A Smooth Transition

Since my first hit of LSD in 1992 it has been my belief that every man and woman on this earth has more than a handful of what I call sub-personalities. There's a theory out there that basically says that we all have a handful of distinguishably different personalities inside us that pop out here and there that are all conscious of each other. This supports a pretty vague overview of how I really think it works and could quite possibly be the wrong way to look at it all together. I believe that for the most part, we all have two versions of one personality and these two different types of personalities have sub-personalities, which can be temporarily be amplified or reduced in less than a nanosecond. Much like an equalizer on a stereo works, this hypothetical mechanism, which I'm guessing works in conjunction with your hormones, can with lightning fast reflex, adjust your personality to best suit the situation according to your mind set. I say this because if your mindset is an aggressive one or a passive one then it’s always going to have that undertone… hence the two personalities in the sense that the adjustments made to fit the situation at hand will be swayed by either the aggressive you or the passive you.

This is very much like the old eastern philosophy of yin and yang, or the idea of two dogs fighting inside you, its just taken one step further because I don’t see it to be quite that simple. I think it’s far deeper than that if you want to get into the final product of what is actually said or what action is taken that would be in question and try to put a name and exact finger on the variation of the self that you may have misdiagnosed as another separate personality. From my experience, especially with hallucinogenics, the set and the setting both come into play in any situation. That being said, every experience we have differs in some way from even the closest replica of that scene and sequence of events that take place there, so it is my belief that if the surroundings are adjusted.. Maybe the heat is turned up or down… maybe the music is turned from easy listening to heavy metal… maybe theres more people or less, angry people or happy… every variation could affect the “equalizer” (so to speak) and morph the personality, aggressive or passive, into something a little different than You saw last time thus creating the illusion of multiple personalities, when really what we’re dealing with is a sub personality that is a modified version of either the passive you or the aggressive you, brought on via all the variables that could come into play in that particular situation. Think about it in math terms… if You have three of you… the You that You think is you, the bad you, and the good you, then there can be 720 different combinations of the same you who are all people that you remember being all of the time.

Now consider emotions. Emotions make up the equalizer. Each emotion can be turned up or down an indefinite number of adjustments to fine tune you for each situation you encounter. Let’s say we stick with the basic six emotions of happiness, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, and surprise, and let’s keep it real simple and say that the equalizer for each emotion only has 10 different adjustments, which if you think about fine adjustments on even a cheap stereo equalizer this number is considerably less than it could be when using a slide dimmer instead of one that stops at predesignated settings like one to 10… but anyway none the less where going with ten, so five increments up and five down on adjusters for 6 different emotions and depending on an aggressive or passive approach could make it possible for there to be a cool (INSERT ANSWER TO EXTREMELY HARD MATH QUESTION HERE AFTER CONSULTING ALBERT EINSTEIN) who the hell knows how to do that kind of math anyway… I ain’t got time for that. All I can say for sure is that’s a serious shit load of variations of one’s self, in the millions I’m guessing. Now you start to see how different you could adjust each personality to be, just by changing it’s environment... You don’t have multiple personalities because you want ice cream one day and not another. Maybe you saw a sign that made you think about it. You're not schizophrenic because you acted hostile one day and easy going the next day. Maybe someone pissed you off before you got there. It doesn't mean you have a different personality inside you that’s an asshole all of the time and might show up out of the blue. They are variations of a single personality that is in one mindset or another. It's not like you're doing things while you're one personality that you don’t remember doing when you’re the next one. That has a name already… it’s called schizophrenia. You don’t have different names for each variation, yet you are all of them at once just the same. This is where the equalizer comes in… and even though there isn't a defined edge or line drawn in time where one attribute stops and another starts doesn’t mean that there isn't a transition between the two. Thus the reason for this “smooth transition” as mentioned in the title, which I will get into in a minute, but first… Were you a dick to the waitress because you changed personalities right there before the eyes of your table guests? No… you were a dick because your wife just messaged you and gave you a bunch of shit about being out to the titty bar with your buddies when you haven't even paid the school taxes yet! So, you turned up the asshole a little bit, aimed at what you thought was the softest target and pissed off the waitress who in turn will most likely (unless she understands the idea of a smooth transition and gives a shit), pass the same favor on to the next guy who breaks her chops.… then maybe you feel bad so instantaneously your brain turns down the “asshole” and turns up the “I’m sorry,” which doesn’t help at all because you’re still “aggressive you” so that shows through immediately as you try to force your apology down her throat by chasing her around begging her for forgiveness. Does this define who you are or will be in ten minutes or tomorrow? No… ten minutes from now the passive you could’ve shown up and realized the situation and taken different steps to make things less awkward or totally avoid the whole situation from the get go. One bad night drinking doesn’t define who you are. A one night stand doesn’t make you a slut. I don’t believe everyone acts exactly the same as the other guy would. Some people hold things in for years and never act any other way than passive or aggressive. They never adjust anything. These are usually the people you hear of having huge breakthroughs to the other side. This is where you get women that finally snap out and defend themselves and shoot their husbands who have been abusing them for the last 10 years. Or the career criminal falling apart and crying like a baby, begging for mercy in the court room during his trial when he clearly never had any in the past for anyone else. This is why you hear the words, “He wasn’t that kind of guy at all.” Or “I never would've expected that out of him… he was such a nice guy.” Guess what… anyone is capable of anything. The weakest most recluse man can save a bus load of people if the environment promotes it... or a murderous heathen could have compassion for a child if the environment promotes it. Meaning if something happened before the incident in question to work their hearts one way or the other or to open their eyes to something, maybe anger them or make them smile… then this can affect the equalizer and sub personalities can start to form in either the aggressive or passive version of themselves that they have sort of slipped into at that particular moment. The important thing, if you don’t want to promote more negative things to happen, would be to help give them a safe transition between the personality traits that you have observed that you may not like, to ones more positive and uplifting. You can, through various techniques, begin to move them from one state of mind to another by absorbing deflecting and adjusting slowly the subject, mood, or tone of voice to get them through their moment and let them transition into a more suitable variation of themselves semi-naturally instead of just pulling the plug and smashing head to head in an all out confrontation.

This is something I began to understand while experimenting with LSD in high school and living in a house with an alcoholic father. Later for many years it was a skill I employed everyday as a bartender. It’s like when someone is ultra high on psychedelics, you don’t just try to bring them down and end their trip… that would be ridiculous since most of the big hitters last long periods of time. Just like you’re not gonna talk down a drunk 'til he’s sober. So what do you do? You get him through… you don’t feed him coffee and expect him to snap out of it… especially when they ate enough acid to make an elephant see the value of an ivory hair brush. It’s an impossible feat that will most definitely cause trauma in some way or another. You keep reinforcing them with positive vibes and statements like… everything is great… it’s just a drug and it will wear off…. You are not in any danger…. You are healthy and all that is bothering you is in your head and due to the drug you have taken… stuff like that… You try to help them transition from a place in their head that’s making them feel uncomfortable to a happy place filled with positive thoughts, and if you do this correctly you can change someone’s undesirable experience into the best time they ever had. I’ve done it on LSD and mushrooms many times throughout the years, holding a friends hand 'til they worked through a “bad trip” that sometimes ended up a great time a couple hours later. I also used it behind the bar talking drunk people through there problems… if you give a shit then you have to get right in there, buy 'em a few shots, change the radio station to something up beat and play a game of darts or shoot some pool, maybe just include them in a simple conversation. You cant tell an Vietnam vet who just lost his wife to cancer to sober up and act right anymore than ya can tell someone who just dropped a window pain of “white fluff” to snap out of it because the cops are here, so why would you not try the same techniques on people who’s judgment is only clouded by anger? Helping someone through safely takes a little patience and compassion and it can be very hard at times but it’s always worth the time it took, I assure you. There's no difference between any of this and helping someone through a snap attack. Say someone comes in the store you work and gets pissed because you won’t sell them cigarettes without identification... Boom… out comes a very undesirable variation of this man you just saw yesterday holding the door and pumping gas for an old lady. You think to yourself, “wow… I didn't expect him to act that way.” Here's your sign. You can ignore it and tell him to fuck off, or you can see that he’s not “acting like himself” and try to help him make a smooth transition to a more suitable form of himself for public. It’s all about how much you care, how much time you have, how much patience you have, and how much you’ve read about the subject…

Now after reading this, you know enough to know what should be done, so really it boils down to caring enough to take the time to help someone, or not caring and letting it persist somewhere else as the angry person bounces like a destructive pinball pissing people off everywhere he goes, when the smallest attempt at defusing his anger may have made all the difference in the world. Peace out girl scouts. 😁😘