Everyone was trying everything and anything by the 1970’s: LSD, opium, hash, speed, reds, tranquilizers, mushrooms, peyote… She was right there with her peeps popping it first and then asking, “What was that anyway?” It was just an experiment. She was turning on and dropping out along with hundreds of thousands of other boomers.
She tried LSD. She didn’t like it. The first time it didn’t do anything. The second time she had a beautiful trip in San Francisco in the panhandle looking at leaves and dirt and bugs. The bugs and the dirt were great. She really felt one with the ants. She got smaller and smaller just like Alice.
Then she went to the zoo. The zoo was rather frightening. The giraffes had snakes for tongues, the panther had purple spiked hair, and the walls of the lion cages melted….
… and then she made the mistake of going to the super market. She didn’t know how long she was in the super market, but she felt like she was having a psychotic episode. All those canned goods stacked up around her and the bloody steaks in a package, psychedelic piles of fruit: bright green and red apples, really yellow bananas, and… ” I know why they call them oranges,” she said to her mates.
The third time she took acid she freaked out. She couldn’t breathe. She was scared to death. There were drums and screams and lots of noise. Even cars going past scared her. She thought she was having an appendicitis attack and begged her friends to take her to the hospital.
She took a shower to try to come down, but that just made it worse and she fell down screaming, “I’m bleeding to death! Please somebody, take me to the hospital!” she begged. Luckily, her friends (also every bit as high as she was) dried her off, wrapped her in a sleeping bag, and left her alone with her demons while she tried to fight her brain into submission. She never took acid again.
Lulu’s Note: Although LSD may let you see things you’ve never seen before in a very cool way, it can also make you freak out. You don’t know what it may do on any given occasion, so my advice is don’t take it. Protect your brain.
(First published 9/7/11)
