There was the time when everyone started jumping around like frogs. On all fours, bouncing, croaking - moving as frogs do. Unfortunately I didn't feel froggy and stood there bewildered for a looooooooooong time.

I felt better in the morning.

Jason Kitcat {jeep@j-dom.demon.co.uk}

I've never had a bad trip. I know better than to take mind-altering substances in anything less than a controlled environment. Except for this one time...

I could say that I didn't know, that I was tricked, but honestly... I knew that if one was offered "mushroom tea" at Burning Man that there was a really high probability that the mushrooms in question were of the psychedelic variety. All week the opportunity was there to indulge in every drug imaginable; each morning an old man in a tie dyed shirt came by and offered to sell me shrooms, joints, and acid. And each morning I told him, "Thanks but no thanks, I'm fine."

So why did I take the proffered cup of mushroom tea and gulp it down, chewing and swallowing the mushrooms and stems left at the bottom? Because it was free? No. I drank it down because it was there; I had only to reach out and take it. No verbal admitance of my desire for it, no paranoid looking over my should for cops, no taking the drugs alone.

Once the trip set in, I began to have my doubts as to the wisdom of what I'd done. I was in the middle of the desert, and I had to pack up and leave in 8 hours! I banished these thoughs and let myself enjoy the sensations, determined to keep myself from dwelling on such worrisome thoughts.

Then the best thing which I could possibly have imagined happening did. The five of us who had partaken of the shrooms together had been walking around the playa, seeing the camps, dancing for toys, and listening to the music all around. We were walking towards the main stage, passing people walking the other direction, when one of the girls in our company stopped a young man who was walking past and wordlessly gave him her toy that she had won dancing. She made as if to walk on but he stopped us. "Wait", he said. "I have something for you. Gather around." He motioned us closer. "First off, let me just say that all of you are beautiful. I can see you radiating beautiful light, you are beings of pure light." And he took out a crystal ball and began to roll it all around his upper body; it caught the light of the flames behind us and glowed.

"This is my magic", he said, "all life is magic, and the magic thing about it is that you have nothing to fear from it, not even death."

And then he smiled; "I know, it sounds like bullshit", he admitted, "but it's not. It's the most important thing that I can tell you."

He paused. "I'm going to touch each of you now."

And he went around the circle, touching each person in turn, placing both of his hands on their shoulders. When he got to me his smile broadened.

"You are so beautiful", he told me, and then he hugged me.

And I know that it was just because I was under the influence of a mind altering substance that left me wide open to suggestion, but I've never felt so warm and alive.

father {father@promography.com}

not exactly. but when I was fifteen I had surgery, and there were complications with the anesthesia. I was lying on my back in the o.r., watching the whole room, including the sound waves in it, ripple like the top of a volcano on the verge of eruption. the walls were coming in and pushing out, and the nurse wouldn't let go of my hand. I didn't have enough motor control to move my hand, but I could look down and I saw it rolling and boiling. there were little things under my skin, worms made of blood and tar, and the stupid nurse was holding my hand and holding them in. then all the air turned into black water, full of evil fishes and electric eels, and we were all going to die. I couldn't talk, and the oblivious doctors didn't seem to understand that their skin was being nibbled off in little pieces.

when I woke up many hours later, I was so traumatized that I couldn't talk at first. after I finally told my mother what I remembered, she said, "that sounds exactly like a bad trip."

now I want to know what a good trip feels like.

rabi

Well. Suffice it to say that one shouldn't muck about with herbal hallucinogens without knowing enough about them. 4-5 years ago I ground up 10-15 Hawaiian Baby Woodrose Seeds (recommended dose apparently is 3-7 seeds). It was just done on a whim. An impulse. I drank them with orange juice a la nutmeg.
After a while I felt queasy. A bit ill at ease, but not bad. I went out to see Chemistry & Storm. I started to feel a bit bizarre, which all of a sudden turned into panic anxiety: leaning walls, the whole 1000 yards. I managed to get outside, breathing deeply. I decided to go home, and then the panic returned. Dilated pupils. Distorted vision.
The rest of the evening/night was spent in semi panic, feelings of dislocation, of evil angles (odd angles that felt bad), puking, water drinking, more puking, visions of dry herbs and sharp edges and decay. Finally I fell asleep with a friend holding my hand throughout the night. No more drugs for me, ta very much, guv. I don't want to risk feeling like that again, although it was an interesting experience...

Cerdo

i don't even know where to begin with this one, being as fond as i am of, you know, takin' a trip now and then. in my younger, more-easily-recovered days, i used to do it a lot - sitting in friends' suburban pool houses twirling cigarettes and sticks of incense around in the dark, giggling...

at 27, i usually don't do it too often anymore - once a year in the desert, or the periodic vacation with the boyfriend, at home, but new york freaks me out - too much energy, too many vibes, too much intensity already - the longer i live here, the more like an acid trip reality becomes.

still...

there was that time i ate some of the strongest acid i'd ever had, at the one dead show i'd ever attended - and then i met that guy from boston in the parking lot, who offered more, and it turned out to be liquid - never turn down liquid, even if he overdoses you and you wind up having telepathic conversations with your friend in the middle of the concert.

and then the rave in north carolina - more telepathic conversations with my friend (a different one), and a pattern that appeared all over everything, for a day afterwards.

and the rave at the Roxy, seven years ago, where i couldn't find any personal space and wound up flipping out on some poor guy who had done too much ketamine, or something, and happened to invade my space by accident. i beat him up, and also realized at the same time that i was starting to grow really sick of this scene, and of drugs in general. still, i spent another four years or so doing them.

and at the halloween parade in the west village about four years ago, stupidly ingesting some really strong mushrooms before hopping on the train. didn't realize i had such a crowd phobia but when i started feeling like i was being carried along by the momentum of people, with my feet off the ground, i lost it again, and beat someone else up.

i am five seven, a hundred and thirty five pounds - i've dabbled in kung fu, karate, and capoeira, but none so much as to gain the ability to really hurt someone - unless i'm on some sort of psychedelic, and out of my mind.

still, despite those two instances, i've also had really amazing experiences, awful truths exposed in a tolerable light, and out of body delights that make those bad trips pale in comparison.

there comes a point when you realize you don't have to 'go there' that often anymore, however, and i've gotten there. and that often makes mundane reality a lot more appealing these days.

dori {dori@saranwarp.com}

Sort of. But not the pharmacological variety.

It involved a nine hour bus ride in Africa followed by two hours on a puke filled ferry in seven foot seas.

Maybe I should have stayed home and dropped some Acid.

Nah.

The Mighty Jimbo {mightyjimbo1@home.com}