h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This is a record of one trip, written periodically over the course of an evening by myself and a couple friends. Some names have been changed.

This is a blow-by-blow account of the effects of 800 micrograms of LSD on
James and myself.

Trip Log:

4:00
Dropped. The early part of the hour was spent reading comics and lying
on the floor listening to music. At about 4:40 Ivan called and I had to talk
to him as the trip was coming on - being forced to maintain rationality
kept the trip at bay for a while.

5:00
The trip is taking discernible effect. I'm beginning to feel the tension in
my arms, back, and jaws, and it's becoming difficult to type. Objects
are beginning to have a particularly hard-edged quality to them. I'm
expecting that due to the higher dosage taken at once, this trip will
be more intense than the last one. It's becoming hard to formulate
coherent sentences.

5:30
The trip has taken full effect. We were sitting on the roof for a while,
watching the clouds and experiencing how the focus of one's vision
could remain stable while the surroundings completely disintegrated.
The clouds also exhibited a great deal of depth and motion. After a
moment of lying on the roof, I came down to encourage Chris to come
out and watch the clouds. As soon as I reascended the roof it began
to rain, and with the onset of thunder and lightening we came
down, but stood for a while in the backyard watching the leaves
and the rain fall... Now (5:38) the rain is coming down very hard,
and I am going to go out and watch it.

5:59
The rain was very interesting and we watched it for a while outside,
and went out to stand in the street a bit. The water was running
deep in the gutters, and James and I sat on the porch and watched
Chris wade back and forth. We have come back inside for a while
now and for a bit James was obsessing on (focusing, really) a photo
of a pine forest in a National Geographic. I went into the bathroom
and looked at the mirror, and had a few visual hallucinations of
glimmering golden mathematical signs and sigils in bands across my
face. The disk has just ended, so I will go and change it. I am
becoming obsessed by details and quite tense at times, especially
when it is silent. I am currently experiencing mild visual washes as
the monitor wavers before me. I am having a GOOD trip!

6:33
We have just finished watching the Simpsons and Neverwhere Land.
It's sort of like waking from a nap, actually doing something rather than
just being a vessel for whatever sensations are apparent at the moment.
I'm starting to stream of conciousness in a serious way and should let it
flow. However.... I find it easy to obsess... on obsession... I'm attempting
to keep my writing somewhat rational while at the same time allow the
sensations that I'm experiencing to flow.

7:00
Nearing the peak of the trip, all three of us are mostly sort of wandering
around and tripping out on various stimuli that happen to be about.
For quite a while it was quiet, but James has just put on some music
which lilts in the background. We tend to be each doing whatever
it is that particularly enhances our own experience of the trip. The
music that James has on is quite interesting because it is so external;
it is something ordinary and in the background, much as my typing.
Chris is standing behind me tripping on a ball which she is rolling up
and down her arms. I don't think that I am enjoying how this music
is interacting with my trip; it's too external. I think that I'll soon pick
out something, perhaps to listen to on headphones, that is more
engrossing and involves the entire body and psyche.

7:20
Lying down in the dark, wearing headphones is an incredibly intense
outlet for this trip. The techno music sets a stage for mental visions of
spinning metal and color in other, alien worlds. It is very bright inside.
It is like having my entire psyche projected onto a spinning sphere
of shimmering metal.

7:52
The trip has almost now entirely disintegrated into music. Music is
shaping my reality, internally when I close my eyes. I am curious how
deep it can penetrate into my psyche; how long I can lay in pure
self-contemplation before I come to a breaking point. A few moments
ago I was lying in the twilight, imagining myself being dissected by
surgical creatures with gleaming claws.

7:56 James takes over:
Okay. Thios is when I peer in... Guido (can't call him Kris) imagins that
scot has never done this before. He's wroing. Although this is difficult,
trying to tap each key, ondering at ht e connection between by brain
and language at this opint. Because I am coding ... likebrail or something...
like an intricate morse (Note that Morse is drawn from a cultural
conciousness. That he made something we all connected to. We
all connected to. That's what all of this is about... trying to make the
others see through your eyes. It's luike the ultimate anti-compassion.
Becauzwe you realize that you are the center and that ll you can
do is to SPWEAK.

(That's speak. Sorry.)

I just read the screen (I've been hunched over the keyboard this whole
time, pounding in stream of something) and it strikers me a
tremendously funny.

Guido wanted me to write my ththeory about how everything that
was happeneing at the time of a recording of your favorite piece
of music is recorded there. Not just what was happeneing with the
musicisabn's play of fingers over keyboard (HAH!) but of everything
that was being said by ever mouth, inticed by every brain on the
planet at that moment, is recorded. (If I were fopcusing properly
at this poiiunt I would consider the use pf the word recorded
very much. S**t I've done it. I'm focuesed. S**t. I've . done.

Okay. Calm down. Don't type so fast that you can't keep track
of what is language and what is simple precussion. Think. Try
to relate something. "How's it going scott."
"Fine."
And with that he puts the eraphones back on.

P e r c u s s I o n

Are drums an instrument? What is an instrument? Of what
are we instruments? All of it.
Consider each sentence with a question mark... and without.
See how that one mark changes the entire context of this self
interrog(convers)ation. (?)

I realize that Dream Theater has no soul. It's all math and numbers and
little squiggly symbols. It's all about strutting your musical DICK to everyone
else. They need to calm down, come off themselves, the TRUE egodeath
which the druggies probably never really get,. That's me.

M.
E.

That's e getting arrogant now. F**k it. Cnan'y f*****g relate
without stopping to question how they see me. Stroking myself
like I need it or something, wondering what Chris is doing out
there, and if I should be there to HELP her with this, like she can't
handle any thng profound without the allmighty f*****g hand of
almighty f*****g scott to guide her through the f*****g trip.

Even through f*****g dream theatre is covering some whimp ass
piano s**t now. F**k, not even being true to their heroes. They take
the old tunes and they "weave" themselves, their new arrogant world
view, unto it, to strut once again, to show what matters.

It's all food chain. It's all s**t and p**s and f**k all else because
thats's for ME. RAMMSTEIN. War. Ryan.

It's all about me breaking down and not being able to say what I think
about the movie because all I want for them to do is get off themselves
and see that people f*****g DIED.

Shoes of the other. To go into them, to walk in them. Not me
spewing someone else.

Arms very tired. Arms very...

Back to guido...



8:30
Back to me. Very intense... I've just read James's trip log, and he and I
have apparently had a remarkably parallel trip for a while now... either
that or I've interpreted it to be parallel. I have come to realize that the
greatest social problem I have is in fact my ego-it's a shell I cannot break.
I so often attempt to show people things, how they "should be done"
I'm so all f*****g mighty, yeah! That I forget to concentrate on what I'm
trying to tell them. I feel like I'm nothing more than a shell that's trying to
reproduce itself; yet there's a spark of fundamental conciousness inside
that I must recognize, accept, value for itself, pass on to others when
they want it and then only. I cannot share myself... this is not a cry of
desperation, but a statement of immutable fact. If I can only come to
accept everything about myself, then I think I will feel no need to impose
it upon others. Now I just need to find out how. I wish, I really wish, that
someone could tell me this, give me a hint on how to approach my recovery,
but I know that fundamentally, I must find the answer within myself. I must
find the desire within myself. I must come to fundamentally know that I
am not merely a shell. Maybe that's what drug ego death is about-the
realization that one does have a fundamental center, but that it's never
shown, even to themselves. There is always the outside world; the shell
that is our persona, the person whom interacts with people, the person
who interacts with himself. Perhaps the goal is to stop that personal dialog
with the person within, and simply to be the person within.
Perhaps that is enlightenment.


9:14
Danielle,

9:14 p.m., Saturday, July 25th. Sitting here by myself in Guido's bed room...
such an ominous place, the bed room. And I am trying to keep up the log,
to quell... to give a piece of me to this little social experiemnt The
thing is, if there are only two people involved, is it a social
experiemnt? Did anyone suggest that this was a social experiement?
Am I on something?

"I'd call that a big yes."

Don't know what else to say. I'm sort of beyondf the point of trying to work
inside of someone else's brain, to communicate. I'm going to get into myself
for a while, if they'll let me.

For a while. For awhore? What the f**k does that mean? Change the context
by changing a point of puncutation. Once you get that point, you get to see
what's behind the...

There's this kid who had a big hallucaination
Making love to girls in magazines
He wonders if you're sleeping with your new found faith.
Could anybody love him? Or is this just a crazy dream.

And if you're nin, I'll tell you what's behind the Wall.

It makes you wonder how much of the world's great art is
because of the mental equivalent of a typo.

This is me. Just where I've always been, and where I will
remain until the day I breath my last. I love you Danielle,

James

9:24
D,

It's me again. Wondering if al; this open introspection thing is really
doing anyone any good. Who is my audience? Who am I whining to? Weeping
to? I get so tired of it sometimes, trying to tell myself that there's
something there in that pie dream big screen a*****e gonna get the job
kind of world. F**k that. Whoa. Expressing not much now I imagine.
Just pounding, opunding , pounding, trying to type to
a 4/4 rhythm and trying to see if I can still follow a thoght.
NOPE. Get a few bars in with each word if I'm lucky.

If I'm lucky. Gonna get lucky. Gonna make lucky. Humans are not bred by luck,
baby. They;'re bred by numbers, by the intricate. Working s of Mr. D.N.A.

Fuggalugga goinna make some groove fukny rhythmbabybupbabyrhythm

Got ibtoi that groove shit for a sec. Okay, times to get wonged on something
else.. Pretty keys. I 'm really not huitting G. Oh s**t, I can't express
not hitting a key without hitting uit. Oh, cruel irony. Oh cruel,
cruel god. F**K IT all CAUSE GOD CAN'T COME THROUGH FOR YOU KNOW 'CASUE I'M
LAUGHING ANF I CAN'T EVEN IMAGIEN WHAT THIS IS GOING TO
LOOK LIKE IN YHE MORNING, SO TO SPEAK.

Oh I hit ther capslock I see. Why I find that so f*****g funny at this point is
beyond me. Really. Can't even explain myself. That's prettyu bad.

Arm tired. I wonder if coleridge's arm got tired writing all that hippie drug s**t
(before hippies, no less.) Fugmunkalukaboom.

Mozart playing in the background. Do they realize how much of an
ego stroke/trip/obsession this continues. I grow ired of it, Danielle. I grow
tired of all of this. F*****g mozart, Mr. C-process data list fucker what does
it mean 'cause phil's the only really one who sees and still gives and
cares...''and I see the parallel. Why does it have to be that way. Or does
everyone have relationships that are based on worship. Certainly K(Ch)ris
will have something to say about this later. Now he's talking to (Ch)Kris.
Why does it hae to bee a search for that parallel when we know it's there?
F*****g get OVER it already.

Just realized that Guido's gonna read that and wonder if there's a judgement
being passed n something, anywhere. Nope. That's all me getting stupid on
myself. Maybe he won't. Maybe I'm a f*****g drug loser who will never get
anywhere in life 'cause he inhaled.

What. E. Ever.

Poignant to that last, the cry of "my" generatiopn. Yeah, lump me in so
that I rally against them and so in doing so reinforce the selfish/no loyalty
stereotypes. 'Casue I don't feel any closer to mr joe fat smelly 'caue I'm
better than all hat.
Window. Window. Window. Ttry to draw smething out of that to be of rael
value.What is real value? What is typing? I'm getting like f*****g
Joyvce and I just told Danielle that I hated Joyce and though she'll
likely never see it doesn't matter because the crime has been committed.

Make not no statement that thou shalt not be willing to utter a GAIN.

A Gain. Wht is tht gain, and the experiment turns ciorcular in on tiself,
az the typing skills go to the s*****r and I watch my hands preform like
spastic and I WONDER ABOUT GETTING OLD AND AOUT THAT
SORT OF JUDGEMENT. Because I have done this before and I have
seen the self judgement and I have recorded and burned and forgotten.
That way can dredge it all up again and wrestle around for a nother
big ding-ding rocky 10 rounder that'll make me not get anywhere in
another big way.

Kris taking back over here. 9:30
I finally understand what it is that is compassion; that I need to go
away from this trip and keep this realization that my goal should be
to "see things their way." I've never before understood what it is that
compassion is in everyday life; now I understand. It is when Jason,
the other day after the conversation where my friends told me what it
is that they have been seeing wrong in me; in essence, the lack of
harmony that they wanted to make me aware of and in doing so, be
able to feel happy for me. What Jason said was "I'm very happy that
you've seen these things." And it was simply in the way in which he
said this that made the difference. It was not "I am victorious, you will
see things my way," but "I am happy that you can find this realization
for yourself." If I can keep this, if I can simply be happy for other people,
not in the respect that I assume their happiness, but in the respect
where I am happy because I see another person at harmony with
themselves and their environment. If I do see unhappiness or disharmony
in another person, I can try and assuage that disharmony, not with
arrogance, but with true and fundamental understanding; if I can see
the situation as the person who is not in harmony sees it, then I will
be doing them and myself the greatest service, and the only true
service, possible.

I'm looking back at James's trip log right now and I can see what
he's been doing, going deeper and deeper into himself... after a
while I had to stop reading because it was like the bitwise operations
of his brain... maybe I can get down to that level if I keep
focusing on the record of what I'm doing. The screen's a
little fuzzy - okay, f**k, Im forcing it and I cant keep up maybe if I
turn away turn off the screen I 'll be able to break the trance fin=gure
outwhat I'm doing realize that compassion IS the answer how could
I have missed it I think I need to reavaluate my reality if I'm
confident enought now with myself am I really


Okay. Stop. Got lost in the trip there. I can feel that I'm starting to
come down a little bit because my individual thought processes run
for longer... I'm full of s**t, aren't I, I'm being f*****g arrogant with
myself and not even am able to realize what's really goin on inside...
I can't tell if my thought processes are more coherent or what.
Why do I even try to fool myself that I'm a certain way when I'm not?
I must *this is the only rational thing* not really be that comfortable
with myself or that self-assured, it's all bravado that I'm putting forward
to keep myself up; it's a house of cards that doesn't even have a
table under it. Do I have that self? I think I do but maybe that's the
bravado talking; and thinking this is the bravado talking, and it's
all a house of cards if I don't really understand myself. I finally
figured out STOP __GOT__IT__ what I've been doing to other people
and myself tonight(That thing above's for when I'm sober) and I
noticed what an absence there is in my center in that I have not
until now been compassionate in the manner I described above,
where I can simply be happy that someone else is alive.

Big Time Realization.

Other people are alive, just like me; they're not some contruct of my
imagination... I wonder why Jenna said she thought she made me
up, but that's a segue... well, in this context, what does it mean?
Maybe it means that she's got the same sort of shell I do, but I can
hardly believe that that's the case. Maybe it's her bravado... and
I know that if it was me, it would be, but (bravado = persona to
ouside world and self) I think she's the first person I've ever really
simply delighted in without wanting to change or her to see it my
way... I just delight that she's alive... now if I can just do that with
everyone... I've got it with myself, I am HAPPY to be alive and
that's it... if I can extend my exultation to appreciating others'
happiness, which is their expression of existence just as mine is.

Man what a long way I have had to come to realize all of this. I'm in
some ways disappointed that it took drugs to make me realize this,
but at the same time, I think that the revelations I've had tonight
are perhaps some of the most important, screw that THE MOST
IMPORTANT realizations of my life.... I'm going to be eternally
grateful to LSD, screwed up as that sounds. Now I think I
understand what happened with that trip report where the fellow
said his friend had a psychotic break... maybe that's what this
has been. Hopefully I'll be able to keep all of these realizations
and appppply them in my daily life. Just let them happen and
be integral, don't force them, find happiness for self, in others, for
others, I've already explained it several times, I know, but each
time I think about it I revel in what a new idea it is for me and try
to make sure that when I come down, I remember... that's
why I've been trying so hard to describe it as completely as possible,
so that when I'm sober I still _GET IT__ and can apply it.

6 1/2 hours, 6 1/2 pages. Get over yourself. 10:28

10:54
The trip is fading away nicely... I'm gliding down rather than crashing.
We've just been sitting around, casually talking and listening to music,
first Pink Floyd and now early Leonard Cohen. Kirk has just come
home, and he's sitting with us. Things are more or less coming back
to normal... I feel tired, but very happy. This has been something of
a cathartic experience... it has been a very good group dynamic, and
I'm glad that I chose to do it with these people, James in particular. I
feel sort of guilty, as if we've been excluding Chris to a degree, but I
realize that she has merely been pursuing the trip in her own way
and that she does not begrudge myself or James the instrospection
which we have chosen for our trip paths. James seems to very much
like Leonard Cohen, and I am happy that I have been able to make
him aware of this artist whom I know very little about, but have sort
of stumbled upon. I like that he may be interested in something that
came through me... and I think that that, there is a fundamental
motivation as much as anything else I have come up with this evening.

1:56 a.m.
Just finished watching the Wall... not really the best way to end the
evening, all things considered, but okay nonetheless. I've considered
calling Julie, but it wouldn't be fair to her or myself. I'm just tired...
now time to sleep.
Please, please, let her love me if she can.

Hope this was valuable to some of you. It's not exactly an easy thing to post, but I'm interested in the reactions it arouses in people

Are you sure you've come down? You just posted a manefesto dude. I think you'll like this rhyme I heard though. It goes:
ABC,LSD, Gummi Bears are chasing me,
Some are red, some are blue,
The yellow one just took my shoe.

i think it takes a lot of guts to post a trip report(uncensored?) where others can read it. i had an interesting journey with some mushrooms one time where i recorded much of my thoughts in a small book. the next day i saw how hard it was to read but was still valuable in figuring out what i was thinking. it helped me remember some things i might have forgoten that were apparently important at the time. the only problem i found was that my hand couldnt record at the speed of my mind. i think ill use a small tape recorder next time.
your report helped me remember a lot of ideas from my trips that i'd otherwise forgotten. im also thankful to lsd and other "mind-expanding" substances. u mentioned that humans are bred by numbers, by "Mr. DNA"(heh, i like that). that may be so, but our minds are not just numbers. our minds are the only truely free things we are a part of.

we are all connected and we all inhaled.

.....

.....

.....

yawn