The Lsd Drug

The LSD “trip” is a complex interaction of many factors, but the crucial variables that influence the effects and duration of the “trip” are set and setting.
An LSD “trip” is characterised by: • Emotional lability: from euphoria to despair and back; cascading emotions and emergence of repressed material; subsequent “flooding” of consciousness • Distortion in chronicity (time): merging of past, present and future • Wave-like sensations of perceptual change • Visual pseudo-hallucinations (LSD doesn’t generally produce ‘true hallucinations’ as the user maintains an observing ago and awareness that perceptions and effects are drug-induced and ego-alien.) • Visual pseudo-illusions, e.g. objects melting into each other • Dramatic and rapid alteration of colours and shapes, in particular synaesthesia (crossing over of sensory input, such that colours are ‘felt’ and sounds are ‘seen’) • ‘trailing’ phenomena: images remaining as an object moves through the user’s visual field; and ‘after images’: a halo around an object or a shadow remaining after the object has been removed • Hyperacusis (abnormal keenness of hearing) • Macropsia (objects appearing larger) and micropsia (objects appearing smaller) • Body image distortion: parts of the body appearing larger, smaller, shrinking or non-existent • Diffusion of ego and body boundaries • Increased hyper-suggestibility and distractibility, due in part to dissolution of critical ego functions • Feelings of hyper-empathy with others, which may be followed by intense feelings of psychic and existential isolation • Panic attacks • Changes in subjective sense of time and place • Depersonalisation and derealisation • Temporary loss of insight and ‘observing’ ego • Alterations in reality testing: an incapacity to distinguish between internal and external world • Increased fantasy production • Diffusion of experience into feelings of ‘oneness’ with the world and cosmos • Speculative concern with mysteries of Being (ontology) and meaning

The LSD “trip” timeline
Onset: Euphoria (approximately 30 minutes) Colours appear delineated and moving objects start to ‘trail’.
The Sensory Perceptual Plateau (1-2 hours) Development of more intense effects, and, in rare cases, terrifying true hallucinations which may induce psychosis.
The Psychic Peak (1-3 hours) Collapse of chronicity (time); profound feelings f cosmic unity and ego dissolution, which may be perceived as life-changing and illuminating or as life-threatening and anxiety-inducing.
The come down (3-8 hours) Sensation subside and the “trip” is usually over.
Come-down may last up to 2-3 days. Insomnia, lethargy, body and muscle aches, fatigue and depression are commonly reported although effects are highly individual and variable in intensity and scope.
The LSD ‘trip’ is often reported to be ineffable-unable to be described by language. Despite or because of this apparent limitation, however, persistent attempts are made at such description.