Man shows trippy effects of looking in a mirror while using LSD
Posted by FraudWasteAbuse on March 10, 2007
I’m somewhat of an armchair drug user. That is, I don’t actually do drugs but I enjoy researching them and reading about their effects. I’ve always been somewhat curious of trying marijuana, but it’s not worth the money and I’m not hip enough to know where to buy any even if I really wanted to.
Growing up, I was brainwashed by authority figures and public service announcement into believing that all illegal drugs, especially marijuana and LSD, are bad and will kill you if you use them. I’ve known for some time that marijuana is a relatively harmless drug, however it was only recently that LSD piqued my interest.
I recently had read a story written by a man who was reminiscing on his teenage years when he used to trip on LSD and magic mushrooms. It was interesting to have the perspective of an actual user who thought of his experience as a positive one. The story compelled me to do some research. It seems that unless one is using it every day and multiple times a day, the effects are temporary. It is also similar to marijuana in that it is not addictive and virtually impossible to overdose on the drug.
As an armchair drug user, this knowledge was exactly what I needed. My faux drug cravings needed to be satisfied by a simulated high. So where else could I turn but YouTube. That’s where I came across the short video below.
It seems the creator of this video clip tried to mimic the experience of what it is like to look in a mirror while tripping on LSD. The visuals and sound distortions do a great job of creating a freaky atmosphere. According to some of the comments, it’s as close as one can get to experiencing and understanding the effects of LSD without doing it yourself. Check it out and enjoy your simulated trip!
March 10, 2007 at 7:58 pm
If marihuana would be lethal, the whole of Holland would be dead and bearied… You can experiment if you have a strong personality. But then, you can do anything…Try planting some,surely grains won’t be illegal in your country? It grows well in pots but needs lots of sunshine and water. Order seeds from any homegrow shop in Amsterdam. Europe is.
March 10, 2007 at 8:52 pm
Sorry, but as someone who did lots of lsd many years ago, that was just plain incorrect. That was just some weird video a guy made.
March 10, 2007 at 9:33 pm
zambuka, hate to disagree, but it is a relatively interesting representation of the wavy, pulsing changes to vision that i, at least, have experienced on a few hits of lsd. Ive often experienced some degree of dissociation of the forground or focal object from the background. Not exact, but what is when dealing with entheogens. Well done, certainly better than most of the drug propaganda videos out there…
March 10, 2007 at 9:43 pm
As a veteran tripper, the video of the kid is about as spot on as it gets.
March 10, 2007 at 10:08 pm
You would be surprised. Our politicians have a fanatical, irrational drive to outlaw anything related to marijuana.
March 10, 2007 at 11:00 pm
spot on
March 11, 2007 at 12:26 am
You crazy kids with your Loco-Weed and LSD!
I’m callin’ the COPS!
lol….
March 11, 2007 at 12:41 am
This was pretty close, but on a real trip, the “tracers” would be a lot heavier and the walls would probably be melting.
March 11, 2007 at 12:45 am
Come to the united states then. It might be illegal, but it’s also everywhere, being smoked by everyone, including most of the cops I have met.
March 11, 2007 at 1:18 am
Marijuana is cheap and LSD is not addictive. Your “research” is seriously lacking at the most basic level.
March 11, 2007 at 1:25 am
I think it was pretty good but as someone else said there is alot more going on in the real experience effects, like there would be pulsating aztec patterns everywhere
March 11, 2007 at 1:56 am
yeah, that was pretty wild. definitely made me feel like I was tripping again. I never had distortions of my face in that extreme and they didn’t change that fast, but it did distort in similar fashions.
March 11, 2007 at 2:06 am
spot on
March 11, 2007 at 2:08 am
If LSD does half of what the video shows, then I’m going to go eat some right now!
March 11, 2007 at 3:55 am
I must agree with Mikonian, marijuana is cheap and not chemically addictive (i.e. you will not die of withdrawal symptoms if you go cold turkey after heavy use) and certainly LSD and psilocybin are not chemically addictive. (Not to say that one can’t become psychologically addicted to these.)
But really- There are aspects of psychedelic experiences which go beyond visual hallucination. ‘Armchair drug user’? You don’t go into detail and so I wonder if you’ve even smoked a joint? Why don’t you try some freakin’ acid or mushrooms? You could likely find some through Craigslist these days. It’s not going to kill you, or make you craaazy. You may even learn something about yourself (not to mention the substances).
March 11, 2007 at 4:01 am
I just want to say, that while that video does a great job of showing you what it’s like to look at yourself in a mirror, the visual aspect is but a small aspect of the entire trip. A trip is much more than just “neat looking visual distortions”. Acid is an amazing drug, but is not to be taken lightly.
March 11, 2007 at 4:26 am
If marihuana would be lethal, the whole of Holland would be dead and bearied…
Obviously a tourist or a person who has never lived there. I did and I can tell the Dutch, while tolerating tourists coming over from Britain, Spain, the United States and getting stoned in their “Coffee Shops” I discovered while living there that the Dutch rarely habituate these places. Commonly I found the Dutch to be both in appearance and demeanor quite conservative.
So why do the Dutch tolerate such places when they, as a whole do not partake? Good business. Historically the Dutch empire was built on beer and tobacco. Marijuana is just another commodity sold for consumption.
March 11, 2007 at 5:55 am
Well that was fun, if a little freaky. But I can only assume that was the ‘pleasant’ side of a trip. A trip isn’t just changes in visual perception; it’s also emotional turbulence.
March 11, 2007 at 5:57 am
I know LSD is not addictive. I never meant to imply that it was.
Marijuana may be cheap but it’s still more than I’m willing pay! I’m also not really in a position where taking drugs would be beneficial to my career path, if you know what I mean.
March 11, 2007 at 10:37 am
I liked the video. It was pretty accurate. If you are thinking about tripping, I would suggest watching a familiar movie. You will see the movie in a whole new light!
March 11, 2007 at 11:26 am
Excellent video, only stupid man want green dead
March 11, 2007 at 11:35 am
I’ve tripped at least 100xs on LSD, and a few dozen times on mushrooms. Never saw hallucinations. Ever. The only thing it did for me was heighten contrasts and hues, and my sense of touch or feeling was exaggerated. Just saying everyone experiences it differently. Friends on the same dose as I would see all kinds of things.
March 11, 2007 at 11:41 am
yes… more tracers. the movement was so good it was errie. More colors, waaaay more colors, dots of color pop in and out, they will appear on your face etc. That was what it feels like when you first start tripping, the walls did kind of warp at one point, this would be more pronounced. Other than those few things, that video was tight !! Oh the frame by frame thing it does is huge, everything morphs by in frames like that.
March 11, 2007 at 12:08 pm
Pretty accurate, generally his pupils need to be dialated the whole time. Needs more sound though.
March 11, 2007 at 12:20 pm
[...] shows amazingly cool effects of LSD while looking in a mirror Man shows amazingly cool effects of LSD while looking in a mirror The creator of this 60 second video clip tried to mimic the experience of what it is like to look [...]
March 11, 2007 at 2:28 pm
Yah, this depiction brought rememberence of that oh so unatural, eerie feeling to my stomach only to be felt while tripping on LSD. A little over exaggerated, but relatively close.
March 11, 2007 at 3:00 pm
[...] Man shows trippy effects of looking in a mirror while using LSD It seems the creator of this video clip tried to mimic the experience of what it is like to look in [...]
March 11, 2007 at 3:44 pm
If people think that’s what acid is like they must be putting some weird adulterants in the stuff nowadays….. I NEVER heard sounds like that - cheesy synthetic moaning noises….. lame. It just use to make you focus on the detail to where you’d get inside the music, but nothing that wasn’t there. Not so with visuals, but the visuals in the vid are closer to a tryptamine like DMT - acid was things like the grain in fabric resolving into replicating patterns with pastel tints. Lot of various ordered patterns evolving out of visible objects. The visuals in the video are ugly and bizzarre, not at all similar to the “cosmic” vibe of acid….
I don’t know where the person who said tripping had to do with emotional turmoil got that - he evidently didn’t know how to prepare for a trip! Too many fools these days jumping in and using it as a party drug without proper preparation. I only experienced turmoil o0nce or twice, and it wasn’t caused by the drug, it was the people who were around being real jerks!
Psychedelia obviously ain’t what it used to be….
This is basically a fairly lame video.
March 11, 2007 at 4:05 pm
I know I might be a little … wrong in the head I think… But things like this happen to me without any drug, just focusing on what really lies behind what I see. At least without drugs I can stop it… I don´t think I would stand it if it was chemically (I mean outside my own brain’s production) induced… since I wouldn’t be able to snap off it.
Sincerely, the “face in the mirror” changes, I’ve gone through, and it can give you the sights of the different aspects of your existence. Colours and wave patterns, I´ve seen, and I think the aztec patterns somebody here said has seen it’s because that’s buried deep in you subconscience…
Now, If you want to research more about LCD effects, back in the times when it was just been discovered, a writer (Aldoust Huxley) made a thourough investigation of its effects and uses, even proposing to use it at school for “educational purposes” since it opens your mind at a subconscious level, making it easy to percieve different kind of things.
The book is called “The doors of perception” and there´s a compilation also of Huxley essays, speeches and writings about the use of LCD and other psichotropic drugs. I highly recommend it.
March 11, 2007 at 4:39 pm
I remember seeing this a while back, and to be honest, it seems more like what you’d be seeing on magic mushrooms than LSD. Although I’ve never taken LSD, I have done ’shrooms, and this is very close to the kind of thing I saw while looking in the mirror.
I’m off the drugs nowadays but I smoked weed for a good 4 years or so and I really enjoyed it. I try to stay away from it now because I have responsibilities and commitments but if you want to try it - why the heck not. Like some people here have said, “you might learn something about yourself”.
A friend of mine once told me the world would never be the same after you’ve tripped. I didn’t realise just how little I understood that statement until a year or so afterwards when I did. It’s an experience that a lot of people will, sadly, never have.
March 11, 2007 at 5:26 pm
too bad for me huh, no acess to lsd whatsoever..im so ashamed to admit that i had no idea what exactly lsd did..only from the beatles song, lucy in the sky with diamonds..after this..it all makes so much friggin sense!!!! o and im tryin weed in a couple of days..so yay for me
March 11, 2007 at 5:29 pm
i don’t think you need drugs for this. try to stay awake way longer than you usually do, then, before falling asleep finally, dim the lights and stare long enough into a mirror and into your own eyes, if you can focus. there you go. (sometimes even your whole head goes missing after about half a minute. completely.)
March 11, 2007 at 7:00 pm
[...] Man shows trippy effects of looking in a mirror while using LSD I’m somewhat of an armchair drug user. That is, I don’t actually do drugs but I enjoy researching them and […] [...]
March 11, 2007 at 7:13 pm
Slightly off topic.
In a book I read recently the author is writing of the barrier between the conscious and subconscious mind. The subconscious mind senses everything that is going on around you. This is way too much for the conscious to process so the barrier filters and only lets in a fraction of everything you are sensing.
One theory is that with hallucinogenic drugs this barrier is weakened or disappears completely. That is why colors are more vivid, things are sharper and you are feeling and sensing much more. It also partially explains much of the introspection.
This doesn’t touch on why things change shape etc, but it is a way to look at the indescribable deeper draws of tripping.
March 11, 2007 at 10:31 pm
The ability to see what is in the mind’s eye in waking life can be enlightening and frightening…
I concur with the other comment made earlier…not to be taken lightly and has effects far beyond the visual. Strong medicine.
March 12, 2007 at 1:31 am
Smack on. This is a great representation of a visual, up there with Richard Linklater.
March 12, 2007 at 2:24 am
Must be quite a wizz to create the special effects.
I had worse nightmares when I was a drunk.
Purple three eyed elephants and worse!
March 12, 2007 at 4:22 am
[...] Man shows trippy effects of looking in a mirror while using LSD « FraudWasteAbuse Interesting video, glad I don’t do LSD, if that’s what it’s like I would freak right the hell out and end up a whimpering huddled mass in the corner. (tags: drugs funny humor law politics video YouTube) [...]
March 12, 2007 at 4:23 am
Interesting. But in my experience what’s missing are:
rich, but misty colors; traditional patterns covering any flat surfaces; irritation with flourescent lights; layers of almost transparent fractals, as if they were pressed into plastic-wrap and layere to covered the distance between my eyes and any object I look at; x-ray vision (seeing veins flow, muscles move, etc); geometric shapes; rainbow of tracers; molten walls; landscapes in bread crust; faces in random shapes; etc (but even I’ve only focused on the visual!)…I suppose one needs a lot of time and a lot of money to simulate these things. How do you simulate psychedelic synaesthesia with only visual and auditory media?
I also thought this clip was a bit dark, and I don’t think that’s representative of all experiences I’ve had or heard of.
As I said, it must be hard to demonstrate the feelings of mass of intense feelings and the dislocation of normal sense-tactile-and-thought relationships.
The sound is good. But I would like to hear more of a split between different tracks as if each were separated at different levels in the room (as if bass were more dense and held down and treble were higher and more bouyant; like water and vinegar). There might also be more of an enthralling, intricate side to the music which makes it both recognizable and completely new, giving clearer pictures of what the composer or musicians intended. Sound also affects visuals (and emotions), making what is seen in the environment change and gain meaning in relation to the sound (yes, that hardly sounds different that the experience we’re normally [un]aware of).
As others mentioned: it’s too focused on the visual. What is more important is what is happening inside. Taste, touch, smell, arousal, fear, ecstasy, time-dilation…but then these are all words for an experience, an emptiness and a fullness.
Also, saying what it is like on a trip is too normative. If you read what most of the people that commented on this video wrote, you’ll see that they took their own experiences and made conclusions about general tendencies. We can each suggest what might be missing but none of us can say what “it is like” except for ourselves. And that is the psychedelic experience: it is only you you meet, your own psyche (and that is why the experience in the video is only a small representation of the director’s experience). The video’s only a representation–an posteriori abstraction. It’s the best representation of the visual and auditory aspects of a trip that I’ve ever seen, but still not a simulation of the experience, sense, perception and awareness during a trip.
March 12, 2007 at 2:29 pm
I am SO stealing this from you!
March 13, 2007 at 3:34 pm
Very nice approximation. It can be interesting to try to unravel the facial expressions of others, too, as they tend to appear to oscillate in this manner.
March 14, 2007 at 9:44 pm
[...] Man shows trippy effects of looking in a mirror while using LSD [...]
March 17, 2007 at 7:10 pm
Dude, try weed at least once or twice. It. Is. Not. A. Big. Deal. If you’ve ever been really drunk you’ve been about 3x more messed up then you’ll ever get on weed. Being stoned is more of a lazy, goofy buzz.
And you don’t have to pay for it. Just be at a party where people are passing a joint around and get your round or two. Be a ’scavenger smoker’
March 24, 2007 at 1:13 pm
April 6, 2007 at 11:12 pm
I have not done acid (lsd) however i have been researching it for a couple of months in anticipation that i get to try it, now that i have read these comments i am definitly trying it, once at least. I have however tried shrooms, extasy, and am heavy weed smoker. Shrooms are one of my favorite things to do, you just want to get up and wander around explore and in my case i tend to giggle excessively. Extacy is a whole other trip on it’s own i tried it for the first time on new years and i danced soo much that the next day i thought my legs weren’t part of me anymore. and as far as weed goes come up to canada toronto to be more specific and g to the marijauna march you can smoke weed all damn day hell i had a friend blow smoke in a cops face and he laughed. and you can buy a gram for $10 how much cheaper could you want it? it chills you out and you feel fine the next day!happy trails and thank you to everyone who has commented your input on lsd is very helpful!!xo.
April 7, 2007 at 5:41 am
im a causal weed smoker and i have tryed magic mushrooms…. i have been told that there are things in an acid trip that can be related to mushies. but my mushies experiences have been nothing like this(probibly some of the moast werid and fun days of my life)but not even close to this…..i never saw things that where not there but did see strange colours . dont know what to think about the video but the comments are well worth a read…
ps cant wait till winter rolls around …… MUSHIES yessss
July 4, 2007 at 1:49 am
[...] Mirror and LSD *** [...]
May 4, 2008 at 2:40 pm
This is pretty close to what looking in the mirror is like on lsd.
Every movement you make with your face seems to kind of “flow” into the next.
Well done.