LA la la!

I was just reading this delicious article on a young man who, through the one time use of LSD in a therapeutic setting, was able to get his life together after 15 years of near isolation and failed tries by some of the more prestigious psychiatrists in the country.

This was back in the 50's whenacid was being used to help mental patients, especially schizophrenics, to remember past traumatic events they had locked in their subconscious. While most drugs (alcohol, cocaine, opium) are generally used to escape reality and the daily doldrums of life, LSD and other powerful psycho tropics can be harnessed to force people to face their realities. These drugs have the ability to make the user see his or her own ego for what it is, and to look at how they have affected the world and the people closest to them.

Of course this is only going to happen if you allow it. Some people use all the mental strength they have to block these insights, which can cause what is otherwise known as a "bad trip":

"A bad trip is when an individual uses all his energies into combating the pending loss of ego control. The ego, in fighting to stay identified with what is "known", creates a living hell - everything turns to negations, everything is experienced as threatening and dangerous. All of the rejected aspects of the self are projected onto the external world and one experiences "reality" as demonic." -Gary Fisher, PhD

Since all drugs are just chemicals which mimic the same chemicals found inside usalready,we aren't physically changing any part of the brain, and the dangers are relatively low. The 3 most important things to consider when taking any drug recreationallyare:

USER - The person actually taking the drug. Ideally will be an adult with no history of mental problems.

SET - This is the user’s state of mind when the drug begins to take effect. (I.E. A happy person will, usually,have a happy trip. A sad person, a sad trip; angry person, angry trip; etc.)

SETTING - The environment, whether indoors or outdoors, where the majority of the trip will be spent.

So if you consider yourself a mentally fit, basically happy person, you will have nothing but good feelings and an overall good time if you take drugs in a place where you feel safe.

Personally, the USER part is most important, and knowing what the state of minds the people I do drugs recreationally with are. Back in Idaho, I had a group of friends that I would trip with, and because we were all level headed and generally happy people, we all had amazing times together.

SET is itself, totally defined by the individual person. I have taken mushrooms on both ends of the emotional spectrum, both at my happiest and unhappiest times.I have found that wheninmybest moods, I become very extroverted and love to play with others. In my worst of moods, I get so introspective that I decline to leave my living room floor to go on walks with my friends. Instead, sitting or laying on the floor, trying to figure out an argument I had the day before.

I actually think I get more out of it, therapeutically, when I'm in bad moods. While the good moods/trips generally enhance my state of mind and well being for months after the trip, I still feel I gain more insight when I can truthfully and honestly analyze and understand my past and my feelings.

I have yet to experience a bad trip, where I lose control, or freak out.

One exception (although it was the last thing from being a bad trip) was my reaction to Salvia. I had one of the most profound experiences of my life, lasting little more than 5 minutes, where I lost control of my body andmerged with the universe entirely.

The other most important rule is to know your drugs. Educating yourself on what the drugs do to you physically and mentally, as well as knowing the correct dose and knowing how to handle accidental overdose. Talking to others who have done them, or reading accounts online can be very informative; you can get multiple perspectives on specific drugs that way.

After reading about this young mans ability to go from spending 3 years never leaving his bedroom, to, after oneLSD trip, moving out, getting an apartment, working part time, volunteering at a library, and roping himself a girlfriend, I have decided to do a series of postson drugs and my personal experiences with them. I will write them as they come to me, so keep checking back if you want to learn something about the most underappreciated gifts we've ever received from Mother Earth.