C.I.A. Guinea Pig

What drug was researched by the CIA as a truth-telling serum? Credited by Paul McCartney as inspiration for several Beatles' songs? The pied piper, Timothy Leary (happy 101st B-Day). And cited by Steve Jobs as one of the most profound experiences of his lifetime?

LSD.

What is LSD?

LSD, aka "acid," or the lesser-known technical term lysergic acid diethylamide.

LSD is a hallucinogenic drug that was first synthesized by a Swiss scientist in the 1930s.

During the Cold War, the CIA conducted clandestine experiments with LSD (and other drugs) for mind control, information gathering and other purposes. After artists popularized it, over time, the drug became a symbol of the 1960s counterculture.

Many have attempted with varying degrees of success to describe what effect LSD has. But, one thing is for certain the drug had a profound and life-altering effect on me.

My daughter is a Millennial and she and her friends not only do not take LSD but haven't a clue what it is. It's a Boomerang thing? Something Hippies did before there was Medium.

What she knows is what I told her with help from my 60s music collection. If the use of LSD is on the rise as some media outlets claim. I haven't seen it.

Colorful pop culture terms. Like "mind expansion." "Seeing the light." "Consciousness awareness," has fallen to the wayside and replaced by Social Media selfies.

No one has the patience for a dream-walk with a Shaman these days.

This essay is not a history lesson but as a practitioner, between the ages of 15–17, I dropped large amounts of LSD. How do I explain that to your Adult child with a smartphone in their hand?

Dropping the stuff together wouldn't work for many reasons. My high blood pressure couldn't take it. And due to the poor quality of the stuff not even safe for my dog.

Fact or Fiction

After taking LSD, I became a voracious reader, which inspired me to be a writer and a musician. Further inspired me to write and promote music. The downside, it alienated my "fragile eggshell mind" - Jim Morrison.

Promoted delusional ideas of dropping out (Timothy Leary) and being special (Steve Jobs). My visions prompted me to believe that I knew something beyond the ordinary. It was interesting but not practical to live inside a Don Juan book. Carlos Castaneda wasn't a real person and didn't need a job. If I had gone where no mind had gone before there wasn't a place for such individuals in my hardscrabble teen life.

I had tried many variations of Acid that did not take me "there." Like purple haze. Microdot, and windowpane. Orange sunshine, and 3-way wedge, which I place in the hallucinogenic class, not the DIY Shaman kit. I tripped so many times that I grew weary of the predictable trip arc. How many times could I witness my mind leaving my body?

Watch my ego dissolve like Alka-Seltzer?

Until I admitted, I'm not the Buddha. And never will unravel the great mystery of my navel. Trying to explain what I experienced was like holding water with a spoon. When the good trips became bad trips, I didn't need to drop it anymore.

I still wonder what kind of person I may have become if I never experimented with LSD? It changed who I was but to what degree and to put a finger on that I've never been able to ascertain.

The Acid Test gurus became artists like the Grateful Dead, and Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters. For a background on that slice of history check out my story The Age of Aquarius Part 1.

The blue square was wrapped in Paisley-colored tin foil. Offered me a gateway dream to another dimension of my being. A sort of parallel world as much a part of our reality as the Earth, to which we're bound. A domain of spirit where the cumbersome physical body cannot function. Where encounters with rabbit holes, and other such entities of the imagination are commonplace. It is in that place - where time and space melt away. The consciousness of all beings\living or dead seems to connect. Where I am in a state of awareness, where I am making sense of the otherwise inexplicable. It is in this realm where the soul maps hidden away. Waiting for a timely moment to reveal their secrets. Unveil the path to transformation.

Only pure LSD was powerful enough to propel me beyond the ego's gravitational pull. Into the inky black nothingness of the dream mind. Like a rocket ship. After the first booster had exhausted its fuel. I'd enter Stage 1. Feeling the drift, then into Stage 2. My vision tapped through the dark illusion of time… and finally, onto Stage 3. A kind of white-out happened. I experienced my conscious and unconscious minds merging. Into a state of blissful surrender. To go beyond the matrix, and travel to other galaxies, uninhibited by any mortal means.

Put that on your resume.

Interview with a teenage acid head.

"Do you have anything else you'd like to say?" Dr. Elle, the Psychiatrist asked.

"I am a soul traveler. I spend many days hanging out at lakes, woods, and libraries," I said.

She noted, "Soul traveler?"

"To be a soul traveler means to be a Universal Man. Universal Man is Universal Mind; it's awareness, not a person. Universal Mind is about integrating nature. Body, mind, soul, and spirit into a spectrum of consciousness."

"Go on," she said.

"I take acid to bring me closer to be my true nature, which is a hyper-accelerated state of awareness. I called this state of animated consciousness Universal Mind."

She was not familiar with the LSD culture, nicknamed acid. Most of the facts on the drug were folklore. Illegal since the early 1960s, the popularity of LSD waned during the first half of the 1970s. Research on the long-term effects of the drug remained unknown. She recalled reading an article in Psychology Today magazine. About a diagnosed phenomenon, "Post Hallucinogenic Sensory Distortion." The theory concluded that due to an exciting pituitary gland, the patient's senses absorbed reality like a flash flood as opposed to an eye drop. Resulting in permanent neuron overload. The brain no longer could absorb external stimuli on a controllable one at a time basis. The mind protected itself by creating a mental condom.

She listened as I told her my body was translucent. Revealing complex anatomical systems. Which was interwoven with glowing energies visible to clairvoyants.

The case took a new turn.

"What is your greatest fear?" She asked.

"To have my head shaved."

"Your first souvenir?"

"It was a guitar."

"The most erogenic part of your body?"

"The bottom of my feet."

"If I say 'a man', what is the first image that comes to your mind?"

"A hairy creature at the bottom of a pool."

Dr. Elle sat back in her chair and rolled her hair into a knot. Three black onyx rings set on sliver covered her long, brown fingers. "Why do you want to be a Universal Man?"

"When your mind left your body, you enter what's called the Universal Mind to be one with the spirit world," I answered.

She examined me. "Do you believe that you have a Universal Mind?"

"I have a mind-traveling club." I acted like it was a confession. "The concept," I went on, "my friends and I leave our bodies and travel around the cosmos. The ceremony happens around a dinner table with no legs. In the center of the table is a Day-Glo-painted bucket. The large metal trash-burning type. On the wall is a window curtain. But there wasn't any window. It's all very symbolic."

Dr. Elle's black-plucked eyebrows quivered, and she said in French, then repeated in English. "This is why your bedroom has no furniture? Why you paint poetry on the walls - and according to your records attempted suicide?"

"No…not exactly. I'm on a vision quest."

"How often do you leave your body?"

"Oh, once a week, sometimes twice," I answered. "It depends on if I can get the good stuff­­ - ."

"Please explain," she said.

I got down on the floor, looked up at the light on the ceiling, and barked like a dog. "My blindness cured. The bandages had come off and I had seen the real me for the first time. Like that first light at birth, I had reached Universal Mind."

Dr. Elle looked at me with curiosity at first and realized I was being humorous. My sense of humor she noted was Midwestern. "What did you find when you reached the Universal Mind?"

I returned to my seat, looking lost. "The vision gained was like trying to hold water in your hands." I stopped at this point to smell my fingers. "The taste of the journey remains on your fingertips. It's hard to explain."

"Who is in your club? And what's the purpose of the club?" Dr. Elle had to move on the hour was over.

"The club consists of the guys from the pad. We're Universal Men. We've transcended purpose. A Universal Man guided us between the melons - our rite of passage."

What conclusion there is.

50 years later.

My experience with LSD was exceptional and not explainable.

The resurgence of research makes a good case for its medicinal properties. The use of psychedelic substances for the treatment of conditions such as addiction. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety are promising.