Has my friend lost his mind? I don't know what to do...

Ok, this has been nagging at me for a good while now.

Anyways, my experiences with LSD are pretty limited (I can count them on one hand), and I have never had what you would consider a "world-shattering experience," in which the boundries of the known are taken down, a religious experience may occur etc etc.

So heres the deal;

A friend of mine (we'll call him Jay) recently attended the Great Blue Heron music festival. The Blue Heron is known for being a weekend of hallucinogenic drug use, peace love and music, basically the whole nine yards.

I was unable to attend, but Jay went, and since he has come back I fear he has gone insane. He ended up eating 6 hits of LSD, and undergoing a supposedly crazy religious experience, in which God told him the beginning of the end would be on September 9th, 2009. This would mark the beginning of what he calls "the 3rd plane," in which mankinds descent into oblivion would begin. According to him, this would be the beginning of the biblical apocolypse, only it "wont be as direct" as fire and brimestone, end of the world type shit. Supposedly, the world would end completely, or at the very least be in mass dissarray by the date which the Myans had predicted the end of the world (December 21, 2012).

At the Heron, after the trip had worn off, he talked in disbelief to multiple people who had the EXACT same trip as him, right down the the very details, and who could finish his sentences for him. He was so astounded by this, he left the Blue Heron immediately, so eager to get far away that he was pulled over and recieved a speeding ticket on the way home. He immediately confessed everything to his mom (who wanted him to see a shrink, and feared he had wrecked his mind with hallucinogens).

The night he came back, he turned on the TV, which happened to be set at the Christian channel when he turned it on. There was a nun talking about sin, and hedonism, speaking in a very direct tone and was looking directly in the camera. Supposedly, every word she spoke had some kind of connection in Jay's life, in essence, she was describing his life down to the very details. She spoke of the book of Issah (I believe thats what it was), so Jay immediately grabbed a Bible and devoured the whole book of Issah. Supposedly, everything in that book related to what he had done, what had happened to him at the Blue Heron, and what was to come in the future. He was incredibly freaked out, and we didn't see or hear from him for a couple days. I talked to him maybe a week later, and believe me, he looked WRECKED. He was explaining to me all these crazy coincidences that had a direct relationship to what he had experienced at the Heron, and these coincidences were popping up in EVERY aspect of his life, as if he couldn't escape them. He spoke in a mumbled tone, very fast, and he would continually look around the room, as if in massive paranoia. He worried he was condemned to hell, and that Satan (or "the Bat", as he refers to it), was going to have his soul. He was totally sketched out, and looked as if he hadn't slept in days.

This was quite a while ago (about two months I believe), and he is still acting so strange. He has found God, doesn't do much of anything anymore but sit in his house and read the Bible cover-to-cover all day, in search of passages that may involve clues that affect his life, and he is in search of Gods message...


Maybe its necessary you learn a little about Jay, for you to truly realize what happened to him. Anyways, he's been smoking pot regularly for just about as long as the rest of us (3 years or better), he got pretty big into XTC for a while, went through a phase with pills, and has always treasured hallucinogenics like gold, whenever he could get his hands on them. Etc etc. Basically, he has never believed in a God, always codemned christianity, and believed whole-heartedly that you should live your life in whatever way you choose.

Now, since all this happened, he has quit every drug, quit smoking cigs, drinking coffee, taking aspirin or any other medications, quit using swear words, and pretty much cut off all ties with the outside world. I cannot begin to explain how very unusual this all is, because Jay has undergone a change, becoming the polar-opposite of what he once was, about as fast as the flick of a light-switch.

I have told him on numerous occasions I think this was all a result of the drug. I explained to him, that when taking high doses of LSD, there can be a euphoria (I forget the name) where you can actually feel as if you are in another dimension... I told him he had probably experienced this euphoria and interpreted it as a religious experience, when all it really was was strong LSD. He heard me out, but refused to believe a word of what I've told him...

And this is really starting to creep me out now. He truly, and sincerely believes, with every ounce of belief in his body- that September 9th, 2009 will mark the beginning of the end, and he is trying to redeem himself before that time comes. He lives in fear of this date, and all the dates that follow, as he claims to know what is going to happen. He's told me stories of how (after this whole acid experience) he has been predicting things, simple, random things like what people will say, etc etc. These predictions supposedly come to him in dreams, and do not make any sense whatsoever, and he wont even recognize them as predicting the future. Then, days later, that event or phrase he heard in his dream will actually occur.

I fear he has wrecked a part of his mind with an LSD experience gone awry... but some of the things he have told me have really got me thinking about shit. Just note; he is NOT lying, I am 100% certain of that.



My questions are these; what can I do for him? Do you think he may have gone a little bit insane, and should seek medical help? Do you guys really believe that religious experiences can occur, or do you merely write them off as the effects of the drug? Do you think these coincidences that keep popping up just about all aspects of his life can be written of as pure chance?

Basically, I'm looking for input on the situation from you guys, since you have probably taken a lot of acid, and probably know a great deal more about it than I do.

Thank you for taking the time to read this (I know its a long read, sorry), and thanks in advance for any advice/input you may have.

 

damn thats crazy, but its definately the acid and his paranoia, it was a bad trip, hopefully it will pass. but that is some freaky shit

 

Yeah, I hope it will pass too man.

However, I doubt it will. I dont know, hes is a new person altogether, basically everything I knew about him has changed. I would say his ego died, and that day he was given a new one.

I mean, I stopped over to say whats up on my way to work the other day. Of course, he was in his room (which he has since painted and re-arranged, all his old posters and figurines thrown out etc etc) reading the Bible, cross legged on the floor. He went on his usual biblical rant, and I tried to reason with him once again. I told him what I thought (basically that it was the acid fucking with his head), and he started crying and weirding out. He looked at me in the most distraught way, tears running down his face, saying "CANT YOU SEE MAN? Youre ruining it man, you cant be like this, its gonna get you too and i cant watch that happen to you man.... you gotta believe me" etc etc.

I was totally weirded out, so I was like alright man relax, you gotta calm down, and I totally him I will live my life the way I choose to, and not be controlled by some irrational fear. He proceeded to start hitting his head off the wall yelling "IM TRYING TO HELP YOU MAN YOU HAVE TO SEE IT YOU HAVE TO REALIZE IT"

I went downstairs and got his mom, told her what was going on and that she needed to talk to him, and that I had to get to work.

I dont know what to do for the kid. I do think he has lost his mind; but its so astonishing because he has had bad trips many times (he would always say "i welcome bad trips like christmas gifts") and he has certainly taken more than 6 hits of acid at once before... I just dont know what to do, what can be done, or if its even my place to do anything.

 

Dose him up with some more high quality acid and maybe he'll switch back. I'm not joking, it sounds like he sincerely believed in his trip so if he has another profound trip it might snap him out of it. I would say try to take his mind off of his religious theory for a while and slip him some (since from what you've said I dont think he'd do it voluntarily) Could just make things worse though...

Thats is one fucked up situation there

 

i don't think he's crazy at all. i'm sure if i knew him personally and were one of the people who shared the experience, i'd be right there with him, telling you to open your eyes. i think you should just accept him as he is, and try to keep being his friend without trying to change him and tell him you want him to stop trying to change you.

 

that's terrible advice. you never, EVER give anyone any drug without their knowledge and especially without their consent. ESPECIALLY when you know they've decided to give drugs up. that's fucking cruel...

 

^ Yeah, don't worry, I was never contemplating that advice.

So you guys don't think we should get him in to a medical professional? Dont get me wrong, I dont support Christianity or necessarily believe in a God, but I would never put somebody down, or call them crazy for believing something I do not. So that is not the issue here.

I just dont think that kind of rapid change can be good for you... everything hes ever known, he basically swept away and began new, and I'm not sure if he did it for the right reasons. What if hes still the kid he was underneath all this, but the LSD just fucked with his mind to the point of making him believe he is something he is not?

I've talked with his mother (who has also taken acid in her day), and she is very concerned too. Despite religious affiliation, we both agree that "finding God" can, for the most part, be a very positive force in peoples life, and we don't want to give him the impression that we are trying to get him help simply because he has found God.

And what of all this end of the world nonsense? I feel VERY confident that September 9th, 2009 will pass, and nothing will happen. What will he do then? That will mean hes spent two years, entirely devoting his life to something that didnt happen? And what about when December 21st, 2012 comes along, and we are all still here? What will that do to his mental condition? I fear that he will start going nuts if he continues like this, up until those dates come and pass, and nothing happens. Then hes spent years of his life devoted to a lie... I'm not sure how hes gonna handle that if his current mental state continues.

I just hope hes alright- whether he gradually falls back into the person who he was, or whether he continues this new lifestyle. I just dont want him to feel he has to live something hes not, because he got a message that can be directly attributed to LSD (depending on how you look at it, I guess)...

I dont know *sigh*

 

you don't really know what will happen years from now. i really think you should try to accept and support him and be there for him, let him be who he is. people have religious experiences and become completely new people all the time. i would bet anything he is not "crazy", as in, schizophrenic or anything like that.

 

Let him know that Acid is a shared experience and that coincidences are EXTREMELY common but also that our minds start to pick up on patterns and stuff.

Also the predictive dream thing regarding irrelevant details... LOADS of people get them including me. Its strange because people don't believe you but when you have someone else who gets them you kinda bond and start sharing dreams. After a while you can tell the predictive dreams from the nonsense/psychological ones. I don't know what causes them but they happen.

Is he in touch with all those people he shared his tripppy God experience with at the festival? Surely he should stay in touch with thsoe people. A lot of teh time when you're tripping you have shared trips with teh people around you. ON six hits you may not even know what yu have or have not said preveiously.

Also if LSD gave him access to God surely that would make him wasnt to try it again?

As for the christian lady, thats what they do. Religious TV is aimed at young hedonists/angry youths/lost souls. And post Acid trips that a sure sign of paranoia. AS IF!!!!! he speaker WOULDN't bne lookign straight at the watcher.

I think you have to confront him and make him realise that LSD messes with you mind and everything you experience is in YOUR head. its form you. Not to say people can't have spiritual experiences but spirituality is within us.

Also (unless you wanna wait till 2012!!!!) get from him precise details of WHAT exactly is going to happen september 9th 2009? because otherwise he's going to look at things like floods/disasters/wars/political corruption/etc etc etc. that have been going on in humanity for MILLENIA and read them as signs.

If despite all this he's still adamant, ask him if he'll go on a trip with you and not babble like this on December the 22nd 2012?

If teh world does end then ask him if he'll come get you on his way to heaven? heh heh. because if it he's rigth and we're all damned.

Ho hum.

 

Well I speak from personal experience when I say that was all in his head.

He may have *thought* the trip had worn off, but trust me it had far from finished. The people at the festival didn't have the same trip as him, he was talking to himself through the medium of strangers.

I had a serious trip a few weeks ago, and as I was coming down, I started to talk to people, and they relayed many of *my* past experiences to me, as though they were their own. This total stranger I was talking to, told me about how last year he was tripping at his friends' house, and their washing machine broke and water went everywhere, and it totally freaked him out, and that was his first experience of a bad trip. Bollocks - that was MY first experience of a bad trip. Then he continued to tell further stories about my trip experiences, but he described them as his own.

Hallucinations like that are all part of the experience, unfortunately you have to know the drug (and your own mind) well enough to realise what's real and what's not. Unfortunately for your friend he's explained it all through some mystical bullshit and he honestly believes these people he spoke to had the exact same trip he had, whereas in fact he was just talking to himself. Unfortunate, but perhaps you can relay to him my experience or show him this post, and he'll understand.

I had the exact same experience with the TV when I got home too, and these hallucinations didn't stop until 36 hours after the trip begun. Characters on TV spoke directly to me, either through my suggestibility/paranoia, or through full on hallucinations. Every part of every program seemed to have a relevance - it was all about me - I was having an intense "I've forgotten what it's like to be a human being" trip, and I felt like the TV, and the programs/characters therein, was trying to guide me back to reality. Maybe it was, but that's not important, the important part is that it was a product of my trip. A message from my subconscious mind certainly, but nothing earth shattering.

The next day I listened to some Internet radio, and the songs it played struck a chord (if you'll excuse the pun) with me. So much so and with such great a level of relevance in fact, that I began to suspect that I was hallucinating the whole thing - this song was far too perfect, and I'd certainly never heard it before, so I brought up a program that records audio on my computer, hit "record".. hmm surprise surprise, INSTANTLY the track changed and cut into the middle of a totally different song, with dull, irrelevant lyrics.

The important thing to realise with acid is that it's all in your head. You can learn many great things from acid, but it's unfortunately possible to take too much away with you.. which leads to cases like your friend.

Edit:

Oh man. That sounds so much like the sort of behaviour I saw from an old friend of mine who took way too much acid. He would get hysterical, babble on about the freemasons, think everyone was against him and that he was the only one who could see the truth.. he ended up in a mental hospital.

He's out again last I heard, but the first thing he did was call around a bunch of people trying to buy more acid. He's a lost cause :/

When dealing with acid these days, I follow this personal mantra: Never attribute to reality, what can be adequately explained by hallucination Remember that and your long-term sanity should remain intact.

 

the whole thing about how people were finishing sentances and having the same trip....and how every word this nun spoke correlated to his thoughts life and experience....all that is normal. That happens to me everytime i dose high, and 6 hits is a high dose if its good fluff. Welcome to Uncle Cid's Cabin is all i have to say to that. He wasnt freaking out, he was just tripping. But dont attribute every little trippy theme that occurs during a trip to your every day life. I mean dont get me wrong, many themes become very helpful and promote spiritual growth and progress when intigrated into reality. But many of them are the yeild of a very VERY potent psychoactive chemical. The whole idea that "LSD GIVES ALL THE AWNSERS" is a batch of rotten hogwash. Its a drug, and thats all.

 

why the fuck did he have to pick my birthday for the begining of the end of mankind?

 

i have a friend who tripped once and had a massivly bad trip. and it has made him a completly differnt person. not as extreme as your example. but its changed him in every way. doesnt drink anymore, doesnt come to the parties with us anymore, doesnt smoke anymore, goes to all these lecture things on the mind, and to wealth and success, hes moving out and leaving this place at the end of the year for a fresh start, he has to leave everything behind. he quit his 3 year aprentiship after the trip. acid can have a major effect on people. now alot of what hes doing is probably really good. but he does seem alot differnt, even to talk to

 

If he believes the world will end in 5 years, I'd say "You can enjoy your life for 5 more years. Or you can spend those 5 years being miserable. The choice is yours." Don't argue with his belief system, if you want to connect with him you need to accept his beliefs and work within them. That's basic procedure for anyone dealing with paranoids and psychotics.

large doses of acid often produce telepathic experiences. I'm not surprised that several people had the exact same vision. but just because they all had it doesn't mean it's a true vision. and even if it is true, there's no point in freaking out about it. we're all going to die eventually and we're supposed to continue living our lives while we're still here.

perhaps he could benefit from pschiatric care but not against his will. forced psychiatric care for nonviolent patients can do more harm than good.

and please, please, if anyone gives up drugs don't try to haul them back in.

 

I have to agree with Pepopstico. LSD can be dangerous for those who haven't found themselves yet (and that is quite a lot of people) as they may attach greater importance to a vision than is wise.

I really do hope your friend recovers.

I would not dismiss the idea of asking him to trip with you again but of course do not ever slip him acid. I say this because LSD has been proven to make the mind more receptive towards learning and experiencing. A trip between just you and him, where you can talk to him, support him, and show him that you care and love him, could be enough to snap him out of this and get him into a more positive and down to earth mindset. Show him that true spirituality exists in all of us and while there are truthful passages of the bible, pregnant with meaning, that book is not meant to be taken literally. I mean it contradicts itself, after all, and it would be impossible to follow word for word. Anyone can find meaning pertaining to his or her life in the bible. It's a great, great work of literature.

You might just be able to get him back through love, reason, and lsd. I don't think you'll ever reach him with just words alone, he may have to be in an altered state for your logic to get through.

 

its a great, great work of shit. exactly for that reason. because the bible is designed for anyone to read it and feel meaning or some crap. it just depends on the perspective your coming from. from my perspective i see it as the shit i think it is. its just great psychology. kinda like the movie and the book called "the secret". its all crap. but man, i wont turn this thread into a bible discussion

oh tho you say "lsd is dangerous for those who havent found themselves" . i think anyone who takes acid finds themselves. maybe it was just me, tho im still not found. im still disovering myself and even other people, other personalities, being comfortable with mine, and the way these personalities react with each other in this world.
at the same time, i may be looking at things from an entirely differnt perspective. yous may have somthing completly else in mind. and in even writing it exactly and clearly we could be on complelty differnt meanings, just because language isnt big enough.

 

yeah man...i'm totally lost over here...because i know that there are parts to me that i still have to discover.

 

Wow, this is interesting/scary, and it brings to mind a lot of questions, particularly "what is the definition of sanity." Has he lost it? By some definitions, yes. I think there is a really good chance that in time he will chill out, although it's pretty alarming that it hasn't begun to happen yet. There is also the chance he will never recover... I don't really have much advice, except that you should have a talk with him and say something to the effect of, "Listen, it's great that you are finding meaning in your life and everything, but you are changing all of your world views very quickly, and there really isn't any rush... why not let some of this sink in and chill out for a bit?" You will want to be as careful as possible not to offend him, because it will be easy for him to think that you simply think he is crazy, and then he will just get even more paranoid. This is a scary situation... I wish you and your friend the best. Just keep on loving him and hopefully he won't throw his life away on hidden messages from the television.

 

Oh, and about discovering yourself, unless you're an enlightened being, you will probably be changing and growing to some extent for the rest of your life. I do think that L can help one figure out what is important, though. However there is also a lot of validity in saying that someone who doesn't "know himself" to some degree can be scared very, very much by LSD. If you don't have values, love, etc. in your life, LSD can make the uncertainty of life very painful.

 

u never know man...with all the shit going on nowadays lol
well you should have your old pal back in about a year when he realises the world isnt actually ending...x