Psychedelics

So, I finished reading my Secret Santa gift for this year, a book by Michael Pollan called "How to Change Your Mind", subtitled "What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence".

It would do the book great injustice to attempt to summarize it, as I would be unable to succinctly communicate the breadth and depth of the research done by Pollan.  Suffice it to say that, in addition to his own guided "trips", he spoke with virtually all the researchers involved in studying this topic, both from its glorious beginning then ignominious ending in the late 60's/early 70's, to its resurgence in the 90's, quiet and secretive as it was, to today's mainstream acceptance that there is something to the concept of using psychedelics to treat a variety of illnesses.  His research did not just include therapists and researchers, but also neurologists and pharmacologists as he attempted to detail the effects of psychedelics as seen from brain imaging technology. 

In short, a fascinating book, which, via his experiences, the experiences he recounts from those he interviewed, and the similarity of the more vivid and expansive stories to each other, to the epiphanies that occur by those using deep meditation exercises, and to the rebirth stories often told by those who have strong religious and/or spiritual revelations, remind me of similarities and differences concerning my perceptions of LSD trips which were part of my life as a young adult.

I can recall a number of events in my childhood which alerted me to the difficulty in believing in the basics of the Catholic religion, in which I was raised.  My rational brain (ego, one might say) could not wrap itself around the concept of a force so powerful as to fashion the universe and everything in it, from time immemorial to today to an endless future, but who, after allowing us to fall prey to Satan in the Garden of Eden, an inevitable occurrence if we assume man was created flawed, and given the choice to be good or bad, then would send us His Son, after hundreds of thousands of years (what about all those born before that?) to give us the Good News and a new path to eternal life. 

This is not to say that I did not believe in God, or did not wish to be "good".  But in the course of reading about all the great religions of our time, each convinced that theirs was the one true path, and after countless hours of discussion with friends about life's meaning, it seemed pretty clear to my mind that faith was a string of assumptions, generally learned, and based on where you were born, that allowed one to move through life with a framework that provided just  enough assurance that it was better to try to do the right thing, treat others as you would want to be treated, and hope that you might do more good than bad and so be rewarded with a positive afterlife. 

In the meantime, strangely to me, given this foundation, go to a "good" school, seek the perfect mate, get a good job with good pay and benefits, live in a single family home with 2 kids and a pet, and float downstream by following all the rules of society, avoiding taboo subjects, behavior out of the ordinary and people unlike your self. 

Drugs, of course, offered all kinds of possibilities to counter-dict those commands so it is not surprising that I might engage in some unsupervised trips even as I was dropping out of college, hitch-hiking across the country, taking job after job which held no future or satisfaction, and, basically, living day to day.  I could see the path that was set aside for me, the life that most of my generation sought and attained, and it sure seemed parochial at best, strangling and soul killing at worst.

Of course, in retrospect, I was just immature.  I eventually did "settle down", find a wonderful mate, have two amazing children, and a dog, (and a bunch of cats), graduate from college, get a job (two jobs, actually, for much of my working life), buy a home, and float downstream. 

Well, mostly.  Because not far from the surface, there still lingered the anti-authority tendency, the questioning of how rampant materialism was good for anyone's soul, let alone mankind's future, the belief that so many of society's rules kept us from truly "living", instead placing us on a path that would more often than not, lead us to delaying our self reflection and search for meaning until the last days of our lives when it would be more a scramble to find meaning in all the wasted years, or find hope that we might be forgiven for spending too much time with blindfolds on our eyes and a suffocating chain of rationalizations around our heart.  Yikes!

For so many of those who have been involved in research or guided trips with a psychedelic drug, finding the words to describe their experience, especially those for whom the experience approached or went beyond the transcendental, is a hapless adventure. 

Oneness with the universe
The knowledge that Love is all around us
A connectivity with all life, plant and animal as well as human
The realization that we all come from and will return to the source of all energy and existence
True bliss

More than a few of the astronauts, those lucky people who saw the Earth from space, saw it hanging in a black sky with all the immensity of the universe surrounding it, realized a better understanding and connection with their fellow Earthlings.  Felt, many for the first time in their lives, how minuscule and special, we all are, regardless of whether they believed Earth was the only planet with life in the universe or just one of millions.

I learned, through personal experience, the importance of set and setting when I used LSD.  It is one of the bedrock facets of psychedelic research and therapy, clearly understood by those who used the drug on their own, and now administer it to their patients.  I know I had a few bad trips; most likely I stopped using after one of them.

But I don't recall any of them.  Instead, I recall those that provided a glimpse into something bigger than myself, those that allowed me to roam free in my mind without the rules that restrict us to what we can and can't think about, and, most importantly, without the fears of what we might find hidden within our psyche. 

One of my best recollections occurred while attending a pool party.  I was smitten with a certain young lady who did not return the feeling.  When I saw her with another guy, it became clear that I could not stay in that setting, especially since I had dropped a tab of acid earlier that night.  At the time, I did not own a car, instead I rode my bicycle everywhere, winter and summer, so i was in the best shape of my life. 

I often was amazed during this time, how I could ride my bike without remembering crossing certain streets or making certain turns, not unlike how we frequently get to work in our cars but don't remember the drive.  On this particular night, once I was fully involved in the ride, I imagined my bike was a horse, completely disassociated I was from my legs.  I heard sounds akin to the horse and buggy decades.  Clip-clop, clip-clop.  I rode for quite a long time, hours, in fact.  While I completely violated the rules of set and setting, after all, I was riding my bike in areas where bike lanes did not exist, traffic laws were the rule of the day, and most of the drivers I encountered were no where near my plane of existence, I recall it as one of the more in-the-moment times of my life.  Disappointment at my unrequited love no longer mattered, only the clip-clop of my transportation, the sounds of the night, the neighborhoods I rode through, the lawns, the trees, the people. 

It was like looking at a mosaic of nature and life and humanity yet also being a part of that mosaic, riding through it and within it.  Being a part of something as large and unfathomable as our existence within this universe, and at that same time watching yourself as you move through that universe. 

A true connection, yet a separateness as well.  It is that aspect of the psychedelic journey that can allow a terminal patient to face her death, without fear, knowing that death is just another phase of existence, yet not just knowing this, intellectually, which we all know, but feeling it to be true, without the mind interrupting with its mortality phobia. 

Unfortunately, for most psychonauts, the intensity of any revelation or epiphany fades over time.  We are dragged back to the ruts of thinking that we need to navigate through the world, so as to continue to present to our family, friends and co-workers the person they depend on, seek guidance from, love.

Yet perhaps it is enough to know that there are other states of consciousness that we can access, occasionally, to help us re-boot our awareness or our thinking strategies.  It is that aspect of psychedelic therapy that holds promise for addictions; providing the addict with a way to break out of the cycle of thinking that brings them back to the drug of their choice.  We have all experienced times when we focus on one thing, too often and for too long, and all wished we could just push a reset button on the side of our head to break out of this endless cycle of thinking.  In effect, alter our state of consciousness, for just that moment so we can sleep, or get on to some more important aspect of our day. 

Only time will tell if psychedelic therapy becomes part of the mainstream health industry, coded and paid for like any other medicine or intervention.  What is more interesting, or divisive, is the idea that psychedelic therapy might be good for the well, not just for those with mental health issues.  That a reboot for the brain, might do us all some good, every once in a while.  That, like a yearly physical check-up, or other such preventive health measures, a few molecules of a psychedelic drug, administered in the proper setting, with a trained therapist who helps with the journey, as well as its interpretations, might become the norm.

Of course, I have yet to see that on a science fiction show yet, (Spock on acid might be a bit overwhelming).  And, it may not bode well for our consumption based economy if more people realized that the accumulation of things does not provide happiness.  Even worse, most of the power that our institutions have over us, especially those which deal in the soul, are based on accessing the path to eternity through their methodology. 

Imagine a world without religion, yet occupied by realized individuals who rejoice in their opportunity at life, who live with eyes open to the amazing diversity of existence, and yet do not fear for their immortality, knowing, truly, that it is just another phase, and that fearing death is as much a function of not living and appreciating "life" as it is of dying.