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		 &lt;td width=&quot;90&quot; align=&quot;right&quot;&gt;DOSE:&lt;br&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
		 &lt;td width=&quot;90&quot; class=&quot;dosechart-amount&quot; align=&quot;center&quot;&gt;3 hits&lt;/td&gt;
		 &lt;td class=&quot;dosechart-method&quot; align=&quot;center&quot;&gt;oral&lt;/td&gt;
		 &lt;td class=&quot;dosechart-substance&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;/chemicals/lsd/&quot;&gt;LSD&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
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&lt;!-- Start Body --&gt;
It’s not easy to be a psychedelic. Put yourself in their shoes (shoes???) for a moment and reflect on your situation: On one side, you have adherents claiming that you are the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge, while your detractors argue that you merely imitate states of psychosis and that your so-called revelations are flimsy ideas that fade within a day or so. I recently had to listen to someone rehash the later opinion, and I was forced to bite my tongue before it lashed out like a mother bear barreling to the defense of her cubs. So I conserved my energy and decided to defend psychedelics through this more neutral avenue. There are two points in particular that I need to focus on:
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1) Yes, you can have that one trip from which you never return (as long as you do things right afterwards).
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2) The benefits of psychedelics are far-reaching, long-lasting, and potentially life and world changing.
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It may seem that I am a little too fired up about this, so it&#x27;ll probably help if I explain why that&#x27;s the case. Without psychedelics (and MDMA and marijuana), I would still be a depressed, neurotic, scared little boy who&#x27;s afraid of himself and the world. In all honesty, I would’ve been dead at my own hands. This subject could easily get me off topic (for instance, writing about how the drugs merely were catalysts for my own brain to bring on these changes) so let me try to stay within the lines that I’ve laid out for myself.
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I will never forget my first trip that started everything....So close your eyes for a second and............no, bad idea, keep them open and keep reading........so just picture this: It&#x27;s the fall of &#x27;04, and I&#x27;m at my first festival, seeing Phish&#x27;s last show up in Coventry, VT. I had to get through hell just to arrive. Sitting in traffic for over 30 hours with the most brain-dead people on the planet tested my patience beyond its limits, and when they ended up trying to find a different way in (when every source insisted that there was only one route) I jumped out of the VW bus (cuz, Yeah man, like we&#x27;re hippies and stuff cuz we smoke pot all the time and drive a VW) and prepared for whatever may lay in store. 
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I had also gone through emotional hell over a longer period of time. I was a dreamer and a seeker, like so many others on spaceship Earth, looking for answers to those never-ending questions that being alive poses to an inquiring mind: Who am I? What am I doing with my life? But the most vexing question of all, was always, Why? Why am I alive? Why is there something rather than nothing? Why this? Why that? Why? Why? Why? This line of questioning led to the biggest mind-ache of all, because all conventional avenues for its answers were unsatisfying to me. Asking, “Why?” doesn’t fall within the empirical range of science, and despite a lot of searching, conventional religion offered absolutely nothing satisfying, only simplistic and false crutches to lean upon. 
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Up to this point, I had experimented with marijuana and mushrooms, but they hadn’t provided that mystical insight that I was searching for. From the various sources that I had read, LSD seemed to be the substance that could potentially take me to where I wanted to go. I bought my first dose from a woman named Jane. I can’t remember any detail about her physically, except that her pupils were dilated like eclipsed moons. She was flying on the white on white blotter tabs that she was selling, and seeing her ecstatic look caused excitement to brew up within me. Once she found out that this was going to be my first experience with LSD, her energy intensified, and with a beatific smile, she dropped three hits under my yearning tongue. At the time, I couldn’t understand why she was so excited to dose me, but I can clearly see it now: she knew the doors it was going to open and she was making it happen. That’s quite a special feeing for a human to experience.
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The first couple hours of the trip were interesting, but uneventful. Earlier that day, I had run into the people I abandoned earlier, and knowing that I needed a ride home, I quickly made my amends with offers of the drugs that I had procured. So I met back up with them and went to an ATM to get $500, with which I could buy an entire sheet from Jane. The diesel-powered lights were otherworldly, and as I looked away from them, a massive mandala appeared before my eyes. ‘Holy shit, it’s working!’ We hitched a ride on the back of a pickup truck, and it was such an adventure. 
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Time was losing all meaning. I tried to express this, but no one understood what I was saying, and this disconnection made me keep my mouth shut for a bit. Once we got back to our campsite, one of them walked with me to the general direction where I found Jane earlier. I quickly realized that in my altered state of mind, I would never find her. But I was hearing something that I never heard before and I ran to the source of it, assuring my companion that I would be fine alone. It was not just music that I was hearing; it was pure mystical truth being channeled through trancey beats, swirling guitar solos and bouncing bass lines. 
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Before this night, I had always been unable to dance, due to unfounded worries about how stupid I might look to others watching. But without the slightest hesitation, I found my body moving to the sounds of Umelt. It felt like I was under a spell from a source beyond and much greater than myself (which it undoubtably was). I let go of my petty ego and all its fears. Once that happened, insights flashed through my mind at a kaleidoscopic pace. Each crash of the cymbal brought new revelations. Contradictions resolved themselves into formless unity. I wanted to grab the mic and shout, “This is the moment poets write about! This is why we’re alive!” But fortunately I had some sense of social normalcy, and that potentially awkward situation was avoided.
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A couple of endless hours later, the show ended and I made my way back to my tent. Avoiding a wandering spunion who offered two rolls if I let him sleep in my tent (he was too fucked up to find his), I washed up at a public faucet. Purple hues on the wood panel in front of me came alive, and I was dancing to music inside my head. I laughed at myself and laid down inside my tent. The visuals were all very sexual. Everything was connected to each other, and there was so much sucking and sharing of energy. Fighting off the paranoid thoughts of people trying to come into my tent, I somehow fell into a deep sleep. 
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I woke up early, and excitedly ran over to my companions to try to tell them about my night. I tried to relate what happened, but they didn’t understand. Saying that “I’ll never be the same!” only elicited a response of, “That’s bomb, man.” I started talking to a neighbor who was sitting inside his car and he knew exactly what I was trying to convey. On LSD, “You can understand life”, he said to me. I practically jumped for joy! ‘This happens to other people too! So it’s got to be real!’ But, a wandering drug dealer offering multiple chemicals shifted my attention, and that’s where I can probably end my account of that night.
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No, things did not change instantly. I went back home and life returned to normal. Soon enough, I was still the same unhappy person that I had always been. But it is not possible to revolutionize yourself after one trip. At the very least, it opened up the path for me, revealing that, yes, there are answers out there. But they’re not to be found in any established philosophy or religion, for it’s inside of all of us, and we just need to find the right way to bring it out. Without that trip, my hopeless outlook on life would’ve never ceased. I would’ve soon gave up on finding any answers, and at the heartbreak of the pointlessness of existence, I would have killed myself. That trip allowed me to open up to the mystery and wonder of the universe. Questions such as Why? lost their importance. I saw that there is no reason for anything. No divine plan behind our lives - they just ARE, and that’s the whole beauty of it.
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Nothing has ever been the same since that trip. The way I experience Life on a daily basis was forever altered. My appreciation and the pure joy I experience from being alive can not be put into words. But let me quickly try: the way that I can look at a two-inch crystal and see a mountain chain, or my desire to transform myself and the world, or the way a certain woman can bring tears of joy to my eyes at the very thought of her, all of these and countless others are directly due to the influence of psychedelics.
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To all the dreamers out there, let me say this: Close that book. Then, open your mind because all the answers you seek are already within you. You just have to be silent enough to hear it. Because only then will you be able to devour the voice of God.&lt;!-- End Body --&gt;
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&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td width=&quot;700&quot;&gt;Exp Year: 2004&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td width=&quot;90&quot;&gt;ExpID: 76922&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;Gender: Male&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt; &lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;Age at time of experience: Not Given&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt; &lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;Published: Jun 23, 2010&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;Views: 13,635&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td colspan=&quot;2&quot; align=&quot;center&quot;&gt;[ &lt;a href=&quot;exp.php?ID=76922&amp;amp;format=pdf&quot; type=&quot;text/pdf&quot;&gt;View as PDF (for printing)&lt;/a&gt; ] [ &lt;a href=&quot;exp_pdf.php?ID=76922&amp;amp;format=latex&quot;&gt;View as LaTeX (for geeks)&lt;/a&gt; ]
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&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td colspan=&quot;2&quot;&gt;LSD (2) : Therapeutic Intent or Outcome (49), Mystical Experiences (9), Festival / Lg. Crowd (24)&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
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