LSD (or, Confession #5), continued (part 1)

I am not one to immediately jump into a lake because a friend told me to. My method of operation has always been to conduct research about the lake and the dangers of jumping into it first. Only then would I jump.

So, the first thing I did when my friend, K1 (I'll call him K1 to distinguish him from K2), called one day to tell me that he had dropped acid at another friend's house is read a book called Recreational Drugs: Everything You Need to Know About... (by Lawrence A. Young, Linda G. Young, Marjorie M. Klein, Donald M. Klein, et al., Collier Books, 1977).

If someone completely unaware of the cultural and social history of drugs were to read the book Recreational Drugs, I can predict that they would recommend two things: that certain substances like marijuana, hashish, and maybe LSD should not be illegal; they would also enthusiastically argue that nicotine and alcohol should most definitely be illegal. The fact that marijuana is a controlled substance is stupid. Marijuana, as I have said over and over ought to be completely legal and freely available to adults.

The second thing I did was to grab a copy of a Timothy Leary book from my University library (I can't remember which one). I have a different Leary book on my bookcase right now, along with an entire shelf of Aldous Huxley books, including The Doors of Perception. Later, K2 and I watched a film about LSD in the library. I also read some general articles on the substance when I should have been writing my history papers. I also spent an evening surrounded by several tripping people in PB's house, and then went home to finish an essay. My information gathering was complete.

So, to make a long story short, K2 came by one day to my dad's house, and we took acid. The only problem arose when my dad came home from work at midnight. But, I am convinced that he viewed our fits of unexplained laughter as completely normal.

I had two main goals in mind for the evening:

1) Listen to music: K1 told me that Pink Floyd's Animals had never sounded so interesting and that all of his senses, in general, were heightened. I am not sure if he used the term mind-expanding, but that is what he described in essence. I immediatley selected Jon Hassel's Dream Theory in Malaya. After that, we ran though lots of records, but I can't remember what they were.

2) Have sex: Sadly, K2 was the wrong gender, so I concentrated on the music.

I wrote a very long journal entry years later about this experience and later ones, experiences that were not unlike what Albert Hofmann's described is his autobiography LSD: My Problem Child. The day after his second trip, he wrote that all of his senses were "vibrating in a condition of highest sensitivity, which then persisted for the entire day." I can relate to that and I remember having a conversation with a student on campus the next day and feeling like something had sharpened all of my senses.

Perhaps one day, I will post the journal entry, but it might require some censoring.