all smoked DMT. Aside from that, the only other drug Nathan had
done that I hadn’t was ecstasy. Reed on the other hand, was well experienced with
psychoactives and hallucinogenic drugs. The idea of doing acid was tossed around in
conversation a few times, but every time it did, it almost seemed like a joke. It was
usually only discussed sarcastically between Nathan and I because it was such an
intense drug. After actually deciding that our drug of choice for the weekend actually
would be acid, my view about the whole trip had changed dramatically.
♓
! The night before, we had all done our own thing. I had gone to a friend’s house
whose parents were out of town, and Nathan and Reed had both done other things. I

2. had been thinking about the next morning all night, riddled with excitement and anxiety
both. All I could think was that the sooner I would fall asleep, the sooner I would wake
up. I was at somewhat of a party however, and falling asleep at 9:00 when everyone
else was naked in the pool out back was just simply not an option. I conformed and got
somewhat drunk, making sure to limit myself so as not to be hungover the next day at
all. I wasn’t going to let anything go wrong about this trip. Nothing at all. After becoming
somewhat twisted, enough to have conversations that I would forget in the morning, I
had fallen asleep. Fallen asleep in my sophomore english teachers house, if that
doesn’t make you chuckle a little.
! I was woken up by the smell of bacon. Surprising.. None of the friends I was
hanging out with seemed the type that would wake up early and make bacon. As I
walked into the kitchen, the sight to be seen seemed to clear things up. Bacon was
being cooked in the microwave oven. That’s more like it. My friends were admittedly
some of the stupidest people I have ever met. After eating my fair share of poorly
cooked bacon, I was off. I picked up Nathan on my way to my house and he helped me
load up my truck with all of the essentials. One twelve person tent, one big tub filled with
food and food related items, two camp stoves that turned out to be a horrible idea,
several camp chairs to sit around the fire in, and a cot along with a sleeping bag for
myself. Reed and Nathan each brought their own sleeping gear, but most of the stuff
was already in the back of my truck. After Nathan and I had filled up the back of my
truck with everything, I got a phone call from one of our friends who had stayed with me
at our english teachers house the night before. He, of course, needed a ride home. After
listening to him bitch and moan for a good five minutes, I finally complied and gave him

3. a ride to his house, which was conveniently located just around the corner from Reed’s
house. I called Reed and let him know that we would pick him up right after we dropped
our other friend off. A half hour later, we were on the road. On the way to the middle of
no where, in Iowa.
! I-90. A painstakingly boring road to drive. The scenery is dull, the road is bumpy,
and the traffic is no where to be found. What was I expecting on a hot tuesday morning
in early August? We had left around 11:00 a.m. and had planned on arriving at our
campsite around 2:00 p.m. To keep the driving less monotonous, we toked on our way
down, while exchanging conversation that was relatively unimportant. What was
important was what would be happening in about three hours. At this moment in time,
my stomach began to sink into my body, and I started to become very apprehensive
about what we were about to do. I had all of these negative thoughts, and i was just in
general not comfortable with the idea of dropping acid. I didn’t know what it was,
because I had not felt this way before when we had decided to do it. I remember Reed
talking to nathan about bad trips and what cause them, because we all wanted to try to
have the most amazing trip possible. Reed started to explain why a bad trip happened,
and it all started to become too real.
“A bad trip happens when you start to think that you’re this bad kid that does drugs
all the time and you get a really guilty feeling that makes you regret everything you’ve
ever done related to drugs. You just start to get really scared at what you’ve become
and what’s happening to you, and you just freak out.” I started to get more and more
anxious about doing this. What was I getting myself into? This was basically the first
hallucinogen that I had ever done, aside from the 4-acodmt, and that had only had very

4. mild effects on my. I suddenly became very nervous. In my head, I thought that if these
feelings persisted, I wouldn’t be able to take the drug. After all, I had all of the symptoms
of a bad trip according to what Reed had said earlier, hadn’t I? And I hadn’t even taken
the drug yet.
! The drive was long and uneventful. After making a short stop to see the view
from atop one of the cliffs in the area, we were back on the road toward our campsite.
Nathan’s grandparents had owned some land out here, and this was the only reason we
had any reason to be in Iowa. They had been gracious enough to let us camp there, but
were oblivious to the amount of drugs we had taken with us. After going through several
electric fences, where Reed had to get out and unhook them so I could drive my truck
through, we made it to a small creek. Nothing my truck couldn’t handle. What my truck
couldn’t handle, was the small valley that the creek seemed to be in. This valley was the
perfect size to just simply fuck my truck over. At the top of the valley on the other side of
the creek, my truck had gotten stuck on the ground because the ground had flattened
out so quickly. None of my wheels were hitting the ground, and there was smoke
coming from under my truck. I immediately jumped out and ran around frantically not
knowing what to do. You have to keep in mind, that I was pretty high already, and was
basically just fucking up pretty bad. It didn’t take much and we were back on all four
wheels, driving through the grass on our way to the campsite. Even though we got out
of that situation safely, the image of my truck getting stuck never left my mind.
♓

5. ! It was somewhat hard to drive, with Nathan pointing from the backseat right in
front of my face where we should go. Pulling up to the campsite though was very
satisfying. After a few hour car ride, being the driver especially, I was sick of sitting down
and wanted to get up and start doing things. We had all been in agreement that we
should at least set up the tent and get the fire going before we took the acid. The tent
was a genuine bitch to set up, but was worth it in the end of all of the confusion. Three
people spending the night in a tent that had space to accommodate twelve people. It
was the equivalent of a hotel giving the room that you had booked to someone else, and
then they apologize for the inconvenience and upgrade you to a suite. After the tent was
set up, Reed hung his tye dye tapestry up on the awning so that we could look at it later
if we were interested. We quickly started a fire, and set up the rest of camp, celebrating
by passing a bong around the fire. While this was happening, in my head I couldn’t stop
thinking that passing a bong around a fire was one of the funniest things I had ever
done, and I checked it off of my mental list of “stoner things to do.” After all three of us
were sufficiently high, we realized what had to be done next. I can still remember it like
it was yesterday.. It was 3:00 p.m. Reed took out the acid and distributed it between the
three of us. After receiving the simple instructions that were “put it on your tongue for
about two minutes then swallow the rest of the paper so you don’t waste it,” from Reed,
Nathan and I did as he instructed. Within seconds, we had all had blotter sheets
containing Lysergic Acid Diethylamide on our tongues and soon to be in our systems.
♓

6. ! We were all sitting around the fire. Waiting. The next thing I knew, I looked at my
watch and saw that it was 3:20. For some reason, i had a crazy obsession with having
to know what time it was at any given moment. Nathan had kept trying to convince me
to throw my watch in my bag with no success. I needed to know what time it was, and
this was in some ways my “safe zone.” Next I found myself standing up when Reed and
Nathan were both sitting down, and I didn’t understand why because I wanted to be
standing so bad. After a few minutes, Reed told us that he needed to show us
something so we all three walked over to the tent. We were standing under the awning
that was attached to the tent, and on one side Reed had hung up his tye dye tapestry
but he didn’t say why. I just assumed it was to look at if we got really bored.
“Don’t think, just follow me and go with it,” were the words that had come out of
Reed’s mouth.. Right before he disappeared. He walked into the tye dye, and I watched
as he fell straight into the swirl of color. Nathan and I were standing with our jaws as far
as they could be opened. What had just happened? So many different things were
going through my head at the time, as the acid had slowly started to take it’s effect on
my mind and body. It’s hard to explain the feeling that I had at this point: I wasn’t exactly
to the point of tripping like I had expected, but I knew i wasn’t sober - that’s for sure. I
looked to where I thought Nathan was standing, only to find that he had disappeared as
well. I started to freak out and immediately all that was going through my head were the
words that Reed had said, right before he was gone. Don’t think, just follow me. Go with
it. What the hell was that supposed to mean? I had no idea where he or Nathan had
gone, so how was I supposed to follow them? I began to have the most intense audio
hallucinations, like i’ve never experienced before. The voices I heard were talking to me

7. and telling me to walk forward. I wanted to believe that they were Reed and Nathan’s
voices, but they weren’t. The voices I could here were deep and threatening, what I
would imagine Satan’s voice to be like if he existed. Don’t think. I couldn’t get it out of
my head. I was at a complete loss, and didn’t know what to do. In my head it only made
sense to think that Reed and Nathan had crossed into a parallel universe, and I couldn’t
seem to get on that level. I became very frustrated and started to run forward to look for
them. I couldn’t control the direction that my feet were taking me, however, and I was
running straight into the tye dye. I was lost, and the feeling I experienced walking
through the tapestry was indescribable. The deep voices that once scared me had
turned into friendly greetings from Nathan and Reed, who were just on the other side of
the tapestry. I still don’t fully understand this part of my trip, and don’t typically enjoy
thinking about this part. It was just flat out scary. After being reassured that I was okay
and it was only the acid, I seemed to have forgotten the amount of drugs that were in
my system, I began to feel better. Welcome to my acid trip - the most influential and
amazing experience I have ever had.
! I suddenly figured out the drug. I think. We were all three walking around,
occasionally running, occasionally stopping to look extremely intently at something that
was on the ground. Reed took his shirt off and it seemed like a good thing to do, and
before I knew it, nobody had a shirt on. Or shoes. I think (I was never really 100%
certain that I had my shoes off, but I really think I took them off). Walking around our
campsite like mindless zombies, my ability to perceive the reality that I lived in was
being pushed to the limit. Things were constantly changing around me, and I was
beginning to have open eye visuals. My thoughts also began to become unreal. I

8. remember thinking, as I was walking in only my shorts, that I was having the craziest
realization.
Realization: Every drug has a different effect on you. I knew this was true before
hand, but I had never been able to legitimately realize this. Describing the feeling of
being “high” to someone is definitely one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. To
me at this point, my goal was to figure out what this drug was doing to me and what I
was supposed to do with my new found high. As i continued to walk around more and
more, I thought I was getting a grip on things. I could sometimes understand what was
happening to things and what they were supposed to look like, but my reality was still
bending without me being able to make it the way that I wanted. This is when I felt like I
needed to figure out what I was supposed to do on this drug the most. I began to trip
pretty hard also. I would be walking in some nice, soft, green grass, and all of the
sudden my feet would begin to hurt. The grass would turn into sharp sticks and leaves
and branches with thorns that gave me what seemed to be real pain on the soles of my
feet. I asked Reed about it and he told me to go with it. Go with it. There were those
words again. I still had no idea what I had to do and I was becoming frustrated with
myself again just like with the tye dye. My trip, again, started to turn negative and I
would only think about things that I couldn’t do. Like figure this drug out. I simply
couldn’t do it. This was easily one of the most frustrating moments in my life. Until it
happened. I thought I had finally figured the drug out. As I was walking through the
sticks and thorns, I told myself that they simply didn’t hurt me. I went with it. My trip
immediately turned around 180 degrees, and it was good again. I was walking through
the softest patch of green grass, and danced around in it for what seemed to be a

9. relatively long time with Reed and Nathan. I knew I had figured it out at this point: No
matter what happened or what you did, whether you liked what was happening or not,
you just had to go with it. If you didn’t go with it, mother nature would become very
upset with you and change everything it could possibly change to make sure that you
had a bad trip. You just have to believe that everything is happening to your benefit, and
that nothing is going to hurt you or make you unhappy. Anything and everything is
connected, and once I had gotten to the point where everything was making me happy,
it was impossible to start having a bad trip again.
! *this was a point in time that I don’t exactly remember what happened for the
next hour and a half. The next thing that I remember was sitting down around the fire
again.
! Lit cigarette in hand, i asked Nathan “What just happened?”
“We’re back, at least for now. I feel sober.”
“I feel like i’m just taking a break from it all. I understand the drug I think...” I
hesitantly replied.
“I know, we all do now. It should be more fun now!” Nathan spouted back quickly.
! Reed had told us that we would peak later that night, maybe around 9:00 or
10:00. Nathan and I thought that since we had a relative handle on the drugs effects, we
would go for a walk up the cliffside next to our campsite. I don’t know why we thought
this was a good idea, but we did it anyways. The cigarette seemed to bring me back to
reality for several minutes, and I made sure to make a mental note of that. That seemed
to make all of our trips interconnected. Everything that I would experience, Nathan and
Reed seemed to experience as well. This was amazing, because it was as if we were all

10. thinking the same thoughts, and everything we did was somehow linked together. I
didn’t need to explain any of my thoughts in conversation to either of my friends, and
almost felt the ability to “tele-communicate” with both of them. The only thing was that I
just couldn’t do it with both of them at the same time, which was somewhat frustrating.
Frustration again. Does it really ever end? It was almost as if I couldn’t be high with all
three of my friends together... I was only able to really connect with one person at a
time, and when that happened, it was hard to think about my friend that was being left
out of these amazing experiences. I felt very bad; almost shameful that they weren’t
being included. I don’t remember walking up the incredibly steep hill at all, and the next
thing I remember was sitting with Nathan on somewhat of a plateau that overlooked our
campsite. My mind seemed to occasionally temporarily blank, and I wouldn’t remember
certain small things that I would do at all. This scared me for a few moments, but I
began to think about just going with it again. I shook my head and took in the view that
was in front of my eyes. We were camping in a valley, and there was a hill on the other
side that was near as I could tell a mirror image of the hill we were on. There weren’t
enough differences to make my mind think they were different, and I actually thought
there was a huge mirror at the base of the valley. I looked and could make out what I
thought to to be two guys sitting on the hill across the valley, with a large tent and a fire
set up. I blinked and rubbed my eyes, and the hallucination was quickly gone. My life
started to become extremely relative, as I began to think of my life in terms of the
Earth’s life itself. When I thought about it, all I could think about was that there were
most likely other people somewhere on Earth who were also tripping hardcore on this
fabulous drug. And as I felt connected to Nathan and Reed at times, I suddenly felt my

11. mind was connected to these strangers, and their minds connected to mine. This was
one of the strangest feelings I experienced on this trip.
! I asked Nathan how we were supposed to get down this hill because I was
beginning to get a little sick from the height we were sitting at. It wasn’t all that high, but
the distance between myself and the ground seemed to increase every time I had
looked at the ground. I wasn’t going to be able to simply walk down the hill, as I was
experiencing a crazy wave of vertigo. Nathan, I could tell (mostly because of his
“drunken” actions of not being able to stand up without holding on to something, but a
little because I felt our minds to be connected and that we were thinking the same
things at the same time - our minds were one), was right there with me. After a few
minutes of discussion, we had decided to slide down the hill on our feet as close to the
ground as we could the same way we had come up. While terrifying at first, I felt very
good about halfway down the hill. It was actually beginning to become enjoyable, sliding
down the hill on my feet as I dodged the trees that blocked my way. Judging by the
screams of laughter coming from behind me, Nathan seemed to be having a good time
as well. Our distance between each other had grown, however, and I was unable to
have the mental connection with him that we shared at the top of the hill. Geological
distance seemed to play factor in our abilities to have our minds connected. We
managed to make it all the way to the fire, where Reed had been sitting the whole time
(but for some reason he had switched the positions of the chairs from being Nathan,
himself, then me, to Nathan, me, then himself) smoking a bowl out of my bong.
! Reed asked me to pack a bowl, and after I had agreed I let him know that I didn’t
have a huge amount of weed with me. I had a little more that a half eighth, and that

12. would for sure be gone by the night’s end. Reed’s reaction to me telling him that I didn’t
have much weed with me was surprisingly upsetting. I could feel his emotions as he
was disappointed with me, and I suddenly felt extremely unprepared for the night. I
apologized to Reed for not bringing more with me, and that I had to spend most of my
money on gas for my stupid truck, but he still seemed rather unhappy with the amount
of weed I had brought compared to his stash he brought with. I was legitimately sad,
until he said it was okay and reassured me to just have a good time. I wouldn’t be able
to handle this drug without the help of marijuana. The THC seemed to keep me thinking
straight, and I was able to remember that I was only on acid when things turned crazy.
Without the weed, I would’ve for sure questioned reality, and thought that I was sober. I
can’t exactly explain this feeling either, but the closest description that I can give is this.
Without the weed telling me that the crazy things that were happening were all the result
of consuming acid, I would think that those crazy things that were happening weren’t
crazy at all, and that the acid was making me sober from a life of being high all the time.
Because of this effect the drug had on me, I had to smoke more throughout the night or
I started to ramble on about this and it didn’t really make any sense to Reed or Nathan
at the time. So I sat down, shut up, and ripped my bong as hard as I could.
! Because Reed had changed the positioning of the chairs, I was experiencing the
fire on a whole different level. The next half hour or so made me realize how much
better it was to be in the middle of everything that was happening rather that on the
side. I was in between Nathan and Reed, with the fire directly in front of me, and it was
much more enjoyable that when I had been on the outside. Conversation just seemed to
be easier to have, and I preferred this setup much more. Then I realized that this was

13. even true when I wasn’t high. It is always more enjoyable to be, locationally, in the
middle of the conversation that is going on. You feel much more of a part of the
conversation, and really get more out of the situation in my opinion. After coming to all
of these realizations, I came to the conclusion that Reed had experienced this same
thing at some point when he had done acid or another drug before this day, and had
switched the positioning of the chairs on purpose. So that I would be able to experience
this amazing feeling. I told myself that the next time we got up, I would change the chair
positioning once again, so that Nathan’s chair would be in the middle.
! We were sitting around the fire, when it suddenly became boring for me. We had
already been sitting around the fire for maybe and hour and a half, and I didn’t want to
spend my whole acid high just sitting in front of a campfire. I wanted a change in
atmosphere, and at the same time I was thinking this, someone gave the suggestion
that we move this party into the tent. Everyone was in agreement that this would be a
wonderful idea, and that made me wonder if we were all getting to the point where we
could all three have a sense of what i’m going to call, “an acid trip interconnectedness”.
♓
! The tent seemed to have the effect of being bigger on the inside than it looked
like on the outside, which was a very strange feeling. My reality was becoming harder
and harder to control. The effects of the cigarette were wearing off, and the open eyed
visuals were coming back. Hard. I was seeing things move that shouldn’t be moving,
and they all seemed to be moving in a way that made the hallucinations centered

14. around my cot that I had brought to sleep on. I struggled to walk, feeling very
unbalanced and dizzy as my world began to turn upside down. I fell onto my cot, and let
my head hang over the end of the massive bed. Nathan was directly in front of me, and
Reed to my left. I was a foot or two higher than Reed and Nathan, because of my cot,
which was a strange sensation. Reed was aimlessly digging through his bag, seeming
to be somewhat frustrated. There’s that word again. Frustration. He was looking for
something. Nathan and I looked at each other in confusion as Reed continued to dig
through his things. After a few moments, he excitedly pulled out what looked like a
speaker of some sort. Next came an ipod from his pocket, confirming my assumption
that he had just pulled out speakers. Music. I couldn’t even imagine the feeling of
listening to music right now... I knew it would relax me and take my open eye
hallucinations to a completely different level. Music had taken a huge role in my life, and
was very important to me. I could still remember the first song that I ever heard when I
was high, Look At Me Now by Chris Brown. Thinking about this made me extremely
reminiscent of the first time that I had ever smoked weed, and I zoned out for the next
few minutes playing it out in my head.
! It was a monday, and it was a couple hours before the last band concert that I
would ever play at in high school. I would be so high. I was in Nathan’s minivan, with
Nathan in the driver’s seat, Hunter riding shotgun, and Tarek sitting in the captain seat
beside me. We were smoking out of Cliquo, Nathan’s mini-bong, and the smell of freshly
burnt weed had filled the air I was breathing. It was all new to me. Everyone around me
got high, and they got high fast. I, on the other hand, didn’t really feel anything. Yet. We
were driving around, and I remember that I was complaining about not being high, and

15. that smoking weed wasn’t as amazing as they had all claimed for it to be. Nathan was
driving, and explaining that he was so high that he was seeing everything as if his
minivan was traveling at hyper-speed, and all of the stars were turning into white lines
that were zooming by him at an incredibly fast rate. That’s the sort of experience that I
was longing to have. I was skeptical that I was even going to start feeling different at all.
After more complaints had come out of my mouth, Hunter finally started to list off the tell
tale signals of being high, all of which I could associate with. Uncontrollable giggling,
minor coughing, red eyes that were “chink as shit,” and being hungry for everything the
world had to offer. Immediately after he listed them off, I began to feel every single
symptom that he stated to be true for myself (I was still somewhat skeptical, however,
and thought some of the symptoms to be the result of placebo. I thought that simply
having Hunter say these things had made me believe I was truly feeling them). The next
thing I knew, we were parked and everyone seemed to know what what happening next,
judging by the fact that they were all reclining their seats at the same time. I did the
same, not knowing what to expect. Music came on the speakers of Nathan’s minivan,
but I didn’t know what song it was. Today, I know that it was Look At Me Now, and am
glad that this could be my first high song. The part that really grabbed my attention was
Busta Rhyme’s rap that seemed to go faster than I had heard any other human being
speak. After the song was over, I suddenly had a new appreciation for rap, and made
the decision to look into more music later. For now, we needed something to eat (Keep
in mind, because I was thinking about music and remembered the first song I had
listened to while I was high, my first experience being high began to run on playback in
my head, and nothing else around me existed. It was as if I was literally reliving that

16. moment, traveling back in time and everything). Since it was my first time being high, I
was given the privilege of choosing where we would eat. The words that came out of my
mouth next surprised me, not thinking that I would choose McDonald’s. But high me
knew what I wanted, and I was craving it more than any other food I could possibly think
of. We pulled into McDonald’s, and all I remember is eating my food in Nathan’s
minivan, I don’t remember ordering it at all. I do remember what I ordered though: four
cheeseburgers. That’s all. That’s all I wanted. Needed. I took one cheeseburger, and
decided that it wasn’t enough. So I stacked one on top of the other so that I could eat
two at once. It was two inches away from my mouth, getting closer, and I snapped out of
it. I was back on my cot, in my tent, with Nathan and Reed. It slowly started to come
back to me, that I was on acid and not getting high for the first time.
! I suddenly snapped back into reality, thinking to myself that I had never been
able to imagine a past event with such clarity and vividness. I tried to remember what
was happening before I had become lost in my first smoking experience, and
remembered that Reed was going to take his ipod out and play music for the three of
us. I was confused, however, when I looked around and saw that this was not the case.
Reed did take out speakers, but he had ear buds in and was listening to his ipod.
Nathan had gotten his own ipod out and was listening to some Mac Miller and Wiz
Khalifa, artists that made me think back to times that I smoked with Nathan, Hunter, and
Jacob all summer. The overall feeling I had was amazing, and I was tripping hard at
everything that I looked at. I remember specifically looking at the floor of the tent, where
there were tiny little white dots that were dancing around. The dots that seemed to be
two dimensional up against the bottom of the tent, soon began to grow up and out of

17. where the dots were. It was almost as if I was watching plants grow from seeds, only
the plants were growing at hyper speed. The hallucinations seemed to come and go
with the music, growing with intensity as each song would come to it’s climax. I was
filled with an incommunicable feeling of euphoria each time the climax of each song
would arise.
! The last song we were listening to had slowly grown quiet, and Nathan was
looking for a new song to play. I got Reed’s attention and asked him why he was just in
his own world listening to his own music. I felt somewhat hurt by him listening to music
with headphones in, and had lost the interconnectedness I had with him for a few
moments. I remember thinking that we should all be experiencing the same things and
the same stimuli, making our trips more aligned and together. After I had explained this
to him, he told me he was listening to a band called “Wookiefoot,” and that he didn’t
know if Nathan and I would have been able to listen to it. He said that it was just a lot to
handle, especially considering the state of mind we were in. Nathan and I being the
curious people that we are, told Reed that his concern was appreciated, but
unnecessary. I spoke to Reed about the band for a few minutes before I really started to
listen to the sounds and lyrics. I remember Reed mentioning that the way their albums
were set up, was in a way that told a story. To me at first, the way the rhyming and tone
of voice was made, it sounded like something that Dr. Seuss had conjured up. For the
next half hour, we all three lay in my tent listening to Wookiefoot, and I had discovered
my new favorite musical artist. I don’t know why, but it seemed as though I would listen
to a song, and after the song was over I wouldn’t be able to pay attention to the next
one. Instead, I would think in my head about the meanings of the song that I had just

18. heard. This was a strange sensation that I had never been able to successfully do
before this moment. Before this, I could never really understand the meaning of songs
and couldn’t ever really feel the feelings a song wanted me to feel. Comprehending the
underlying message a song is trying to convey is apparently very easy to do while on
acid. Reed was in his sleeping bag, gone with no intention of coming back anytime
soon, and Nathan was staring up the the ceiling of the tent doing the same thing as I
had been doing with the floor. I was in and out of listening to these stories turned into
songs, then we turned the music off for a few minutes and talked.
! We were talking about the songs that each of us tripped the most to, and
strangely, that song was different for each of us. This confused me, because I would
have assumed that with how connected I had felt to both of my friends while we were
listening to music, and how connected I had felt to both of them as my trip had
progressed, we would also trip harder to the same songs as each other. This really
brought a personal connection to the drug for me, and I was almost able to express my
opinions to random things I was thinking, as an individual (this had very little relevance
to anything that was going on around me, and my mind at this point was on auto-pilot
heading straight for a mountain). We soon decided that the tent was a safe zone, and
that If we were ever at any point feeling uncomfortable, we should go into the tent. It
would solve all of our problems. With that, we got up, put our shoes on, and walked out
to the fire.
! It was roughly approaching 6:00 p.m. and we were beginning to get hungry. We
had also realized that our fire had been blazing with a hot intensity while we were in our
tent. I don’t know why, but for some reason it seemed to catch us all by surprise, as if

19. we thought that the fire would stop what it was doing and wait to start up again until we
returned to it. We decided that we needed to go gather more fire wood after we fed the
fire the rest of the wood we had piled up next to it. This was mostly because none of us
had wanted us to run out of wood to keep the fire going when it had gotten dark out. We
would’ve become terrified. We all went in a direction that we believed to contain good
wood for our fire, and we all grabbed a log. Where we walked to was a relatively long
distance away, considering we could’ve simply gotten wood by the base of the hill that
was about twenty feet away. But instead we walked further away, to gather wood we
believed to be better than the rest. To me at least, the thing that happened next was
unexplainable. What would happen was I would grab a log that was relatively large in
size, to the point where I would have a little bit of difficulty carrying it back. This is where
everything started to get weird and confusing. First of all, I seemed to be moving
considerably slower that Nathan and Reed. They were walking back and forth from the
fire, and then to the wood. They were next to each other having conversation the whole
time. I imagine they were having a moment in which their trips were connected, and
were experiencing the same things because of their acid trip interconnectedness. On
top of moving slower, the amount of wood I would carry to the fire, regardless of how full
my arms were, would get smaller and smaller as I would get closer to the fire. I would
start out with an armful of logs that must have weighed a total of fifty pounds, but when I
would reach the fire, I would have a twig in my hand. Not questioning it too much
because i simply wanted to go with it, I went and got more wood. More wood that again
turned out to be only a twig when I approached the fire. I didn’t understand it, and I
stopped trying to after several trips from going where the wood was to the fire. I was

20. bending over to get my last armful of wood, when I noticed that Reed and Nathan
weren’t in my field of vision. I began to panic, as it was becoming more and more dark
out, so I ran back to the fire. Fast. I wasn’t moving slow anymore, and I could feel the
wind against my face. The fire was in sight. I approached the fire, and saw that Reed
and Nathan were sitting in their chairs staring at me. I was extremely relieved, but still
felt more tense and fidgety than ever. Reed held up a lighter to my mouth and lit the
cigarette that was hanging from my lips. “Where did that come from,” I remember
thinking as Reed flicked his lighter close to my face, and held the flame to the end of the
cigarette. I took a puff, and the sky turned bright again. Reality was coming back.
Another puff made all of the wood I brought to the fire grow to its actual size, and
another puff yet made me realize that we had been collecting fire wood for over an hour.
At least, I had been. Nathan and Reed had stopped after about fifteen minutes, when
we had enough fire wood for the rest of the night. When I asked them what had
happened, they both claimed they tried to tell me to sit down and that we had enough
fire wood. I was, for some reason, completely ignoring them both. They said that I was
in a sort of trance like state, and couldn’t hear either of them talking to me. I continued
to gather wood for almost an hour after they had stopped, and they said I was talking to
myself a lot while I was doing it. I don’t remember talking to anybody while I did that,
and it certainly did not feel like an hour. The last hour of my life had felt like it had gone
by in ten or fifteen minutes. Memory recollection had become a huge issue now that i
thought about it. There were many moments in which i just couldn’t remember what had
happened for the last fifteen minutes. The cigarette had brought me back to a complete
and sober reality, but only for a moment. My perception of reality began to grow

21. extremely messed up at this point, and I could feel the effects of the drug continuing to
grow stronger. Nathan had said something to me, and i’m not sure if this is exactly what
he said to me word for word, but it made me think of this: Outside of the tent, reality was
able to change into something that was never experienced by any of us before. Things
changed without us trying to change them, time didn’t work the way it was supposed to,
and if you tried to make sense of something, as soon as you would get close to
understanding it, you would realize that it wasn’t what you thought it was - it would
change into something that made you question the reality you lived in. Nothing made
any sense at all. Inside the tent, however, was a completely different story. You felt safe,
like nothing was going to go wrong. You knew what everything was, but the
hallucinations were present. They were powerful and would completely consume you if
you let yourself go. But they were safe. I never once felt frustrated in the tent. Inside the
tent was fun - what i imagined any hallucinogen to be like. Open eye visuals every
which way you would look without trying, that would turn ordinary things into
extraordinary hallucinations.
! We were hungry. Luckily, we had planned ahead and brought two small camp
stoves with to make dinner. My mom had made beef stroganoff sauce before we had
left, so all we would need to do is heat the sauce up and cook some noodles. Easy
enough, right? Nope. Not when you’re on acid.
♓
! I knew how to use the stoves. I had lit them and cooked with them countless
times before today. I did everything right. I knew I did. I made sure the gas pressure was

22. correct and that the gas was coming out just enough so that you could light it safely. Or
so I thought. I began to think about when I was getting firewood, and how my actual
perception was far from what was actually happening. I was getting too sidetracked. I
snapped out of my off-topic thoughts, and saw a flame by my hands. The stove was on
fire, and i didn’t know what to do. If these types of stoves caught fire, they were
practically ticking time bombs. If any flame had reached the can of propane that was
fueling the stove, there was no telling how big the explosion could be. Would be. All I
knew is that it would be big. I remembered the firewood again, and decided that this
reality wasn’t what was actually happening. My mind just couldn’t control anything, and i
was hallucinating again. As I was thinking this, I jokingly yelled to Nathan, “Look at how
well I can cook,” and Nathan got up from his chair faster than i have ever seen him
move.
“Is that supposed to be on fire like that?” Nathan said, with the most worried tone I
have ever heard.
“What do you mean? isn’t there just a small flame?” I replied in confusion.
Nathan replied with a simple, “No. The stove is on fire.”
! I realized the reality that I had believed to be untrue was, in actuality, my true
reality. Of course the one time I actually go with it. I immediately threw the stove away
from everything, scared that it would actually explode and put us all in an extremely
dangerous situation. Nathan watched what I had done in utter disbelief. Screaming at
me asking why the hell i would’ve ever done such a thing, and if I was retarded, he ran
at the stove and grabbed it. Suddenly I was sober. We all were. There was danger
afoot, and our brain’s natural instincts were able to suppress the drugs’ effects long

23. enough for us to watch Nathan grab the stove and turn it off before anything happened.
I was too scared to operate either of the stoves after this, and we were forced to cook
our food over the fire. Much easier and far less explosive. Within twenty minutes, we
were eating a home cooked meal as the sun set and night began to enter it’s way into
our lives. I’m still not able to operate any kind of a camp stove to this day.
! We took another break from outside. It was getting to be too much. Outside was
where everything that happened somehow made you question what reality really was,
and we went into the tent for almost an hour. I had begun to look forward to the time we
would spend in the tent. It was sheltered, and I could safely lose myself without worrying
about anything bad happening to me, like the possibility of an exploding propane can.
We went outside around 8:00, and gathered around the fire once again. We packed a
few more bowls, and passed the bong around again. And again. We passed it around
until we could physically not smoke anymore because we were coughing so much.
Reed at this point was telling us that we were going to smoke a strain of marijuana with
the name Northern Lights when we our acid trip would peak. Apparently, legend has it
that if the conditions are right, and everything is in your favor, you can legitimately see
the northern lights when you smoke this weed.
! It was approaching 9:00 and I could tell the acid was talking over my body. At this
point, I couldn’t really remember much. For some reason I remember that Reed
convinced Nathan and I that we were in a space ship, and that we were about to take
off (This could’ve happened at any time throughout the night. I know it happened, but I
don’t remember when exactly it happened. It seemed to fit in this spot in the story, so I
put it in here). I remember hearing a countdown from five, and as I heard the number

24. zero come out of Reed’s mouth, we began to take off. We were actually flying, and we
were getting closer and closer to the stars. If I looked at the stars, the feeling of moving
was much more real and intense. If I looked at the ground, however, it was hard to
believe we were actually flying around because we weren’t moving. I quickly moved my
gaze from the ground to the stars, and I was in space again. Soon after this, I jokingly
pretended to throw a ball of energy at Reed. He gave me a very intense stare, and I
could tell this was about to get serious. I sent another ball of energy at him, but he had
time enough to block it. It quickly became a battle of who had the strongest inner
energy, as our energies were combating in between us. At times, Reed’s energy would
be less powerful than mine, but it didn’t take long before the exact opposite was
happening. After an intense make belief energy battle, be both agreed to a truce. I was
wiped out. Doing that had somehow sucked every last bit of energy out of my body, and
I needed a break from everything. I remember specifically taking one rip with my bong,
and having an out of body experience. This was exactly what I didn’t need at the time,
but I wanted it nonetheless. As I inhaled, I flew up and behind my body, and continued
to inhale. After my lungs had expanded to their full capacity and I couldn’t inhale
anymore, I stayed where I was. Looking down at my physical body, I floated. I was no
longer being bound by the physicality of my body, and I felt one with everything that was
around me. If I looked in the sky, i could see the most glorious, picturesque glimpse of
the northern lights. I could see them. I could really see them. It wasn’t a hallucination
either. I could really see them. I’m still not sure if it was the weed, or if it was the out of
body experience. But I saw them. Still floating above my body, I slowly let the smoke
pour out of my mouth but continued looking at the lights in the sky. It was the most

25. euphoric I have ever felt in my life, and I really believe that this moment helped form
who I have become today and the views I have on life. I’m not sure if I was supposed to
have this happen or not, but it happened, and this out of body experience was
extremely life altering. After a few minutes of quiet meditation, I began to fall back into
my physical body, and reality began to take over again. I was sitting by the fire with
Nathan and Reed, plateauing on a drug so intense it had the power to bend reality.
! *The next hour or so was really fuzzy. I kept having these out of body
experiences, and it got to the point where it was almost too much to handle. The last
thing I remember is looking at the stars, thinking out loud that, “somewhere out there, in
some parallel universe, there are three guys doing the exact same thing we are doing.
Tripping balls on a camping trip, and they are realizing that there are three guys tripping
balls doing the same thing that they are doing, in some parallel universe. But that
parallel universe is actually our universe, and those three guys tripping balls are in
actuality, us.” I remember saying this out loud with no response from neither Reed nor
Nathan, thinking to myself that they are just trying to take that all in. After that, I
remember going into the tent, listening to more music, and hearing several coyote howl
outside. The next thing I knew, I was waking up to sunlight fighting it’s way into the tent.
♓
! Nathan was sitting at the fire, and Reed was picking up some trash around where
we were sitting. What had happened the night before? (To be honest, I still don’t really
know for sure). This trip had left me with so many questions, and for a long period of

26. time, i just stayed in my cot trying to wrap my head around everything that had
happened. I was interrupted by Reed, who poked his head in the tent and simply told
me not to even try. I wouldn’t be able to figure it out. This was one of the most frustrating
feelings in the world, because the night before, I felt like I had such a good handle on
what was happening to me. I understood it so well when I was so gone, why couldn’t I
understand it now? Then I sat up and none of it made any sense. I hadn’t even come
down all the way from the drug and I already found myself wanting to be on that level
again. Why wouldn’t I? That one night had effectively changed the way i look at
everything in the world. Imagine what another night like that would do to me. I was both
scared and curious, thinking about what it would be like to go back to that altered state
of a perception based reality. I stood up, left the tent, and sat down by the fire with Reed
and Nathan. We sat there, for easily and hour and a half, silent. Silent in contemplation,
perhaps trying to recall the events of the night before. I found myself once again trying
to understand what the drugs specific effects on my mind and body were, but I honestly
couldn’t come up with anything. In a sentence, it pretty much altered my reality so much
to the point that I couldn’t even function at times.
! It took us about an hour, give or take, to clean up the whole campsite (including
taking the tent down and putting the fire completely out). We packed everything back
into my truck, and i suddenly remembered that I had a phone. Wait, no. I suddenly
realized that Reed, Nathan, and myself were not the only people that existed in the
world. There were other people, that were completely oblivious to what had just
happened in this valley during the last 24 hours. Realizing this made me come to a
bigger realization. I was still really high. I don’t know if it was the acid, or the ridiculous

27. amount of weed that I had smoked the night before. Regardless, i still wasn’t sober, and
I wasn’t sure if anything like what happened last night would happen to me again in my
lifetime. In the back of my head, I was hoping that I wouldn’t have any reality bending
moments like I did so often last night. But at the same time, I wanted to be there again.
Back in that world where nothing mattered except for the trip. Suddenly, I thought in my
head. I had to drive home. I had to drive us all home. And it wasn’t just a block away; it
was about a two and a half hour drive. I honestly didn’t know if I was going to be able to
handle it.. I had heard from others that the comedown from acid was almost more
intense than the drug itself - all you do is think quietly to yourself and consider what
happened to you just recently. And that’s exactly what happened.
! After we had gotten on the road, Nathan had fallen asleep almost immediately in
the back. Reed plugged his ipod into my stereo, and we listened to the songs that we
tripped to in the tent. To my surprise, they didn’t sound any different. In the tent was the
first time I had ever heard any songs by Wookiefoot. Compared to now while i wasn’t
tipping balls, it didn’t sound any different than while i was in the tent tripping on acid.
This was really interesting, and I continued to think about it the rest of the ride home. It
made enough sense. I was introduced to those stimuli while on the drug, and the
connection I had with the music was so strong when there was acid in my system, that I
still felt the attachment and feeling associated with the songs I tripped on. After a while,
as we made our way across the state and became closer to Rochester, I was the only
one still awake. Occasionally, depending on the song and how hard I tripped to it the
night before in the tent, I would trip. I would trip hard. While I was driving. It was weird
though, because it never inhibited my motor skills. I was a flawless driver. It only made

28. me think on the level that I was thinking the night before, and sometimes made reality
seem very... unreal. Coming down while I was driving home came with without a doubt
the longest, and also some of the most influential hours of my life by far. After we got
into Rochester, I dropped off Reed first, then Nathan; making sure they both took all of
their belongings. I parked on the road in front of my house, and unloaded everything out
of my truck into my garage. As soon as I was done I made a b-line to the door leading to
the inside of my house, and from there to the nearest couch possible. For the next two
days, I remember feeling extremely hungover and tired. This is the result of having one
of the most powerful psychedelics enter into your bloodstream.
! It was over. Or was it? For easily three months after I dropped acid in that valley,
I would have flashbacks when I got high. And it wasn’t just me remembering my
experience. I would trip. And I would trip hard. It didn’t seem to stay in my system, but I
would legitimately trip when I would get high for about the next three months. That in
itself was a crazy feeling, setting the actual trip aside. Each time was related in the
sense that they all originated from the moment I did LSD in that valley with my two
friends. However, every time I tripped afterward within these separate flashbacks, they
would each be their own individual trip. Connected, and disconnected, my acid
flashbacks were some of the most confusing highs i’ve ever had. I’m not the same
person that I had once been since I dropped acid, and I don’t think i could ever think
about things the way I used to. The drug seemed to affect every aspect of my brain and
body. It left nothing untouched. Would I still have done it, knowing what I do today? With
the plain and simple answer, yes, my story has come to an end.