The LSD Trip That Turned Me Into a Literal Monster
By: Taylor Foreman
Tags: Psychology, Self Improvement, Growth, Psychedelics, Beyourself

That Morning

I woke up in a powerfully good mood. Over the last few weeks, I had grown my writing business enough that I was able to quit my job. I had been meditating for at least an hour a day for a few months, doing breathwork, cold showers — all that. The quarantine had been a time of growth for me. I felt ready.

I meditated that morning and went really deep. I had positive visions and had the sense that things were conspiring to make this trip happen.

I fully cleaned my apartment, brewed some green tea, and took the first dose. I went for a walk with my dog.

When I got back, light colors swirled in my vision, like the rainbows in a puddle of oil. Feeling sturdy psychologically, I took another 2 full doses. All the LSD I had left in my freezer. I bought it years ago in Austin and thought it was an auspicious moment to finally use it all.

The Come Up

I had on a mask and noise-canceling headphones in my bed.

I learned this set-up from Michael Pollan’s book “How to Change Your Mind.” I put on “Music for Mushrooms” by East Forest. It’s a 5-hour long album of music specifically designed for tripping.

Michael Pollan recommends classical music — this playlist, specifically, but I find this music to be too intense for me. I prefer more… hippie-dippie music with tribal instruments and forest sounds. Not my usual style, but when in Rome.

I laid back in my bed, trying to relax. It’s a bit like trying to relax while you are strapped to the exterior of a rocket blasting through the atmosphere. Not an easy thing.

My heart was hammering against my breastbone. You never get used to the experience of normal perception melting away. It’s always as terrifying as it was the first time.

Entering the Strange World

The other side of the liftoff was relatively peaceful. Everyone tells you to “say yes” to any experience, so I kept saying yes.

I felt sad, and I said yes to it. I felt angry, I said yes. I spent a while just sorting through some feelings like bills that had been neglected on the desk. I felt emotionally clear, present, and powerful enough to be able to face all types of emotions.

Normal breakthroughs of “Oh, I don’t really need to worry about this, do I?” or “It’s OK that life is short. I’m ready to live it.” Cliches take on massive weight in here and you understand simple wisdom on a profoundly deep level. I felt like I would never be lost or unhappy again.

On some level, I knew it wasn’t true. But it’s like you see the light of the universe and you think, “How could I ever forget this? Everything is, obviously, just love.”

And you know you will forget it anyway, but it’s nice to know it’s there.

The Death of The Old Me

After a while, I began sifting through old memories. Things and people I was holding onto. I could see that they were gone now, and those times were over. It struck me as profoundly sad, but not in a bad way. I knew I had the opportunity to let go.

I wept for the death of what used to be. What I used to be. I knew I was letting go of something that didn’t serve me anymore, and that it was a good thing. Still, it’s hard.

It’s hard to know that every moment is passing and gone like smoke on the breeze. There is no hanging on to anything. Thoughts give us the illusion of permanence, but seeing past them is like lifting a veil. Of course, nothing lasts. It’s as obvious as the nose on your face.

The strange thing about these revelations is that they seem obvious while you’re there. You realize how long you’ve been fooling yourself.

So, I cried good tears, and I let go of the past. I let go of old girlfriends, my college experience, and my childhood. I thanked them for serving me, and let them go.

The Emergence of Evil

I kept saying yes to all my experiences. I saw a snake. I said… yes? It crawled into my belly. Uh-oh…

I swear I could hear it, but not in language.

Should I be saying yes to a snake? The fear spread through my limbs like fire. I started seeing all things evil.

I saw suffering. The suffering of the people I love. My heart almost couldn’t bear it. Then I saw the suffering of the whole world. I was being crushed under it. I couldn’t take it. I wanted to die at that moment. I couldn’t see the point of life if there is so much suffering.

I saw symbols of evil. Swastikas, pentagrams, the horns of Satan. Needless to say, I was horrified. I remember thinking, “Am I supposed to say yes to this?” I was so scared, I can’t even begin to relate it here. If hell is anywhere, I was there.

The pain in my heart was so powerful that I thought I wouldn’t be able to go on. It was more than any pain I have ever felt. More than breaking bones.

Through it all, I felt I needed to trust what I had been told. I lifted my head, took off my eyeshades, and seeing evil dancing all around my little apartment, I said, “Yes.”

As if testing me, I was pushed. “Yes?” it seemed to ask me.

“Yes!” I said.

It pushed me again.

“YES!” I was shouting out loud. In the back of my mind, I was aware that I was probably scaring the hell out of my neighbors. At that moment, I didn’t really care.

I was breathless, tears running down my cheeks. I wasn’t going to be beaten down.

I swear I could hear it, but not in language. I just knew that the universe (or whatever, I’m just going to call it the universe) said, “You’re ready.”

It reached down and touched me on my right shoulder.

The Beast

…before the trip, it was easier to think of myself as ‘harmless.’ After the trip, I knew I wasn’t.

What happened next is even more beyond language than what came previously. What follows is me doing my very best to convey what happened.

The touch of the universe was like a drip of pure light that entered from my right shoulder and began to spread throughout my body. The light was pure, unfiltered, primal power. Unlike anything that I have ever experienced before.

As it entered me, it felt as if it threatened to tear me apart at a cellular level. Real fear came across me. “What if this rips me apart?”

Following the rule of the trip, I said “yes” again. I let it enter my body.

I wish words could do better here. It was like being attached to a nuclear reactor. As it spread, my body seemed to lift itself from my bed. It took me over and turned me into a beast.

I felt like Wolverine. I know that my very biology was different than it ever had been. Similar to what happens to a mother when she lifts a car off her baby, I had been granted access to a well of power that is normally unavailable to me. And for good reason. I felt dangerous. Violent.

I snarled and roared. Out loud. I know you might not believe this part, but the voice wasn’t mine. It came from my mouth, but it was a beast.

Integrating with The Shadow

Carl Jung claimed that you couldn’t become a good person until you confronted the monster in you. I didn’t know this during the trip, and would only learn it during my frantic research afterward.

The world is full of unspeakable suffering and evil. I had seen it, unfiltered. The only way to properly deal with this truth is to tap into the monster in you. Only a monster can know the truth of all the suffering, and still have the strength to carry on.

Most of us have repressed our monster because we are, understandably, afraid of it. I’ll speak for myself here — before the trip, it was easier to think of myself as “harmless.” After the trip, I knew I wasn’t.

Confronted with Innocence

As the beast, the universe confronted me with innocence. The representation was pretty cliche — a white bunny (I can’t help it if my subconscious is unoriginal).

As the beast, there is such joy and power in the ability to enact violence on the world. Fear goes away and I felt good and free for the first time in my life. This, I see as I write, is difficult to explain.

Think of it like this: why are some men violent? Because it makes them less afraid. All men have this beast in them. Most of us have it firmly repressed. This makes us “harmless” but it also makes energy leak out in unconscious ways. It might lead to depression, or just being mean, or whatever else odd, unwanted behavior. I’m not an expert.

Anyway, there I am, feeling good and liberated. Presented with innocence in the form of this delicate, white bunny, I am being asked to “restrain” myself for the sake of it.

I did not kill the bunny. I took it into my arms. I placed it at the center of me.

In this action, I felt like I fully understood what properly situated masculine energy looks like. It is the redirection of beastly energy into the protection of what is innocent. For an archetype of this sort of thing, I think of “Beauty and the Beast.”

The Arrival in Heaven

As if rewarded for my restraint and integration of the beast, I was taken to heaven.

Everything was pure light. In fact, the light was so powerful that it threatened to pull apart the matter of my body and transform it into pure light, too. This didn’t feel like a bad thing, but I had the impression that it would make me cease to exist. Not quite ready for that, I remained in my body.

There, I was shown things that I cannot even begin to explain. I was there for what felt like a hundred years and saw things, a lot of which I only half-remember, like a dream.

After what might have been an hour, or 20 years, I left heaven.

Letting My Father Go

Back in the mortal realm, I was presented with my father. Just as he was when I was a little boy. He was dead.

I held him in my arms and wept unlike I have ever wept as an adult. No hint of self-consciousness. Just pure sorrow. It felt really, really, good.

In real life, my father is still alive. I believe I was letting go of the “ideal” of my father. Or the man that he was when I was a kid. I was forgiving him in a way, for not being that.

Back then, he wore big bifocal glasses (70s style). As I let him go and he went to the bright lights of heaven, which I had just left, I took the glasses and added them to my center along with the bunny. They felt like an idea — or an ideal — I was put on earth to protect. Again, hard to explain.

I knew that I was a man now. I had let go of my parents. It took becoming a beast to be able to do it.

The Return Home

After I let my father go, I slowly came down. I had plenty of other visions and lessons, a lot of which I can’t quite remember. Still, like books I’ve read and then forgotten, they still changed me.

I re-entered the atmosphere of normal life, and it was not an easy landing. For hours I was sure I had permanently lost my mind.

I did my best to just relax, eat, and watch “Karate Kid” while it all came back into focus. This was nearly as bad as the come-up.

Nearly 12 hours after ingestion, I finally felt mostly normal. However, I didn’t sleep for 2 days. Not exactly sure why.