July 2024 Catching Up

Happy July 25th everyone!

It’s been more than a month since I have posted anything. I wanted to share this one particular adventure I have had since my last post.

Once Again, Knocking on the “Doors of Perception”

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.

The name that can be named is not the eternal name.

The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.

The named is the mother of the ten thousand things.

Ever desireless, one can see the mystery.

Ever desiring, one sees the manifestations.

Some of you may recognize the above stanza. It is from the Tao Te Ching, an ancient Chinese philosophical text. (This should not be confused with the Taoism religion that later evolved).

I studied Taoism extensively when in college, having been introduced to it, like the rest of US citizenry, years earlier in the 1960’s by the Kung Fu television series. Indeed, my love of Taoism led me to study kung fu, off and on, for some years. I was trained in Chinese White Crane by Sifu George Long in San Francisco and later studied Southern Praying Mantis by Sifu David Chung and Master Gin Foon Mark, in Minneapolis. Such great experiences and memories! All these folks are dead now.

Accompanying my explorations into the mystical side of Taoism way back then was a thorough enjoyment of periodically indulging in the psychedelic drugs that were available. I’m talking about the 1970’s here. I consider myself fortunate to have been able to partake in some of the most famous LSD in the world at that time, or any time, really.

A “Trip” Down Memory Lane

One reason I say “fortunate” is that these specific LSD drugs were manufactured professionally, which guaranteed their quality in terms of purity, and also their potency. For example…

Orange Sunshine

• This was a famously potent form of LSD that came in a small orange pill, shaped like a bit of a wedge, if I remember right. And yes, it tasted like orange! This acid was an ass-kicker! This isn’t surprising, considering that it was manufactured by the infamous chemist Stanley Owsley (1935-2011), nicknamed “Bear,” by his friends. Owsley later became the sound engineer for The Grateful Dead. Perfect, right? In fact, the Dead owed their existence, more or less, to Owsley, who supported the band with the money he was making off his LSD production. The acid he made was distributed by an organization known as, “The Brotherhood of Eternal Love,” Ah, the 1960’s!

Blue Cheer

• If you’re old enough, you’ve probably heard of the 1960’s band by this name. And yes, the band was named after the acid distributed back then. The acid itself was named after the eponymous laundry detergent. Why? I have no idea. Who made it? Yep, Stanley Owsley. The man was a friggin’ pharmaceutical genius!

Mr. Natural Blotter Acid

• I remember all of this acid I took back then, although as usual, much of the individual tripping experiences are lost to me for the most part. I remember seeing a sheet of 100 squares, which is how it arrived in Vietnam. We all got the biggest kick out of the Mr. Natural imprint on every 4 squares. If you’re unaware, Mr. Natural is an underground comic book character created by R. Crumb. This type of acid was called “blotter” because the paper was in fact, blotter paper. Each square was a hit and had perforations so you could take it one hit at a time.

Windowpane Acid

• Oh, this was a lovely acid! Very powerful, and like those mentioned above, professionally manufactured, so both dosage and quality were ensured. Windowpane consisted of individual pieces of gelatin, dosed perfectly, and would melt under your tongue. Each square was ¼” across, so very small. I remember a Sean Phillips concert at UMD. A friend of ours had some windowpane and gave two to Sean Phillips. He then went and did the concert, and it was amazing! I don’t know how he did it. LOL.

Owsley Purple Double Dome

• I ran into this acid in Vietnam, too. I checked and “Owsley Purple” was a type of acid Stanley was distributing back in the day. It was indeed purple and consisted of a small pill with two domes. I suspect the intent may have been that it could be broken in two for two doses. I’m not sure if this is correct or not. All I know is that I took the whole pill with two domes. It is still the most powerful LSD I ever consumed in my life, and that includes the days when I would take 2 or 3 hits of acid at once. I was in Cam Rahn Bay and someone had a TV in their room. I remember sitting there and feeling quite shocked as the person delivering the news on the television began to talk to me directly, using my name. Later, I watched in awe as my friend, sitting on the couch next to me, turned into a wooden puppet. Freaky stuff, but memorable.

LOL, this was a fun trip down memory lane! Pun intended!

LSD came in a variety of forms back then, and dosages. If you didn’t have something professional like from the above list, it was often a crap shoot and anybody’s guess how powerful a trip you would experience.

Peyote

• Another hallucinogen I experienced back in the day was, Peyote. Sadly, I only came across it once. A friend of mine and I ate the peyote, and then, gluttons for punishment that we were, dropped some acid on top of it. Then we went to my first Grateful Dead concert in Madison, Wisconsin. I remember standing up and listening to the band for over 4 hours. I never even noticed it. Spectacular concert, to say the least!

Psilocybin

• Last, but not least, is the final psychedelic I enjoyed several times in my youth… psilocybin mushrooms! They were rare back then, at least in Duluth, although not unheard of. The shrooms we purchased were usually frozen. Often the shrooms had been bruised to death during the freezing process and looked like a mass of black frozen mush inside a baggy. They looked black, but were actually a very, very, dark shade of blue, as that is what psilocybin does when you bruise it. They didn’t taste too good, either. Sadly, my psilocybin memories are also mostly lost, although I still retain a clear memory of sitting in someone’s yard, tripping like crazy on shrooms. I could see, hear and feel the trees breathing in and out. All the plant life around me appeared like a cohesive entity, all connected, all beautiful and serene. As I sat there, I saw a monarch butterfly nearby. I held up my finger and he flew over immediately and landed on it. I held him up and looked at him. And he was sitting there, just looking back at me. Time seemed suspended. It was a beautiful moment.

So what has all of this got to do with my catching you up on my life the past month or so? Well, after 50+ years, I finally got hold of some psilocybin and took another trip with them. Hooray! It had been so long!

Since I haven’t traveled in circles for many years that would have access to such things, I won’t discuss how I acquired them. If anyone is interested, you can ask me and I’ll tell you. Otherwise, ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies!

Getting Ready for Takeoff!

Those of us who are, ahem, “older,” often have the benefit of some wisdom gleaned from much earlier years of mistakes. For me, this is true regarding psychedelics. While I was still in the circle of friends where tripping was not uncommon, I read extensively on the subject. Timothy Leary was one such author who essentially wrote the book on how to trip correctly. The secret to having a good experience on a hallucinogen versus what is typically referred to as a “bad trip” all has to do with two primary factors: Set and Setting.

“Set” refers to your mental state prior to ingesting a psychedelic. By far the biggest danger, if one wants to use that word, involved with taking any psychedelic is that they can break down the barriers we all have in our heads between conscious and unconscious thoughts. Have you ever spent much time digging around your own brain? If so, you know that we all have thoughts in our head that we suppress for a variety of reasons. I’m talking about old emotional pain, old anger, desires, fears, all kinds of things that we prefer not to think about, maybe even ignore or pretend don’t exist. That’s good for fooling the people around you, and even yourself, but when you are tripping, there is no hiding, there is no burying a thought. You will be forced to confront whatever bubbles up from your subconscious. If you’ve got a lot of baggage floating around in your subconscious, things that you have never really dealt with, then taking a psychedelic of any kind should be avoided, or only be approached with the help of a trained therapist.

In my case, back in the 70’s there was no psychedelic therapy. Having ingested enough LSD to be very familiar with the experience, I came to see it as a tool I could use to dig into my own personal issues, specifically having to do with my Vietnam War experiences. Remember, PTSD wasn’t even a “thing” until 1980. The VA administration had no capacity or willingness to deal with us Vietnam veterans and our psychological problems. I knew that I was hurting, that I’d been saddled with a certain amount of guilt over my experiences there. I wasn’t quite sure why. I wasn’t quite sure how it was that I ended up volunteering for Vietnam when I did. So, I began a personal pursuit for answers. My drug of choice: LSD.

I would consume between 1-3 hits of acid, then sit in my room and trip as I rooted around in my head, trying to make sense of what appeared to be an insane experience. The result of my periodic efforts was that I learned somehow, to forgive myself. It’s not like I had done anything specifically horrible in Vietnam, but somehow “forgiving myself,” seem to be the right words to use to describe it.

There is something very therapeutic about being able to clearly visualize yourself as a young man, from afar, so to speak. Watching yourself as certain incidents transpired, thinking, “That poor kid.” Don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t pity or feeling sorry for myself. It was recognition that no one should ever have to experience those things, and recognition that I did experience them at a very young age and that it was in fact, a real bummer. It was also recognition that the best way for me to deal with these issues personally, was to face them, admit they exist, recognize the many varied ways they affected me, and accept it. I guess I must have done something right, because I never had a bad trip, out of what was probably 100+ trips or so. In fact, I became quite comfortable with the tripping experience. I’ve described doing this to two different VA psychologists and one VA psychiatrist while I was being evaluated for PTSD disability. Every one of them told me that they think I did myself a real favor. I’ll never know for sure, but I’d like to think so. The other thing they said was that writing about my experiences was one of the best things I could do to deal with my PTSD.

By the way, if you’re considering doing some psychedelics, don’t do what I did back in the day. Trip with a friend, someone you are close to, preferably someone experienced. If anyone ever has a desire to ingest some psychedelics and wants guidance, please contact me. I’d be happy to offer some experience-based advice.

Back to Reality

So, flash forward to June 2024 and suddenly I find myself in possession of some magic mushrooms! I could hardly believe it. The type of mushrooms I have are called, Golden Teachers. The “golden” refers to the color of the shroom. The “teachers” attribute refers to the reputation these shrooms have as being “introspective” and “insightful.” Let me just say that they were all of that!

Together, with a friend, I ingested an amount known these days as a “heroic dose.” This turns out to be around 5 grams.  Larger doses are considered “extreme”  and “intense.” Having done 5 grams, I can only imagine what 7 grams would be like. Hmm.

In our case, we had both been looking forward to this experience for some time, so our “Set,” if you will was very good. We were excited about the trip and looking forward to it. We each had a very positive attitude. Of course, as is always true, there is no way for either my friend or I to know what is really going on behind the scenes of the other’s consciousness. So, we had to use an amount of trust that the other wasn’t going to have a melt-down during the upcoming trip, or if one of us did have issues (hey, it happens), the other would be able to help them through it. At this point, I felt I could put a checkmark on “Set.”

For “Setting,” I also knew what we needed, so I put some time into thinking about this. We required a place where we could limit the possibility of being forced to interact with other people. As anyone who has experience with psychedelics will tell you, “Straight people will fuck you up!” They don’t do this intentionally, of course, but it is true. I wanted to reduce this threat as much as I could.

So, I rented a nice hotel room on the coast, one that had a balcony overlooking the ocean, with access to a beautiful beach. In this place we could bring everything we needed in the room with us and there’d be no need for us to interact with other hotel guests at all. The balcony had a nice table and chairs. We literally had everything we needed. We had our cell phones, of course, although we had no intention of using one while tripping.

We enjoyed a nice lunch beforehand and ate the mushrooms soon after we arrived at the hotel. I had tried a low-dose trip of sorts a couple weeks earlier at home, as I needed to verify that these were indeed real psilocybin, and they were! I learned from this that I could feel the shrooms “coming on,” as they say, very quickly, and that they lasted 5-6 hours. And, sure enough, even though we’d eaten a hefty lunch, we both ate the shrooms and started feeling the effects in around 20 minutes, which is fast, considering the full stomachs! Soon, we were off to the races! The entire trip lasted around 5-6 hours, but going from ground zero to “peaking” was like being on a rocket ship!

To be honest, I am still puzzling and thinking over the experience of this trip, so it’s difficult to put into words. I remember both of us spending a lot of time looking at the ocean from our balcony, although there was a period of time where I couldn’t look out the window. The sun and the reflection off the ocean was blinding me. I could not look! My pupils were the size of dinner plates! When the brightness subsided, my friend and I were both amazed at the beauty unfolding in front of us. Indescribable!

It was an absolutely beautiful day and the Pacific Ocean was in technicolor. The waves were multi-colored and were putting on quite a show as they gradually approached the shore and melted into the shoreline. Enveloping all of this was the roar of the ocean. It was incessant. Wow, what a sight, and sound!

We both wanted a true psychedelic experience, similar to what we experienced together 50 years ago in Duluth. We were not disappointed! Very visual! Geometric patterns appeared everywhere we looked. While we were definitely hallucinating, they weren’t the kind where you are seeing things that are not there (like having someone on TV start talking to me by name).

If I had to put a name to it, I’d say that what I was seeing was somehow a “hyper” version of what I normally see every day. I guess you could consider it like we were seeing in ultra-high definition. Although, even “ultra-high” doesn’t do it justice. It’s a completely different class of vision. The visual resolution I had looking at the world around me was off the charts.

One thing that I found interesting is that my essential tremor condition which affects my hands, was noticeably reduced! I didn’t even notice my shakes while I was tripping! It’ll take a few more times before I could say anything definitive about this, but it was still fascinating.

I’m happy that we stayed put in our room. The days when we’d take acid or any psychedelic and go out and “do stuff” are over, LOL. I’m happy to just enjoy tripping in a warm, friendly, beautiful environment. Going outside would be great and we could have done that where we were, but I think we were both so blown away, it didn’t occur to us.

If I think about it and have more to say on the trip, I’ll post something. For now, I am so happy I got to do mushrooms again! They are truly, nature’s gift!

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