How Many Roads?

Chapter 4 Excerpt

LSD and Enlightenment

A couple of months after moving to Venice, Kathleen and I jumped at our first opportunity to take a guided LSD (acid) trip. At the time, acid had not yet become a common street drug. A former Harvard University psychology professor, Dr. Timothy Leary, had contacts on the UCLA campus who were making acid available to the university staff and students. Since there was only a handful of reputable underground labs making LSD, people were always assured of its quality and quantity.

Smoking marijuana had prepared me by changing my outlook on life and myself. I was becoming less intense and more mellow. For example, I no longer took myself as seriously as before, and I was finally able to laugh at myself rather than becoming uptight if I did something dumb. In addition, I had begun to meditate regularly, and I found marijuana greatly enhanced my meditation.

By this time, Kathleen and I had read many articles in the underground LA Free Press on how to have a safe, consciousness-expanding psychedelic trip. We also had listened to taped interviews of Timothy Leary and his friend, well-known Harvard psychologist Dr. Herbert Alpert, later known as Ram Das. Psychedelics were treated with great respect by everyone. The accepted way to take a first trip was to have the presence of an experienced guide who would not be taking LSD. The guide would make suggestions to enhance the event, and help one resolve any bad experiences that might be encountered while tripping (under the influence of LSD). Before dropping (taking) acid, all of the participants would discuss what they wanted to do in order to assure consensus.

A full-dose trip (250 to 500 micrograms of LSD) lasted 12 hours. Another 12 hours were needed to come down and readjust to normal reality, followed by a day of rest and reverie to fully digest the experience. A typical trip would begin in the security of a home, with everyone meditating or sitting quietly and listening to meditative music selected beforehand. After a while, the trippers would begin interacting with each other and with whatever objects or pets were around them. Finally, after the LSD had peaked and the group was beginning to return to normal reality, they might leave their house and take a walk, go to a concert, or visit friends.

Kathleen became friends with Andy, a UCLA teaching assistant who conducted her sociology class. Henry, a sociology professor with whom Andy worked, offered to be a guide on our first LSD trip. Primed for the experience, Kathleen and I were anxious to drop acid.

No two acid trips were ever the same, for every trip was unpredictable. Our first trip confirmed this fact. The evening began as planned, with Kathleen, Andy, his girlfriend, and me each taking 250 micrograms of pure LSD. Acting as guide, Henry sat back and watched as the psychedelic began to affect us.

Communicating with each other on an a hitherto unknown higher level, the four of us felt intimately connected. It was as though we had become one. In contrast, we all felt detached from Henry, who stared at us and asked cold, analytical questions about our experiences, sounding more like an alien scientist than a friend. While we were perceiving complex relationships and emotions, Henry asked us to describe objects in the room or answer questions such as what was the date and time. Finding his questions disruptive and intrusive, none of us felt like answering. Furthermore, his responses to our answers showed us that he was on a more mundane level of reality. He always missed the points we were trying to make by taking our words too literally.

As the effects of the LSD grew stronger, communication with Henry completely broke down. At that point, Andy asked the professor to go home, but he insisted on staying to be sure we were safe. We all joined Andy, demanding that he leave, but to no avail. Finally, banding together, the four of us physically pushed him out of the house, locking the door behind him and giving a loud sigh of relief. Our trip had taken off and we were in complete control, feeling extraordinarily aware of everything around us, and in close harmony with each other.

The next week we would learn that Henry had misled us into thinking he had experience as a psychedelics guide. He had never taken LSD or been a guide, and thus was incapable of understanding our experience. We all later decided that he must have wanted to observe our behavior and reactions on LSD, either out of curiosity or as a research project.

It is impossible to verbally describe the subjective sensations of taking LSD. One undergoes a change of consciousness and perception that must be experienced to be comprehended. Inner thoughts flow unhindered, as do emotions. Normally, our consciousness filters all sensory inputs and thoughts in order to categorize, prioritize, disregard, and focus awareness. Although these filters are essential for survival, psychedelics temporarily remove them, which allows unknown realities that are inside and outside of us to be understood as never before. The gestalt of our internal and external environment, rather than their discrete, censored components, are comprehended as a whole. Connections and relationships between previously disparate objects and concepts suddenly become obvious, sometimes precipitating profound insights called "flashes."

Once one is an experienced tripper, mental clarity and self-awareness can be maintained even amidst hallucinations. Emotions, perceptions, and thoughts become fluid, changing rapidly and unpredictably. If a bad experience occurs (a "bum trip"), one usually only needs to vary the environment, such as the music or lighting, or move to another room. These changes in stimulation will alter the course of the trip, and the unpleasant emotions and thoughts quickly melt away as new ones spring forth.

The four of us were at the peak of our trip, laughing together as we mutually explored our newfound reality. Suddenly, I heard someone loudly knocking on the front door. Alarmed, I called this knocking to the group’s attention. Instantly, everyone froze and fell silent, wondering what to do. The knocking grew louder and louder, as though someone were trying to break down the door. On the verge of panic, we debated in hushed whispers whether to hide in the bedroom or flee through the back door and down the alley. All the time, the banging continued unabated.

With a racing heart, I suddenly noticed that the LP record had ended and that the phonograph needle was clicking in the circular end-groove on the inside track of the record. When I removed the needle, the cottage fell silent. Cautiously peeking out the window, I confirmed that no one was outside. The tension was broken as quickly as it had begun, and we fell to the floor, laughing so hard and gasping for breath that our sides hurt. Once we calmed down, each of us appreciated the power of suggestion on LSD.

Initially, we were all struck by our transformed visual and auditory senses. Our perceptions were not distorted; they were simply enhanced. I could hear every note of each instrument playing on the records, and see details in common objects that I was never aware of, such as the different fabric weaves and stitching patterns in our clothing.

After a while Kathleen left us and stretched out on the bed to listen to the music. Finding the bed wonderfully soft and fluffy, she began to wriggle and sigh. Wondering what had happened to her, the three of us went into the bedroom. Seeing Kathleen in such ecstasy, it seemed natural to join her. Before long we were all romping on the bed, uttering sounds of pleasure and relishing the comforting sensations of the bed against our highly sensitized bodies.

With four of us frolicking on the bed, we began touching each other. Soon we were all naked and rolling together in an orgy of amorous touching, hugging, and kissing that transcended physical lovemaking. None of us had ever felt such intense erotic sensations. After what appeared to be hours, we all collapsed together, feeling as though we had become one. Strictly speaking, we never had sex; yet this was the most fervid sexual experience any of us ever had, and we all felt emotionally closer to each other. Bonds that would normally have taken months to develop were established in one night.

After eight hours the intensity of our trip began to wane. We were still strongly feeling the effects of the LSD but beginning to reenter normal reality. Although it was after 4:00 a.m., everyone was still alert and full of energy.

At dawn, we decided to stroll along the ocean and watch the sun come up. Though still not sleepy, we were beginning to get hungry. These were our first sensations of hunger since we had begun our trip at 8:00 p.m. Once the sun was up, we had breakfast at a nearby beachfront restaurant. We had returned to the conventional world. Back at our cottage the four of us smoked a joint and discussed our adventures of the past twelve hours. Much to our pleasant surprise, some of the agreeable sensations of the trip resurfaced. Interestingly, from that day on, all of us would feel a more intense high from smoking marijuana than we ever had before taking LSD.

Earlier, Kathleen and I had read and were told by friends that after taking LSD we would never be the same. The next day we discovered that this was true. From then on, colors seemed brighter, and supposedly inanimate natural objects, such as the soil and the turbid water of the canal, exuded a life energy we somehow sensed. Intimately bound to the trees, plants, insects, and animals around us, Kathleen and I also felt more connected with each other.

Our post-LSD reactions were intellectual as well as emotional and visceral. The materialistic lifestyle that Kathleen and I were drifting towards suddenly appeared hollow and meaningless. Consequently, the motivation to take LSD again was to gain further insights and knowledge; it was not simply crass hedonism, although the LSD trip was certainly pleasurable. It was sobering to realize suddenly that much of what we thought we knew was an illusion. Insights gained while on LSD as to how much we did not know about life motivated us to increase our meditations and readings. We longed to better understand the mysteries of life and to know more about that brief peak of an alternate reality that we both did not previously realize had existed.

A few weeks later, Kathleen and I decided to take another LSD trip. Since we now knew what to expect, we felt confident in taking psychedelics by ourselves. The first hour of the trip was spent meditating to a melodious East-Indian raga album by Ravi Shankar. This intense meditation session provided insights into the shallowness of the materialistic path in life I had chosen and the values that had guided me, as well as my neglected spiritual development.

After meditating, Kathleen and I made love. Every inch of our bodies became erogenous as our life energies flowed together and we both became one. During this intimate communion we experienced erotic pleasure which continued to grow for what seemed like hours as our lovemaking transcended physical coupling.

Suddenly, I felt as though I were engulfed by a huge, turbulent wave that picked us up just as it began breaking on the shore. The sound of loud, crashing surf filled my ears, and every cell in my body exploded in an unrestrained orgasmic eruption. My field of vision filled with a sea of swirling bright paisley colors that surrounded me as though I were inside a giant spinning liquid kaleidoscope. After these psychedelic hallucinations faded and our bedroom came back into focus, I found myself in a loving embrace with Kathleen, trying to catch my breath. For some time we remained motionless, totally drained of energy and too weak to break our intimate reverie.

Later in the trip Kathleen and I took a long walk along the Venice beach and communed with nature. Words cannot adequately describe the altered reality we were experiencing. It was as if the barrier of our skin, which normally encapsulates consciousness, had become a porous membrane that our psychedelically enhanced consciousness flowed through in order to join the other life forces that surrounded us. Unlimited by boundaries, we felt one with all life. There was no doubt that both of us had a spiritual experience during which we were privileged to catch a glimpse into the unitive nature of all creation, where all of us are a single living entity. This LSD trip reinforced the desire from my first trip to begin a spiritual quest to better understand the realities that these two LSD experiences revealed, and to internalize these insights.

After reading more about psychedelic meditation, Kathleen and I decided to practice Timothy Leary’s LSD yoga. Leary described how to use LSD as a tool on the path towards enlightenment. Kathleen and I would prepare for each trip by reading a sacred book. Our meditation during the first part of the trip would be strongly influenced by the material we had studied. After meditating, while tripping and enjoying unrelated activities, flashes of personal insights would occur in which various abstract concepts we had recently studied would suddenly be understood and internalized. Because Kathleen and I needed time to digest these profound insights, we only took LSD every couple of weeks. We began Leary's yoga by reading a seventh century Tibetan Buddhist manuscript, The Tibetan Book of the Dead. After buying this book and some pure LSD, we were ready to set out on a spiritual quest.

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How Many Roads? Copyright © by Howard Sodja 2002