Sometimes, the hardest part about taking LSD is finding LSD in the first place. I’ve lost count how many hours and sometimes entire weekends I wasted just trying to track down a solid source. A few times, I (or a friend of mine) would “score” only for us to later figure out 2 hours into an attempt to fry that we were sold “bunk shit”. After all, blotter paper looks the damn same regardless of LSD actually being present. Really good acid tingles on your tongue, and if it almost stings then you know you’re in for a solid ride.

I was fortunate one night when a co-worker (and high school friend) of mine asked if I wanted some liquid LSD. I’d only ever heard of liquid acid, but never tried it. That shit was nearly impossible to find. I actually thought he might be fucking with me. He said “no, no, man. I’ve got some great shit. Really strong. Cheap, too. $3 a hit”. That’s $2 cheaper than blotter acid, so how could I resist? He gave me his pager number and told me to page him over the weekend if I was interested.

When I paged him, we made a plan to meet up in the covered parking lot of Paradise Valley Mall. I told him I wanted $20 worth, since 2 hits per the 3 dudes (me and 2 of my friends) would probably work out nicely. When he got out of his car, he said “I just dropped some liquid and Apple Jacks into a bag and shook it around. These things are coated in it”. He then sealed the AJs in tin foil and that’s what he handed me — a tin foil chunk of Apple Jacks. Presumably heavily fortified in LSD. Part of a balanced breakfast. He ended up giving me 10 AJs, which we split up 3 ways and then my friend Trevor and I split the leftover AJ into halves. That’s a lot of acid, but it’s liquid so I don’t know how much. I estimated we each took the equivalent of 10 hits, based only on how fucked up we got.

It was me, Trevor, and Madt¹ at Madt’s new apartment. He had a roommate that was an old high school friend of his. A large German woman (who, when she was drunk, only spoke German but otherwise spoke perfect english). Let’s call her “Hilda” for this story. After Madt, Trevor, and I ate our Apple Jacks, we smoked some weed and went into Madt’s room to listen to Marilyn Manson remixes (great LSD jams, those) under the glow of his blacklight. Since Madt had just moved into this place about a month prior, he hadn’t quite decorated yet. But, he bought those glow in the dark star stickers, which came with a huge glow in the dark moon sticker, which Madt hadn’t yet put up so we could carry around it around with us. The moon was about 150% larger than a standard basketball (but, 2D and flat, cause it’s a sticker).

Since we were already high out of our minds, we weren’t really sure if the acid had kicked in. Trevor was fixated on that moon, holding it in his hands near his lap and just staring down at it. Madt and I got curious, and walked (err.. crawled) over to him to take a closer look. That’s when we all realized the acid had kicked in. The moon, with all of its craters and indents, was a hive of activity. It was like a river of little creatures going about their day. Unlike past acid trips where I had to stare at something and it would sort of move, this was moving even in my peripheral. Even if I closed my eyes, I’d see them moving as soon as they opened again. There was one spot where it looked like there was a 3-headed wolf sitting on a cliff, eating an opium plant in front of it (or them, I guess). All three of us saw it, and we ran commentary “look at ’em go!” – “those fucking things are LOVING that opium plant!” – “duuude those wolves are gonna be SO high”.

After an indeterminate amount of time, we wandered out into the living room. Hilda was drinking alone, so she didn’t really care that we dimmed the lights to just hang out and listen to more music in a larger area, with more seating. Since we were all in a band together, there was a lot of bonding and talking of the future, and even some songwriting cause Madt brought his bass guitar out for a bit to work on some riffs while Trevor made noises and I moaned half-assed lyrics. None of this was ever written down or recorded, so I have no memory of what that sounded like.

At one point, Hilda drunkenly said “I have to make some calls. Try not to be too loud”. Her eyes were barely open, she was just holding a phone with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, occasionally knocking back another beer, and moaning. Madt explained “she’s a phone-sex operator”. Every now and again, she’d sort-of “wake up” and be a little more vocal with a client on the line, which is a funny sight to see. *snore* *snore* “OH! Uuuuh…. oooohh…. lick my pussy.. yeahhh yeahhh…” and then she’d zonk out again. We mostly ignored her and just stared at the ceiling and half-whispered, occasionally wandering into our own little trips in our minds. All to the backdrop of a shitfaced drunk half-German woman moaning fake orgasms to lonely men on the other end of a line at 3am on a summer night.

We heard children screaming at one point. It sounded like playing, then someone genuinely being hurt, then laughing and quiet. This ebbed and flowed on and off over the course of about 20 minutes. Finally, we sent Madt to investigate. As soon as he opened the door, it was silence. We went outside with him, stared out into a parking lot and heard nothing. We closed the door and only a few minutes later heard it again. It stopped as soon as we opened the door, and we gave up the search and just turned the music louder.

Walking around in his apartment felt like wading through a shallow stream. It looked like water, it felt like I was being ever slightly hindered from regular walking like water would do. I checked the cuffs of my pants several times, but they were bone-dry. The acid was that good, it just took over everything. It was a great night.

People will tell you LSD lasts 6 hours, or 8 hours, or even 10 hours. Here’s what I’ve figured out : it lasts until you can get a solid 8+ hours of uninterrupted sleep. After that liquid acid trip, I felt ever so slightly still tripping for almost a week. I lived in a constant state between dreaming and awake. I thought, for a time, this was just my new state of being. I’d always be ever so slightly high, all the time.

For better or worse, I finally woke up feeling normal and sober one morning and announced to Trevor “I have slept off the acid!”.

1. still pronounced “Matt”, but I’ll explain later the spelling ↩