The Day I Died - Part I © 2010 Dakini Verona

The Day I Died  - Part I © 2010 Dakini Verona

December 15, 1969. That date is stuck in my mind forever. Branded in my soul, so to speak. Yes – that is the day I died, or at least I thought I was dead. LSD is a very strange drug, a strong hallucinogenic, the strongest, I believe.  A drug which was developed, or actually stumbled upon,  by the Swiss scientist, Albert Hofmann in the 1930’s. He thought it would be used as an aid in psychoanalysis, but it never quite worked out that way.

Hoffman never mentioned that the US government used LSD in secret experiments on unwilling human participants in an attempt to learn how to dominate the world through mind control. Project MKULTRA  didn’t quite work the way they hoped, either. The mind cannot be controlled while under the influence of LSD. Now, don’t get me wrong, you can influence thoughts and you can alter a thought process somewhat, but is not now how they thought it would work. They were not prepared for the results. I  could have told them that.

Hofmann claimed that his wonder drug, LSD, was “hijacked” by the 60’s counter culture. He had a lot of hopes for the drug, but was not pleased with the abuse of it. One of the most famous of these hijackers was Timothy Leary.

Timothy Leary used LSD as a pathway to spiritual enlightenment. His famous mantra of “turn on, tune in, drop out” was used to promote the benefits of LSD. LSD was more of a religion than a pastime, to Leary and his followers.  To me, it was mostly a way to get high. A way to escape. I thank Dr. Leary for bringing LSD, (or acid, as we called it) to the mainstream. At a dollar a hit, it was easy even for me to get as much as I wanted, even if I had to pay for it myself, which was rare. Regardless of the fact that I did have some bad trips (some really bad trips) I still believe I benefitted overall. You see, through the use of LSD I discovered spiritual enlightenment and the afterlife, but wasn’t until many trips later.    

LSD affects each person differently, and each trip is different. Tripping was one of my favorite past times, as it allowed me to leave behind the pain of feeling unloved. The pain of being so alone that I ached to the depths of my soul. Tripping made it better. It made me feel a part of everything. I was able to lift my consciousness out of my body and connect to all things around me. I could “become” air, or I could “become” one with those around me, without ever having to touch them. I was no longer alone. I simple – was.

But then, on this specific trip, on that cold night of December, 1969, what started as an ordinary trip had a tragic outcome. Something went wrong, very, very wrong.

My thoughts became visual and three dimensional. I sat in a room and watched the thoughts fly through the air. The thoughts had wildly colored patterns, not unlike a light show that I had seen at the Fillmore.  Hot reds, vibrant yellows and greens. My thoughts consumed me. Some of the thoughts got stuck, like a skipping record or CD. They kept repeating over and over and creating another dimension cluttered with the visual images of each thought layered on the preceding thought. The images began to spin together and created a huge vibrant and colorful spiral. I struggled to find a thread which would connect me to reality. A thread for me to follows, like the trail of bread crumbs left b Hansel and Gretel. But just like the fairy tale, I was lost. I could no longer hold onto the thread as I was drawn inside, just like Alice, going down the rabbit hole. I too floated down, down, down, down, inside this, my own personal rabbit hole. Caught in a descending spiral, like Dorothy in the tornado.

Once I stopped floating downward, I found myself transported to another world, like nothing I had ever seen or experienced before. It was more like leaving this plane of existence and stepping through a looking glass to a whole new dimension. Saying I had lost touch with reality is a gross understatement. What I didn’t realize was that once I stepped through that looking glass it would take months for me to find my way back to the other side. To get back to reality.

I tried in vain to find that thread, the one that connected me to reality, but it vanished. I guess it never really existed, not outside of my mind and outside of this world I was now trapped in. I could see bits and pieces of the real world, but was unable to reach it. I crawled on my hands and knees to try and gain balance, I felt the ground beneath me rise and fall with each breath I took. I air became viscous and fluid like, taking a great effort to move about. My mind raced with thoughts, I was trying to find a way to stop this trip. It was clear to me. The only way to stop the trip was to die.

My thoughts no longer manifested into vibrant visuals, instead they took on a life of their own. I was able to “see” the future outcome of actions that I was thinking of taking. I “knew” that if the ‘me’ I was here in this dimension died, the ‘me’ in the other dimension would wake up safe and sound. Well, maybe not so safe, I was still living in the streets. But as least I would be back in reality, back in my familiar world.   I craved to feel that familiar ache in my lonely heart. I longed for the pangs of hunger and cold once again.

In this world in which I was trapped nothing was real– only the nothingness. Like a black hole torn in the universe sucking the light. My life energy was being sucked into this void with each breath and moving was getting more and more difficult. I had to stop. I had to get off that merry go round before it was too late to return.