Oh Dear.I seem to have blogged myself into a corner here....ok.away i go, this is my "LSD POST".make of it what you will. .................................(sorry.It's long and boring.............but a few interesting bits at the end if you are still awake by then.people often remark on the narcotic-quality of my blog posts...........................)
The reason I have been thinking about acid is threefold.
First off, I attended a talk by the author & Guardian writer Andy Roberts in London a couple of weeks ago.Its title was "PSYCHEDELIA FORTENA".Essentially about the history of LSD in Britain.He rightly pointed out that we imagine LSD to be an American thing.Yet its main movers& shakers were Brits.& the majority of its manufacture was in England.All those Yankie Hippies grooving away in San Francisco to The Grateful Dead were fuelled often by little wee pills manufactured by Asian chemists in the backstreets of North London.
Secondly I talked to Andy & bought his book on the subject.I have been reading it this week.
Third.I have been rather feverish these past 10 days.I'm mending.but.seriously, at times this week i imagined Pneumonia or some such.
ok.....hypochondria maybe...but scientists have yet to come up with a cure for it!
My attitude to drugs in general is that they release whats inside you already.Nothing gets "put in" by the drug. If you fuck up on drugs it the fault of whats already inside you not the clump of chemicals you drink:smoke:swallow;inject:snort;stick up your bottom..... ..etc .
But then, I'm no expert.Ive never taken cocaine:crack;heroin;Ecstasy:...............I have smoked Cannabis/hash: I have smoked Opium:i have smoked tobacco:Drunk booze:taken Speed (& other assorted amphetamines.~i loved speed!)............I don't consider I'm any sort of expert.
But I do have a cunning theory!!!!!
If you drink beer.Get Drunk.Become a bully & violent.it's not the beer.You are a bully.You are violent.the beer just leeches out what is always inside of you........
With this in mind, let me tell you I have taken lsd 3 times.In the space of 6 months back in 1978.
I now understood it was good grade acid.200 ug.It was probably remnants of "Operation Julie Acid" ?
I don't know what the score is these days.but i guess if you can find acid today, it would be much poorer quality & probably much more unstable+problematic. "Ahh.Son! The Good Old Daze.........LSD was LSD when I were a Lad..".Actually, Andy's book makes the point that "Acid-Stories" were the "War-Stories" of my generation.
Anyway............I had been aware of LSD since 1971 when i had read Timothy Leary's book. I had avoided taking it, waiting for "The Right Time".I wanted it to be a" religious affair".I understood the importance of "Set" & "Setting".I knew you had to have calm surroundings;A calm mind & an experienced guide.when you took a trip.A bit like an anxious virgin waiting for MR RIGHT! Quite ironic in my case..................
I took acid in 1978.In a place as far removed from Hippy California as you can imagine.More Dickens than Huxley.The East End of London.A squalid bedsit.I was in my first year as a teacher.
A few months earlier, Phil the former fireman had driven me& my belongings (I didnt drive in those days) from Halifax to East London.He said later he "didnt like leaving me there.........." I paid £6 a week for a flea-infested room.About ten rooms in a terraced house in East Ham.Originally the house had 5 rooms but the landlord had divided each room into 2 by thin plaster board.The person in the other half of my room was an Irish Alcoholic who came home every night.Pissed And started playing bagpipes and singing rebel songs until 2 in the morning.I kid you not!
While searching Google today i came across this blogspot which claims that Itchycoo Park is based on an area in East Ham! Honestly.I didnt know this until today!Neither until today did i know that The Small Faces have strong connections with the pub i bought my acid in!
I had been in my ram shackled bedsit a couple of months when we got a new lodger.The Dude went by the name of Rick.Blond.Longhaired.Canadian. He had an aura about him .I was always a little in fear of him.For some reason he latched onto me.I told him about my Alcoholic bagpipe player.....Rick went round one night to see him...................i never heard a bleat out of my Irish neighbour ever again!
At the end of our street was a Pub. called The Ruskin Arms .Rick soon made himself at home there.My most vivid memory of him is sitting in the pub.At The bar.playing with a flick- knife he had just bought off a local low-life.The pub had been used as the set of some 1960's Micheal Cain-ish film.The Krays had used it as a local ...........but they said that about every pub in the area!so i have no idea if it was true.The East End was so rough in those days, even The Krays had to go around in pairs............
Strangely.The Ruskin was demolished less than a couple of months ago! What an odd series of coincidences...........read here
I have no photos of the period.I have no photos of Rick. He did look a bit like the Sean-Geezer in Eastenders............. Although was a lot darker me'thinks.
Anyway.One Friday night, after several pints.Me & Rick were sat in The Ruskin.He whispered to me " that guy.he' sells acid." He asked me to score for us.I did (clever move.it would have been me who would have got nicked...bybe teaching.......!).Several pints later...we went back to the house.My Room.We took the acid.My first trip.but he said he had taken plenty before.
Pure Stupid me!Sitting pissed in a dump.taking my first trip with a Psychopathic Canadian ! So much for "Set" & "Setting" Doctor Leary!
At this point .If your expecting some description of a Psychedelic Disneyland.Tales of Yellow Submarines sailing majestically down the Romford Road.Forget it.I certainly did.in fact i remember only fragments of the experience. It was more abrtract than visual............+ I dont have the words to describe it.........Sometime i would like to get hypnotized to remember what happened.
In retrospect it was one of the most important things I have ever experienced.I had (against all odds) a "Good Trip". for days afterwards I felt wonderful as i came down. I started the evening an atheist.Ever since, I now know that God exists for me(albeit ., my Faith is very "freelance").
what i DO remember of the actual experience is all positive.I remember feeling like my body was growing.I was getting Taller&taller...7foot!!!!.8foot!!!! 13 foot!!!!!! 27 foot!!!i just kept growing!!! My arms stretched out forever.i was a Giant in the land of little people!! I wondered how the building would hold my bulk....?
I stayed that way for 6 hours or so..we talked about our pasts...........We watched "Whatever Happened The Baby Jane" on telly.I jumped into the film!i was part of the set! I listened to Nick Lowe's new album...........& i was the breaking glass! But that was fine!Smashing in fact!
As I have told people often since ,"Acid is a lovely place to visit but I wouldnt want to live there" (again).
i moved out a couple of weeks later.......+moved in with an old college buddy from Liverpool.i quickly lost touch with Rick.2 months later I did see him walk past my new flat....i opened the window.Looked out......but didn,t shout after him.......But (over the following summer in Halifax).i did take the other two pills i had scored that night..............HA!
The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time.’ — Nietzsche
24 comments:
i did the classic california hippy lsd trip on the beach, sugar. i'm guessing it was summer of '69. i remember sitting on a dune late at night, watching the tide and suffice to say, it was NOT a pleasant trip at all! after that i stuck to just weed & hash! ;) xoxox
"A hippie is supposed to be someone who becomes aware- you're hip if you know what's going on. But if you're really hip, you don't get involved with LSD and things like that. You see the potential that it has and the good that can come from it, but you also see that you don't really need it. There are ways of getting high without drugs- with yoga, meditation and all those things." ~George Harrison
For the most part, I think he was correct. But meditation never made me feel like my arms were forty feet long. ;)
Oh Absolutely. That was the point I would have made in a later (yawn) Post! Thanks for saving me the need!i can do it in the comments box.
I was VERY lucky.I could/should have got seriously fucked up......just good luck i didnt i guess......But i do think the original acid thing (eg Kesey)was valid.......& much better than the misery drugs now gives the World.
And George Harrison had to get to that point.........I mean,he did take acid.Then, like many others, realised better ways of seeing (for want of a better word) "God".
{P.S. Today i am fairly 'armless!!!!)
Oh yeah,... RICK.
*laughs knowingly*
HA! I thought you,d know him........
That wasn't long or boring at all. I love a good ramble down memory lane. I think I always was in two minds about acid.
Holy smokes Batman.....'twasn't that long and an interesting trip into UR past.
Cheers!
I get dizzy when I try to study/understand the attraction of drugs.
”releasing what’s inside,” well perhaps increasing, which is more or less the same thing.
Basically all drugs recreational or other do the same thing: have significant effects on dopamine signaling in the brain. Dopamine receptors (a family of transmitters living ) in the brain, like an underground system transporting (instead of people) the essential signals to the central nervous system (rewards) to keep it functioning normally.
Drugs that increase dopamine signaling increase the reward.
I know I’m stating the obvious, but there you go I’m such fucking obvious person, delete me if you will.
”If you fuck up on drugs it the fault of what’s already inside.”
I don’t know for sure about that Tony, just maybe
Amphetamines and cocaine are the best for this job, unfortunately the also with chronic usage create (ware out/erode) neurological disorders; a poisoned chalice if you will. (who cares lets get high)
I know this post is about (it takes me a while) Lysergic Acid Diethylamide: a partial copy of (fungus) natural sources.
. Why the hell was it called LSD, no lets not get into that, we’d have to learn German.
Albert Hoffman discovered it and tripped out on doses that would certainly put me where I imagine never coming back from.
I tripped a lot when incidentally, back in the ”good auld days” , the quality was a little precarious whatever about now. I guess it was and still remains a matter of who you know and can trust.
I used to dread coming up, and funny I wasn’t too gone on the climax either; the road to come down I found the best. Anyway
Tripping with a Psychopathic or ”Personality Disorder”(D-issocial-SM) as it’s called now. These types are perhaps the best type to trip out with. Less likely to freak out as they’re tripped out more or les most of the time. I don’t say this glibly as I’ve known a guy who had two episodes of psychosis due to DSM. He was a total mad man, but in a way he was more together than most, I mean I would trust him more that most. More harm to himself than anybody, but then that’s my experience, I would not try to categorize all in the same bag. Anyway!
LSD is a still unclear drug: its affects. Hoffman, (god be good to him) still continued on his crusade for its benefit in treating psychosis DSM, and the like. So there you are, your acid companion was getting some benefit perhaps more than you out of it.
I am a bit like you Tony, I prefer amphetamine, and unlike you I’m sure, I use it everyday, and never too much, like I’m not out of my head (well I am, but you know what I mean) I use it to function, and I use it under licensed control. I have to see a psychiatrist at least every two months, and the odd physical check up.
So what people are secretly creping around to score I have pure amphetamine
in my medical cabinet. Anyway, anyway.
I guess the attraction to the hallucinogenic was the time, but I read now: LSD, like hallucinogenic plants, acts on certain groups of serotonin receptors designated the 5-HT2 receptors, and that its effects …..”
There we are again serotonin; back to the neurotransmitters.
That’s the attraction, the hit.
Most people in my opinion would be divided on the experience; (good or bad) LSD, those like yourself: I take you would agree ”a nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there.”
I think there is little reward - natural that is - in this life. We’ve all become far removed from any kind of natural living. We are bombarded into a global living when we are not even based or have we found the footing in our local social life. Our natural reward needs to be replaced by artificial stimulant which is not all bad until it all becomes artificial, and we are floating in space with no fuel to get back home.
Paddy;-)
I was always (still am) too scared to put drugs into my body. I did smoke a few joints but not until I was in my 40's! I'd rather get drunk to be honest.
Thanks for sharing your experience.
"My attitude to drugs in general is that they release what's inside you already. Nothing gets 'put in' by the drug." - This is an interesting thought, Tony. Makes sense. I mean, there are mean drunks and happy drunks, etc. It's got me thinking.
It reminds me of old people - they can be nice or nasty. Perhaps it's the same thing? What's inside is magnified, or released under certain conditions - natural (aging) or artificial (drugs, etc.)
MM's comment was enlightening as well. Thanks for that, MM. This particularly stuck with me: "Our natural reward needs to be replaced by artificial stimulant which is not all bad until it all becomes artificial, and we are floating in space with no fuel to get back home." Well strung words here. Though I don't know if it's true for everyone that there is little reward in the natural world, that there needs to be replacement. Chance or choice I don't know. But it's good food for thought.
Thanks, men!
(Oh, never having used drugs myself (I don't even take aspirin or such things but for rare instances) - child of the 60's, raised in the Bay Area (Frisco), well, I saw the results of drug use and they scared me straight. However, my once pot-smoking husband took an LSD trip once - baaaad. Scared him straight. Guess we were lucky? Unlucky? )
So basically some, most drugs flood our central nervous system, brain with dopamine, which is already there in the brain naturally, just like Tony says?
(I can’t tell the difference between them now) Is it all one, the brain and the spinal cord
or is it all in the head? Where else would it be I guess. I hear that song now in my head: “you can’t have one,
you can’t have one,
you cant have one without the other.”
Tony - many thanks for the blog-listing and the comment - i think it was you - I am just off to reciprocate - it's a private matter - so I'll be doing it with the lights off ...
Steve
I've taken tea.
And biscuits...
;?
xxx
Bob
Very interesting post, you're probably right about the drunken bully -- I'm thinking of this nutjob who is a real authoritarian with his family --I always hear stories about him getting drunk and having big fights at our local pub-- he is called a "family man" hmmm.
you may be on to something!
I smoked tobacco ... but weed makes me fall asleep. (and wake with a bad headache) I only like Guinness not the golden beers at all. ...and I hardly ever ever get any. Drink makes me sleepy, maybe i am just a sleepy dopey rodent.
Interesting ideas Tony.
But surely that wasn't the real me in Wetherspoons last night.
KAZ ! But, did you get barred? That is the acid-test...........
Squirrel.......my tolerance to beer has dipped, i now tend to get really bad hangovers these days.so much for Practice Making Perfect!
Crumbs Robert that really takes the biscuit.......SCL/Steve......It's the best way!
cyrano i have tried to score Dopamine for years in England.very difficult to get hold of
!
Cherie yes the age - thing is interesting......In Youth we are "careless" In Old Age we are "carefull"..but why so many old grumps ?! :)
Akelamu I always think of Booze as glue.as an anchor.Ideal for staying in the same place.Which is great if your in a Good Place already.MM I agree about the LSD comedown.I found it wonderful.like soaking in a long bath after run a 10K race!
yea,dopamine is the key meThinks.We think it's Sex&Drugs& Rock N Roll but ,really its the sweet warm arms of Mother-Sister Dopamine we crave an embrace from............(Guys! I Give You Poetry too!)i met
your Brother DSM several times.It worries me.those guys with that inner wisdom that keeps them apart .yes ,youre right perhaps that they harm them-selves the most.
I use amphetamine in brief short bursts.I am normally placid & dont normally display Tons Of Energy.I find amphetamine releases all that pent up energy in me.Its like having a kitten in the house & letting him out to play now& again!
"Fuel To Get Back Home."!
Coffee Thanks.It's strange.I havnt thought about these events since they happened.It was nice to tell them to myself & gain a bit of understanding+ self-awareness.
dh 2-minds!!!! I told you i was related to R.L. Stevenson!!!!
MJ i worked on the theory that anyone who looked & sounded a bit like Neil Young must be ok?!
It's interesting to read the comments from people who have never taken LSD and would be frightened to do so. Like Leary said, it is all down to set-and-setting. Tripping in a hovel with a sociopath could very easily lead to a bad trip, but obviously other factors were at work in your psyche. And I'd wager the Canadian didn't make you feel so uneasy while you were high. I've taken quite a lot of acid, never had a bad trip although there have been some hairy moments that then resolved into something more delightful. I'd recommend taking magic mushrooms before taking LSD though. They're a gentler introduction to the psychedelic experience. And please don't call them 'hallucinogenics' - that implies that your normal everyday consciousness is something other than a hallucination. LSD reveals the fallacy of 'reality' very effectively - an epiphany that can take years of meditation to glimpse.
Hearing this, I've led a very sheltered life.
*goes out and buys a bargain bag of drugs from the local hood*
Yes, reading this makes me feel very young
In my teen years I dropped a lot of acid. I've had many pleasant trips, but a fair number of bad ones as well. Unfortunately, I've seen friends and my sibling suffer permanent damage. Actually,I guess there is no way to prove that the acid caused the schitzophrenia/mental illness, I just know they took huge amounts of doses.
Actually,I guess there is no way to prove that the acid caused the schitzophrenia/mental illness, I just know they took huge amounts of doses.
I don't know what else to say! Start with mushrooms!!
:)
I just finished reading Andy Roberts book last.He says a million people have taken acid in UK since 1953.......A Lot Of People.He also cites this 2007 Royal Report that suggests that booze & ciggies are more dangerous than LSD.
AP yes The Canadian was gentle.which begs the question, who was the "real" Canadian.The one on Acid or the one in the Pub with the flick knife.........I take your point re;"hallucinogenics'.What we call "Real Life" is a construct.anybody who has had a sudden trauma (loss of Job:Sudden Beravement:etc) sees how flimsy there reality can become for a Time..........
floyd Everything is so intertwinned its hard to tease out the seperate parts.An advocate of LSD would question if some people had a pre-disposition regarding schitzophrenia/mental illness.Maybe this is an arguement for more research+discussion on LSD ...I,ve never been convinced with the arguement recently in the UK about possible links between schitzophrenia/mental illness & cannabis.Politicians use the Drug Debate for dubious advantage MeThinks..........Yo'Joanne! Yo'Mighty!!!! Us Bad- Ass'd Geezers!!!!!
By the way.......I forgot to mention Magic Mushrooms in the list of drugs I have been intimate with.I agree that its an easier introduction.but they always gave me an upset tummy!!!!!
Here ya go -
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=PnWdObUyAOA
And of course Syd's tribute -
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=vyqgjCKm9nQ&feature=related
Joanne, you've not led a very sheltered life at all, you get your Dopamine high levels from
2-phenethylamine contained in all the chocolate you scofffffff.
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