The Universe turned inside-out

The time was 1968-69. It was the zenith of the counter-culture movement in the United States. I was all of 14 and fancied myself a hippie (or at least as much of one as you could be in a conservative rural community). By this time, I had already discovered alcohol and was ripe for trying some of the more exotic forbidden fruit.

Now before I start my confession, you must put this in historical context. We’re talking over 40 years ago. Comedian Dana Carvey–who is the same age as me–once said the slogan for this era should have been “just say yes to drugs.” After all, Nixon didn’t sign the Controlled Substances Act into law until 1970.

This, by the way, is the other main reason for my “Adult Content” warning. I managed to survive several things I’m sure you don’t want your sons or daughter’s trying. Even if you did some of the same things, I’m sure it would keep you up at night if you thought of your offspring doing anything close to what you and I did back in the day. So, read on if you dare and Mom, please don't read any further. Nothing good can come of it.

My second encounter with things psychoactive (alcohol was first) was marijuana. This seemed to be the “bread and butter” of the counter-culture at the time. Back then, asking someone “Are you cool?” meant “Do you smoke pot?” Most people under 25 were cool. If you’ve never tried it (and I’m NOT suggesting you do), cannabis produces a very different state of consciousness than alcohol. Results may vary, but by-and-large pot tends to make one more relaxed and mellow. Sensual things–eating, listening to music, having your naked body touched, etc. taste, sound, and feel–as Tony the Tiger would say–GRRREAT! There is some loss of inhibition, but not in the same way as alcohol. It would be hard to imagine someone getting pissed off and wanting to fight while high on pot. If you decide to surrender your virginity while on pot, it would likely be because you feel a cosmic connection with the other person (besides it feeling so damn good), not because you are passed out and can’t say “no.”

Smoking pot was nice. I actually liked it more than alcohol. But alcohol was de rigueur at high school parties. No matter what the side dishes were, alcohol was always the main course. And pot does give you “cotton mouth,” so you have to drink something.

I quickly discovered that pot wasn’t the evil weed portrayed in Refer Madness. So I–like many others–figured the “other stuff” wasn’t so bad either. Before long, the list of psychoactives I had tried was longer than those I had not tried. Everything changed, however, with my first experience with LSD.

During the mid to late sixties, there was one group of chemicals that NOBODY was prepared for. They were called “Psychedelics” or “Hallucinogens” and included chemicals with names so long and complicated that they usually went by initials–LSD, MDA, DMT, etc. These are fundamentally VERY different than what everyone was used to. Drinking, smoking some pot, and maybe popping some speed every now and then does not prepare one for a full-blown experience with a substance such as LSD. This is the primary reason so many people had “bad trips.” It was not so much the drug, but the lack of appropriate preparation for taking it. In most properly structured clinical settings, LSD and similar substances showed great promise (and still do today) as therapy for mental and addictive disorders.

Well, fortunately I did not fall victim to the “bad trip,” in fact quite the opposite occurred. While those who had “bad trips” were afraid their experience would never end, I wanted it to go on forever. Initially, I was foolish enough to take this stuff at parties (definitely not recommended). But it was after the party ended and I was home laying in bed alone that the real beauty of LSD revealed itself to me. It seemed to open my mind to thoughts and ideas that led to questioning the very nature of reality. Suddenly, my existence within this infinite Universe became a prime focus of my attention. Who am I? Why am I here? What’s this all about? It was as if in one fell swoop I had gone from stoner teenager to budding philosopher.

Much later, I found out that many others have had similar experiences that left them permanently transformed. Those who weren’t scared shitless over seeing everything they ever thought that was real and true melt before their eyes had something akin to a religious conversion. In fact, an experiment conducted at the Harvard Divinity School many years earlier (more about that in future posts) had found that students could not tell the difference between a “real” spiritual experience and the experience one had on these substances.

I didn’t really experience the truly transformational power of such substances till many years later when I was able to take LSD and spend a day wandering in the desert of Southern California (there’s a reason people seeking spiritual answers often go into the wilderness alone).

The problem was, I had this transformative experience, but had nowhere to put it within my existing cognitive schema. This would lead to the next chapter of my journey.