****DISCLAIMER****
What follows is a report of an experiment I conducted with an unknown dosage of LSD, I do not recommend or encourage anyone else to experiment with any form of chemical, recreational or otherwise, without knowing exactly what they're doing. I do not speak for the Dharma Overground or any of it's participants, moderators or admins and the words contained below are entirely my own opinion. If anyone takes offence or feels that such a report is inappropriate then please contact me, or any of the moderators or admins. I offer this report as the results of an experiment conducted on myself, not as some hippy-dippy trip report, or psychedelic-glorifying prose, my intent was to investigate the PCE while on LSD and see what I could learn on a practical level. I'm posting this in the Battleground section purely because it's potentially controversial and not strictly practice advice in any way, shape or form. This is a long post so if you're not interested in the subject then please don't waste your time reading further as it will be of little or no use to you.
I took a sugarcube which was dosed with, what I was told was and what I believe to have been, LSD in an unknown quantity. Not the greatest of starts for an empirical investigation but, alas, them's the breaks and that's what I had to work with. At 2250 on Monday 16th of April 2012, I took the 'cube and sat at the PC reading the Actual Freedom website, in the previous days and in the lead-up to taking the acid I had been reading and watching a Robert Anton Wilson documentary, all generally aiming towards an open, flexible trip which would allow me to investigate the PCE which had began a few hours earlier. A synchronistic series of events, as such things often are...
By 0054, the LSD had taken effect but everything was still very much a PCE in terms of the clarity of experience and the sense of "me" existing. I noticed minor perceptual alterations, like a sense of pulling somewhere around the eyelid which seemed to be due to some element of "me" still trying to come into being, some subtle emotional fluctuation which was most apparent in the periphery of the visual field. It wasn't like a blinking sensation, more of an mental tension experienced in that area but without any mental imagery coming up. Internally, or what I could feasibly call internally given that the distinction was more down to
how it was being experienced, (bear with me, this may get complicated), all I could detect was this shimmering, translucent (all experienced more as a mental tension (affect - pleasant at that point) being overlayed 'behind' the body, not as a visual object) 'ghostly' thing which was clearly not actual. At this point there was a complete absence of "me", apperception was occuring and each sense was crystal clear as it happened, pristine and everything you've ever read about a PCE.
Bear in mind as you read this, I'm using affective language here; my metaphors and linguistic representations are clearly not the experience itself and will obviously be described according to my mental processes. In short, take all of this with a pinch of salt and excuse any seemingly fanciful flights of description.
As the acid took effect, I just remained attentive as I normally would and conducted myself in the same way I usually do, paying attention to the senses closely as I observed each happen at the same time, "non-simultaneously apprehended" to quote Bucky Fuller. I noticed thinking happen of it's own accord, the thought concerned me trying to use some "fancy intellectual term to describe this", I was taking notes on what was being experienced and constantly, constantly inclining towards the PCE i.e. using pure intent. I bore this in mind from Richard's comments on the AFT with regards to this very thing I was engaged in at that moment, and pure intent most certainly is incredibly powerful since I appear to have been able to spend increasingly more time in, at the very least and remaining incredibly rigorous with my investigations, a 'high' EE since then.
I digress. Back to the notes...(these are directly lifted from the unedited notes from that night)
In the seeing, only what is seen. In the hearing, only what is heard.
This is the recognition of the clear light of awareness. That the senses operate without any involvement from “me”. There is a pressure at the base of the skull and I’m finding it slightly more difficult to coordinate my typing. The senses are experienced immediately – the thoughts only happen afterwards, i notice myself trying to use some fancy intellectual term to describe this but then i look and see that there are just fingers dancing across the keyboard. This is what you’ve wanted your whole life? Seems reasonable to type that.
I recall thought being scattered for short periods, I would get caught in some idea or another about practice and inbetween "I" would reappear as a feeling about some idea or connection, whether it was good or bad, realistic, actual, basically feelings about feelings which were "nipped in the bud" with attentiveness and intent.
This is to experience the senses operating of their own accord.
Reminder: Recognize the clear light of awareness.
Attentiveness to sensuousness at this moment brings the intimacy of sensate contact to the fore.
The perceptual distortions are created by the conceptualizing faculty reacting after the fact.
The reappearance of this "clear light of awareness" metaphor needs some clarification in case it leads to misinterpretation; this relates to an insight which occurred early on in the trip, the realization that what those words relate to experientially is simply this pure, pristine, always here, always now is-ness of actuality. When the senses are experiencing, there's no "me" required, no feeling involved, it's just as it is and "I" as a feeling being and identity am not required, it's just a different metaphor, a different map of the territory and still, even though it's so screamingly obvious in direct experience, people
still split hairs over it! I'd been reading a lot of Thusness' blog and the posts by "asunthatneversets" in particular, contemplating Thusness' interpretation of AF in terms of that particular map and learning a hell of a lot from the AFT site too. Being able to compare my own understanding of those two models, albeit informed and possibly altered by the ingestion of LSD, was informative and useful even with the potential for something like acid to completely void the result...then again, I'm just playing at being a scientist here so go along with the show for the moment.

Of course things don’t feel as though they belong to “me” while tripping, it’s because “I” have (seemingly) gone into abeyance at that moment. Paying attention to the senses makes this ever clearer, to think of how this is not “my” hand is actually correct. It never was “my” hand because “I” never existed in the first place. Any feelings “I” could have about “my” demise are still “me” and still support that structure.
This was while thinking about how people end up having a "bad" trip, which is almost always down to that intial stage of ego-loss common to any experiment with strong psychedelics. That depersonalization can appear through everything from insight practice to depression, it's how we deal with it and/or learn from it that makes the difference and intent seems to be a deciding factor.
Sitting here in the knowledge that I've taken acid it occurs to me that the reason things seems to veer between feeling normal to experiencing the PCE is down to the identity reappearing
This looks really obvious written back, at that moment it was like a direct realization of it at a deeper, and also more interestingly, more permanent level. It's hard to describe, basically it was like being able to see the entire process of each sense door without any feeling overlaid, from seeing to thought, each seen as being transient, empty, luminous, all those poetic terms so commonly spouted by people who don't actually know what they're talking about (including me a few months ago), happening right now. More on this later.
Information comes in too fast to record it fully and my ability to maintain a train of thought is reduced. Heat is experienced as being another aspect of tactile response, it’s like there’s more to it than what first seemed. This is literal. For my own reference in future should I choose to re-read this.
It's not that information itself, as in sensate phenomena making contact with the sense door, was happening any
faster, it was just that the senses were able to take in more information than I could accurately record. This opened up the senses to an even clearer level, sub-modalities of perception were apparent in a fascinating way and the experience of heat was as distinct from, yet identical with in a way language simply can't express, the smoothness of the coffee cup I was drinking from. These words don't fully express the levels of wonder, felicity, naivetè, sincerity and, when required, of pure intent involved here.
The "This is literal" comment was a message to "me" to pay closer attention to the senses themselves and look at the finer details, like how sub-modalities like heat, smoothness, or pressure happen, and generally to allow as much information as possible to discerned accurately.
“I” wish to end here, please. In a glorious, pristine and clear movement into oblivion. “I” only existed in “my” head but since “my” head is just this head which is atop the shoulders of this flesh and blood body it makes no sense to consider it’s contents to be “my” property. “I” am not thinking. “I” am not typing.
I remember I was laughing as I typed that but it actually sounds quite useful when read back.

A PCE occurs when “I” stop joining the dots – “I” am that which joins the metaphorical dots, the data points on this grid of information, chaotic but organized by the intellect into a coherent" or "accepted" model of the thing. These words make little sense but they’re an attempt to express the idea as clearly as possible.
The idea that "I" am what "joins the dots" is something I'd been contemplating for a while: The way I think of it is that "reality" is a series of data points we organize, via the various information processing faculties genetically endowed upon us by evolution on this particular lump of matter in this infinite space, to create a consensus model of the thing. Long story, I've already typed more in this thread than I thought would be required. I'll continue, we can discuss notes at the end of the ramble.
To recognize the clear light (metaphor, remember) is to see that the senses happen of their own accord, that sentence seems like a shit thing to say, seems like i repeat it quite often without fully appreciating it. The senses all operate at the same time! This is what to remember and to experience clearly. This is what it takes to cut the chain.
Self-explanatory. No pun intended.
The hallucinatory aspects are the minds attempts to find coherent ways to experience or understand these things. The mind doesn’t even exist either. All of these things are fabrication. If “I” die then everything just runs by itself anyway. This is how it will be after this body dies, the world, the universe experiencing itself as a sensate human being will continue to do its thing. “I” never existed in the first place.
This was like a "eureka" moment, realizing that what we call "mind" doesn't exist either, it's just consciousness arising of its own accord, not "in awareness", not "in" anything at all. Consciousness is conscious of consciousness, the waveform collapses. The death of this body is the end of the game, but the universe continues to experience itself as a sensate human being; since "I" never existed anyway there's nothing to be lost since there was nothing to loose in the first place. As I read back what I've written it occurred to me that my language may be unnecessarily metaphysical, on the contrary I'm trying to comment on my own notes as best I can and in as plain language as possible. What may seem to be words 'pointing at' something is actually literal unless specified otherwise, please bear this in mind as you read and try to understand this in terms of how it relates to a PCE, and an actual freedom from the human condition[1]. What I wrote as I sat there was intended to be as phenomenological as possible, based on whatever seemed to be the correct thing to write at that moment.
Clarity seems to have returned somewhat but still there is no sense of a do-er involved here. There is no thinker, thoughts arise, this is what i’ve said repeatedly before (and right now it clicks why i’ve all of a sudden started referring to this body typing here with a lowercase “i” and why some of the AF’ers do so).
The clarity referred to here, or previous lack thereof, was brought about by deliberately trying to bring up the feeling of fear and investigating it deeply (see the following section). I can't recall exactly what preceded the movement back to an EE rather than a PCE. I just thought this was quite a funny thing to have picked up on.
Noticed a rising feeling which could be described as fear in my stomach when i thought about “my” demise permanently. End of story. Right now “i” only exist as the result of an imaginary joining up of memories to constitute this identity, there is a feeling involved here something which gives rise to “me”. It’s easier to construct sections of thoughts into coherent forms.
Thought seemed quite 'broken-up' in terms of being experienced as a "train of thought" as it would be normally, but I began to notice how that came about when "I" got involved in having a feeling about a thought. On seeing that, it stopped and the PCE revealed itself again. Internally, which is the only way I can describe it conceptually, the actual experience doesn't involve a perceived "inner" or "outer", there was just stillness, a vast, peaceful, calm, stillness typical of the PCE. Any affective response was like a ripple in a lake, it didn't disturb anything, it was there and it was gone.
It just occured to me that even something as simple as remembering doesn’t involve “me”. Composing these lines of text is happening by itself without any more than a transient consideration of whether or not this or that word is appropriate to describe this or that experience. I can see these structures which lead to “me” come into being, i can see my own games as they happen or before they play out. Nothing psychic or precognitive, it’s just that mental patterns which lead to certain behaviours are seen to be clearly empty. I can see “me” trying to "join up" the senses into each category, trying to distinguish them from one another as if there’s something to be distinguished when it’s only the mental representation of it which leads to any sense of seperation or difference.
Which led to this:
Sensing happens at the senses. Sensing IS the senses. The seeing is the seen.
Let it all go.
Boom. No idea what the hell happened, something like a fruition but like a massive dilation of consciousness rather than a contraction. It's here where something appears to have changed in my entire practice towards AF, or whatever you want to call it, I don't think I'm "there" yet, even though it's clear as day that there's no "there" until "I" put it there and clip my own heels, I now appear to be far more able to incline towards the PCE and remain there for increasing periods. Whatever it was, it was fun but it's just another part of the process. Onwards and 'roundwards...
"Non-simultaneous interacting processing"
Interacting = sense contact
Processing = intellectual organizing
Non-simultaneous = not all happening at once but perceived as such due to the nature of consciousness i.e. continually perceived as arising and falling.
A continual dance of creation. That’s an appropriate metaphor to describe what happens, sense consciousness arises over and over again, there is no time or any greater awareness for it to rise in, it arises and passes, arises and passes but even these concepts are not sufficient to properly describe this. Those words are only labels for an ongoing, never beginning and never ending process.
The first section is related to a Buckminster Fuller quote I heard via Robert Anton Wilson; this is what I've understood so far and further contemplation on it has brought about similar conclusions. I find it to be a useful model to describe the process of apperception and wondered if anyone else would find some use in it.[2]
The "dance of creation" is a wonderful, playful metaphor. If it can be understood as describing the actual, physical process of apperception i.e. the senses operating by themselves, the brain then organizing that information on an instant-by-instant, 'frame-by-frame' (formations) basis to form order from chaos then I think we can begin to understand, at least as I see it, where some of the problems of interpretation between actualism and other traditions happens. Anyway, that's a complicated topic which could be fun to discuss another time. But not right now.
Everything I can think of is fabricated. It’s all “me”! Ha. Divine comedy. It’s all in my head. My reaction is me, my feeling about something is me, feelings, imagination, meaning, it’s all more of the same thing. I am a meme! Me-me!
I quite liked the idea of "divine comedy" as a way to express how funny it was to see how "it's all in my head" i.e. "me". The whole time I remained as attentive to the senses as possible, as continually as possible, relentlessly and with pure intent aimed towards the PCE. The "I am a meme" referred to the process of self-replication which affect gives rise to, it feeds itself and the only way to stop it is to see it for what it is: a fabrication. "I" can only exist as a feeling
about something, "I" give rise to more of "me", feelings
about this empty, transient phenomena gives rise to "me" hence the whole ""I" am my feelings and my feelings are "me"" thing.
Let go of consciousness. I am not that. It arises without me either.
This is letting go of the elements and allowing them to fade into one another, each dissolving in the other until only the pure sensate experience is what is left.
For some reason, most probably due to having been reading Leary's book and Thusness' blog, the idea of the Tibetan model of the elements came up and how they're absorbed into consciousness or, perhaps more accurately, seen clearly as not being seperate from consciousness and so the affective, mental, fabricated process which leads to the automatic creation of those boundaries goes into cessation.
O.k., I've written far more than I thought I'd need to but hopefully there's some useful information here which can be used in (non-chemically enhanced) practice. I've tried to be as clear as I can but feel free to ask if there's anything you'd like to discuss, or know more about. I've been applying these insights to my current practice and it's been incredibly effective, I intend to go through it and try to list some of the specific details of what happened, not just to add more information but to try to bring more clarity and nuts n' bolts, phenomenological details to proceedings. As I said in the disclaimer, I don't recommend than anyone indulge in there sorts of pursuits, and particularly not without considerable study of the substances in question or a serious consideration of whether or not you're prepared for what could possibly occur. I don't mean to sound like a spoilsport, prude or authoritarian figure but for the sake of safety, even though a site like this isn't going to make front page news anytime soon, I'd rather point out the inherent dangers in altering your experience through something as unpredictable as LSD. I genuinely can't say that I've used, or would recommend the use of LSD for purely recreational purposes, in the times I have it's always been for specific purposes and I've used it as a tool. It's not always a fun drug, there are ways to do it
more safely should you be inclined to do so but
please do your research and seriously consider the facts before proceeding. If you can't be safe, be careful.

Anyway, I'll sign off as I've written enough for now. I'm enjoying writing again and will try to get some new blog stuff posted soon, this is all good practice and enjoying whatever you're doing, as much as you possibly can is a wonderful thing to do.
T
[1] Also loosely to the model described by Thusness who's work, along with An Eternal Now, I've developed quite a taste for. It lines up quite cleanly with my own experience so far and so I consider it useful for further investigation and practice.
[2] An alternative way of looking at that Bucky Fuller quote could be to see the "non-simultaneous" part as referring to the way that the senses are normally perceived i.e. by an observer, not clearly seen as being these five faculties through which "reality" is (ap)perceived, operating of their own accord. Unenlightened perception experiences this as occuring in time and space, with "space" being used in the affective sense. Even someone new to meditation can quickly see that the thought occurs after the sensation happens, it's in that process of objectification, the creation of an observer through having a feeling about that sensation, that "I" come into being. If we assume this viewpoint, it also makes sense, and in my experience is very useful in practical terms, to try to experience as much of reality as we can at any given time via straight-up attentiveness to the senses. Look at what it's like to see, hear, taste, touch and smell all at the same time, just allow your field of attention to gently expand as if you're opening your eyes wide and take in as much information as you can clearly experience. Big thanks to Trent for the "opening your eyes" and advice on experiencing two things at once.
[Edited for righteous justice]
[Edited to add [2]]
[Edited to remove reference to Leary]