The first thing I realized was that I am basically a fairly healthy person. Now that might not seem like such a heavy realization to you, but for me it was one hell of a wallop. It's one thing to know something intellectually, on a surface sort of level. We know for instance, what it would be like to see the earth from space. But if you've never actually done it all you have is intellectual knowledge and "parroted" descriptions. It's something else entirely to have >>direct<< irrefutable experience. LSD is unbelievably useful in that respect -- somehow your whole mind opens up and becomes much more accessible, making it possible to see entire personality constructs with unbelievable clarity.
Interesting (to say the least) things happen under the influence of psychedelics. One of the most enlightening times during the trip is towards the end of the trip, when you've gotten past the incredible, bewildering profusion of synesthetics and inner echoing of sensations, and you're into the long, slow coast back to normality. The weirdness is much more moderate then, but it still comes on in powerful waves just when you think you're about done with it.
The interesting thing that starts to happen then is that, because the experience isn't nearly so completely overpowering, you can begin to notice specific effects that may have been lost in the swirls and filigrees of sensory overload before. Certain very specific and unusual sensory phenomena start to come up into consciousness. Most of them are so difficult to describe that I won't even try here. As the Sufis say, "He who tastes knows," so if you want to know, try it. Or talk to me in person, it's easier that way.
The net effect of all these odd sensory experiences is that you get a tremendously deep look at progressively more interior levels of your own mind. The alterations in the sensory realm have deep and significant relationships to your own personal experience of the world, and several times during this phase of the trip I have experienced truly magnificent insights into how the world works, so magnificent that I fully intend to eventually write them up here on Stuart. But this would not be the place for them, since each insight would require a good couple of pages of text to really do it justice. Most of the insights (for me; your experience will certainly be different) have had to do with the way my mind constructs reality. Yes, you heard me right: constructs.
To sum up, then, the most important aspect of the experience for me is the incredible insights I get in the last third or so of the trip. These are not the kind of "cosmic" insights one gets from nitrous, either. These are solid, logically self-consistent realizations that stand up to later, very intense scrutiny. It's a good idea when tripping to go into it with certain goals in mind -- questions you want to ask yourself. Then, if you are really serious about it, you'll certainly find yourself thinking about the questions as the drug wears off. And more likely than not you'll have some pretty heavy, exquisitely clear realizations. Having much enhanced access to the inner levels of the mind makes this sort of thing almost inevitable. That's what makes it worthwhile.
Of course, the ecstatic "peaking" time is also well worth it. It's impossible to describe the sensations, the incredible feelings. It's like the most thrilling roller coaster, the biggest wide-screen sensurround theater show, the most amazing of all of man's amusements all rolled up into one fabulously entertaining package. Unbelievable. It's the most directly esthetic experience I've ever had. Words fail me utterly to even begin to describe it.
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