I Can See What You're Getting at, Michael Pollan

It’s true. I took psychedelic drugs in the 1960s and 70s.

The Vietnam War was raging while I was a student at a liberal and politically active college in Oberlin, Ohio. I was 19, disillusioned with the status quo, disappointed with the way my parents and their friends lived. I did not like drinking, and even smoking marijuana was something I did not do often, though the opportunity was around all the time. But when I heard a friend talk about his experience with psychedelics, I was intrigued. It sounded like a fascinating experience, one that was not about hanging out or partying. The phrase used all the time was mind- expanding. I had heard it could be transformative, visually beautiful, life-changing. I also heard about the bad trips some people were experiencing: paranoia, agitation, despair. But I was young, and taking a risk seemed worth it for the possibility of smelling sound, hearing color and coming upon a new cosmic order.

How Did This Happen?

The first experience I had was with LSD. I was an art history major and while I participated in my share of protests, I did not hang out with the politically active students, the ones for example who ran SDS (Students for a Democratic Society). In 1968, I was going out with someone who was actually the head of Oberlin’s SDS chapter (we were an unlikely pair). His name was Will and he was a good person, smart and sensitive. One day he asked if I would be interested in “tripping” with him. He had done acid several times and took it seriously. He planned his drug experiences — to ensure safety (as much as one could), to let friends know what he would be doing and where he was planning to be, and to secure the drug from a reliable source. We decided to take it (or drop it, as was said in 1968) on a beautiful Saturday spring day. 

In the morning, we were at his apartment. His roommates knew we were planning to start some- time mid-morning. Will knew where his friends would be all day. A lovely breeze was coming through the window of his room, and I was watching the curtains dance gently as we lay on his mattress on the floor. We laughed about the weather looking perfect for the day ahead, joking that the forecast on the college radio station should have predicted: a perfect day for hallucinogens! Will got the LSD from his bedside table. There were two little white dots on tiny pieces of blotter paper. I looked at them and wondered how something so small could cause what I was anticipating to be about eight hours of transcendent experiences. And as we put the white dots under our tongues, I did not know for sure that what would unfold would actually be just that. 

It took about an hour to feel the alteration of consciousness that psychedelics are famous for. We were lying on his bed talking when I raised my arm over my head and was surprised to see my limb splinter into what look like a time-lapse photograph. I was so taken by the beauty of the simplest movement that I repeated this motion dozens of times. Will was moving his fingers as though he was playing an imaginary piano; I saw them as undulating waves, each one made of geometrically perfect segments. I asked Will if he saw this, too. He said he did.

Since the day was so spectacular, we left Will’s house and walked down to Plum Creek, which ran through the town of Oberlin. He lived on the west side of campus near the Arboretum, so we were close to a beautiful, unpopulated area, perfect for what we wanted on such a day. Will led the way, being more knowledgeable about reaching the creek. And I was still focusing on our body movements and how they were like musical scales. We walked through some woods; Will and I were holding hands. I got scared for a few minutes, since the trees seemed so thick I thought we might get swallowed by them. But then we came upon an opening that led to the bank of the creek. The burbling water was so beautiful that I could not speak. We took off our socks, placed our shoes carefully on some dry ground, and put our feet in the water. We started walking; the creek bed felt like velvet under my feet. And the water around my legs made me think I was awake for the first time in my life. We looked at each other. Will’s face started moving in a strange way so I averted my gaze. Perhaps he was smiling, but I could not tell. His mouth looked as though it was not entirely attached to his chin. But his voice sounded like a deep and beautiful alto recorder. I closed my eyes and thought I was in some kind of paradise.

We went back to the dirt bank again and sat down, watching the dappled sun come through the trees. I could almost hear the light making soft staccato sounds. Sitting close to each other in silence, I heard something in the distance that sounded like it was getting closer to us. I asked Will if he heard it and he said, Yes, it’s the sound of a horse’s hooves. I felt suddenly frightened. Before I could say anything, out of the woods came an enormous horse and two children, a boy and a girl, riding bareback. The boy looked to be about 15, and he was in front holding the reins. He was wearing blue jeans and a white T-shirt and a straw hat. The girl was holding on to his waist, and she looked to be about 12. She was also wearing blue jeans and a yellow scarf around her head. They were beautiful and rosy — like cherubs, except maybe from a farm. We said Hello, and they nodded, saying Hi. Will said, Beautiful day! They smiled as the horse clip-clopped down the bank and through the creek and then up the opposite bank and on into the woods, the children looking secure and almost part of the animal. 

We smiled and said to each other that they were beautiful. There in the sun, for what seemed like only a few minutes, or maybe it was an hour, we were just looking at everything, quiet and absorbed. My hallucinations were pleasant, except for Will’s mouth. The combination of what I was seeing and hearing was like a symphony of all living things. Suddenly I heard the sound of hooves again, this time coming from the other direction. Out of the woods from the other side of the creek came the same horse; its riders were not the children, but instead two elderly people, a man and a woman riding the horse bareback. They were stunningly beautiful. The man was sitting in front holding the reins. He looked to be at least 70. He was wearing old tattered denim jeans and an old straw hat. The woman who looked to be about the same age was holding on to him; she was wearing tan pants and a yellow scarf tied around her head. The horse tromped down the bank and into the water. Will said, Hi; they answered, Hello, beautiful day! And we said, Yes.

I was so stunned I could not speak. Will asked me what I saw and I haltingly told him. He said he saw the same thing. I was shaking — not out of fear, but rather out of disbelief. Suddenly I was aware, as never before, of the life cycle. Life goes by in the blink of an eye, growing old is happening all the time, and people stay beautiful all their lives. It was an experience in Plum Creek that I have never forgotten and one that changed my perspective forever.

Later in the day, we found ourselves at the edge of the Oberlin Reservoir, in the middle of the  Arboretum. The water was so still, it looked like a mirror. There was a path along the circular body of water and I had the urge to run. I said to Will, I have to run. I could hear him laughing in delight as he watched me take off. I felt like a runner from Kenya as I took longer and longer strides. It was exhilarating; I thought that maybe I had helium in my feet. I was not an athlete of any kind and I could not keep up the buoyancy in my step. Before I knew it, I was on the ground, having fallen hard, twisting my left foot. I sat there, knowing something was wrong because my left foot felt bigger than my right one. Will ran to me. And since both of us were hallucinating, we could not tell if my foot was swollen and bruised or whether what we were seeing was a psychedelic version of an ordinary foot. Will helped me up; it was impossible to walk on it. I must have registered it as pain, but it just felt like my left foot would not hold me. Will got nervous; we decided that he had to go back to his house and get his housemates to come get me in the car. We knew I would have to sit there alone until he got back. I was suddenly beginning to freak out, thinking that for some amount of time, I would be by myself at the side of the reservoir, tripping on acid. He said I had to be strong and try to look at the beauty of the surroundings. He said we had no choice. As he hurried away, he looked back and yelled, Try to think about how you’re going to act in the Health Center once we get there! 

After Will was no longer in sight, I lay down flat and watched the clouds. They kept changing from animals to pillows, from peoples’ bodies to signals from another planet. They were mostly beautiful and I kept my fear under control. What else could I do? I surrendered to the unknown, trying not to think about how long Will was taking, about the Health Center where I would be headed, or about my foot which was beginning to look like a red and purple baseball mitt. I sat up when I heard a car and Will and his friends came and lifted me into the back seat. The driver said that we had to get my foot examined at the Health Center; he looked at it and thought it was broken. Will said he would go in with me and that I needed to not act like I was high on LSD. He said I would need to behave normally, to make it into a game. The friends in the car were cracking up. They said they would wait in the car.

We pulled up to the front of the Health Center and Will went in to get some crutches. Once I hobbled inside, he and I sat in the waiting room holding hands. He said he would come into the exam room if I wanted — which I did. I knew I would have to behave very differently from how I was feeling. I saw strange things moving on the linoleum floor and tried to look elsewhere. They called my name, and Will and I followed the nurse into the exam room. She said, Let’s take a look at your foot. Yup, you’ve done something nasty to it. I’ll tell the doctor you’re here. 

Will whispered to me, So far, so good. I was extremely nervous trying to act like myself. The doctor came in and he looked a little like a clown who had taken off his makeup. His name tag said Dr. Milton Leary. Of course I wondered if he was Timothy’s brother and whether Timothy was in on all of this. Maybe I was in a structured research project. Then I looked at Will and reminded myself that I was being paranoid. Dr. Leary said, Well, what do we have here? He tried to manipulate the foot. I winced. He said: How did this happen? I repeated the question slowly. How … did …  this … happen? I paused. How far back do you want me to go? He looked at me as though he thought I was being a smart-ass. I quickly said, You mean how did I fall? He said, Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.

I proceeded to tell him I was running around the reservoir and I tripped. He looked at Will and asked if he had seen the fall. Will said he was behind me some 20 yards and he did see it. After the X-rays were done, the doctor reported that I had broken my fifth metatarsal. I decided that the word metatarsal was perfect for the doctor’s name. In the months that followed this eventful afternoon, I referred to Timothy Leary’s brother as Dr. Milton Metatarsal.

What was fascinating to me about this incident was the question Dr. Metatarsal asked me: How did this happen? A person could answer this question on so many levels. He was interested in the obvious: where/how/when did I fall? But there was the issue of why I was at the reservoir. And then I could have told him about the feeling that I was a runner from Kenya. And then I would have gotten into why exactly I was wanting to drop acid, and that would get me to the war in Vietnam and my childhood. There is not a simple answer to How did this happen? So many questions are like this: How are you? Why are you afraid of spiders? Why did you decide to go to France for the summer? Why did you get married? Why did you fail your history exam? Why do you live in the Midwest?

It took a while for my foot to heal, but it did. Will and I eventually broke up in an amicable sort of way. I am still grateful to him for the afternoon at Plum Creek and even our time at the reservoir. It was a wonderful day, even with my broken foot. It would be a long while until I would embark on another trip. And the next time, I would not go running — but would, perhaps, listen for the sound of a horse coming from somewhere in the woods.

Self-Love

By 1971, I was married to my first husband, Danny Weaver. We had spent over a year living 

in Washington, D.C. He worked in an inner city public elementary school while I held a job at the National Geographic Society. Neither of us were happy with what we were doing, and when Danny got admitted to a graduate program in Open Education at the University of North Dakota, we packed the few things we owned into a U-Haul truck and left the nation’s capital heading west. Our pregnant cat, Alice, was with us, lying on the dashboard most of the time, like one of Renoir’s reclining nudes. Every time we crossed a state line, we gave Alice a treat, since she was being so good. We broke up the journey by spending a long weekend in Bloomington, Indiana, where we had good friends. On day two of our visit, they suggested that, since the summer day was so beautiful, we all take some psilocybin mushrooms. Danny and I discussed this and decided it was a fine idea. The four of us (Alice was safe and sound inside their apartment) planned the day: where we could walk, where we could rest, the places we wanted to stay away from, like the Student Union and the sports arena. I told them I needed to be restrained from running. They laughed and agreed. We made a good breakfast, since we had heard that hunger is likely to disappear once the psilocybin takes effect. The mushrooms were chopped up finely so we could make a tea with them. With Alice purring on the sofa in the living room, we drank from our teacups with nervous excitement as we looked out the window at the spectacular day.

We bring our complete histories to these hallucinogenic trips, especially the feelings and memories stored in our unconscious. I was with people I trusted completely, so was open to whatever was going to transpire in the day ahead. It took about a half hour to begin to feel the effects of our morning tea. We decided to go outside and take a walk toward the golf course, not far from married student housing. On our walk, we lay under an enormous willow tree and were transported by the beauty of the leaves and branches swaying in the wind. We laughed and talked about our hallucinations. The shade of green — of the grass, trees, plants — was shimmering. Unbelievably, I saw the insides of the color green — the yellow and blue combining forces. And the azure sky and the brown earth beneath our feet were breathtaking. The natural world was magic and I felt a part of it as I lay on the ground with my husband and my friends. 

I don’t know how long we were there, but after a while we got up and continued our walk. Our friends asked us what we thought North Dakota would be like. The mere mention of this reality — that I was in the actual process of moving from the East Coast to the middle of the country (or as my New York-centric parents called to the middle of nowhere) — changed my mood dramatically. I told Danny I was scared. He reassured me that we were doing the right thing, that we were like pioneers creating a new life in a new land. This did not comfort me. I said that I’m not a pioneer — so he switched it up and said we were expatriates. This was a much better tack since he knew I despised New York and the East Coast. Suddenly, I felt strong and proud to be going against what was expected of me by my family. I walked slightly ahead of Danny and our friends, sinking comfortably into a region inside myself, much like I imagine a submarine descends into the depths of the sea. 

Gradually, I became aware of a growing pressure inside my body and mind. I was no longer interested in anything outside. I began to feel uncomfortable, as though something was entering me, a powerful wave of awareness. I could not put words to it. I started crying. Danny rushed to put his arms around me. I could not answer his questions: What are you feeling? What are you thinking? Is it about the move? I knew it was not about the move so I shook my head No. I needed to go back to the apartment, to lie down, to let this forceful something, whatever it was, come into me. By the time we got to the bedroom we were staying in, I was sobbing. I must have scared Alice, because she ran under a chair when we sat down on the bed. Danny closed the door. He was hugging me, telling me that I was going to be okay. I remember thinking about childbirth, wondering if this is what labor feels like. A tsunami of emotion had taken over my psyche. I thought I might be coming apart, but I knew deep down that what was happening was critical to the rest of my life.

Danny got a small piece of paper and a pen. He said: Can you write it? Can you write what’s happening, what you’re thinking? I could barely breathe I was crying so hard. I sat with my head in my hands trying to get a hold of myself. As soon as I held the pen, I could feel something release, relax, let go. And out of me came this sentence, written on a tiny piece of paper: I LOVE MYSELF. Danny knew how enormous this was, given how my father indoctrinated into me a kind of self-loathing: I was not ambitious enough, not pretty enough, not thin enough, not competitive enough. I went to the wrong college, boys would never like me, I was never going to get on the ball. I now know that his abuse was caused by his own fears and his own cluelessness about raising a daughter. But then, at the age of 23, I was still focused on getting away from him and where I grew up, not on understanding who he was and who I was becoming.

In looking back, this insight was a little like a birth. Something new had entered my world, something that would be with me for the rest of my life. I am unsure that any psychotherapy could have released this profound knowing, or if it could, it would have taken years. I drank tea at 10:00 a.m. and by the afternoon, I was a slightly different person. I would proceed into my adulthood less scarred from my early years; I would be able to negotiate my own decisions from a less reactive and more anchored place within myself. The gift of this psilocybin trip was immeasurable. The next morning, when Danny, Alice and I resumed our journey to North Dakota, I felt an unfamiliar mixture of calm and excitement. I can now say that in the face of all the tumult, turmoil and loss that would be delivered into my life in the years ahead, I would have a loving relationship with myself that would ensure landing on my feet. 

It’s An Attempt

Four years later, I was still living in North Dakota. Danny and I had divorced amicably, and he had returned to the East Coast. I stayed for a total of six winters, working at odd jobs until I decided to get a graduate degree in psychology. I had fallen in love with the prairie and the stunning expansive vistas, and was happy living far away from those states bunched so close together. I was involved with a man who would become my husband and life partner, and the two of us lived in an old farmhouse at the edge of town. Summers in Grand Forks could be as hot as the winters were cold, but they were beautiful. One sultry day, my closest friend, Judith, and I decided to drop acid. We planned where we would be and who would be nearby if we needed help. 

The hallucinations started sooner than either Judith or I expected. My memory of most of the day was that of great laughter and appreciation of beauty. We spent a little time inside the farmhouse looking at art books, but most of the day was spent outside walking and wandering through the neighborhoods of Grand Forks. Colors were extra vivid. And unlike the psilocybin experience in Indiana, I did not see colors separate into their primary beginnings. Greens popped with iridescence, blues were heavenly and radiant, reds were almost too intense to look at straight on, yellows were translucent, and browns were saturated and earthy. The world was astoundingly gorgeous. I thought, This is what the world is like all the time and we have just been taking it for granted. Judith and I saw the grass growing and flowers blooming. The natural world was almost in slow motion as we tromped through the day exclaiming to one another: Look at that! Oh my God, look at that!

We decided to walk down a street in Grand Forks that really was grand. It was several blocks of stately houses on Reeves Drive. It was not a long walk from the farmhouse, and we thought it would be amazing to look at all the well-maintained gardens in our state of heightened awareness. We walked slowly down one side of Reeves and then up the other side, stopping for long periods of time when something caught our eye. The flower beds and the vegetable gardens were like endless cornucopias of magical plants. These used to be SEEDS! I exclaimed. How does this happen? Someone should write about it! Judith reminded me that there are departments of horticulture and agriculture and botany. I felt reassured. 

The architecture of the houses was astoundingly interesting. History appeared in the form of dwellings: Victorian homes mixed in with ones of the Prairie School, Dutch Colonial and Tudor. The outside moldings and trims vibrated like electrified dollhouses. The lawns looked like velvet. We ambled slowly and eventually came to a house that was not as beautiful as the others. In addition to its being plain and uninteresting, the garden in the front had an eyesore so awful that I had to turn away. Interspersed between the scrubs and bushes next to the front door were six large PeptoBismol-pink flamingos. They were such an affront to my senses. I stopped and stared, as did Judith. We could not speak for what seemed like several minutes. Finally I said: Oh my God, these are so hideous! And when Judith spoke, she did not know it, but she changed a part of my life — the part that has to do with judgment and assumptions and attitude toward differences. Like a sage, Judith said simply, It’s an attempt.

This may not sound revelatory, but it was. It was a point of view that flew in the face of my New-York-City arrogant assumptions. It literally blew me away. This summer day in Grand Forks with Judith was almost 45 years ago. We were in our 20s. Judith saying that the pink flamingos were an attempt changed the way I think of almost everything — of people’s choices, intentions, aesthetics, belief systems. For her birthday one year, I gave Judith two small ceramic pink flamingos that I found in an antique store. I bought two for myself as well. They sit on a bookshelf in my bedroom. Every time I look at them, I smile remembering my gratitude, not just for Judith, but also for the experiences that I had taking hallucinogens. 

I would not partake in psychedelics again. Today, I’m at an age when people around me are losing physical and cognitive capacities. I want to be extra responsible for the healthy gray matter in my brain. But I can see why Michael Pollan and mental health researchers are investigating therapeutic uses of hallucinogens. My three experiences were life-changing, and I am grateful to my boyfriend in college, to my ex-husband, and to my old friend for accompanying me on such significant, intimate and illuminating journeys of mind and heart.