acid dreams

i learned something this week, and it kinda cemented something that has been whirling around my brain, which i'll tie in with this book by martin lee and bruce shlain titled acid dreams.

so far it has been a trip. pun intended.

what began as a cia-gov't sponsored research with mind-altering substances (experiments with various drugs on unsuspecting american citizens) is search for a 'truth' serum to be used in interrogations and intelligence operations exploded in the bay area as a drug that transformed the collective mindscape of the 60's leading to the 70's. seriously. i don't think alot of the civil unrest, social activism and overall dissatisfaction with american political affairs would have been possible had it not been for this drug and its self-appointed gurus, the people that took it upon themselves to spread awareness of its capabilities, and how it nudged people of different minds together, and brought them together for common ideological purposes.

humans have always been searching for altered states of consciousness. shit, even animals do it too. this is why drugs, in all its forms, are so incredibly popular among the young and old, regardless of culture, religion or upbringing.

there are so many people i've come across in my personal readings that make appearances in this narrative.

there's the hell's angels (motorcycle rebels and criminals) partying with berkeley scholars, intellectuals, bohemian hippies and beatniks; there are famous artists such as:
ken kesey (wrote one flew over the cuckoo's nest, inspired by his lsd trip, and one of the gurus)
allen ginsberg (poet)
jack kerouac (writer)
aldous huxley (wrote brave new world, and the doors of perception, two books that i loved, the latter about his trip on mescaline)
timothy o'leary (former harvard prof turned psychiatrist and lsd-guru also the man my old landlord once told me she channeled to write books but that's a whole other story)
the grateful dead (rock band, introduced the psychedelic genre thx to acid), and so many other jazz artists, along with kids just looking to get high that came together to experience this drug.

it is fucking crazy that many of the ideas about hippies, the free love movement, and new age 'spiritualism' spring out from these years.

personally, the most powerful idea is this. so i'm currently in the historical part of the narrative during the vietnam war, and how berkeley became a hotspot for the free speech movement (leading to berkeley's reputation as the symbol for social justice). and it seems that none of this would have happened, including the ideas being shared and spread, were it not for the acid.

it is crazy to think about, that such a tiny dose of a substance could be responsible for such a mass transformation of culture, or way of thinking about the world. and it began as a government sponsored experiment! that is really what so far i've deduced from all these surface level ripples in society to as byproducts of deep underwater explosions and earthquakes, aka the 'trip', or exploration of inner landscapes.

because ultimately, it's our ways of thinking that either allow us to transcend the rituals of daily living, or the ways of thinking imprison us. just like in the matrix where morpheus says, 'it's a prison of the mind. and you can't be told what the matrix is, you have to see it for yourself.'

personally, i view all drugs as ultimately limiters (like the wheels of a training bicycle). however, under their influence, we allow ourselves to interact with one another differently. certain emotional aspects of ourselves manifest when drunk, high, or whatever, and that can be helpful in some circumstances. and that's what i think about the power of drugs in a party environment. after all, what's a party without any drugs? is there ever such a thing? i've never been to one, and certainly never heard of one where at minimum alcohol wasn't served.

we humans tend to abuse drugs, and then they become crutches to our behaviors. then the drugs are no longer about having a good time but actively escaping from the normal ritual of daily life, one that is probably not fun, joyful, or exciting. and drug abuse stems from that root cause. it's a dysfunctional way of thinking that leads to drug abuse. and dysfunctional most always stems from chaotic environments.

and how can we discover what is functional and dysfunctional in a culture other than by looking at its byproducts and its participants? of course, what is considered the 'normal' state of consciousness could very well be dysfunctional if the majority of the culture believe the assumptions of the culture, and is considered 'functional'. however, the only way to discover what is healthy and unhealthy is by exploring other states, and interacting in other ways of thinking different from our own. and in chaotic/stressful environments, this entropy, or disorder, needs to be released, otherwise destruction occurs in the same way a sick body shuts down to undergo recovery. any further stress makes the illness worse because it's not getting the rest time it needs to recover and heal. pretty simple idea right?

take care of your car, maintain it, and it should perform its function well. neglect the car, and even worse, abuse it by slamming brakes, offroading a non-4x4 vehicle, and it becomes less likely to perform its function, correct? breakdowns become more likely until the car and its parts disintegrate. then the car is useless.
why would our minds be any different? and if our own ways of thinking are dysfunctional at the individual level, then what byproducts would we see in society?

chaos, entropy, and stress-inducing shit, right? and if this is true, then naturally, we humans would need a way to release all that internal chaos, or an activity that releases stress. and what seems to be a popular choice of activities among humans? drugs! this is the surface level effects of our personal ways of thinking.

and what guides our personal ways of thinking other than the cultural/religious/societal and family (or lack of, a chaotic environment, which should predict dysfunctional thinking if not addressed) upbringing.
these are the beliefs in which we base our beliefs about the world. and this book is an interesting surface level, sometimes deep diving, narrative of this process.
i swear, sometimes i think everyone is undergoing this process in some degree, shape, or form. and all of us humans are in differing stages of this process.
and the point of this process is to find the entropy, or dysfunctions in our own minds first.
once those are discovered, then the process of releasing, unlearning, changing, that destructive energy into a creation energy is unfolded.
and this is repeated for all deeply seated dysfunctions, which are beliefs that we hold as irrefutable truths about the reality and ourselves.

it's like the majority of humanity (or maybe not) is still stuck on the surface level. they haven't bothered to look at their own ripples in the water, and much less explored the cause of those ripples, which is usually fears, pain, and trauma.
after all, would humans consume drugs if a functional, joyous existence was our natural state of mind? probably not.
but now i'm getting in philosophy, and this book is hinting around this. i wonder if they'll ever address the philosophy of a culture is the groundwork for its collective participants ways of thinking, which influence the profundity of the thoughts they can have, and how they can relate and interact with those of a differing view of the world. the deeper, and wider, the thinking, the more one can see the the integrity of the water underneath then waves. this is impossible to even fathom if the normal mode of consciousness focuses only on the waves. does this make sense? i've begun rambling incoherently again.

or, as the author's of the book poetically put it: (concerning not only marijuana use, but lsd and other substances that had been made illegal):

"the act of consuming the forbidden fruit was politicized by the mere fact that it was illegal. when you smoked
marijuana, you immediately became aware of the glaring contradiction between the way you experienced reality in your own body and the official descriptions by the government and the media. That pot was not the big bugaboo that it had been cracked up to be was irrefutable evidence that the authorities either did not tell the truth or did not know what they were talking about. its continued illegality was proof that lying and/or stupidity was a cornerstone of government policy...

if any single theme dominated young people in the 1960's, it was the search for a new way of seeing, a new relation to the world. lsd was a means of an exciting consciousness and provoking visions, a kind of hurried magic enabling youthful seekers to recapture the resonance of life that society had denied. drugs were a passport to an uncharted landscape of risk and sensation, and those who entered the forbidden territory moved quickly into areas where most adults could offer little assistance...experimenting with lsd and other hallucinogens often created a feeling of separation or alienation from people who hadn't had the experience.''

and this is where i've learned something. especially concerning my own fears and past trauma. the only drug i consume is caffeine, and even this i've begun to let go.
i've begun to look at the motivations behind my actions. not what i'm doing, but why i am doing it.
and this is difficult. this is the most difficult task i have ever undertaken in my life, and the passage i've quoted, the authors have touched upon the aspect of the dishonesty and ignorance of our societal policies and those that promote them. they are the contradictions between what we are told by society what is functional and dysfunctional, and what we know through personal experiences.
and that's a start, sure.
but one thing i rarely notice in others is the lack of awareness that those others in society are humans (as far as i know, they could be an alien species camouflaged as humans...like a good scientist, how do i disprove that theory?)

what about the contradictions we tell ourselves, and what we know through personal experiences? i know that i am my own worst enemy, and that i will rationalize away so many opportunities to discover the truth about myself. it's my normal state of consciousness. disorder, and dysfunction have become my natural way of thinking, and where did i learn this? culture. upbringing. chaotic/stressful environments. self-introspection. honesty.

i admit this, freely. yet i also know, only i can perform my own maintenance and repair. and i have been doing this. and it's the most difficult of work because so many others are not fixing their own cars. others can always help, but again, they must have already gone through the experience, in the same way only a mechanic can fix a broken car. and in my experiences, i have seen many of broken, badly maintained cars. society celebrates car breakdowns and lack of maintenance, and passively encourages everyone to not become a mechanic to their own minds. and if this is the cultural way of thinking...any wonder we witness the byproducts of our personal breakdowns on the mass media screen?

people find it weird i don't drink, nor smoke, nor eat junk food. think about that for a second.
the mere idea of taking care of myself physically and mentally is considered weird. i'm considered an anomaly. lol

not one has truly asked why i don't partake in these rituals. or if they ask, it's because they only want to know the surface answer, because diving below would reveal their own fears and pain. yet i already know this, but i don't tell them that. i know they're not ready to look in the mirror for their own reflection. and i know what that feels like too, which is why i don't press, or pressure, them to dig deeper. being vulnerable is terrifying. i avoid it sometimes too.

imagine if everyone, right now, stopped, and looked at the mirror, silent with their own thoughts for the next 60 seconds?
would they laugh?
would they cry?
would they notice the source of their misery or the source of their joy?
or would their minds run amok, and very quickly would they seek the next distraction?

anyways, this went longer than i expected. i'm going to sleep. early class tomorrow. i'll probably send another email about the first day.
i know it'll be awesome cuz i'll be amusing myself.

later alligator.
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