LSD

I experimented with LSD, and with mushrooms, during and after college. A few decades since I last tripped. And, I must admit, I look back on those experiences with fondness and appreciation. I came out of them a better, more fully engaged person. Likewise, I see LSD as having truly transformed my brother, allowing him to shed an overly aggressive, defensive nature into a loving, open and mindful man, someone who has fathered four amazing kids and been a dedicated partner. I can't see him pulling that off without the help of LSD and mushrooms. That said, I'd left behind much of this and for some time hadn't thought much about the drug, or any of the large amount of reading I'd done on it—its history or even the whole mystical-experience thing. Not that I'd grown out of it, but that my connection to it had waned. I have been looking for peak experience in my art, in my side travels, in my regular day-to-day life with Ali and Avery. Also, the car accident switched up a lot for me. It closed down parts of my life, while opening up whole new areas. Woke me up and, at the same time, oppressed me—in particular, it seemed to at first alleviate my depression and anxiety (conditions I have suffered with and through for decades) then amplify them. I can thank PTSD for that. But four years later, arguably more mature and focused than I have ever been (it's all relative) I find myself ready for something new. Which is where the article on LSD comes in. And, oddly enough, it's not that reading the piece makes me want to dose again. I don't. I can barely smoke pot anymore. Instead, a certain hard-to-describe feeling has taken over me. A lightness? Hope? Some sort of light going off in the closet of my head, for sure. Oh yeah. There's that. I remember that! But what exactly? In the article, nonfiction writer Michael Pollan does an expert job at showing how recent medical and psychological testing and research demonstrates that LSD can often alleviate anxiety and fear and stress for cancer patients facing imminent death. It has helped PTSD sufferers; helped with tobacco and alcohol addiction; worked to alleviate depression and anxiety in relatively "normal" patients. How? The dumbed-down version: it chills out a part of the brain that likes to control everything. The Orchestrator gets his baton taken away. Then the other "lower" centers and emotional impulses are given sway. Love saunters up and gives you a big smooch. (I swear, Thoreau was eating some seriously triply berries!) All this to say...I had faith in LSD once. And I see again that it offers a non-materialistic stance in the face of despair. And that understanding brings me relief. One doesn’t have to turn to God. Solace can be found in Nature or in a tab of LSD or during Zen meditation. Or through Tantric sex. Or just a really good martini and a NBA game on TV. Hey, the dogs say, take us for a walk, you moronic biped. I say: Sure thing, goons, as long as I don't have to think.