Disclaimer: All readers should prioritize the warnings of medical professionals over this tripper’s suggestions. Drop with caution.
I was a nerdy, spastic, approval-seeking kid. I probably still am, but we’re all too good at deceiving ourselves into thinking we’re perfect at the present. My sweater cuffs had holes and snot stains, my glasses were already quite thick and if I was cool, I didn’t know it.
By no means was I any sort of bad boy or rebel, yet in the eighth grade I became a sort of outcast in my small, everyone-knows-each-other-and-word-about-everything-gets-around, upper-class-white, lower-class-Mexican maths and tech magnet school.
The catalyst: when I asked the sketchiest dude I knew where I could get some magic mushrooms.“Mushrooms are too much for you. Do you want to just smoke some weed instead?”
I was interested in mushrooms because they grew naturally and could be ingested instead of smoked. At the time, smoking something felt awfully intense, kind of like how now snorting something feels more intense than smoking it and injection takes the cake. What did I know? I had no clue about drugs on the street.
I was chasing an experience: the mind-expanding and perception-altering trips that I first learned of while reading that online staple, Erowid.com. I read that mushrooms could make you hallucinate and all you had to do was eat them. I was in, but if weed was all I could get, weed would do.
A few days later I skipped my PE class, went to “The Ditch” — a large, open piece of land in between the local hospital and some standard Orange County suburbs — and smoked my brains out using an apple. All I remember was laughing uncontrollably, branding and being branded by a friend with a burning twig and laughing uncontrollably again at Carl’s Jr.
I was hooked.
Fast forward a couple years and I finally got a hold of some mushrooms. I think I took around five grams. At some point during the upswing of psychedelic confusion, some bastard gave me a pill and told me it would make things better. The next thing I knew I was rolling around and screaming in the back seat of a car while my friends tried to convince me to have a good time. Everything was purple. I was in a perverted “Looney Tunes” universe. Then I suddenly found myself in Chik-Fil-A, staring wide-eyed at the cashier, trying to understand the difference between us. I later realized the difference was gender, a concept that I lost hold of during that trip.
This is an opinion piece so I’ll say it plainly: If you haven’t yet, you should put this at the top of your to-do list. Buy a tab of acid, cut it into quarters and put one under your tongue.
I’ll get to the point now. What I’ve detailed above seems typical of the experience of someone looking for psychedelics. Confusing, intense, fun and trippy. Certainly there are other more tangible, coherent aspects of psychedelic trips that serious fans can attest to: experiencing divinity, unity, bliss, synesthesia, cool visuals and whatever. But not everyone is looking for that, and if they are, always lingering behind the promise of an educational experience is the possibility of a “bad trip.” So to those with ambivalent or skeptical feelings about psychedelics, tripping remains just not worth it.
Enter microdosing. Ah, microdosing: a true game changer. The missing link. No longer do psychedelics have to be exclusively for those prepared for an intense, mind melting experience. Microdosing is exactly what it sounds like: taking a small amount of some sort of drug (for our purposes, psychedelics).
You might have heard recent news about Silicon Valley techies or business/professional people microdosing LSD as a tool for focusing and enhancing their creativity. If not, you have now. When used at a nearly sub-perceptual amount, LSD can offer an experience quite different from what you’d expect out of a psychedelic, and people from unexpected places are catching onto this and trying it out.
So what’s it like? Well, there’s a feeling of buzzing, physical energy (like caffeine or maybe nicotine), improved focus and attention (like Adderall or Ritalin), an increase in creativity (like marijuana) and a lowering of social inhibitions (like, though much more appropriate than, alcohol).
Here’s why that should excite you: first because a quarter tab of acid will cost you much less in terms of health and finance than a concoction of pills, coffee, cigarettes, pot and booze; second because it includes that unique spiritual touch offered by psychedelics and finally because there is a nearly impossible chance of things getting out of control.
This is an opinion piece so I’ll say it plainly: If you haven’t yet, you should put this at the top of your to-do list. Buy a tab of acid, cut it into quarters and put one under your tongue.

Art by Arthur Nguyen / Daily Nexus
Am I wrong or does the zeitgeist of today contain a healthy amount of distrust for the drug regulations in our country? Maybe these regulations keep us safe, but it also looks like they help maintain a system of modern slave labor afforded by incarceration.
It looks like these regulations are put in place to give market priority to the highest bidder; it’s not cheap to join pharmaceuticals, and legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco are in the exclusive Top Killers in America Club. It looks like these regulations stifle individual freedom and subversive culture. And it definitely looks like these regulations ruin some good old fashioned fun.
I have a lot of faith in us as students, young shakers and movers. I assume that we consider those laws which tell us what we can or can’t do to our own bodies as flexible suggestions, understanding that a government issued “For Your Own Good” is often a two sided coin, the other, heavier side being “For OUR Own Good.”
I assume that one’s reasons for not trying psychedelic drugs are based on disinterest in the stereotypical psychedelic trip or based on the personal reason it might pose as a risk to one’s mental health. I hope that we don’t avoid it just because it’s illegal. I would love to pass on the message that a psychedelic experience is not simply what it has been stigmatized as, but rather a whole spectrum of experience.
Consider dropping a tab an act of defiance against the boring old geezers who have spent OUR money and livelihood building themselves castles made of sand.
Scientific and anecdotal reports have suggested that psychedelics can help treat depression, anxiety and alcoholism. Brain scans of people on psychedelics show reduced activity in commonly used neural pathways, explaining why people on psychedelics often find new solutions to old problems and feel relieved of the classic “Burden of Self.” I’ll attest to psychedelics personally, as they helped treat my ailments of taking life too seriously, worshipping money and status, seeing others only in terms of how they affect me and feeling separate from nature.
Our generation will soon be handed control over the world. It’s a simple fact; the old guys are all going to die soon and we will have to pick up the scraps and try to save our planet and souls. If you find yourself interested in taking a psychedelic but feel hesitant because of the laws against them, please say screw it and do it.
Consider dropping a tab an act of defiance against the boring old geezers who have spent OUR money and livelihood building themselves castles made of sand. Consider it a signature on a new petition to sign yourself up for a new experience and prioritize curiosity over fear of convention.
Even if you only feel interested in psychedelics for the purpose of increasing your focus and creativity, don’t write off feelings of divine purpose, love for all mankind and the sacredness of nature, because the voices telling you to hold other things higher are the same voices that created this shit show in the first place. They’re the voices of greed, money, power, conquest and self-interest.
Please don’t consider me crazy when I say that honestly, in order to save our world, we all need to get trippier.
Eden Loi encourages you, the reader, to get trippy.
Drop acid be like paul Gusman. Great timing for the article
Or be like the kid who punched through a plate glass window and died. Go Heavy Psychedelics!!!!!!!!!!!
Shame on you Daily nexus editorial staff. Good for you showing no common sense or discretion in what you print.
That guy never took acid. It sounded like he had been using flakka or some sort of acid alternative…which are known to be unsafe.
What that kid took although not acid is ingested in the same manner and you would not be able to tell the differnce between the two
You don’t seem like you have done much research. I read all the time that someone “Freaked out on Acid” or went to the hospital, and it is very clear they did not take LSD and took a drug that was maybe sold to them as LSD. Just more evidence that the war on drugs creates unsafe drugs being labeled as “X” when it is really something else. This is very common also with Ecstasy/MDMA, Cocaine, etc. It’s hard to find these in pure form in the streets. Imagine if you could truly know 100% what you were ingesting was… Read more »
Any one can have a bad reaction to any psychedelic or drug. You are stupid an naive to think otherwise
“Imagine if you could truly know….” you can truly know. There’s test kits and universities that will test it for you for a small price. Always test your drugs before you pop them because there’s a lot of research chemicals out today that mimic these psychedlics.
Some one who would do that to begin with has mental problems & not because acid made him do that. In fact, just the opposite!!!!
No, good for you! I always appreciate uneducated individuals opening their mouth and spewing shit, it provides a great example for the rest of us that ignorance can drive a person to unfounded criticisms and general lack of productive thought. Exactly the negative thought patterns that the psychedelic experience dispels!
Yes. Do it. And ignore these idiot (probably old) commenters who go against this. Just don’t be stupid about it, do some research, reach out to other experienced trippers who can help guide you and make sure you have a good fulfilling inspirational experience. And that’s not hard to do. Boy isn’t the internet great? Just ignore the naysayers and old turds and propaganda-based news stories that would prefer you don’t open any doors that they’re too afraid to open. And have fun. :)
Dear Eden – I take the time to write out a full response because of the importance of the issue, to myself, our generation, and culture at large. I have tripped on psychedelics over thirty times in my life and have experimented with microdosing for around a year. I have studied the psychedelic literature extensively (Huxley, Leary, Alpert, Hoffman, Grof, Masters and Houston, McKenna, Lenson, Fadiman, etc) as well as the history of LSD’s use in psychotherapy and the history of the psychedelic movement (please see Grinspoon’s “Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered” for a superb account). You are correct to say that… Read more »
Thank you, anonymous poster, for an informative and level headed post. Gosh it would be nice to see more post like this in comment sections around the web. At any rate, as someone experienced with pshycedelics, i absolutely agree with everything you mentioned, but also i wanted to make mention of one thing you left out so people reading this can be informed. These psychedelics have the potential to bring to the surface otherwise hidden mental health issues, and I can’t help but feel that as our younger generations are increasingly being linked with higher levels of anxiety, stress, and… Read more »
Peace be to you as well, thank you for your thoughtful comment :) I am 21 and have had around 15 psychedelic experiences. I have micro-dosed myself as an exercise of self-investigation (1/4 tab for 4 days). I read that tabs range from 30-100 micrograms so 20 ish or less seemed to align with threshold dosage. Depends on the tabs and the person I am sure. I would just like to say that the experience of micro-dosing acid, in conjunction with a lot of introspection and meditation, changed my approach to daily life in a profoundly positive way. To put… Read more »
I have never tried LSD in my lifetime nor do I wish to do so in the future owing to the irreparable toxic nerve damage residues it leaves. Daily Nexus Staff, why don’t you people do some research and promote the use of a very beneficial chaga mushroom tea? It is perfectly legal and can be found in most sophisticated herbal shops in Santa Barbara. It is a very powerful adaptogen and the most powerful antioxidant food found on the planet. It essentially decalcifies/detoxifies the pineal gland; long considered by the ancients to be “the seat of the soul” or… Read more »
This wasn’t written by the Nexus staff. Perhaps you should do YOUR research.
Friend, Thank you for the invaluable tip on the chaga mushroom! I will be implementing it into my diet. However, your close-mindedness confounds me. Where does your education about the “toxic nerve damage residue” originate? That series of words doesn’t even make sense. I don’t mean to be harsh because I care for you genuinely as a fellow sentient being experiencing life but GOODNESS GRACIOUS please be a bit more open-minded. Everyone takes drugs, caffeine to heroin. How can you really know what a substance does to you without trying it out? Psychedelic substances can be used as a very… Read more »
I recall , in the late 60s, psych residents at UCSF’s Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute complaining about how much time they had to spend dealing with LSD user who freaked out. It was truly cutting into their time with other patients.
The legal disclaimer was written by the staff. They are merely whoring themselves to the young naïve marketplace.
Verbatim was typed/edited/published by the staff.
I really hope the next family that suffers a lose from an overdose in this community or the next person to be seriously injured by someone under the influence of a psychedelic sues the Daily Nexus. The consequences of writing this article is absolutely identifiable. It is encouraging illicit drug use with a drug that is know to cause serious unrepairable harm or death. If anyone is encouraged to try these drugs because of this article the Daily Nexus should absolutely be held liable.
I agree with you wholeheartedly. The Daily Nexus can’t hide behind this legal disclaimer. It is seriously flawed and it’s obvious there was no legal assistance here. The elements of causality are clear for all the future jurors to see and probe. I provided an enlightened alternative and all I have received so far is heavy criticism from the potential users.
Are you kidding me? Look. I love psychedelics. They’ve helped me loads. But i’ve also seen them destroy people. psychedelics aren’t for everyone. Always talk to your doctor first ( i did, and while they didn’t like it they were able to give me advice for how to be safe). They’re not for everyone. do you have mental health issues? don’t do them without talking to a therapist. Are you on any medications? ask your doctor. Know the doses. Buy a testing kit. Read everything you can get your hands on first if you really want to but don’t go… Read more »
“Drop with caution” is an endorsement to use acid.
Talk to your doctor? Because everyone has a personal physician they consult with before doing anything. Gtfoh dude 1:100 people would MAYBE take your advice seriously. Ya let me go admit to a doctor im about to take drugs he isnt prescribing. You’re goofy.
A certain amount of LSD toxicity stays with your 100 billion neurons forever. That’s a scientific fact. No amount of your psychobabble will ever change that. I can make it through life without LSD. I don’t need that crutch. Read the science—your lifespan is decreased markedly.
You’re speaking technical BS that doesnt even make sense. TOXICITY from LSD isnt toxicity from LEAD or Gasoline. If you’re making it your life goal to steer people away from drugs try explaining WHY and skip the science talk.
Eden Loi’s main thrust in the article is that among other things she wants to get a feeling of “oneness/communion with nature.” That is certainly an admirable quality and a much-needed one in order for our species to survive intact into the coming centuries, but the means to achieve this are skewed. Choose a “sacrament” that is much more closely akin to nature in its molecular form and more compatible with the human chemistry; otherwise the situation still remains oxymoronish. Chaga tea is the answer. A whole Master’s Thesis in Chemistry or Biochemistry should be done on this subject at… Read more »
It is unfortunate that the author of the article can’t seem to tap into creativity, altruism, and love of nature without psychedelics. Although the author seems to be trying to glorify psychedelics and to be pushing others to try them, the ultimate impression I’m left with is that drugs are his/her crutch. I hope the author can eventually find peace , creativity, and meaningful connections to people and nature without needing to get trippy first. Personal growth without acid – now there’s an idea!
Hello there, I happen to know the author personally. He is a very peaceful and creative person naturally. We have been exploring the use of psychedelics to catalyze an internal evolution. My main practice is Zen meditation (zazen). I sit down silently and see how things actually are. I am a Senior Physics major here at UCSB so I also investigate reality externally and rigorously. As it turns out, a rigorous investigation of our own consciousness is also possible. This is the practice of zen, to peer within and learn about our own patterns of existence. Does that frighten you?… Read more »
Had two strong tabs, so did a quarter tab. There were still mild visuals like bendy carpets. It also gave an incredible focus. Was less attached to old ideas, but mainly had the pressure on to keep at things until finished. A week later, still had seven quarters of a tab, but wanted it less strong. Took an eighth of a tab once a week for a month. No visuals, but still pressure to keep at things. Realized people get crazy ideas when they are unprepared for the conviction to work through their thoughts. You might conclude the US conspired… Read more »