The Wonder of 1p

The Wonder of 1p
Regular readers will recall my writing about AL-LAD, a substance that became available through Research Chemical vendors along with LSZ. Both were made illegal on the 7th of January 2015. These spin offs from LSD25 were both fascinating lysergics of which I read not a single scare story or bad review. Their were a few tales of people who had no effects from AL-LAD and LSZ proved to be the least interesting of the two. Various tryptamines were made illegal at the same time but none of these were popular or missed much. Before the ban I experimented with both. LSZ I only tried a couple of times but found it untaxing, slow in pace but handle able in social settings. AL-LAD I found to be an improvement on LSD having no dark corners, no scary thought traps and an uplifting euphoria to accompany the colourful visuals. It was the best substance I have ever come across. Some acid purists suggest some of the depth of spiritual discovery is the cost of the easier ride however, though this has some truth to it, the security in having lower anxiety permits the tripper to let go of the sides. To allow the trip to take them where it wants, and much trip time is wasted in resisting the effects. To my mind, there is a place for both. I pictured a similar shift in culture developeing as had occurred with LSD in the sixties and early seventies or as occurred with MDMA in the late eighties and nineties. The changes in fashion, music, architecture, design and broader social culture these drugs ushered in are still felt today. Countless people who never imbibed of either substance listen to music inspired by, wear clothes inspired by, sit in chairs whose shapes were affected by, in rooms whose wallpapers, decor and colouring are steered by form and pattern reflective of the shifts in consciousness that LSD and MDMA inspired. Our cultural history has been affected to a level where a walk down any city street will see lighting, cars, sounds booming from cars, dress that would be quite different had these two chemicals not been around. Both, however, were flawed. LSD could be very challenging. The occasional but rare bad trip giving it a reputation as the heaven and hell drug. MDMA triggered such a rise in serotonin that many users slumped into midweek depressions. A burning of the brain cells could be felt even from the finest quality. AL -LAD had neither of these defects. The changes I had imagined never came about as the ban nipped in the bud the interest AL-LAD. It is no longer available to the law abiding and difficult to access for the handful who wouldn't care about its legality. LSD can count the emergence of music festivals, whole foods, a rise in vegetarianism, environmentalism, a greater interest in eastern religions amongst its cultural effects. MDMA saw off football tribalism, class prejudice, the mixing of cultures as travellers to council estate ravers to public schooled techno musicians dancing together. We will never know what AL-LAD could have delivered. There is a resurgence of interest in psychedelics taking place as psychologists, psychiatrists are now once again running programmes to test out benefits these drugs can deliver. Positive results in curing addiction, long term depression, PTSD and successful trials with the terminally ill in coming to terms with their end. The Psychedelic Society has been organising protests to have psychedelics seen as seperate to other drugs and campaigning for freedom to trip. A global interest in shamanism has seen hundreds of people travelling to Peru and other Amazonian places to undergo ayuashka ceremonies, returning changed. Lifetimes spent under self imposed limitations and self inflicted illness can be opened up, salvaged as a new way of being, a new way of seeing opens up to the previously troubled. DMT has a huge underground following with many who believe it offers a glimpse into parallel dimensions. As the secret of consciousness becomes mans prime focus it seems these substances offer clues, keys to understanding. With all this floating about the zeitgeist, AL-LAD, though discovered in the seventies by Japanese researchers, appeared, through the Research Chemical scene, to have landed at a prime time in mankinds history. Whether it's effects were to have been on culture, religion or neuroscience, it seems now fare to say the revolution has been postponed.
As one door closed, another opened. Within a week of the AL-LAD ban, the people who brought AL-LAD to the wider public revealed a new legal lysergic. 1p-LSD or 1p-LAD came, in its first batch, as a camo patterned blotter at 100ug. 1p-LSD is the N-propionyl analogue of LSD and a homologue of ALD-52. The question for me was could the paradigm shift in human consciousness that AL-LAD could have ushered in had it remained legal occur with 1p-LSD? There is next to nothing written about britains novel new legal lysergamide other than Internet forum discussion. The discussion boards set up for legal research chemicals tend to attract younger people though many older more experienced heads do post up also. The rules tend to exclude discussion of illegals and tend to influence an assumption that legal is ok and illegal wrong. Yet staying safe and staying legal are quite different things. Sifting through takes a while to learn who are worth reading and who not. The younger people, though vastly less experienced with drugs as a whole tend to have a wider knowledge of chemistry. Reports on the whole suggest that much like ALD-52, 1p-LSD is more euphoric, lower body load, less demanding yet less inclined to deliver the spiritual depth and soul searching of its illegal big brother. These words equally apply to AL-LAD. The big question is how well does it match up to AL-LAD.
My first few experiences suggested it wasn't the game changer AL-LAD was. Presumably the early synths were in essence prototypes for the more recent synths and I have noticed a vast improvement as the year has progressed. All lysergamides are counter addictive. 100% tolerance follows a trip and a week must be left before another trip can deliver much. Another month if a trip of equal intensity is to be seen. The early trips on any drug tend to automatically measure against other lysergamides. One tends to look for the effects felt from what you know. Any drug takes a series of experiences before the mind learns what it is about. It is common for the first few goes on any drug to be a disappointment as the mind just doesn't know what to look for. So my earliest trips were quite different to what more recent ones have been like. Al-LAD was awash with colours of greens to reds and many of no name where as early1p trips were silver stippled, a white light, crisp and frosty. Again lacking the depth but also lacking the anxiety. This lack of anxiety delivers a freedom from mental restraint and it is this holding back, this fighting against the effects that stimies many trips. Sold largely alongside research chemicals by vendors selling anything legal it finds itself amongst a whole bunch of crap that offer no good to mankind. This substance, wherever it stands in the lysergic charts, stands head and shoulders above all other research chemicals currently on the market. Checking through the vendor sites, many lead their listings with 1p before a long list of rubbish beneath.
Whether my earlier experiences were clouded by LSD or AL-LAD expectations or whether the newest batches are of a higher quality I don't know. What I do know is I am beginning to find it as amazing as AL-LAD.
Following my last episode that was at a party, poor setting and clouded by alcohol in early July I felt ready to trip again. Three months is a healthy gap between trips, time enough to assimilate all learning garnered from the last. I seldom trip these days. In my youth after discovering mushrooms I took them far too frequently. By twenty I had given up tripping altogether and never thought I'd return to it. I felt too fragile. Too much mental baggage. Now, having worked my way through addiction, I am tea total and free of drugs. It was approaching fifty that I realised that occasional psychedelic use, what got me into drugs, was not the problem. So I keep a straight head but take the occasional trip. I regard it as a sacrament. As near to a religion as I have. Indeed, it was finding AL-LAD, and what it revealed to me, that finally cured a lifetime of drug misuse.
Perhaps it was the bad experiences from drinking whilst tripping, or some subconscious seasonal awareness. Being this time of year with the leaves changing colour and dampness underfoot, the fungi season, I believe I'd made some association with mushroom trips from my youth. I never take mushrooms anymore. Psylocibin is a tryptamine, similar but very different to lysergamides. I didn't want the manic delirium of mushrooms. On a spiritual level they are hard to beat. My world view was changed by psylocibin more than any other substance. One day, in perfect set and setting I'd like to once more see the dimension they reveal. But it wasn't what I was lock-in for. So a seasonal subconscious apprehension gave a pre drop anxiety.
I walked out to the edge of the town and once past the buildings chewed up the two blotters, 200ug of 1p-LSD. I ought to have taken it a tad earlier so first effects hit as I hit the fields. Looking at my phone it was 11.45 am. A beautiful autumn morning and warm in the sun. Looking a cross the mendips, me and Dook, my Siberian husky cross German shepherd strode across the field. Taking a path we know well we headed downhill to the river in the valley below.
It's a walk I used to do each day and I know the twists and turns of the river well, many of the trees and much of the wildlife I'd likely see. Few people were out, just the odd dog walker. I'd hoped to be peaking in the woodland but I'd made my way towards the exiting path before the first tingles began.
Coming up I've never enjoyed. It's the transition. Not knowing how strong it will be. Oddly, and many psychedelic users agree, a lower dose leads to greater anxiety than a stronger dose. My most anxious trip ever was in my early twenties on little more than ten mushrooms. In my teens I'd done several hundred at a time.
Once the effects began to show I felt greater confidence. The come up seemed long in duration and the trip had many phases. An aspect of AL-LAD is its relative brevity lasting 4-6 hours, seldom more. 1p, however, lasts a good eleven hours and trace effects linger far longer.
As we reascended the hill it was some 45 minutes since eating the blotters and a mild but decent strength of effect settled on me and stayed at this level for an hour or so. The grass shimmered and wind patterns across the field slipped from random turbulence into regular folding patterns. I tried to sit down to let the effects settle in but my dog couldn't settle so continued walking. Whilst coming up I find walking and movement prevent the mind from accepting the changes so my mission became a search to find somewhere to sit.
Peruvian shamans wait till night before imbibing their ayuashka as do most people I know who take psychedelics. I too prefer the night as darkness can allow hallucinations to develope more readily. It also provides something of a shield as one can feel quite exposed. Inexperienced trippers invariably feel that straight people must inevitably be able to tell they are off their heads. Whilst their pupils will be dilated there is often little to give you away, to the untrained eye at least. But, today, I knew the nights were drawing in so the latter part of the trip would be under the cloak of darkness, and the autumn sunshine was quite beautiful. This ultimately became one of the strongest day light trips I have ever done.
Once back in the outer suburbs I decided to make my way to the shop to buy a drink with the plan of taking it to the park to sit and let the trip settle in. I felt a bit wild eyed as the staff served me but no looks of disdain. We walked to the park, found a quiet corner, smoked a roll up and drank my can. Feeling a bit of an alien as the leaves on the trees rippled like an animals pelt. I couldn't relax so drank quickly, still in the lower stage of intensity, then made for ginnels off main routes before returning to the flat.
Here, able to relax, the trip took on a new phase. A clear step up in strength. I've had this domain before. It's like a glimpse of a plasticised future. An X factor world of synthetic fabrics and glossy plastics. A peep at fashion in ten years from now. It's not pleasant for a green outdoor hedge monkey like myself yet it's curious that this near future domain I sometimes enter, is the same each time. It's details are to a style. A hyper girls world of teen glamour, synthetic musical sounds and dayglo furs. Leading me to think it may be accurate, a real peep through the veils of time.
The room became different with a hatch leading to the bathroom. An open plan space. I informed my partner I was transcendent which she never takes well. She said it looked weak as I seemed normal. From inside it was strong and gathering strength. Fair enough, I guess. Being in another head state tends to distance people. I know how I feel when drunk freinds drop in to our sober world as they make their loud way home from the pub. But lysergics deliver a delicate, fragile and beautiful condition. I don't mind experienced trippers but hate baby sitting beginners. I'd not encourage others. It's their choice, a big choice and a very personal one. I do know, however, for me it ranks up with falling in love as a life experience. Something that opened my eyes and led to a life quite different from what it would have been without.
Leaving Dook I went on a mission into town. A mushroom trip of comparable intensity would be fraught with fear, a real adventure. But I felt confident. Whether being older I feel no sin or guilt in being in a higher state, or the relative hippy peace of South western towns compared to tripping in leeds as a youth where the potential for meeting some gang of yobs seemed ever likely in my young teens, I enjoy a trip confidence I never had in my teens. Bouncing down the cobbled street, houses bent in as my surroundings took on the plasticine quality of an ardman production. I felt euphoric, bold, hungry to taste the town in its bright and fluid state. Looking back I can't recall what my mission entailed. Perhaps I went to Argos.
Returning home I played some music. Soft St etienne and a few test songs from the new Libertines. 'Heart of the matter' stands up as does 'Gunga Din', the latter I played four times in succession and the song stuck in my head as the soundtrack for the rest of the day. An anthem to suit my euphoria and bold condition.
Back at the flat I began to feel hemmed in as a new phase of colour and more block like visuals took on a cubist period. Dook looked frisky again and I needed a charger for my iPad so we walked to Asda, somewhere between a half mile and a mile. Though still fragmentary in the visual sense we negotiated traffic and other dogs. Dogs pick up on it when you're tripping and mine, anyway, becomes protective though less concerned with his own interactions. No aggression to other dogs, just the protectiveness a dog for the blind might deliver. Asda happened swiftly, buying a couple of pastas should I need food.
We returned on the far side of the river. Here I let Dook run free and stood to let mesmeric hallucinations develope from the wind sculpting the trees and grass in patterns of a regularity and beauty. Colourwise the trip felt more akin to AL-LAD then my memories of the white light and silvery crisp 1p visuals I'd come to know. It struck me then, could this be AL-LAD so similar was it visually. The trips longevity put this idea to rest. Were it the lad I'd be passed peak and returning to base by now but the experience was in peek flow.
Back up through the town went swiftly. Once home I tried to eat. This caused me to vomit in a purge like manner more common to ayuashka. I wasn't able to keep anything down till 10pm when the trip began to fade.
Often I find a trip delivers a wish. It's as though a little magic slips through and the impossible is able to occur. Tonight was the Leeds Huddersfield, Wigan v Cas night to decide league leaders. The night was one of the greatest sporting nights I can recall. I've already written about the events but the point I wish to make was that the issue seemed sealed. Leeds were lucky to have drawn ensuring home advantage in the play offs. Wigan appeared to have snatched league leaders shield. Yet with a second to go, Danny McGuire chipped the ball over the Huddersfield defence, a move I've seen attempted in blind desperation in similar circumstances but it virtually never comes off. The hooter sounded meaning the next stop in play meant game over. Yet Ryan Hall, who up to this point had played one of his worst games of the season, found the ball in his hands and ran half the field to score a try of legend. One that will be talked of for years to come. The media, the pundits, both who hold a Wigan bias were clearly none plussed yet blown away by the majesty of the moment. A perfect end to a wonderful day.
There were no life changing insights, a recognition I must stop smoking aside, but for utter wonder at our being. Sheer awe at the fluke of existence. The trip had few to call par.
And perhaps that is as much as 1p can offer. So much of our lives we walk through grumbling at trivial concerns, blind to the beauty of the near impossibility of being born in a universe of unappreciable wonder and scale, waking each day on a beautiful blue planet of balance to support life of such magnificent, resplendent, sumptuous wonder. If all a trip does is remind us of our good fortune, then that is enough. For me that is God. The utter transcendent wonder of being. We will most likely never know the answers to the biggest questions, but for a breif window we get the gift of witnessing such beauty. This should be enough for anyone.
My imagined AL-LAD paradigm shift in consciousness seems unlikely. No doubt the government will make 1p illegal also before long. But this window has seen another generation, or a small portion of it, have life opened up as it was for mine by mushrooms and acid. We will see. The changes are bound to effect the perifery of culture. The acceptance of evolution took a century to take hold and even now some creationists still hold out. But it's a step. Another step towards a higher consciousness.


Sent from my iPad