LSD in Hinderwell

This morning I went swiftly to the bathroom dazed from a weird psychedelic dream. The pile on  the bathmat seemed to be alive rippling as if I'd gone cross eyed. 

It took me back to 1970, doing to visit Holly and Steve in their little terraced house in Hinderwell, North Yorkshire. Steve was a self-styled freak with a fine sense of drama. When we first knocked on their door, Holly welcomed us in, to sit in the tiny unheated front room with no chairs, just a little altar with a candle. Steve had his black hair pleated into a long single plait down his back, sitting cross-legged in meditation, eyes closed. We had no idea from his invitation in Communes Magazine that he had pretensions as a holy man.When he emerged from his trance, he asked Judy & I various questions. It was a bit weird

We were to learn that his form of holiness  excluded no form of experience or pleasure. His other visiting friends—we didn't meet them on this occasion—were inveterate dope-smokers, sweet fellows but ostentatiously wild. Holly and Steve encouraged  graffiti on the toilet walls:one of them had written this: "Sir! Sir! There's queers in the camp. How so, dear boy? The Captain's cock tastes of shit". This was the rudest thing I'd ever read. 

I digress. We'd come a long way from Nottingham. It was part of the deal that we stay the night, sleeping on futons in Japanese fashion. Next morning Steve asked us if we wanted to take an Acid tab. If so we must have a light breakfast first. we were given small helpings of oats porridge for breakfast, along with weak Chinese tea.

Half an hour later he came in with a paper bag containing small bits of an embossed wallpaper. He considered carefully before cutting off small pieces. We were to put them in our mouths, slowly chew and swallow, then sit quiet with eyes shut. He told us when to open them. I think half an hour later.

The first thing I saw was the carpet, wriggling as though alive.

I wrote about it here:

https://rochereau.wordpress.com/2010/07/10/the-visionary-eye/

Such masses of data stream into our brains, ready for us to dismiss or focus on, depending on what we find important! When I conducted my own experiments in LSD in 1971—not as a scientist, you understand!—I was struck by the psychedelic vividness of my perceptions. When specks of fluff moved busily on the carpet, wriggling like maggots, it was actually caused by my eyeballs moving, not the fluff. The drug had inhibited the processing which habitually ensures we see what’s practical to our survival, as opposed to pleasurably mind-blowing. We have an inherited capacity to look at a complex scene, such as the inside of a forest, with its trunks and foliage stretching off to the distance, and yet see the slightest movement—to aid our hunting, or the detection of an enemy, with his poisoned dart at the ready. LSD presents reality in a different way, that paralyses some of the equipment which normally keeps us safe.

Anyway, I've found a simple way to get my bowels to move instantly. I have a swollen prostate, perhaps this is the reason I have to wear a Tena pad in my pants to hold the drips. So the tip is to push a sliver of soap up my bum. The result is immediate.