Well even in the pharmacology textbooks the
yawning gets in for psilocybin, it makes you
yawn they say, and it certainly does make
you yawn. The tearing, it also makes your
nose run a little bit about at the 40 minute mark. The tearing
I associate with the actual moments when the
visions are occurring, it seems as though
your eyes produce a lot of water. And the
tone is yeah, pretty basic to the presentation
of these things. The way it works for me usually
is I take it on an empty stomach in silent
darkness and at about the hour and ten minute
mark there’s visual streaming. Nothing much
before. I mean, running nose, restlessness,
need to go to the bathroom. One of the things
you don’t wanna do is once it begins I think
it’s very important to stay still. And you
will get into loops where it would be better
to be downstairs, it would be better to be
on the other side of the room, it would be
better… this is the small tinny voice of
true madness trying to push you off your point.
And you just say “no, no, it wouldn’t
be better downstairs, and it wouldn’t be
better across the room, and it’s better
right here”. And then at an hour and 20
minutes you get visual streaming, which I’ve
also noticed they occur after orgasm, they’re
like purple after-image, kind of amorphous,
jelly bean shaped lights that are passing
by, not very interesting. But they indicate
the onset of something is happening, the synapse
is coming to the potential for the thing.
And then, I usually smoke cannabis to sort
of push it over the edge. And at a certain
point I know that if I now will take a huge
hit of cannabis the whole thing will just
come apart over moments. And then it does.
And it usually is.. You sort of see it coming,
you know, like a sand storm or something,
I mean it’s 10 miles high and 100 miles
wide and it just rolls toward you and there’s
nowhere to run. And I usually have a few moments
to lie down, is what I basically do, that
seems a good strategy at that point, ahaha..
A plan! A lie down! So then I do that and
that sort of helps a little, and then it just
hits. And you would swear that you know everybody
from Vancuver to San Diego just hurled themselves
underneath their desk because it’s like
an asteroid striking the earth or something.
I mean, everything gives way, you have these
images of first there’s light, then there’s
heat, then the instruments which record light
and heat themselves disintegrate and vaporize
and begin to move outward, and it’s just,
you know, a linguistic zero zone, where language
will not operate, it’s like ground zero.
And then this goes on for a long long time,
and the viewpoint keeps telescoping back until
finally the viewpoint is outside the blast
zone. And then you can begin an inward description
of it, say, you know “oh it’s like this,
it’s like that, it’s telling me this,
it’s telling me that”. Other times it’s
this Irish elfen band thing where they come
literally tip-toeing through the tulips, you
know, and you hear it far off, like the tinkling
of bells, and then it just gets louder and
louder and nearer and nearer and then you
see it, and then it’s around you, and it’s…
well, it’s like a bugs bunny cartoon directed
by Tristan Szara or something like that, I
mean it’s quite zany, unpredictable. The
thing that always impressed me about psychedelics
was the way in which it could convince you
that you could never think of this. You know,
and that was the stamp of authenticity, the
fact that it was moving faster than your own
imagination, astonishing you, making you laugh,
frightening you, leading you on, teasing you…
it’s very strange. I mean there’s nothing
else like it, it’s like you know the Arabs
used to say of the city of Isfahan in Iran
in the 10th century, that it was half the
world because of its vaulted domes and [minner]
hats, that if you hadn’t seen Isfahan half
the world lay before you. Well, it’s literally
true of psychedelics. I mean, half at least
of the world lies over yonder in these strange
dimensions, and they’re not inaccessible,
you know. They’re very accessible, you don’t
have to spend 20 years around the ashram and
yet my goodness we maintain decorum around
them and don’t break protocol and behave
ourselves in the presence of. I mean even
those of us who are supposed experts or accounted
great explorers of it spend 9 times as much
time talking about it as doing it you may
be sure. So, you know, it’s just a kind
of a cultural blind spot.
