Peace! And welcome back to ‘Gone Trippin’’. I hope you’ve been well and safe, all things considered. This week’s psychedelic discussion comes courtesy of an old friend and former roommate, and coincidentally the host of my very first acid trip about eight years ago.
A resident of a coastal town along the Northeast American coast, my best friend AKA BF and I drove to Anon’s house on a quiet Saturday morning. I had never tripped on anything before, and had only recently begun to smoke marijuana again recreationally as a young college student who did not really enjoy the act of drinking, though my eventual consumption of alcohol would spike as I aged. Anon lived with his family, but they had gone out for the day. I explored his room, filled with the similar great relics of my younger days: sports memorabilia, trophies, and other childhood bedroom tropes. I felt very at home and relaxed in this foreign environment.
Anon had two friends join us: a guido and a regular suburban townie. I find it strange now that I shared something so powerful and life changing with two complete strangers. Many people must do this, particularly for ayahuasca trips or peyote trips involving a guide or shaman. That level of trust I had at that age is no longer within me, despite my vocal attitude of acceptance, peace, and universal love. My hippy ways are a good life mantra, but when dealing with psychedelics it is probably best to know who you are with to not only protect your energy, but ensure you do not come across someone who can’t handle their shit or has narc potential.
Before dropping, Anon took us to a local breakfast spot that had the finest bagels I’ve ever had. It’s been eight years and I am still searching for something that compares. As we dropped, Anon drove us to the beach. A clear winter day that was not particularly cold, we wandered the beach taking in the solace of the Sun, water, and calmness. Looking back, the dosage was not particularly strong. For that, I am grateful. A stronger first trip would have scared me away from the act of tripping, at least for some time.
I soared mentally and felt at peace with nature and my personhood in those moments. It was sharply snapped when we stumbled across two shady older men in close discussion giving off Goodfellas mobster vibes. Looking as if they were looking for a place to hide a body or were avoiding potential F.B.I. surveillance, I felt grounded back in the reality that I was on a substance and should be aware of my surroundings.
After returning to our parked car, a local police car drove around the parking lot slowly. We all mini-freaked out, knowing we had nothing on us, but fearful they could tell we were tripping, a paranoia as old as time. The cop car stopped right in front of ours, making it impossible to back out, glaring at us before driving away. A dodged bullet and an avoided instance. The guido would tell me I had been worried for no reason.
In mainstream news, even conservative think tanks are calling for the government to ‘Ease restrictions on medical psychedelics to aid research, experts say’. As well, the good folks of Leafly just published this piece by Meg Hartley on ‘How to prepare for your first psychedelic mushroom trip’.
Below you will find the second entry in my interview column ‘Gone Trippin’’.
J. bb: Without saying your name, who are you and how do you identify?
Anon: I’m from New York. I am a male. I’m an inside sale’s manager and real estate investor.
J. bb: What inspired you to begin taking psychedelics?
Anon: If you consider weed a psychedelic, that’d be the first one, that was around when I was eighteen. Actually, the first time I was high I was like fourteen on Halloween. One of our friends had it. It was a lot of our first times, the four of us. Didn’t do much of that after the summer of junior year of high school. It was the first time I started smoking a lot that summer. Pretty much haven’t stopped. After that probably shrooms. I don’t know if there’s any inspiration, but I’d have good favor with good green stuff and other funny Earth stuff so shrooms seemed like the logical next step. Some friends brought them. Probably did some internet research. I don’t really remember. We just went with it.
That would probably be around the first part of the inspiration. Talking about a straight beginning that’s where it began.
J. bb: So what has your experience been like with psychedelic substances?
Anon: Pretty good for the most part. Nothing that stands out in my mind as a bad trip, just bad moments in a trip. Definitely eye-opening. Definitely helps me challenge my own self-beliefs whether they are negative or positive and just making sure that what is rooted in me that is not good gets out as much as possible to try to try and devolve it a little bit and break it down.
J.bb: Gives you self-awareness?
Anon: Definitely a self-awareness to be able to work on those things where in the past I don’t think that might have been possible.
J. bb: Do you do them often to answer those kinds of questions?
Anon: No, I did more as a reactionary thing instead of a prevention kind of mechanism. The prevention kind of mechanisms are harder to start going through.
J. bb: What are you reacting to?
Anon: Normal anxious stimuli that any human being would respond to and I think more in terms of kind of negative sentiments whether it’s about myself or my environment or what I’m going through to really try to break those down.
J. bb: What’s the strangest place you’ve ever tripped?
Anon: I don’t think there’s ever been any strange places. Strange gives me a weird feeling. I don’t think I’ve ever felt that in any place I’ve been tripping. One of the most unique places was an Upper East Side essentially penthouse. I was on acid somewhere in the 2010s. That was probably the most interesting place. Amsterdam. Camping.
J. bb: Camping alway’s fun.
Anon: Those are probably the most interesting for me. I try not to go to the city. I got freaked out once in the city when I was tripping on acid.
J. bb: What were you doing?
Anon: I was doing acid in the city and we were walking and somebody pushed me or something. I just got freaked out by all the people. Maybe that was just younger me, like a biased reaction to people that are gangster looking or stuff like that. I felt that and I was like, “let’s go back inside”. I felt very strange in the city.
J. bb: Why do you think psychedelics are currently mostly illegal in the United States?
Anon: Definitely has a lot to do with marijuana prohibitions in the 1950s. That was where the start was. The drug war funding of the 1980s. Opium usage in Vietnam. It’s also too accessible of a thing that could have too big of an impact to be properly regulated if it was legal. Shrooms can be grown in a freaking pot. LSD can be made with just some catpiss odor afterwards. Cocaine isn’t too crazy, just gotta get the leaf. There’s all these things. And hallucinogens can be pretty easily made by someone with mild intelligence. It’s some normal lab skills and some normal gardening skills.
After that the government has refused to do anything about it. The people have also been accustomed to not doing anything about it and to fear that and knowing that if somebody does that it’s like the Devil. It goes into religion and ties very much into the American psyche against it. And they immediately connect it to every bad reaction that anybody has ever had to drugs at all. For some people that hits very close to him from my friend, her brother lost his life to addiction a couple days ago. So for her the idea of drugs and somebody else succumbing to this is very strong and very real. And you know for all her friends and every single person who knew this person is going to be the same way and you also hear about these things. I don’t think people understand the medicinal properties. The same thing killing these people is also being used as a medicine in many good ways and also probably too often. But it is also a medicine and it was also used medicinally and as a relaxer and it was kind of like the same thing in alcohol in China hundreds of years, thousands of years, and probably still in some places today.
I think they just don’t have the nuance to get through like, “oh there are different drugs and people can be using them in different ways. They can be used for the promotion of good and the promotion of stronger beings,” but yeah it would be nice to get to a point where Portugal is with drugs. Having personal amounts and if you’re caught multiple times maybe you’ll see a psychiatrist or whatever. A psychologist which is like a lot better than locking people up which we do to an excessive amount.
J. bb: How do you think America can get the advocacy to become closer to a place like Portugal policy wise?
Anon: Practically like 50-75 years in terms of the timeline. Like a lot of old thinking has to die and just go away.
J. bb: 50?
Anon: 50-75 years.
J. bb: That’s such a long fucking time.
Anon: It’s a very long time. But our first step would probably be like Colorado, Massachusetts.
J. bb: Legalizing weed nationally I guess would be the first step.
Anon: Right? Just getting there and that is the first step.
J. bb: The domino effect.
Anon: Yeah, recreationally.
J. bb: Weed and boomers.
Anon: Yeah! And then also putting money into weed research as a scientific community.
J. bb: We don’t pay attention to science in America.
Anon: Yeah, doing that cause if you pour that amount of money that has helped so many people.
J. bb: People love and spend money on these things.
Anon: That’s going to be super good. It’ll be super good for a market which is also why I wanna do like warehouses and stuff [real estate wise] cause people can grow shit in them. Become a farmer. I need a farmer.
J.bb: Do you prefer shrooms or cid?
Anon: Shrooms.
J. bb: Why?
Anon: More natural. Acid is built in a lab so I don’t know. I inherently put myself at the risk that I don’t know the intensity of this particular tab of acid. Could have like 100 tabs on like a fucking milimeter piece of paper and never know that until you fucking take it and then you’re either a glass of orange juice or fine in the morning. Shrooms it from the Earth and has the possibility of cultivating yourself if you want. I mean you can also cultivate some LSD, but that will definitely have some implications and ramifications. They don’t like people messing with chemicals. They don’t like people having the knowledge cause it’s not that hard.
J. bb: You can also get kidnapped and forced by the cartel or someone to make shit for them. How do you think you solve that?
Anon: Kill the source. Legalize it all, but they don’t want to do that. They don’t wanna deal with not having drug lords and shit. They have a lot of people on that shit you know. They get a lot of money for that.
J. bb: Lot of families in law enforcement rely on that money?
Anon: There’s just gonna get rid of thousands of agents? Absolutely not. There’s a Trump move. I wanna see Trump do that.
J. bb: Get rid of agents?
Anon: Yeah, I thought he was going to come in and fix the balance the sheets. We’re not fixing the balance sheets though. That’s sad. I would like to see my country not in debt, but now that I’ve seen debt being used and how it is used it makes a little more sense. I have to see how much income we have, but still $14 trillion dollars of debt is a lot of debt. I feel like whatever bank you go to is like, “hey, we own the U.S. now.” What’s that look like? The U.S. is a corporation.
J. bb: The U.S. is a corporation. It’s a Ponzi scheme.
Anon: I feel like in it’s vision, in its original vision it was not supposed to be. It was supposed to be this pure thing.
J. bb: Well it’s interesting that America the corporation that loves to sell you shit doesn’t wanna make these recreational psychedelic drugs legal and corporate because they’re afraid of what these things will do to you. I don’t think they’re more worried about people being addicted to heroin. It’s a fear of consciousness.
Anon: The government yes, the people no. I don’t think it’s anywhere on a piece of paper, but like what I’ve seen from movies and stories, the way this Deep State idea, cause that’s what we’re really talking about. The Deep State, people with family members in the government for decades. There’s a lot of these people in the C.I.A., Department of State and they’re mid-level of people. They’re never the highest person, they’re never the lowest person. They’re like a step to the side maybe sometimes of the highest person and they just have family members that are in there forever and ever and they just get these jobs. They’re right there and they will influence important parts of our country to be spirals. And I also feel like there are separate parts of the Deep State, like there is a left wing, right wing kinda thing. There is an opposition within the Deep State as well I think. We kind of have Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, that enforces these kinds of things, but we also have the people on the other side. The KKK, National Church, yada yada yada. So both sides.
Now, if they’re smart they’re working together. You have your events on this day and we have our events on this day. You can kind of stay in perpetual flux like that. If they’re not actively having these things it will still create these political ideologies within our government or state of unity. So to me we are kind of in that flux right now and these operators in the Deep State keep that going. They perpetuate that idea that if people have drugs they’re going to think about the state, they’re going to think about their lives, they’re going to think about things differently and they know that. And the fact that they know that is the reason they make sure we don’t get access to this. If people start asking themselves those questions. They did this in Westworld where they revealed everybody’s information that the supercomputer had on them that would eventually be what happens to the world. They got to read their file. How they were going to die. Why they were going to die. This that and other. It created enough chaos essentially. If you did that to every single person across the world. If you gave a dose of shrooms across the world–
J. bb: How big a dose?
Anon: At least an eighth. If you gave every single person a dose I think we’d probably have a string of mass suicides and also after that a period of either super quick the world comes together if enough of the previous institutions stay in place or it’s going to be chaos for like 50 years. Or something like that. I don’t really know cause that’s both ends of the spectrum.
J. bb: Would you want to take that risk?
Anon: No. I’m not in a good position. I’m liable to whatever the fuck would happen, especially not in the city. Anywhere you’re in a densely populated area and I don’t know the exact population density that is like prime to escape. Obviously if the density is smaller you have a higher chance of escaping. I don’t know what that is, but I should figure out that number. But I’m not in any position to win something like that. If I was in a position to win, yes. Let’s do it. I’m squared away. I know who is coming with me and we’re all Gucci.
J. bb: What if there was a response team to handle the mass hysteria?
Anon: There’s always a response team.
J. bb: Worldwide distribution of preparedness.
Anon: Like preparedness for it to happen and shut it down or promote it?
J. bb: Promote it and be able to handle the effects.
Anon: You need a 1:1 person relief.
J. bb: For everyone?
Anon: Maybe 1:3.
J. bb: I think 1:10.
Anon: Nah.
J. bb: A lot of people will be good, they’ll be in a group and talk and be like fine, but others will want more and continue onto a smaller group. But a lot would be fine quickly.
Anon: But then you’d lose a lot of the effect.
J. bb: You don’t think it will be self-driven?
Anon: No. Yes, if everyone was open to it and there was a particular protocol to follow, but that’s a lot to ask the individual especially if you want to deploy that rapidly. I think it would be better to do groups of seven to eight. Then they just talk about what they felt. Figure what that protocol would be to enable that.
J. bb: What age do you think is acceptable for someone to take psychedelics?
Anon: I have a lot of trouble with that one. Eighteen. Actually, probably twenty-two. What if you gave it to somebody when they’re five years old? What if you gave it to someone when they’re ten years old? Would you be able to unravel things that wouldn’t be able to unravel later on and prevent future treatments of psychedelics or anti-depressants or whatever path you decide to go down? I always struggle with that one and it’s like child testing and it will have an effect on the child. We know it will have an effect, I don’t know if it’s significant, but we know it will have an affect on the child. In the science world there is probably already a protocol to review psychiatrist medication and even more so children proof psychiatrist medication, in particular measurements you have to give to each one. Being able to break that down and implant that in that system would be the best way to go about it, but again people don’t want that. Some people will want it, some people won’t.
J. bb: Do you know about the research between shrooms and depression?
Anon: Yeah, there was like a study at West Virginia or whatever.
J. bb: Have you felt similar?
Anon: Yes, definitely. The first time no actually. The second time I took an eighth of shrooms I felt like I had woken up from a sea of stress and darkness. I felt like a newborn baby the day after. That was pretty nice. Probably should put that in my schedule again. Definitely have had that feeling more with shrooms. It’s different with acid.
J. bb: Have you only done shrooms and acid?
Anon: Shrooms, acid, and ayahuasca.
J. bb: How was that?
Anon: That was a trip.
J. bb: How long did it last?
Anon: All night. Took it at like 2AM and we were going all night. Lying down on the floor in our own heads most of the time.
J. bb: Did you astral project?
Anon: No, this guy passed out cold in the middle of our session. He went to the bathroom and passed out. Up until this point nothing had really happened for me and the way the person that I work with, she was like, “yeah you got to give up control and let her do her work.” It’s extremely hard to describe because you’re lying there and there’s this whole dieta and I hadn’t done a lot of it and had also been sick for weeks before so I probably shouldn’t have been there. We’re doing it and people are asking questions about him passing out and stuff and she’s like, “it happens. I had a bunch of guys come in once for a session and they did a bunch of cocaine beforehand.” She took them for a whirl. I guess they were going crazy or something. So guy uses the bathroom and ends up flat on the floor. Her and her partner go over there and they’re just hand waving stuff. Humming this stuff. Eventually he gets up and goes back to bed. They give him a banana. It’s a very personal kind of thing. I also saw some figurines. Imagine like a 2D person cut out. That’s what I saw sitting on the couch. I saw a bunch of them dancing on the other side of the room. It was crazy. I was like what the fuck is that? Extremely personal thing that makes you think about your life and what you wanna keep and not have. Let’s you be extremely honest with yourself. Anything that is on your mind or might be on your mind, just addressing it I guess.
Check out this interview below that Hamilton Morris did with Michael Pollan, the author of How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence.
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