Just found my record of my first acid trip from 25 years ago, worth sharing

I was 20 years old and had just gotten out of the military. I was a country boy moving to the big city just outside of Chicago. I had never even been to a bar before, had smoked weed maybe 4 or 5 times in my life. A friend gave me some acid and I was curious, so I took it by myself in my small apartment.<br><br>I wrote my whole trip on an old Geocities website I still have up, last updated in '98. Here's a quick copy-paste:<br><br>The first thing I noticed was the light was different. It was brighter, more intense, and I could see colors in it that I couldn't before. I had read about the psychedelic effects, but I didn't really expect them. Like the colors in a rainbow, all shimmering. I was skeptical of the strength of the acid, since it was just one square...but I had the opposite reaction I expected.<br><br>I've read about synesthesia in books. This is where one sense is 'switched' with another, and I read a story about a woman who could taste pain. Like, when some physical pain was happening to her, she could taste a sour apple. I never thought much about it, but here I was tasting the music. I remember Michael Jackson's Billie Jean was on, and it tasted like strawberries. With each beat, the music was pulsing and the taste was coming in with the beat. I could move my mouth and nose, and was surprised at the intensity of it...the way the 'flavor' would change with the different notes, bass and treble. When the song was over, the radio just went static...no one even trying to sing. The noise was bitter, like garlic, and I found myself panting when the song came on again.<br><br>I was just sitting in my bed, doing nothing, feeling the last extreme highs of the trip and being bored. I had never really been bored like this before...I'd always had something to do. School, practice, training, whatever. I hated not knowing what to do, so I just got up and started moving my stuff around. I was cleaning up and feeling a little buzzed, and I thought about how good it felt...moving around, working, doing what I had to do. I moved a few boxes of stuff I'd just dumped out of my car, when I got some weird sensations.<br><br>The first thing was my jaw hurt. I assumed it was just from tension, when I suddenly realized I couldn't feel my teeth. I touched my cheek and felt something weird. My face was 'numb' like some dentist had just shot me up with a painkiller. I ran my tongue over my teeth...nothing. I could feel my tongue and the roof of my mouth, but nothing at all with my teeth or my lips. I looked in the mirror, which already seemed very weird, looking at myself from a different perspective.<br><br>I remember reading a quote from a Civil War Diary, where someone was talking about how they'd seen so many 'dead bodies' that it didn't even seem like they were human anymore. Just piles of carrion, mixed up with the dead pieces of animals. That's what my face looked like in the mirror. I was surprised at how weird it was to look at my own face. I reached out to touch my cheek, and I felt the same numbness as before. Suddenly, I realized I could see my own mouth and chin. The teeth were just a flat surface, my jaw a smooth, featureless curve. I pinched the skin on my face, and I could see the wrinkles and creases, but my teeth just looked like a flat line. It was weird, because I could feel the pinch and the pressure. But I could also see the pain. My face was a blank, chopped up pieces of skin arranged in a flat, featureless face. I felt the pain of my pinching, but it was a different feeling when I could see it too. <br><br>I forgot what I was doing at that point, I was just staring at myself in the mirror. I started trying to move my face and observe the pain. It was like a bridge between my own physical sensations and my observations. I watched my lips and jaw move when I pinched myself, and I could see the pain...not just feel it. It was like my eyes were inside my mouth, and I could see my tongue moving when I pinched myself. My eyes were trying to tell me my tongue was hurting, but my mouth was saying something different...and I could see both. It's not like I could just imagine the bridge between these two...the bridge was a third thing I was aware of, like a feeling bridge beyond just visual and tactile. I can't even describe it.<br><br>I remember my jaw still hurt a little bit, and I had some sensitivity there for the rest of the night. I also had the same kind of sensitivity in my mouth and nose. The taste of the music had faded, but the lights were still shifting and the colors were still intense. I started to get a little hungry, and I decided to get some fast food. I drove to Wendy's, which is just maybe 150 feet from my apartment building, and I got some chili.<br><br>I remember the bridge again when I was eating, because the taste was a bridge beyond just visual and tactile. When I took a bite of chili, I could feel the salt traveling through my body, like a rush of blood. The taste was intense, all I could focus on, and I could feel it flowing through all my veins. I mean, even the smell...I could taste the air traveling through my nostrils, traveling into my mouth. The spicy chili was a taste that reached beyond my mouth, like it was beyond just visual and tactile. When I ate...I could feel the pain and the pleasure mixed together in a way that was beyond anything I'd ever experienced...the pain and the pleasure were a taste that was just below the surface of the physical. It was like my jaw still hurt, but I could bridge beyond it...bridge beyond the pain, the pain and the pleasure traveling together as a taste, traveling from one extreme to another...the pain and the pleasure beyond the mundane, and beyond the physical. I felt like I could bridge beyond the pain and the pleasure, traveling into some deeper truth. <br><br>I was thinking about the mundane, and the physical...the pain and the pleasure traveling together was like a bridge beyond them. Like a taste that was beyond just a taste, a bridge beyond just visual and tactile. I wasn't thinking about the pain in my jaws anymore, just the simple act of eating...bridging beyond the mundane, bridge beyond the physical. The taste just reached beyond anything else I was thinking about, beyond anything else I was feeling.<br><br>I know it's hard to explain. Just eating chili, and traveling into some deeper truth. bridge beyond just a taste. I know it's hard to explain.<br><br>The last thing I remember is that my eyes weren't 'looking' anymore. I was just ...watching, and that's it...I guess. I was just standing there, eating chili, and watching the world pass me by, like some stranger standing on the street corner. I was just a man, a bridge beyond just a man. I was beyond just being ...me. Like I was a stranger, a bridge beyond just a man. I was just watching, and I didn't know anything else. I was a stranger in a strange land, watching the world walk by.<br><br>The world is a beautiful place, but there's a lot of pain and suffering. If I ever had a problem, bridge beyond it. ...I guess.<br><br>...I guess that's it...just bridge beyond it. I know it's hard to explain.