oVo wrote:Dukasaur wrote: I drove my truck many times while doing acid,
and never had a problem.
Hmmm... Crystal patterns grew on the far walls near the stage and eventually cascaded across the large room like rainbows. I could barely see past the frosting on my glasses, so she took me by the hand and led me out of the club. Serpentine through the crowd outside, we wading waist deep in the concrete and eventually made it to the car.
I did not drive.In fact I never ever drove while trippin'.
Yeah, if you're seeing a cascade of turnips erupting from your fold-out couch or a hurricane of fire lizards swirling around your house, then you're definitely on too intense a trip to be operating machinery. I would even stay away from the microwave at a time like that. Just relax and enjoy, don't do anything.
However, to do intense trips like that you have to limit yourself to no more than once every two weeks or so. If you do it more often than that you will reduce the intensity of the trip to the point where it just becomes a hightened sense of awareness without any of the really cool effects. You can get to a point like Dock Ellis:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dock_Ellis#June_12.2C_1970.2C_no-hitterJune 12, 1970, no-hitter
Self-reportedly under the influence of LSD, Ellis pitched a no-hitter against the Padres on Friday, June 12, 1970. The Pirates flew to San Diego on Thursday, June 11 for a series against the San Diego Padres. Ellis reported that he visited a friend in Los Angeles and used LSD "two or three times." Thinking it was still Thursday, he took a hit of LSD on Friday at noon, and his friend's girlfriend reminded him at 2:00 PM that he was scheduled to pitch that night. Ellis flew from Los Angeles to San Diego at 3:00 PM and arrived at San Diego Stadium at 4:30 PM; the game started at 6:05 PM.[5]
Ellis threw a no-hitter despite being unable to feel the ball or see the batter or catcher clearly.[24] Ellis said his catcher Jerry May wore reflective tape on his fingers which helped him to see May's signals. Ellis walked eight batters and struck out six, and he was aided by excellent fielding plays from second baseman Bill Mazeroski and center fielder Matty Alou.[25]
As Ellis recounted it:
I can only remember bits and pieces of the game. I was psyched. I had a feeling of euphoria. I was zeroed in on the [catcher's] glove, but I didn't hit the glove too much. I remember hitting a couple of batters, and the bases were loaded two or three times. The ball was small sometimes, the ball was large sometimes, sometimes I saw the catcher, sometimes I didn't. Sometimes, I tried to stare the hitter down and throw while I was looking at him. I chewed my gum until it turned to powder. I started having a crazy idea in the fourth inning that Richard Nixon was the home plate umpire, and once I thought I was pitching a baseball to Jimi Hendrix, who to me was holding a guitar and swinging it over the plate. They say I had about three to four fielding chances. I remember diving out of the way of a ball I thought was a line drive. I jumped, but the ball wasn't hit hard and never reached me.[26]
Ellis reported that he never used LSD during the season again, though he continued to use amphetamines.[5]
An animated short film by James Blagden about the game, "Dock Ellis and the LSD No-No", features narration in Ellis's own voice, taken from a 2008 NPR interview.[27]
People who have only had the turnips-and-fire-lizards kind of trip and have never gotten to the heightened-awareness-with-normal-behaviour level are skeptical about that. The wikipedia article goes on to point out:
Assessments of LSD claim
Bob Smizik of the Pittsburgh Press believes Ellis' version of events that day, although he did not witness the game in person. Smizik was the reporter who first broke the story. Bill Christine, also of the Pittsburgh Press, doesn't believe Ellis' claim and was at the game that day. Christine was a beat reporter who "practically lived with the team that year". Christine said that he did not notice anything unusual, and says that if Ellis had reported to the stadium only 90 minutes before his scheduled start, reporters would have been told. John Mehno, a reporter who had "extensive interactions" with Ellis over his career, was skeptical about many stories told by Ellis, including the LSD no-hitter. Mehno said that he has not found a teammate who would corroborate the story. [28]
I certainly have no trouble believing it. I know I reached that kind of plateau during my wild time. Calling it my "druggie years" is almost an exaggeration; it was really only 18 months from June of 1986 to December of '87, but during that time I had some periods where I was dropping acid almost every day, and I got to the point where I was able to compartmentalize my life, go to work on a normal schedule, chair party meetings (I was very active politically in those days), even go to court (it was also during that phase that I developed an obsession with fighting parking tickets -- I went to court and fought every single one, with a 65% success rate). After a while there are no hallucinations or anything, just that heart-pounding sense that every single thing you do is more important than it really is.
