I felt quite silly and inadequate sitting around in my ordinary state of mind whilst all about me people were tripping. Must have been four or five times before something happened.
And when it did, it wasn't much fun...
Felt silly and inadequate again, only in a new and disturbing way: Someone would say something to me and I'd start formulating my reply - when suddenly that universe ended and a new one began...and what was the question again? Which caused my questioner to say something further, and I would begin to reply - and then the universe would end and restart. Shit. So I just retreated to a corner and watched the movie that perception had become. And wished that one of the new universes could manage to be a new and improved version for chrissake.
Another time, as a variation, I watched while the dark inner landscape would be lit up by a searchlight shining on some subject or line of thought, which would abruptly move somewhere else, leaving the original spot to return to the darkness. Some mighty strange thoughts lurking in the unexplored crevices of one's mind.
And there was the time I was driving home and realized I had to get a grip...because I was dangerously absorbed in watching the pattern of cracks in the road...
And there was the time we were sitting around listening to music, and I had an attack of synesthesia - I could see the sounds. The trumpet was a series of jointed lengths that turned in mid-air, a kind of crankshaft. Then something rather awful happened. It was some blues or R&B being played, and it came to me that the black singing mimicked the screams and groans and roars of anguish, not only from that current time (half a century ago, now), but of the past, and the loud insistent back-beat....well, a beat on backs...CRACK CRACK CRACK. It was so disturbing that I couldn't listen to my favorite music for quite some time.
And I stopped trying to get 'high' - it was more like low.
And I didn't even get the munchies...
My last experiences with pot were with sitting with my first husband, the crazy musician, in the car in the hospital parking lot while he decided whether or not he had to go into the ER with his pot-induced panic attacks. "Why do you keep smoking?" I asked. "Doesn't seem like much fun." His response was that sometimes it was. Well, hardly ever any more... But he kept trying.
This account is not to be taken as a condemnation of pot. (My husband had the same kind of panic attacks after eating Chinese food...) I think pot should be de-criminalized. Lots of people enjoy it and, except for the driving thing, it seems to be fairly harmless. (Tho I do know someone who never smoked cigarettes but in his commune days smoked MUCHO pot and blames that for his COPD.) Alcohol, which I enjoy in moderation, does far more harm - said husband, after all, died not from anything pot-related but from cirrhosis of the liver (a bottle of Jack Daniels per day will do that).
There's lots of pot available around here. I know people who *quit* periodically. I wonder if I should *start*, or at least try again and see what kind of effects it would have now. Maybe I'll listen to classical music and contemplate all the miserable serfs and peasants laboring for the lairds.
And to get anywhere will I have to try three, four or five times again?
Is that what I'll have to do with the ayashuaca too - four or five belching farting puking sessions?
P.S. - And then there was the time I tried morning glory seeds. Didn't feel anything, but I looked out the window and there was this huge tree sailing by, its roots trailing out behind it, looking sort of like a giant squid. And on the lake there were all these boats flipping over... Turns out I was fine and perfectly sober - there was some kind of "wind event" that blew thru just at that moment, and I was just witnessing what was really happening. Less scary when you think you're hallucinating!
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
Jeff J.
Mark Bieter
Kathy Gori
Donegal Descendant
Lucy Hancock
podunkmarte
Salon.com
Comments
rated with love
All things in moderation I say. Your poor husband at the
emergency room!
I once told a friend that his pot was too good, that when I smoked with him I got way too high.
He looked at me like one might look at a circus side show act and said "and here, all this time, I thought THAT was the whole idea."
And for many it is...
To me, TOO HIGH, and all that introspection and analysis starts. To the point of panic attack? Yeah I can see it.. in the extreme!
So these days I use only in moderation. Don't want to get hypnotized.. or worse, but a small amount "takes the edge off" like if I'm upset about something... I can make it kinda disappear, or at least seem silly.
Strange too, how it's legal to drink yourself to death but pot is still widely scorned. I've always said big pharma and the alcohol lobby don't like the competition.
Thanks Myriad!
Just kidding - I've never taken drugs, ever. Regardless, I'm cracking up picturing your husband having Chinese food-induced panic attacks.
Pot is the least harmless of all, though like any thing else, can have its own ramifications. I knew (of) a pothead that was so chronic, he started the day with his usual 'wake and bake'; nothing too unusual there. This extended into daily routine and his habit became so expensive, it ate - pun intended - into his food budget. In order to keep himself in his preferred 'relaxed' state, his sole diet consisted of ... get this ... Kraft Dinner. BLECK!! By the time I crossed his path he - not I - was in rehab. I think it was more from chems in the the Kraft dinner processed cheese powder than anything else. :)
The only time I ever ate pot, which was only a couple of years ago, I gulped down an entire cookie before we headed to a street festival. What a nightmare. I was so inside my head and SO high that I wanted to go to the medical tent and ask for an injection to reverse the side effects. That's how high I was -- I thought they could really do that!! It lasted for 7 HOURS!!! I was a mess. I'll stick to smoking it in moderation as a treat on rare occassions.
Haven't known that sort of pothead in forever Scarlett!
I did the wake and bake thing like twice, pre 80's.
In the morning, no way,
at work, huh uh,
driving... I'd rather drink and drive.
At night, at home, or camping/fishing maybe even the day time then, but once..
... got accosted once by a park ranger type guy, by a fire around 11 at night. I had my camp neighbors' glass pipe in one hand, a bic lighter in the other- when this guy kind of leapt around a tree.. AT ME and asked... "what's that in your hand?"
I held up the lighter..
"OTHER HAND!"
Uhhh..
So I showed him-
cuffed me to a bench and berated me for nearly an hour. My camp neighbors were stressing worse than me though because it was her pipe, and he, had the sack in his pocket!
They packed and left immediately after he let us go... but, I.. high, was too scared to leave figuring the ranger was waiting to pull me over and cuff me AGAIN if I did!
Zanelle - I was much more fearful (of everything) when I was younger. Less fear makes for lighter tripping (drug-induced or otherwise).
Tr ig - Back in the day when I was with my musician husband I did witness some crazy stuff, like the fully-grown and ostensibly 'mature' musicians who had no notion of boundaries of any kind, and who blithely raided everyone's medicine cabinet, swallowing w.o. concern.
There was no such thing as TOO high or TOO crazy. Tho it didn't seem that introspection and analysis ensued. I like alcohol these days, occasionally, as it can fuzz the edges but, for most of us, doesn't go beyond that. It's a lot more predictable.
ccdarling - people can get panic attacks from anything...but in my husband's case, looking back at things, I think he was unhinged, perhaps bipolar, and dosed himself with (mainly) alcohol in an effort to feel less panicky, and it occasional backfired.
AKA - it was quite alarming at the time!
Margaret - I had a bunch of broccoli for supper and am awaiting the puking and hallucinations.
Mumbletypeg - I will try not to think of the canoe breathing when I go to bed tonight...
Nan - we change, things change...your music visions sound great, tho. Poor N - I think he thought, or truly was, affected by the MSG. He always ordered it w.o., and was told that's what they were giving him...but they lied. They just ladled it out of the pots in the kitchen. It just gave me dry mouth.
Scarlett - I know a few people who are full-time potheads, not helpful to mundane life, like getting out of the house and to a job. And a few other people who do the job thing, but gotta smoke all evening. I blame pre-disposition rather than the pot, tho. There's people do that with food, for instance... Or tv. Or, um, er, shuffle, the internet.
Firechick - a Chinese buffet laced with pot would be the ultimate!
I've heard that eating is slower but longer and deeper than smoking. I don't recall ever doing the brownie thing myself... Would have been very dangerous, because I have no self-control when it comes to brownies ...
Tr ig - scary story! And kinda non-standard action on the part of the...oh, park ranger. Not same as formal police person. I imagine a lot of fairly overt indulgence happens in parks...tho it's the rowdy drunks that cause the most trouble...
Thanks for the great comments, everyone!
Anyway, thanks for sharing. And I loved the "PS".