AL-LAD

Age: 21

Weight: 125 lbs

Dosage: 200 µg sublingual

Setting: Woods, train tracks, around the city, my apartment

T0:00- Dose the tabs while waiting for a bus so I don’t dose too late. Ride the bus out to my favorite tripping spot- a park out near the river.

T0:25- Feeling the onset while on the bus- everything appears light and shimmery. I get off and walk to my destination, each step light and buoyant as the world seems to fry with colors around me.

T0:44- There are now sparkling stationary visuals in the sky, though they are mostly colorless. I am feeling a slight nausea, it’s certainly manageable though. There is a restless stimulation in my limbs- I have to be up and moving. Sitting still is very uncomfortable.

T1:00- I smoke a joint before getting up to run around in the woods. The forest feels like a big playground, with logs and plants to navigate my way through and climb and jump over. I practice my spatial awareness by mapping the tangled network of trails through the forest in my mind, running through them and retracing them to create a detailed map in my head. There is a large Memorial Day BBQ in the park nearby and the heavy bass of the live DJ resonates constantly through the grey air. The leaves and trees and dirt around me are all moving in a way that makes it appear as they are composed of thousands of little crawling creatures. The restless feeling in my body has given way to a pleasurable dry burn, it’s a warm comfort pressing on me from all sides. I feel absolutely great.

            Running around in the woods, I am stricken by an almost tear-jerking sense of nostalgia and longing. It reminds me of my days as a teenager romping around in the woods with my friends, looking for snakes and making campfires. It must be the smell of the Japanese Knotweed and the mud around me and the towering maple trees above and the dappled sunlight as it filters through the leaves and clouds. I am blissful here and the shifting light locks its fingers around the visuals, creating a most harmonious interplay.

T1:20- I am processing everything calmly, critically, neutrally and very rationally, but still with a twinge of emotion. The same longing and nostalgia crawls all over my mind, but I am approaching that raw emotional state quite rationally- what combination of memories and sensory information is making me feel this way? What is this feeling composed of? Why does this sensory input make me feel this way? I find myself carefully turning everything over in my mind, questioning and rationalizing everything I can. Every moment and every thought feels so profound and worthy of consideration, I feel both irradiated and radiant.

            The visuals are still somewhat faint, they pulse and ripple and are quite flashy. It’s as if the entire world is composed of a gently strobing light. They are not particularly prominent or in my face, they are simply decoration on what so far feels like a very cognitive trip. There are no apparent patterns or structures. I generally just feel warm and friendly, I want to socialize even though the experience continues to climb.

T1:45- I am stricken with a sudden sense of adventure and exploration. I don’t want to wander around familiar woods anymore, I want to set out and discover something new, I want to plunge into the unknown. I decide to follow the freight tracks farther than I ever have before. I feel spacy and cautious- as I wander further and further from people and civilization I begin to realize that anything could be lurking out here, there are not witnesses or anything.  Anyone could do anything to me. I am very on edge. I find a nice rock overlooking the tracks and take a break to perch up there. Anyone could sneak up from behind me and crack my skull or slit my throat and I would be out before I even noticed. One could say that I was being a bit paranoid. I pick up a railroad spike for protection.

            The visuals have become much more apparent now. They are foliate patterns, radiating fronds flashing in green and deep violet. They unfurl and join together to form soft reliefs on every surface, carefully sculpted friezes that adorn the earth and sky. They are striped with light and dark gaussian bands that swing rhythmically through their forms, splashing their contours with color. The bricks and rocks making up the railroad bridges and tunnels and walls around me appear to be sculpted and carved with patterns reminiscent of Mesoamerican structures. It is as though I am amidst ancient ruins, long ago conquered by moss and vines, their brilliant visages timidly peek out.

T2:00- After resting for a bit, I venture further and further into the woods. I am tripping pretty hard now, with the trees surrounding the train tracks forming a pulsing, telescoping tunnel that flashes with alternating peristaltic oscillations of light and dark. The trees come off as sentient in this moment, as if they are watching over me, thinking about me, reacting to me. This idea does not seem too far-fetched when they are mirroring one another and rhythmically pulsing like jellyfish. The whole world is repeating itself around me and all I can think about is how completely wiped out I feel in the midst of this. Everything appears faded and foggy.

            The visuals are still not very colorful, rather they are profound alterations of the world around me that seem to follow some esoteric biological guidelines that dictate the nature of their forms. My thoughts begin racing to accommodate this new paradigm and imagine the possibilities contained within a world where everything follows the self-replicating and self-preserving fundamentals of biology. The sense of the world buzzing with such vitality exudes warmth all around me.

            I feel manic and motivated to explore, it’s this desire to plunge in the unknown, peppered with an anxiety for what I may come upon in doing so. I find a cool swamp in the woods but panic and retreat when I hear footsteps in the distance- who may be all the way out here? I venture further down the tracks, coming upon a big rusty overgrown signaling structure spanning the tracks. I climb up upon it. This is extremely nerve-wracking- I am quite afraid of heights and the wet rickety and rusted ladder covered in vines does not come off as safe. I almost make it to the top before I realize that the catwalk is constructed from rotting wood that would surely not support me, dropping me 30 feet to the train tracks and railroad ballast below. Despite the overall warm numbness in my body and the dizzying sense of vitality, I still manage enough coordination to make it up and down the ladder safely. I suppose I can focus my mind and utilize it competently when I really need to.

           

T3:00- After wandering around aimlessly some more I meet up with my friend/roommate who was visiting the zoo nearby. I encounter a strange silent man who is aimlessly wandering around the tracks on the way back to meet him. He makes me nervous but pays me no attention. I meet my friend and I am eager to explore this realm with him, showing him around like a tour guide.  I am flushed with a sense of competence and pride, a rare confidence that is typically elusive in my life. Socializing feels awkward on my part however- I find myself stumbling over my words and forgetting them mid-sentence. It’s as though the part of my brain responsible for word recall and articulation has become fried and scrambled. I don’t really mind though. I’ve been collecting railroad spikes just for the hell of it and at this point my backpack is weighed down by about 40 pounds of rusted iron. Each step I take is labored. I take him out to the swamp and we hang out there and smoke more cannabis. We make conversation, each word presenting as earnest and intimate and deeply significant, though it really was just normal conversation. Smoking more makes the visuals more apparent- There are evident and bold patterns now, geometric designs interspersed with blocky human faces. They are still not very colorful. My mind is racing less now, it mostly feels worn and burnt out. I feel somewhat slower and I am still struggling with words. We eventually leave, and walking back we encounter that same mysterious man wandering aimlessly around the tracks. He disappears into the woods and I find myself muffled and muzzled by a nervous tension. Nothing comes of it though. We have to navigate down a steep rock face to re-enter civilization. I find myself coordinated and capable of descending it with ease, despite the great burden on my back.

T4:00- We walk to the subway station. My backpack clinks with its load and drags each step behind me. Being in public is manageable and I find it quite easy to ignore most strangers. My roommate and I discuss all variety of things, I do not feel the social confidence or burgeoning empathic energy I get while coming down from most psychedelics, and I at times find myself struggling to make conversation or relate.

5:00- We reach the subway station and I entertain myself with visuals dancing in the tiles and filth on the wall. They are the same fronds, angular and blocky leaf patterns, and faces that I was seeing earlier, though they are fainter now and still quite colorless.

           

T6:00- I arrive home and smoke a blunt with my friends. This does not seem to stir the dust much, it merely impairs me. We laze around for hours. I do not have that sort of sharpness of mind that psychedelics usually grant me- rather I am inhibited in my thoughts and speech. I feel mentally slower and incapable of much. I am burnt out and tired, my attempts at humor or being clever fall flat. The rest of the night is just spent lounging and smoking weed, not really doing or accomplishing much. We watched “The Office” for a while, which was utterly strange to me. I am not really one for sitcoms and seeing one in this state was profoundly odd.

T17:00- I fall asleep now without much issue.

Conclusion: AL-LAD has a distinctive lysergamide warmth in the bodyfeel, like a clinging and pressing numbness from all sides that fills my core with euphoria. The headspace was nostalgic, rational, and analytical, showing therapeutic potential in the mindful and logical approach to emotions. The sensory effects were quite marked, though not overwhelming or particularly unique other than a lack of color. The comedown was not like LSD, it was draining and dull and quite understimulating. Overall it’s an enjoyable substance, the differences between it and LSD are subtle but definitely noticeable for me at least.