Sunday 04 September 2005
For Sam
An excellent day in the city. Late afternoon sun shone on to the creamy stone steps and I couldn't hide the pleasure and anticipation as I carefully studied the front and back, and then opened first pages of a new book - Timothy Leary's "Musings on Human Metamorphoses". Artwork comprising of a Gorilla, Human and Alien smile from the front cover. Evolve or Die! says the back. It is about the eight circuits of the human mind, and evolution to the future. I have always been fascinated by futurism but had never read the theories of a psychadelic-explorer rebel-psychologist. I couldn't think of anything more fantastically relevant to read. I was hooked.
My new interest in Psychadelics had started with a chance offering from a friend, and had quickly escalated after just one amazing experience to full blown infatuation with the substance - the theories, and the mindset. I felt as though I wanted to devour the universe, such was my hunger and need for this kind of education. I had been suffering loss of spirit for some time - it had reached a point where I was no longer natural in my own skin. The planet earth was becoming monotonous. I realised that I had to do whatever it took to get out, back to the world where coloured ribbons fly, where soul and humour could run liberal as they wanted.
Having researched a little online about various pioneers in psychedelia, I had cracked up at Wikipedia's entry on Leary. There he was in a black and white photograph, this Harvard psychonaut, being arrested and carted off by the DEA for the possession of Marijuana. The grin on his face is lunatic and triumphant - just as I kind-of felt the expression of a controversial, rebellious academic should be. The description underneath, similarly awe-inspiring: instead of serving his 30 year sentence, he had proved that the Act under which he was charged was unconstitutional, and got off. I was in love with the dude.
I mused onwards through the first chapter, soaking up the paraphrases. 'To the elitist hedonist life is the avoidance of boredom and routine'. Amen.. I suddenly wanted to kill all of the dull, grey workers like vermin. I looked up from the book and watched as reality, comprising of town stragglers, walked by, clutching carrier bags from M&S and NEXT and slurping ice-creams and muttering things of no interest to one another. I decided then that I needed to go somewhere, and do something wonderfully eccentric to consolidate these thoughts into action whilst they were still so purely unfettered in my mind.
I couldn't think of anything progressively contraband and worthwhile, so headed instinctively instead for my car, holding the book close to me, should I forget its universal importance and be merged, forgotten with the other high street shoppers in their universe of FCUK t-shirts.
The drive home was bright, the sun glowed and tunes rolled easily out of bass speakers. Thoughts breezed easily and the universe felt warm, summery and surprisingly right. I got back to the apartment, had a brief conversation and a cup of tea with my flatmate who had recently returned from her holiday, then sat on the balcony and wantonly flicked through the pages of my book, whilst gazing at the skyline and dreaming of psychadelic escape. I don't think that I could have explained any of this to my flatmate should she have asked what I was reading - I would probably have passed Leary off and said that it was Fiction. How can one explain their desire to crash psychological boundaries and discover alternative, impractical, hedonistic raisons d'etre by employing the wonderous use of illegal psychadelia? It was, obviously, easier to avoid any of this nonsense and discuss the trouser sale in GAP, or offer a glowing review of an unusual vegetable I stir-fried experimentally last week. It always amazes (and comforts) me just how banal a conversational topic can be; but how as long as it is said with enough enthusiasm it can pass as nothing short of fantastically interesting.
It was at that moment that I decided I definitely must drop acid; that I wanted to trip hard all night. I needed to find more of this tantalising other-dimension - like some sort of evolutionary process already formulating, less and less could I make do with the standard, default 2D landscape.
I whiled away the dying sun of the late afternoon with a jog around the park and other fortifying stuff. I searched out some old relaxation and subliminal tapes and CDs, and put on a warm golden hued lamp in my room. For once, it was going to be an experience that was extra-dimensional and healthy. Body and mind warm with excitement, I really couldn't wait.
The time finally came when all was quiet and still, and I could retire to the happiness of my room for the night with my magical sweet. I languished on the thought that anything might happen. Alien, scary, joyous, I craved it all. I wanted my mind to be obliterated, scattered, fractured - for my intelligence and consciousness to have to find itself again, pick up its own pieces and reset. I wanted to see how different the dimensions and modes of thought could be on this limitless substance. The fact that vibe and setting was different to my last trip was enough to stoke my curiosity and enthusiasm. No earthly worries were on my mind, in fact I couldn't think of one significant problem. I had a shower, made a cup of tea, relaxed into stretching, and drifted away with my headies on.
I woke up one hour later still sitting upright with legs crossed, but with my head almost touching my chest. My back had slumped and it seemed that almost all of my muscles had melted into toffee, preventing me from getting up. It seemed too much of an impossible task to even lift my head. I did, eventually, and straightened up, surprised by how deeply I had been breathing and how stretched my lungs felt. I wasn't sure if this was healthy. The world was suddenly anew, and I looked into the mirror, seeing black-and-white-and-purple-green crawling holographic skin which was alive, independently moving and twisting. I was overjoyed at the fact that I was tripping.
Not so much intellectual desire as enjoying all five senses - engaged in more listening to music and surfed the web on my laptop - the type on the screen moving in waves, swirling and swaying like sea-plants on the bottom of the ocean. It was after midnight, probably around 1am, and on reading a post on BL, I suddenly got the idea that I wanted to go outside. I was awed at this amazing idea and told myself that it was the right thing to do, to go to daringly new, unsafe grounds. I put clothes and trainers on and quietly let myself out of the apartment. The stairs and wall looked amazingly bright - as I carefully climbed down I was beaming - then all of a sudden startled and looking around with as much sensory accuity that I could summon, before finally realising that I had been startled by the colour of the wall, just the wall. Was surprised by how a simple wall could be so bright and in-your-face. I realised, riskily, how off-it I would appear should I bump into anyone. Not too afraid though. I wanted to turn up the volume in life like this every day.
I finally made it to the back door and quietly opened the handle. I took a step outdoors. Nothing, then warm darkness. Then.. RAIN! Pouring, torrential, warm, tropical Rain. A million heavy droplets. The thought of the sound of crickets.. but no crickets, just nostalgia. The whole vibe was instantly inviting. Common sense told me that it was raining - and that it was a surprise that it was raining - and thus a no-go. But I instantaneously dismissed that thought as adult and contrived and replaced it with what seemed the fundamentally right, longing desire, to go out in the rain. Singing in the rain, running in the rain, anything in the rain, definitely. I plunged outwards and started walking. Thick, heavy trees glowed green as I went towards the park. Rain!
By the time I got to the park, the sensory overload of the wet had calmed and I had gotten used to it, almost not noticing it any more, as the temperature was so humid. I started bounding gently along one of the paths into the park, feeling strong at my centre, as if I could have run several miles as easily as walking. I felt warm and focused whilst jogging, as if I could easily melt, or dissolve, or dive into the grass.
The path offered a diversion into the deep woods, towards the direction of the canalside. I peered in its direction, but didn't want to go there, it was too dark and foreboding. I kept stable along the main path.. went past a huge Boarding School on a hill.. not really interested in it. It was all about the senses and everything physical, so much so that I had almost stopped thinking and analysing, I was just feeling. Then, a total surprise as I saw The Mental Home. I had forgotten that it was there - a gated, clinical enclosure with flat square roof set off the North side of the park. 'Birmingham Mental Health Trust' said the sign on the gate assuredly. My mind was suddenly blown apart by the concept of a home full of Mental people, people taken from society as 'too mad to be out'. The ludicrous thought that I was here, as mad as any of these people, free, flying high on LSD and jogging casually past, in the pouring rain at 1.30am. They were on the inside and I was on the outside. In the rain. This was my free choice in life. I started laughing. All of a sudden I couldn't believe what I was doing.
I looked up at the apartment blocks, they were all little boxes, just like the Mental Home. But people had chosen to work their entire lives for their box, so that they could be happy in the box, like a hamster. Happiness in slavery? Why did I not crave this? Why did I not have plans like these people? A serious tone. Why was I trying to find Dimension X, was I so socially impaired and maladjusted that I needed to dream of other worlds? A bit of darkness creeping in.. but it turned out that it was okay, and I got back home in high spirits. Crept back in and tumbled quietly into my golden-hued room to take off the soaking stuff.
Next, warm and fluffy in socks, back to Leary. It was funny and mind-expanding, much better than reading straight. Then flowed onto trip reports online which seemed to give a warmingly lovely insight into the entire life, mind and inner working of the writer.. felt an intense empathy for each of the authors, loved that. The trip seemed to be subsiding somewhat, so I listened to a free CD that I found stashed in the back of a box entitled 'Happy Life' which happily enough had lots of African tribal singing and affirmations about nature. Felt old and aged all of a sudden, looked in the mirror, but the image looking back was young. Took a photo for memories of radically indulgent dilated pupils, and collapsed in relief onto the bed (in hindsight, I wondered if bed was this good, why I had been out running voluntarily around fields). Felt tense for an hour or so, but the rushing, tingling muscles finally alleviated and I fell to sleep exhausted at about 6am.
A very easy and enjoyable trip overall, and although I was not advanced-a-being enough to have traversed another dimension (despite serious intentions at the start), it consolidated all of the warmness of my new home, and ever since it I have been easier, more jovial and more thankful.
Another vote for LSD being, without a doubt, the best of the drugs.
For Sam
An excellent day in the city. Late afternoon sun shone on to the creamy stone steps and I couldn't hide the pleasure and anticipation as I carefully studied the front and back, and then opened first pages of a new book - Timothy Leary's "Musings on Human Metamorphoses". Artwork comprising of a Gorilla, Human and Alien smile from the front cover. Evolve or Die! says the back. It is about the eight circuits of the human mind, and evolution to the future. I have always been fascinated by futurism but had never read the theories of a psychadelic-explorer rebel-psychologist. I couldn't think of anything more fantastically relevant to read. I was hooked.
My new interest in Psychadelics had started with a chance offering from a friend, and had quickly escalated after just one amazing experience to full blown infatuation with the substance - the theories, and the mindset. I felt as though I wanted to devour the universe, such was my hunger and need for this kind of education. I had been suffering loss of spirit for some time - it had reached a point where I was no longer natural in my own skin. The planet earth was becoming monotonous. I realised that I had to do whatever it took to get out, back to the world where coloured ribbons fly, where soul and humour could run liberal as they wanted.
Having researched a little online about various pioneers in psychedelia, I had cracked up at Wikipedia's entry on Leary. There he was in a black and white photograph, this Harvard psychonaut, being arrested and carted off by the DEA for the possession of Marijuana. The grin on his face is lunatic and triumphant - just as I kind-of felt the expression of a controversial, rebellious academic should be. The description underneath, similarly awe-inspiring: instead of serving his 30 year sentence, he had proved that the Act under which he was charged was unconstitutional, and got off. I was in love with the dude.
I mused onwards through the first chapter, soaking up the paraphrases. 'To the elitist hedonist life is the avoidance of boredom and routine'. Amen.. I suddenly wanted to kill all of the dull, grey workers like vermin. I looked up from the book and watched as reality, comprising of town stragglers, walked by, clutching carrier bags from M&S and NEXT and slurping ice-creams and muttering things of no interest to one another. I decided then that I needed to go somewhere, and do something wonderfully eccentric to consolidate these thoughts into action whilst they were still so purely unfettered in my mind.
I couldn't think of anything progressively contraband and worthwhile, so headed instinctively instead for my car, holding the book close to me, should I forget its universal importance and be merged, forgotten with the other high street shoppers in their universe of FCUK t-shirts.
The drive home was bright, the sun glowed and tunes rolled easily out of bass speakers. Thoughts breezed easily and the universe felt warm, summery and surprisingly right. I got back to the apartment, had a brief conversation and a cup of tea with my flatmate who had recently returned from her holiday, then sat on the balcony and wantonly flicked through the pages of my book, whilst gazing at the skyline and dreaming of psychadelic escape. I don't think that I could have explained any of this to my flatmate should she have asked what I was reading - I would probably have passed Leary off and said that it was Fiction. How can one explain their desire to crash psychological boundaries and discover alternative, impractical, hedonistic raisons d'etre by employing the wonderous use of illegal psychadelia? It was, obviously, easier to avoid any of this nonsense and discuss the trouser sale in GAP, or offer a glowing review of an unusual vegetable I stir-fried experimentally last week. It always amazes (and comforts) me just how banal a conversational topic can be; but how as long as it is said with enough enthusiasm it can pass as nothing short of fantastically interesting.
It was at that moment that I decided I definitely must drop acid; that I wanted to trip hard all night. I needed to find more of this tantalising other-dimension - like some sort of evolutionary process already formulating, less and less could I make do with the standard, default 2D landscape.
I whiled away the dying sun of the late afternoon with a jog around the park and other fortifying stuff. I searched out some old relaxation and subliminal tapes and CDs, and put on a warm golden hued lamp in my room. For once, it was going to be an experience that was extra-dimensional and healthy. Body and mind warm with excitement, I really couldn't wait.
The time finally came when all was quiet and still, and I could retire to the happiness of my room for the night with my magical sweet. I languished on the thought that anything might happen. Alien, scary, joyous, I craved it all. I wanted my mind to be obliterated, scattered, fractured - for my intelligence and consciousness to have to find itself again, pick up its own pieces and reset. I wanted to see how different the dimensions and modes of thought could be on this limitless substance. The fact that vibe and setting was different to my last trip was enough to stoke my curiosity and enthusiasm. No earthly worries were on my mind, in fact I couldn't think of one significant problem. I had a shower, made a cup of tea, relaxed into stretching, and drifted away with my headies on.
I woke up one hour later still sitting upright with legs crossed, but with my head almost touching my chest. My back had slumped and it seemed that almost all of my muscles had melted into toffee, preventing me from getting up. It seemed too much of an impossible task to even lift my head. I did, eventually, and straightened up, surprised by how deeply I had been breathing and how stretched my lungs felt. I wasn't sure if this was healthy. The world was suddenly anew, and I looked into the mirror, seeing black-and-white-and-purple-green crawling holographic skin which was alive, independently moving and twisting. I was overjoyed at the fact that I was tripping.
Not so much intellectual desire as enjoying all five senses - engaged in more listening to music and surfed the web on my laptop - the type on the screen moving in waves, swirling and swaying like sea-plants on the bottom of the ocean. It was after midnight, probably around 1am, and on reading a post on BL, I suddenly got the idea that I wanted to go outside. I was awed at this amazing idea and told myself that it was the right thing to do, to go to daringly new, unsafe grounds. I put clothes and trainers on and quietly let myself out of the apartment. The stairs and wall looked amazingly bright - as I carefully climbed down I was beaming - then all of a sudden startled and looking around with as much sensory accuity that I could summon, before finally realising that I had been startled by the colour of the wall, just the wall. Was surprised by how a simple wall could be so bright and in-your-face. I realised, riskily, how off-it I would appear should I bump into anyone. Not too afraid though. I wanted to turn up the volume in life like this every day.
I finally made it to the back door and quietly opened the handle. I took a step outdoors. Nothing, then warm darkness. Then.. RAIN! Pouring, torrential, warm, tropical Rain. A million heavy droplets. The thought of the sound of crickets.. but no crickets, just nostalgia. The whole vibe was instantly inviting. Common sense told me that it was raining - and that it was a surprise that it was raining - and thus a no-go. But I instantaneously dismissed that thought as adult and contrived and replaced it with what seemed the fundamentally right, longing desire, to go out in the rain. Singing in the rain, running in the rain, anything in the rain, definitely. I plunged outwards and started walking. Thick, heavy trees glowed green as I went towards the park. Rain!
By the time I got to the park, the sensory overload of the wet had calmed and I had gotten used to it, almost not noticing it any more, as the temperature was so humid. I started bounding gently along one of the paths into the park, feeling strong at my centre, as if I could have run several miles as easily as walking. I felt warm and focused whilst jogging, as if I could easily melt, or dissolve, or dive into the grass.
The path offered a diversion into the deep woods, towards the direction of the canalside. I peered in its direction, but didn't want to go there, it was too dark and foreboding. I kept stable along the main path.. went past a huge Boarding School on a hill.. not really interested in it. It was all about the senses and everything physical, so much so that I had almost stopped thinking and analysing, I was just feeling. Then, a total surprise as I saw The Mental Home. I had forgotten that it was there - a gated, clinical enclosure with flat square roof set off the North side of the park. 'Birmingham Mental Health Trust' said the sign on the gate assuredly. My mind was suddenly blown apart by the concept of a home full of Mental people, people taken from society as 'too mad to be out'. The ludicrous thought that I was here, as mad as any of these people, free, flying high on LSD and jogging casually past, in the pouring rain at 1.30am. They were on the inside and I was on the outside. In the rain. This was my free choice in life. I started laughing. All of a sudden I couldn't believe what I was doing.
I looked up at the apartment blocks, they were all little boxes, just like the Mental Home. But people had chosen to work their entire lives for their box, so that they could be happy in the box, like a hamster. Happiness in slavery? Why did I not crave this? Why did I not have plans like these people? A serious tone. Why was I trying to find Dimension X, was I so socially impaired and maladjusted that I needed to dream of other worlds? A bit of darkness creeping in.. but it turned out that it was okay, and I got back home in high spirits. Crept back in and tumbled quietly into my golden-hued room to take off the soaking stuff.
Next, warm and fluffy in socks, back to Leary. It was funny and mind-expanding, much better than reading straight. Then flowed onto trip reports online which seemed to give a warmingly lovely insight into the entire life, mind and inner working of the writer.. felt an intense empathy for each of the authors, loved that. The trip seemed to be subsiding somewhat, so I listened to a free CD that I found stashed in the back of a box entitled 'Happy Life' which happily enough had lots of African tribal singing and affirmations about nature. Felt old and aged all of a sudden, looked in the mirror, but the image looking back was young. Took a photo for memories of radically indulgent dilated pupils, and collapsed in relief onto the bed (in hindsight, I wondered if bed was this good, why I had been out running voluntarily around fields). Felt tense for an hour or so, but the rushing, tingling muscles finally alleviated and I fell to sleep exhausted at about 6am.
A very easy and enjoyable trip overall, and although I was not advanced-a-being enough to have traversed another dimension (despite serious intentions at the start), it consolidated all of the warmness of my new home, and ever since it I have been easier, more jovial and more thankful.
Another vote for LSD being, without a doubt, the best of the drugs.
Last edited:
Someday soon....