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Comment by virtualwhys | Hacker News Reader

> I was just barely capable of asking my companion to summon our family doctor and request milk from the neighbors.

Hah, hah, a sign of the times. That's the last thing I'd want to injest when in the throws of a deep, harrowing LSD trip, yuck.

Really the only thing that "helps", I find, is a watch (if you're able to read the watch that is). Time can help ground you in the sense that you know roughly when the peak will occur, so if you're already overwhelmed 2 hours in, that means "only" 2-4 hours before you're over the hump ;-)

Taking LSD is very much continually answering the question, "here, ultimate (un)reality, isn't that what you asked for?", with "Yes". Easier said than done when you're in the thick of it...

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> That's the last thing I'd want to injest when in the throws of a deep, harrowing LSD trip, yuck.

I imagine he wanted to ingest milk in the throes of an LSD trip because he thought it would be the appropriate antidote for what he perceived as poisoning.

> Really the only thing that "helps", I find, is a watch

Yes, but nobody in the world at the time knew how long LSD trips last, or whether you'll be alive at the end of it.

> nobody in the world at the time knew how long LSD trips last

And no one knew that losing the ability to read/understand time is a pretty common psychedelic side effect.

We always carried “totems”.

Little trinkets that we’d hold while waiting for the effect while silently repeating to ourselves that this would remind us we’re just high.

Be damned if you lost that thing though.

Mine was a toy kitten holding a cheeseburger.

I brought a little metal chain into a trip once. Then a couple hours later, while we were all sitting in the dark hallucinating, I started absentmindedly playing with the chain. Everyone heard the sound and thought there was a dog in the room, which convinced me there was a dog in the room, and we all spent a good couple minutes trying to figure out who had brought a dog with them before I realized I was playing with my trip chain.

Something I've gotten into the habit of doing actually involves writing on my arm in sharpie. I notate what I took, how much, and at what time.

I got the idea from a friend, who likes to experiment with some psychedelic RCs. The idea is, if for some reason he ends up in the ER, unable to communicate what he has taken to the doctor trying to help him, it's on his arm!

Thats a pretty good idea!

I find that writing down stage times when I’ll be at various stages of the experience ahead of the event helps gather some perspective

In terms of the milk, my thoughts were he was trying to settle his stomach as LSD tends to cause a sensation of stomach tightness.

It’s also often given in the case of general poisoning.

Yes, he gives this reason in the next paragraph:

In spite of my delirious, bewildered condition, I had brief periods of clear and effective thinking—and chose milk as a nonspecific antidote for poisoning.

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