CHAPTER 10 Graduate School

Perhaps I was overly ambitious, perhaps selling encyclopedias had done something to make me a little overly aggressive, perhaps I was just a little bit young and a whole lot stupid. I began to sense something different about myself. I had a hard time with girls. There were dates and cordial meetings, I even met one girl's parents. None were lovers though, and I began to become concerned about my unpacified sexuality. The phrase "Seriously Horny" is a much easier way to express it.

Scott had moved to an apartment and our friendship waned for a while, though I visited often. There were other diversions. I had become intrigued with Scott's dissertations on drugs. The education he had donated to me had been totally academic, objective and thorough. It had covered marijuana, heroin, hashish, peyote, psylocybin, LSD and synthetics of the amphetamine family. I was a pretty well educated fellow in the field of non-pharmaceutical organic psychedellics for the year of 1962. Peyote was one of the most interesting drugs to me, particularly the religious aspects relative to Mescalito, the demon/god/spirit that was supposedly linked to the plant. I had obtained enough peyote to persuade some sort of psychedellic experience. I decided to try it. One of the other residents decided to try it with me. Unfortunately for him, he was a little immature. Paranoia set in and the experience wasn't at all pleasant for him. Most likely, the taste of the Peyote intitiated that paranoia. Make no mistake about it - there is a REASON Peyote cactus needs no thorns.

I ground up six to eight green and dry buttons of the cactus and carefully removed the fuzzy part where it is said, a bit of natural (and sometimes man-made) strychnine resides. I choked the concoction down and my friend did the same, but with a smaller amount. Absolutely nothing happened for almost two hours. We had both decided that nothing WOULD occur, we just hadn't taken enough of it. My little friend began to get loose in the mouth and told off on us both to several of the others in the dorm. Naturally, their academic curiosity was piqued and they joined us for idle chit-chat, covering their careful scrutiny of our behavior. We were dope fiends now of course. They wanted to see how dope fiends behave - having read the propaganda.

I felt a change in the mood of the room where we were gathered. We were all being so COOL and NORMAL that attempts at real conversation was a farce. Suddenly, it was as though someone invisible had slipped into the room with us. I could sense something different and couldn't begin to define it. What happened next was subtle and dynamic at the same time. One of the guys threw a piece of crumpled paper toward the wastebasket with an overhand basketball toss. Directly in the wake of that wadded paper came a bright flash of orchid colored light and a loud "whoooosh" as the missile found the wastebasket. Bullseye. The effect could be compared to tossing a lit skyrocket, or watching a comet.

The guy who threw the paper ball shrank back in surprise, as did most of the fellows who had seen it. I had seen it too. Hell, we had ALL seen it! We had experienced a COLLECTIVE hallucination; a visit from Mescalito, or perhaps a close relative of his. Those with eyes to see had seen. Those with ears to hear had heard. That was everybody, and we all tried to pretend it hadn't happened. I remained perfectly still, trying to appear normal. The conversation jerked awkwardly to a halt and they all left. My stoned friend swore the peyote was having no effect and that he had seen and heard nothing. He apparently, was the only one who hadn't. We went directly to his room where he lay in his bed with an apparent death grip on what he considered to be reality. He determined that he was sick. I wished him well and suggested he go to sleep.

For the rest of the night I wandered alone through a kind of Wonderland. I was queasy at my stomach. It goes with the territory where Peyote is concerned. The rest of my world was punctuated with varying colors of pastels and gentle lights in places where there should be shadows. There were wonderful conversations with many of my neighbors as I toured Wonderland throughout the dorm. The simple opening of a door was accompanied with ethereal hallucinatory fanfares as I engaged new personalities in several rooms. I was suspiciously friendly.

This was definitely not heaven, though I had long believed in Angels. It was definitely not hell. It was that state of mind that has no explanation - the one I have shared with you before on these pages, but it lacked brevity. It had no ending. The invisible presence that had accompanied the whooshing ball of paper/fireworks in the trash can experience was all around me. Lying in the bed opposite to my friend in his room, I could see he was feigning sleep. His hands were knotted up and he was pale. Poor guy, he was scared as hell. He was having a "bad trip" though at the time there was no such name made up for it. We talked very gently for a time and I related what was happening to me. He listened with interest but claimed only illness. As I rested I realized I could clearly hear the hushed conversations of others not only many doors away, but on other floors. They were distinct. Some of the conversations were about us drug fiends, one of whom - me - was evesdropping, in a drug induced revelation. ALL my perceptions were awakened and I realized for the first time, my own psychic abilities. Thoughts from others wafted in and out of my mind like smoke. I could even identify who they were coming from. Texts from the great poets. Strings of thought and images of geometry from an engineering student. Musical cleffs and song structures from a music student. Lots and lots of personal concerns, most of them petty and meaningless.

We spend most of our lives learning NOT to see and hear the things we cannot immediately use. Babies have a tremendous amount of information thrust on them that takes years for them to sort and distinguish. In the years moving toward maturity, we learn to screen out the sights and sounds we cannot immediately use. If you need proof of this, go around blindfolded for a few minutes. Record in stereo, everything you hear for an hour and then listen to the tape. The sounds of birds, cars, air conditioning and other incidental noises will suddenly become audible to you; the pattering background noises of our lives. Our vision is similar. Shapes, levels of brightness and other aspects of vision suddenly seem enhanced when we take off our blinders. The information was always THERE, we have just programmed it out of our awareness. Psychedellics have a re-birthing effect on our senses. They simply crank up the volume to the max - like it was when we were babies. Peyote does that very thing with a "hallucenogenic" spin.

My senses had become so acute that I could hear almost anything within a hundred yards, indoors or out. I no longer needed my glasses. During the late hours of the night and the early hours of the morning, I put them away. During a two hour period of quiet meditation (there was nothing else to do), I couldn't help but sense that in some way I was evesdropping on the dreams of those sleeping around me. There were no sounds or pictures but instead, a constant mumble of mental energy. Adventure, love, sometimes mathematical logic emerged from these other minds and I perceived them in some very personal, psychic way. I felt as if I had been entrusted with something very sacred and as I traveled through these various dreamscapes, I avoided the areas that seemed very romantic or personal. I felt a little like a burglar, or a ghost.

At about 3 AM I felt as if the effects of the peyote had ended. I found myself becoming thirsty, hungry and bored. I decided to make another trip to the bathroom where I could be completely alone. It was there that I met The Cyclops. The effects of the mescaline were more prolonged and profound than I had imagined they would be. My reflection in the mirror had become subject to my own interpretation. I stood before it for a very long time, letting my mind run away with what it perceived. During that examination I realized I was searching for myself. The vision of a cyclops was what my mind was seeing and that vision and I stared at each other for a considerable time, sizing each other up. I finally decided that the creature I was seeing was not particularly attractive, but posed no threat. I could tolerate him. My own reflected image semingly having reached a similar conclusion, became more coherent and friendly. I was home, and at peace.

Just before dawn I stretched out on the bed again. My friend was definitely asleep. I had anticipated the peyote effects to wear off by morning and I was prepared for a glorious dawn. It came in a most glorious way. Having made friends with the night, I was ready to renew my friendship with the day. At first grey light I began to really relax. Sleep was out of the question but as the morning light became stronger, I looked forward to a clear blue sky. Most of an hour past and I felt I could perhaps doze if I wanted to. It was morning though, I was terribly hungry and the dorm kitchen would be open soon. The sky before me through the window was a light baby blue and deepening as the sun came up. I decided to just lay there and enjoy it. Minutes passed and the sky took on a deep, full blue color just like the clearest afternoon. I began to wonder where the moon might be. Or the sun. As I continued to stare out the window I was forced to blink again and again. The sky was bluer now than I had ever seen it. I gasped at it. It turned bluer still and suddenly seemed to call out to me; "Hey, you.... like the BLUE? Dig Me! I am BLUE just like you said - come on over and take a look at the BLUUUUE!". Blue? The sky had turned a deep indigo that was breath taking and indescribable. I got up to go look toward the eastern horizon and perhaps catch a glimpse of the sun. I staggered to the window ledge and stood there with my jaw dropped. I couldn't see five feet. We were completely socked in with fog.

The moment I realized we were fogged in, it was as though someone had turned off a slide show. All the blue disappeared and was replaced with a deep violet, then a lovely orchid, then grey. Grey. God, what a disappointing color for fog. With that, Mescalito kissed me goodby and I resumed my ordinary mundane existance. I showered, shaved, dressed in my best suit and tie (so as not to be conspicuous), and made my way toward breakfast. I realized just before I left the dormitory that while practicing the proper knot for my tie, I had forgotten to put on my shirt. I had to go back to my room and dress again.

I ate less than I thought I would.