On Getting High

On Getting High.

So why does a 65 year old man want to start fuckin' around with psychedelics?

Good question. Maybe it’s a case of post-middle age crazy. Maybe I’m trying to prove something. Maybe I’m just lookin’ for kicks. Perhaps a search for cozmic truth? Maybe before we’re done here I’ll have an answer.

I first read about LSD, mushrooms, and mescaline in the Time Life Science Book, The Mind, when I was a 14 year old kid. The vivid descriptions of the hallucinogenic experience were as fascinating as anything I had ever read. I really wanted to see those visions myself. It just sounded like the most wonderful thing in the world. But actually getting a chance to try it? That seemed pretty much impossible. I was kind of a nerdy kid. My way of fitting in my first couple years of high school was to join the track and cross country teams, even though I was a late mature and a terrible athlete. I had no idea that there was anything like a black market.

 Then 1967, and the Summer of Love happened. Spring of ’68 put weed, hash, reds, whites, and acid within reach of the cool kids at my high school. The rest of us quickly found our way.

I got wired on Dexedrine, and soon after smoked dirt weed reefer.  Then I tried Bali Hai wine and did my first acid trip that summer on my 16^th birthday. I went on to do more than my share of acid, some (what passed for) mescaline, and even some peyote until some unpleasant experiences (and the real world) intruded, and I fell away from doing it sometime in the late 70’s.

I had a chance encounter with psilocybin mushrooms in the spring of ’96. In 2003 another odd encounter introduced me to Salvia Divinorum. We’ll talk about that later.

It is summer of 2018 as I sit here at the keyboard, a little over fifty years since that first buzz. I had my last taste of alcohol twenty eight years ago, and my last pipe of weed about twenty minutes ago. Sometime last Fall, just before I retired in December, I got it into my head to revisit the psychedelic experience.

It isn’t easy finding acid, or shrooms when you’re 65 years old.  I managed. I even found the elusive mescaline. 

So I’m starting up the old WFB with a recount of some of my experiences with these strange and wonderful substances. Maybe I’ll throw in a few “days of yore” tales as well. After all, I did some crazy ass stuff back then, too.  So here's the list of adventures as of 2018. (Spoilers- the mescaline trip in the "Vein of Fire" story is best one) I wanted to finish the series with an account from a serious to heavy experience with psyolicybin mushrooms. I did a fairly good dose back in the spring of 2020, but much of the trip didn't go well, and I didn't  feel like writing about it. Current events since then have been horribly dispiriting. A psychedelic adventure has no appeal when your mindset is polluted with depression, anger, fear, and worry. It's like thinking about taking a midnight bike ride naked in a December downpour.  Maybe when the weather improves we'll all ride again.

Stories:

 

 Folded into the Psycloptimogiven (salvia divinorum)

 

First Trip in Forty Years (LSD)

 

Into the Great Wide Empty (LSD & cannabis) 

A Vein of Fire (Mescaline)

 

JWM