Altered states of mind (Pt. 2)
I don’t condone it, but I can sometimes understand why people take drugs or mind-altering substances. Why, for instance, Aldous Huxley experimented with hallucinogens and wrote his book “The Doors of Perception.” (Extra)ordinary real life is not enough for some people. In their own eagerness to know more about the mind and its infinite complexities, they stimulate their brains with chemicals that alter consciousness in profound and sometimes very disturbing ways. (I saw drugs nearly destroy a close friend of mine, years ago) Often it’s because the pain of coping wth life is unbearable, and drugs offer a way out, temporarily, and time being the mysterious and transient thing it is, brief episodes of self-prescribed, enhanced reality change the perception of time and space so that things are no longer as they seem or should be. The world becomes multi-dimensional. New doors are opened to strange and wonderful places, or so they say.
It seems strange to me, however, that drugs and altered states of mind would be so sought after and abused by the young, who have fresh eyes and senses and expanding minds capable of perceiving the newsness and unexpected in those scenes, places, objects, literature, art, media, etc. that older persons such as myself have to struggle at times to be amazed or even moved by. We think we’ve seen it all before, but we haven’t seen that much, really, and sometimes youth has to drag us into the light again. The people who really know what’s going on don’t say much or give away their secrets easily.
So, sometimes I understand why we age so painfully and so wistfully, filled with recollections and nostalgia for our own youth, no matter how awful a lot of it was. We long to understand how we came to be as we are, and we see youth making all our mistakes and feel helpless as they go about their self-destructive ways. Not that we aren’t still doing the same self-destructive types of things. Just that we know better, or should.
I don’t know what cocaine, Ecstasy, LSD, today’s powerful marijuana, and other drugs make people feel like. And I don’t want to know. It’s so far out of my realm of experience that I can only read about the effects on others in first person, autobiographical accounts. But the furnaces of those kinds of highs have to be continually stoked with more drugs/fuel for the brain to keep the fires of fevered insights burning and serotonin exploding.
As I look at pelicans flying over the sea oats now, I have enough hints of what is sublime on this wondrous Earth to keep me guessing and reaching higher for more knowledge and other kinds of experiences that will teach me something and help me further along the road.
I don’t have the fiery passions of youth anymore, although my passions can still be good and aroused in anger, I discovered recently. I don’t feel that same intensity that young minds feel, the same levels of dread and hostility and cynicism (although I feel cynical enough). I don’t have the anxiety and fearfulness I once dragged about with me, worried about what I was to become or what I was to make of my life. I remember at various times when I was younger, say at age 20 or 25, thinking to myself, with some degree of trepidation and unknowable fear, “What I will I be like at 45?” Oh, the very thought of it was enough to send me fleeing back into the present.
Now, more than ever, I’m the observer, the thinker who knows a thousand avenues to explore to gain more knowlege, if he chooses to explore any of them. My experiences with life have led me to this place on a rather lonely stretch of beach on this late May in the year 2000. Innumerable other paths beckon, hinting of mystery and intellectual adventure.
Drugs can allow you to crack open the door or knock it down in a fury. You then become dependant on some outside force, in this case, a mere substance or chemical agent that so often is frighteningly abused by people running from the light, even as they desperately seek it.
(Written in May, 2000)
i do so long to live by the beach..your writings are so beautiful…
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i found a picture that i want to be in today…i put it up on my main diary page for you to see…
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i said that about being 18 when i was 8. i guess now i’m wondering what life will be like when i’m in my 40s and 50s.
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Your altered state photograph would be very popular if you could find a way to reproduce it, Oswego. I often think dreaming is an altered state, a different reality somehow connected to this one. I wish drugs did not have such drawbacks. They are an ancient tradition in many, many cultures.
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To say you “don’t have the fiery passions of youth anymore,” is a bit misleading ~ for perhaps, your passions have changed with maturity. You are passionate about all that surrounds you now. You hear more perceptively, your vision is far reaching, your understanding more compassionate, your awareness heightened, my friend~ *smile*
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I have seen the destruction of bright & intelligent young people who have grasped the instant fulfillment of chemical addiction ~ Too soon, it fades & their needs become stronger. Gradually, reality becomes apathetic & one’s sole purpose in life is to escape~
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Excellent essay! I joke a lot about “grandmother’s tea” in my diary; but, I don’t do illegal drugs. Several reasons–no quality control, jail, frying my brain worse than it is! Life has pressed in on me the last two years with such painful fury that I have longed for something legal to ease the sorrow and anguish I haven’t been able to escape in the old ways–sleep, nature, books. [Doodlebug’s]A
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That’s why I think there is a place for some substances, to calm nerves and out-of-control anxiety attacks. I can see the fascination for drugs that would bring on deepened, altered states. I’d be afraid to take them, though! I read up on estacy, and it sounds like really bad stuff! I wouldn’t want to suffer the long term effects for the short term high there!
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What a wake-up call, working in a high school, hearing what kids really are saying to each other; It’s just widespread, drugs are everywhere. Easy to get, no big deal to take. Some days I was so schocked and disappointed I wanted to cry. Even the “smart”kids. Even the “Athletes.” The “Rich” ones, too. They’re all doing it. I never did it. I too, thought it was cheating. [Jude Alon
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Going to the university in the early seventies…drugs were at all the parties, but never a draw for me; my open meditation sessions have been mind-altering enough to shock me and to change my life, I’d say. And totally safe. “The undertrees.” you write, a new phrase for me; I think as I enter sixties I feel an undertree life establishing–not with sadness or regrets but with curiousity I relate
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Long ago I decided I didn’t need drugs – my mind alters with realizations…and the changes all about and within me.
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ryn: yes, I think it’s hard, the dog days of summer, August. Not being used now to dramatic changes of season, I don’t relate, and especially now with FL being green still from heavy rains…not brown as it often is August. You’re maybe psychologizing the landscape and if not for that, to give us messages from within, what does it draw our attentions for? Beauty, yes. But, our inner selves too
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I went through the phase of drugs and alcohol when I was in college. Then I found out I have a much better imagination without it!
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Beautiful entries as usual. The statement about drugs allowing you to crack open the door or knock it down in a fury, the same can be said for teens. LOL.
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i think most of us need to feel intoxicated from time to time, you do not need drugs to feel that. nature, dancing, music..are some of my drugs. I guess you have some too..?
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I believe a natural high is far more potent than any drug-induced feeling. Yet, many people will not reach into themselves and find that natural outlet. They choose what they think is faster and easier, not caring of the crippling and health damaging aspects. I know how I feel when I have a natural adrenalin surge either in happiness or anger. It is incredible!! Great entry as always. [Freewind]A1
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As a child of the 60s curiousity compelled me to experiment. And yes, glimpses through cracks in the doors of perception revealed intriguing insights…but the vortex of our perceptive power lies in reality. Shamans and sadhus have used natural substances to gain insight into the realms of the gods since ancient times, but popular drug use today seems just a shallow way to waste some time
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damn. i spent this morning worrying that I wouldn’t be who/where/what I wanted when I reach 45. Then I realized I have no clue who/where/what I wanted when I reach 45. you’re note about salary wasn’t uplifting, but honest. the woman you said was realistic may be, but i have to ignore her. i went through a dozen recruiters before my first job, all telling me i was too young, too inexperiened, [Tae
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too much a chance. I nearly gave up then, but I knew I could do what set out to do, if someone would give me a chance. When someone did, I felt vindicated, like I had somehow proven those cynical, older people (the ones who said these things were all 40+ and I was barely 21 at the time). Now I see why they had such animosity towards me–they’d worked all their life and here i was not even out of
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college looking to do as well as, or in the case of one woman, better than them. I still don’t see where I am as better or worse than any of the people I’ve met, but after working with some real characters, I can see that viewpoint.I hope when I’m fifty I can look back and smile at my past, reflect as you do on life and look forward to the next 50, and hopefully–with science advancing–50 more 🙂
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“Choose this day whom you will serve” came to mind as I thought of us: thoughtful, slower middle-agers sitting on the beach pondering the roads we’ve chosen and the wisdom we may or may not have gained. Every day still contains choices. I’m not sure I’ll ever “arrive” at understanding the complexity of life. I hope I never tire of it’s unexpected beauty. We have this day. We need to use it.
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I’ve opened an IM for your AIM name, but don’t see you online…Perhaps you are still awake? I will watch my IM box to see if your name appears… FiM, still nsi but with one IM open, for you, if you’re there…
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Very interesting Oswego, and your words convey something comforting about the shedding of intensity. BTW just so we don’t have any drugs mixups, 😉 those interdimensional experiences I’m referring are natural phenomena, not substance related.
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Oh wait. Apparently this wasn’t an up-to-date news account. Feeling a little foolish now. 😉
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I only can imagine the effects of drugs. I read a lot about it because I wanted to know certain things in case I would be confrontated with the problem as a teacher to teenagers. Like you say, reaching higher for more knowledge and find peace and happiness in other kinds of experiences opens so many more perspectives to our future. It’s our past that led us to our present way of observing and
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thinking.You make me smile with what you write in this entry because I can relate so much to it. And yes, we see youth making all our mistakes…but I think that’s the only path to wisdom. When we are young we take up things as they come to us, always eager, excited and often in trembling and fear. Some among us don’t work out possibilities. So, our past provides us with a framework of
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understanding and only if we achieve this point in life our mind is ready to reach out and yearn for higher knowledge. I like my present life for all the wonderful things I discover now and that surrounds me. For all the wise and interesting books waiting to be read.:o) for gristmills out there, waiting for me to visit. Our life seems to have many gates to opportunities, waiting to be struck
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Why did I need so much time to find the simple treasures that make me happy these days? William Blake’s quote is telling us something: “To create a little flower is the labor of ages”!!! Have a very nice sunday dear friend. I hope you could go to your favorite spot and watch nature and infinite horizons.
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