A transcription of my first LSD induced experience The night of Nov. 10, 1995 {Editor's post-trip comments appear in brackets} {Subject is a male, 19 years of age, and of above average intelligence and literacy} {Note: Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the guilty.} K, W, D and I dropped acid around 6:30 PM in J's room. D and I wanted to take one hit, because we were very afraid of taking too much. {It was the first time for all of us} K and W were fully convinced that they needed between 2 and 3 hits. Eventually W took 3 hits, K took 2 and a half, and D and I took one and a half. We had asked N. what we should do to prepare for our LSD experience, and he said to put on some sturdy boots and to bring a knapsack because we would be doing some traveling, and left the rest to us. It appeared to be {and was} sound advice. To pass the time until it kicked in, we went down to the TV lounge and began flipping through channels, to find something interesting. We began watching some early eighties movie about high school, called _Three O'Clock High_. It was a fairly absurd movie, about some school newspaper reporter geek who was going to do a newspaper article on a new transfer student, who was some kind of punk that had been kicked out of other high schools for fights and drug abuse (leather jacket, long hair, switchblade, etc.). The plot was that the newspaper reporter accidently touched the ruffian's jacket, not knowing that the tough had a reputation built on kicking the shit out of anyone who touches his leather jacket. The movie was fairly amusing, but on the whole it had not much to do with the over-all direction of our trip. When we were about the first hour into the movie, the LSD began to affect us. We were all very giggly and hyper, and were amused to no end by the movie. We laughed and laughed and laughed and essentially used a whole lot of energy in the form of laughter. D and I were absolutely entranced by the movie, and our full attention was focued on the movie and the humor it brought us; W and K, however, seemed to be not as fully into the movie as we were. W became very, very hyper during the movie and began moving his legs and feet back and forth violently, and kept commenting on how his legs were fluctating between 2 inches and four miles long. D and I were mildly annoyed by his extreme hyperactivity because it took some of our attention away from the movie. At one point in time during the movie, some people came in wanting to watch _The Simpsons_, and were not happy about having to miss _The Simpsons_ because we were watching some early eighties movie. At that time I felt very threatened by them (I found out later that D felt threatened also). Fortunately they left and did not push the issue, because looking back now I know that I would have become *very* violently emotional if they had attempted to turn off the movie. {Especially since this was about a half an hour before the peak of the speedy, amphetamine like effects of the LSD} Eventually the movie ended and then, for D and I, the speedy effects began to peak. W and K were outside smoking cigarrettes, and D and I went outside in out traveling clothes, and were waiting for them to finish smoking cigarrettes and began traveling. All of us were going to walk over to C's place together. D and I were absurdly hyper-active, and D began running around and doing forward rolls, and I was jumping around. D and I began to dance on the front steps of our dorm. It began to rain, and D and I stayed out in the rain, while W and K went inside with John. {John is the tripper whose story appears here, titled, _all I can say is, Star Wars relates to absolutely everything_. John was "babysitting" all of us, as it was the first time for all 4 of us.} D and I thought that they were going to get their coats on, but they were really up smoking some weed. It seemed like we waited for them forever, and we were really hyper to start traveling, so we decided to go walk to a stop sign that we could see the front steps from, and then walk back. When we got to the intersection where the stop sign was, {in a queit residential neighborhood} D and I both noticed the the first psychedelic effects (versus amphetamine effects) of the LSD. {This intersection is referred to hereafther as "The Purple Place"} We both noticed that the sky appeared intensely purple. (at the time we did not know it, but this was the most important and defining event of our trip) We were very excited about seeing the purple sky, and we decided that we would just forget about W and K and proceed over to C's place, and meet them there. We went past the row of Frat Houses that lines the street to campus. We crossed the street and walked out onto the grassy mall. The mall is surrounded by dorms and classroom buildings. We then turned our attention to a freshman dorm, Smith Hall. {All the figures in this account were section-mates in Smith Hall during their freshman year} We saw some psychedelic lights coming from O's old room, and we went to check them out. We knocked on the door, but nobody was home. We started walking around Section A. {our old section} We tripped out on our old Resident Advisor's door, since he had all these strange jungle pictures, and we both noticed our clothes were wet, and we were both hot and steamy and it was really hot inside Smith Hall. (this strangely did not affect the direction our trip took) I saw Bob {Freshman} as he was leaving, and he could tell that we were fucked up, because we were acting really weird. I told him we were on acid, and then he left with his friends. D and I then left Smith, when we saw M, D's girlfriend, by the front door. She was working in the Smith dining hall. They were all cleaning up from a formal dinner they gave for some foundation that had given money to the college. We talked to M and told her that we would be at C's place. We then went outside, and a lot of people, apparently from the dinner, passed us. They were all wearing name tags, which D and I thought was really funny. We mocked them as they walked past us. Then we started walking across the grassy mall, and were again tripping out on the purple sky, when we saw this strange green light in front of the Hall for Social Sciences, where there is a security phone. At the time this was of no significance to us, but this was the first time we noticed the color green, which was to play a major role in the rest of our trip. Shortly thereafter, we found a faculty name tag for "J.D." We guessed he was from the dinner, and this was very amusing to us. On the rest of the way to C's house, we role-played. Our premise was that we were faculty members, discussing this strange new phenomenon of the purple sky. We role-played that we were going to give a talk over in Smith Hall, that we were going to be speakers at some formal dinner there, and we were trying to get more grant money for further research. (so we can get more ACID) We got to C's house, and continued our role-play in his presence, and we all had some laughs about the purple sky theory. In the living room of C's flat, we saw Dave Mustaine (no relation), and N., both drinking beer. C was drinking with them, and there was some strange music playing in the background. D and I ceased the role-play, and then we began to notice that the room was not purple, like the purple sky outside, but instead it was primarily green. We heard Dave talk about the video game "frogger," and noticed that that everyone in the room was wearing a green shirt. N, C,. Rick, Dave, and Dave's Girlfriend Gabrielle were all primarily wearing green. D and I began to leave the room to conduct some more research. As we walked downstairs, we saw M, {D's girlfriend} who was also wearing green. {a green sweatshirt} We talked to M, and were fascinated with her purple earrings. We took her back up the stairs, where she started drinking beer with Dave and C. D and I began to notice that the whole room was becoming intensely green. (primarily meaning that we noticed green over all the other colors) Everyone in the room was drinking Moosehead, which is in green bottles, and the bottles were intense green, everybodies' clothing was green, the couch was green, C's psychedelic poster above his phone was intensely green, D noticed that C's Ministry poster was intensely green, and we didn't notice anything but the color green because the intensity of the color was so *strong*. Rick (who was also at C's, hitherto unnoticed) asked D if he could see distortions or shape changes in pictures, but neither of us saw anything change, the only things we could see were the colors and intensity of the colors of things. Then Dave asked D if he could see the face in one of his drawings. We could not see any face but the obvious face on his H.R. Giger {the alien drawin' dude} calender, which everybody could see. D said, "I can't see any face, it's just FUCKING GREEN!" At this point we were becoming frustrated and fairly angry, and the room just kept on getting more and more intensely green. I walked over to where D was talking to M., and we started talking about how FUCKING GREEN the room was! We started losing our shit, and we began talking louder and louder. I held up a two-liter Sprite (R) bottle to show D the intensely green color, and we noticed that the color was why we were becoming nervous and angry. D yelled, "You want to know what our problem is, *THIS* is our fucking problem!" while pointing at the color of the Sprite (R) bottle. We then left the room, and ran away from C's place, out onto the grassy mall. We both felt very violent as we walked outside, and talked about how we were on the verge of breaking shit. However, after we got outside, we noticed the intense purple sky again, and it calmed us down. D lay down on a bridge crossing a stream and stared at the purple sky. We did not understand what was going on. When we walked in front of a women's dorm, we found a purple sign that said, "Womyn's Connection: Gender Education." It was here that we realized that colors could change our mood violently. We then talked about how the colors were changing. For about an hour we walked up and down a street and looked at colors and cars and things, and we noticed that colors were changing our moods. We also began to notice that sound and time could influence the colors, which then influenced our moods. We then picked up the faculty member role play. What we came up with, we call the "Primitive Color Axis Theory" We thought of color as an axis, which can have any angle in three-space, and that at certain orientations the axis would describer the color of events that we saw and experienced as we walked around. {essentially a color axis versus a displacement axis. [whatever that means. Ed.]} We then discovered that sound could affect our perception of color as well, and noticed that sounds could affect the color axis. An example of this was the random and intense noise of C's living room, when it was intensely green. The sound of the room made the green color more intense, and from there we created the idea of a sound axis that affects the color axis. In a similar way, we discussed time and realized how thinking about time intervals could change our perception of color, as well. {A simpler way of thinking about it is this: A memory of a time period earlier in the trip could change the perception of color that they were seeing in the present. ed.} For example, when we remembered how C's room had been intensely green and how green made us feel then, we became irritable and angry in the present, and began to see predominantly green colors. From this we created the idea of a time axis, which could affect the orientation in three-space of the color axis. We sort of solidified this theory a little bit, and also remembered that we coldn't see the purple sky from the window of C's living room. We decided to walk back to C's house. We brought the purple sign we found, to see if bringing a little bit of purple could make the room tolerable. When we got back to C's place, they were watching _Army of Darkness_, and the room was no longer green, it was purple. However, it was not purple because of the purple sign we brought along. We kow this due to the fact that we tried putting the sign outside of the door. The room remained purple. {They hung onto it anyway, as a kind of security blanket. ed.} Then we tried to explain our "Axis Theory" to C., although he did not understand. In trying to explain the theory to him, we solidified it. C became sort of green as he became impatient with us to explain out theories. We tried to explain in ways he could better understand, but it only frustrated all three of us, and he became quite green, as the rest of the room remained purple. Joel appeared {another mutual friend} and he listened intently to us trying to explain our theories, and seriously attempted to understand what we were saying on our own terms. That his to say, he tried to grasp what we said without asking for further explanations. We were very, very comfortable around him, and later D and I agreed that he was by far the purple'est purple dude of the entire night. It was in fact very strange how Purple Joel was- He had a green beer bottle, (just like the rest of them) but it was glowing purple just like the sky. D and I finalized the "Axis Theory" as we sat in C's living room. We sat in the corner talking by ourselves as other people watched the movie. The "Axis Theory" is really what we used to explain how color was changing during our trip. Understanding this, it allowed us to control our trip, instead of having it uncontrolled. We realized that motions in the physical plane did not effect color, so we replaced the displacement axis in 3-space with an emotional axis. From this we visualized four axis- Color, Emotion, Sound, and Time. During our trip, a motion {change in 3-space orientation} in one of these axis would affect all the other axis, and that all the axis interacted. There now follows a catalogue of the ways in which the Axis effect one another. Color Affecting Sound: When we were in C's room the first time, the room was very green, and the sounds in the room alsxo became very annoying and irritating to us. The green intensified the sounds we did not want to hear, intensifying them to such a degree that they became "Green Sounds." These sounds included the annoying music, and the buzz of other conversations. When we were in C's room the second time, it was purple. We noticed that we could easily tune out the loud sounds from _Army Of Darkness_, {C has a home theater system. it rocks. ed.} instead of flipping out on them. We both knew the movie backwards and forwards, and the purple room made the sounds appear as purple and sooting, rather than green and annoying. Color Affecting Time: We went into downtown Tucson, and we saw a bank that was intensely green, we tripped back in time and remembered the "green intensity" of C's living room. Color Affecting Emotion Obviously the intense green color of C's room made us feel negative, our frustrations with C for not understanding, our fear and irritable behavior made green more intense. Sound Affecting Color: The loud noise and music in the room intensified the green colors. Later, any startling, loud, or "out-of-place" noises were referred to as "green sounds." Sound Affecting Time: When we were in downtown Tucson any loud truck would make me trip back in time and see the intense green of C's room. Sound Affecting Emotion: The green noises like large trucks and loud noisy music made us irritable and violently emotional. Conversely, the soft constant sound of the rain was a very purple noise, very soothing and mellowing. Time Affecting Color: Later in the evening, we were able to withstand areas of intense green color by thinking about times other than the present when things were purple. Late at night the halls in our dorm are lit only by green exits signs, {our dorm is a very spooky old house. ed.} but we passed through them by not thinking about the present. The hallways then appeared purple. Time affecting Sound: {Curiously, R did not include a discription of this. We must conclude that these effects would only become apparrent at a higher dosage, or not at all. This is the only sticking point in the theory. ed.} Time Affecting Emotion: D and I would become quite irritable and angry merely by remembering any "green time." Emotion Affecting Color: When D and I were particularly mellow, we could look at things which we knew would appear green under normal circumstances, {outside the confines of the trip} but they would nonetheless appear purple to us. Emotion Affecting Sound: When we were in C's room the second time, when it was purple, the loud noises from the movie did not affect me at all. Emotion Affecting Time Time would seem to pass slower when we were angry, or irritable, that is, in the presence of green. Time would go faster when we were mellow, or in the presence of purple. The time in C's lving room was only about 10 minutes objectively, when it was intensely green, but to D and I, it seem like two hours. Conversely, we stared at the purple sky for objective hours (in the purple place), but to D and I, it seemed like no time at all. ***Narrative resumes here*** The "The Axis" theory provided us with an understanding of how color was changing in our trip, so we could control our trip and have fun without the fear of having uncontrollable "stimulus-response" reactions to green color. We also understood that our trip was much different than K and W's trip, and it appeared to be bad for us to talk to one another. K and W appeared at C's house for a while, and they were very green to us. They were severely harshing our mellow. D and I saw our trip as unfolding as a series of events, and the events that D and I shared deterministicly forced our trip to be about color. These shared events include seeing the purple sky, the role play about the purple sky, notice the intense green overload in C's place, etc. I believe that we had very similar trips because we kept communicating so much. The only really remarkable thing that occured in C's room the first time was that Dave Mustaine (no relation) wanted us to talk to a friend of his from ASU, and we did not want to, because the phone has a flashing green light on it, and he kept putting it in our faces. I had uncontrollable thoughts of rage and destruction as I thought about grabbing the phone and bashing it to pieces with a chair. Dave was the most green right then of anybody all night. We almost lost our shit right then, but we stared at the purple sign we brought in, ignored him, and listened the purple "mellow" sounds of the movie and we returned to purple mellowness. Eventually we left C's place, and walked back to the grassy mall. Two people were walking towards us, and I saw that it was my friend Alex, and a girl I could not make out from a distance. As they walked past us, I *distinctly* saw Allison Jones' face and long hair. After they passed us, however, Derek commented on how he knew that girl from his Japanese History class, and I looked back. I saw a girl with very short hair and who looked unlike Allison. That was my only definite "hallucination" of the entire night. As we were on our way to the grassy mall, we had an intense purple sky trip, and we later saw people kissing by the water fountain, and drunk people laying on each other on the mall. We tripped on the sky for a while longer, talked briefly to Aaron Brady, who was a very purple dude. We then walked into downtown Tucson. As we walked into downtown, our backs began to hurt, but we didn't stop walking, or even slow down very much. All the brightly lit signs in downtown made us notice other colors as well. We saw blinking yellow and red traffic lights, and an intensely yellow Subway (r) sign. We then noticed that the complimentary colors of purple and green have the same effects of green and purple themselves. Yellow was pleasant and happy, while red made us angry and irritable. It seemed that yellow was more happy than purple was, purple was just really mellow; however, we could notice no difference between red and green. Blue and Orange did not affect us at all- It was as if they did not exist. We had never realized the complimentary color scheme before, because we had never (before in this evening) been exposed to bright red or bright yellow colors. With this knowledge we remembered that C's _Apocalypse Now_ poster was intensely red. We walked past a dress shop, and almost lost our shit on an intensely red dress. Similarly, when a person in a red truck in a red hat parked near us, we felt afraid. By this time we had become thirsty, so we stopped at a Pepsi (r) machine. We were elated to see that they had Grape Slice (r) and each bought three cans. We now had a purple beverage as well as our purple sign to mellow us out and protect us if there was trouble. {Grape Slice is now referred to as "The Purple Elixer of Life," Or less formally, "Elixer".} After purchasing the Elixer, we walked around for a while, and eventually returned to C's place. At night, a green light shone in the front room, cast from the digital readout of various electric devices. It was very scary- we almost didn't make it down the hallway to C's room. Nobody was in the living room, so we hung out on the sofa for a while, resting our backs. Eventually, C came home, and we talked with him for a while. He was a seriously purple dude at this time. Finally we had to leave, so we psyched ourselves up, to walk down the hallway again. When we went out in the hall, the readouts had ceased to be green. They now appeared purple, due to the fact that we had prepped ourselves into purple mellowness for the walk down the hall. As we were walking across the grassy mall, heading back towards our dorm, we tripped out on the purple sky. We both saw a face in the clouds, {probably because C had mentioned how he liked to look at patterns when tripping. ed.} D and I did not want to see this face, so we did not concentrate on it. We only wanted to concentrate on colors, so seeing shapes and faces frightened us. We continued walking, and found ourselves in the intersection where we had first noticed the purple sky. {"The Purple Place" in the original manuscript, I paraphrased for clarity. ed.} We stood in the purple place for two hours in the rain, just mellowing on the purple sky and the rain's purple sound. Once there must have been a flash of lightening, because D and I bpth saw it, and I doubt we could have simultaneous hallucinations of the same thing. {If this is so, how could they have had the same trip? A flaw in the theory or just the first intimation of a new development? Stay tuned for the next issue! ed.} Several people that we knew walked past, and they we all seriously purple as well. We then went back to our dorm, and hung out in the lounge resting our backs. After a while we came down and W showed up. We shared our trips, and went to bed around 7 A.M. {the next day, they all noted that though they went to bed at 7, they had trouble falling asleep. This side-effect is covered in the LSD faq here at paranoia.com. ed.}