The Mirror Shattered: A LSD Trip Report

I took 500 micrograms of LSD alone in my apartment. I had taken 100mcg many times and found it manageable. I was curious about the higher dose. I was not prepared.

For the first 2 hours, it was beautiful — colors, patterns, music sounding like it was being played inside my skull. Then, without warning, the self that was observing the beauty collapsed. There was no observer. There was no one having the experience. There was just the experience — raw, unmediated, infinite. I do not have words for what this was like. It was not frightening, because there was no one to be frightened. It was not blissful, because there was no one to be blissful. It just was, in a way that made the ordinary state of consciousness feel like a narrow, defensive crouch.

I came back over 8 hours. The return was hard. The self reassembled, but it did not fit the same way. For 6 months, I felt like a stranger in my own life — not depressed, but disoriented. I had seen too much. Therapy helped. Meditation helped. Time helped. At a year, I felt integrated — not the same person I was before, but someone I recognized. The experience was the most important thing that has ever happened to me. I would not recommend it to anyone. It is not a recreational dose. It is a dismantling, and you should only do it if you are willing to be dismantled.