** sorry - this is a long post and is a little boring and serious, need advice from experienced ppl! **

Lemme tell you a little about my first time. I'm big into my psych music, everything psychedelic culture etc, and have taken MDMA a few times, and despite it being labelled as a psychedelic, I only occasionally got slight visuals if smoking a lot of weed towards the end of the trip. Despite all this (around 3-4 years of drug taking) I had never dropped the almighty LSD.

The first (and only thus far) time I dropped was in New York City. That's an important detail because I'm from very rural England. Talk about a familiar environment lol. I was with my friend who I trust and like, but also two other people who I'd barely just met. We dropped and sat outside, and the come up was really fun. It was similar to MD, I felt quite euphoric and seeing the plants move and the city lights shine different colours. Despite that, I would say the visuals died down from then on, or at least were not the main part of the trip.

Later on, I kinda felt myself being quite self conscious. I was a little nervy interacting with the other guys, and we even had a few conversations with his parents which were very difficult to sustain. The weirdest thing, though, was looking in the mirror. It was like I was getting a first impression of myself, and I didn't like what, or who, was staring back at me. Weirdly for something that's meant to trigger "ego death", I was mostly self conscious about the way I looked. I thought that was pretty weird. I hadn't shaved etc and my hair was a bit scruffy, but I'm not sure why I got that response.

We went to Central Park, which just kind of made me paranoid and I was just nervous the whole time. I also needed to urinate frequently. It should be noted we were also taking bong hits throughout the trip, not sure if that contributed towards anxiety.

The trip was okay when we got back inside, we were all just very silent, introspective, staring at the ceiling.

I feel like it opened up a series of questions, but I can't quite put my finger on what it was. I know that a couple of days afterwards I was thinking to myself that I need to be more assertive, make decisions more rather than saying "I don't mind", and only be nice to those who are nice to me, etc. Basically to stop being pushed around so much. I feel like I've changed my behaviour a little bit since the trip, but not enough to make a big change. The dosage was pretty low I think.

My question is, to people who might have felt a little like this their first time, should I try it again? I feel like a lot of questions were opened up but not many of them answered. Maybe I'm not supposed to find exact answers, and that's the wrong way to think about it? Also, if I do it again, should I up the dose? And should I do it in a very comfortable environment with some of my best friends, or even take it on my own and have an introspective trip?

I decided to ask this question because my friend seems to be really winning at life, and he says taking acid has made him realise things, what his goal in life should be etc, and he seems to be making positive steps to get there.

Thanks if you're still reading this far, really appreciate it!