Tantra-Induced Delusional Syndrome ("TIDS")

[American Dream]

[American Dream]

How We Do at the End of the World by Chitra Ganesh

http://www.chitraganesh.com/dc10.html

[American Dream]

Time-lapse Images of Nude Dancers Created with 10,000 Individual Photographs
by Photographer Shinichi Maruyama

[American Dream]

TW: describes suicidal ideation and psychosis

http://www.erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=8371

Too many people have been asking me, and I'm tired of just telling people, piece by piece, the story, so I'm going to get it all out. Please understand, this is really hard for me, because it is basically a recording of my innermost thoughts, feelings, and ways of life to the core. If you don't know what I'm about to talk about, let me give you some background...

On Friday, June 1st I overdosed on acid. At about 4 PM, I took three tabs (hits, or whatever you want to call them) of acid or LSD. Whatever you want to refer to it as. Later that night, I took another tab at 10 PM, and another at 11:30. That's five total. I had a life-changing experience/journey/nightmare/mind warp and here is the account:

I'm not exaggerating any of this, it may sound a bit unbelievable, but that's why it had such an impact on me.

At first I was just questioning reality. Which we will refer to as the 'it' for the remainder of this writing. I was thinking about the fact that I am in an endless game, or a puzzle rather. I realized it's a puzzle, because if it were solved, I wouldn't be here, in this reality, right now. And I'm stuck here at least till the day I die. Yeah, this doesn't sound like much, but I came to this SHOCKINGLY and fully understood it to the point where it was driving me insane because there really is no way to know what reality is. I experienced that. At the time, I was going off talking about it endlessly (don't forgot the drugs I was on) and then my friend Paul said, 'Yeah, if you say it's true, prove it.' I said, 'What?????' He said, 'If you're so sure that it's true, then prove it, pull the trigger.'

Let me tell you, in this state of mind, that statement went straight to the bottom of my soul. It got me into a psychotic method of thinking. I started talking about it more. I realized that if I REALLY understood reality, I would cease to exist. There would be no point in my being here. I also couldn't stop thinking about the gun. I soon realized that there's nothing before the gun. (Life.) There's nothing after the gun. (Death.) And there really is no gun in the first fucking place, because I couldn't do it. I couldn't solve the puzzle. It's the big unknown, going off the deep end, and without the knowledge of what will lie behind the gun (death), I couldn't pull the trigger. It's some scary shit.

The other most horrifying realization that I came to was that whether I liked it or not, this reality, this world, and everyone and everything in it is all in my head. Because there is no real way of knowing, I just kind of have to accept it. It's the whole 'Matrix' idea. Who's to say that we're not just some weird creature having a dream or some shit. Or that we're not just lying in an incubator and this reality is just our subconscious? I realized that it may or may not be all in my head. And that I may never know. So I just accept the puzzle. I accept the illusion. If I didn't want or even NEED to accept the illusion, I would just pull the trigger.

Also, you have to know that at the time, I was hardcore studying Buddhism to the point where I took a vow, and all this other stuff, and I was basically a Buddhist. If you're not familiar with Buddhist or eastern philosophy in general, just know that there is a HUGE emphasis on nothingness. The fact that nothing really exists.

This was something else I realized. Since everything is in my head, physical existence must be bullshit too. Therefore, physical shit ceased to matter. Everything ceased to matter. Nothing mattered. Because nothing existed at that point. All I knew was that my mind existed. Because when you take away physical possessions, even when you take away people whether they are made up by your mind or not, when you take everything away, even life, you are left only with your mind, naked and unprotected.

This is basically the Buddhist concept of Enlightenment or Realization or Awakening. The full extinguishing of deluding passions and material things. So BAM, I was a Buddha. (Buddha means enlightened person.) It's not that I THOUGHT I was a Buddha, I very much WAS a Buddha. I was the happiest I have ever been in my life because I realized that nothing mattered. That nothing existed. The concept of nothingness was fully understood.

But there was a problem.

It didn't last. I thought about it too much and then stuff started to matter. I started caring once again about material things and a lot of other shit and it all came crumbling down. I have climbed the mountain, stood on the peak, and then fell the FUCK off of it.

Shortly thereafter, I fully understood the meaning of life. I realized that the only reason human life existed was to be happy. I also realized something else. I realized that all of my (and the rest of the world's) actions and even drug use is only done to be happy. And then it came back to me. I said to myself, 'Wait. If all I really know is myself, and my mind, WHY THE FUCK AM I FUCKING IT UP WITH DRUGS???!!@#!' I realized that my mind was the most sacred and precious thing ever, because it is the only thing that I REALLY REALLY actually KNOW exists. Like I said, take away material possessions, and you end up only with your mind.

One thing I have to point out is that before I came to all of these conclusions (mainly between 1 AM and 11 AM), I was walking around and seeing the negative emotions of people come out. I saw people's fear, anxiety, all that shit, and it hurt. I compare it to the story of Jesus taking on the sins of the world. I looked at everyone, strangers, friends, whoever. And FELT their sadness, or their insecurity. And I've never felt so bad in my entire life. What was even worse was because I had realized that my mind was so precious, I saw my friends later that night that had just taken some acid, and that just overwhelmed me. And to this day it overwhelms me, because I just want to tell everyone that your mind is all you know, and why fuck that up??? That's horrible.

That's pretty much all the important stuff. Later on, I was actually starting to go insane (seriously) because I kept questioning reality over and over and I wasn't able to accept the illusion anymore. I was getting very psychotic and it started to get really frightening.

The rest of the story is just me having an extremely hard and frightening time trying to get back into reality and eventually having to take Thorazine (a drug hospitals give to people that have overdosed on acid) to stop thinking so much and get to sleep. (I couldn't sleep even when I was trying REALLY hard.)

That's pretty much it, but here's where I am now...

A couple days after that, while I was still recovering, I had to accept the illusion for good, while I was sober. I had to accept that I didn't know what reality was or is, and that all I know is my mind. And that I'm alone whether I like it or not. And when I realize that, it's frightening, and bad, and extremely lonely. And I broke down and cried for three hours.

So I've decided to get clean now. No more mood-altering drugs for me. I now have an amazing understanding of humanity or lack thereof, probably due to my connection with everyone's negative emotions during my experience. It still really hurts me to see everyone messing up their minds with drugs and shit. Especially my best friends. But there's nothing I can really do. They'll have to find out on their own. I just hope they don't have to go through what I went through. And all in all, despite it's good results in my life and mentality in general, I wish it never would have happened in the first place. It was literally hell and about half an hour of heaven. The best and worst I've ever felt in my entire life, all in the same 48 hours.

And that's the truth. That's all we, or I really know for sure. Myself.

[American Dream]

[bardobailey]

Osama bin buggin'

previous post: send that kid Mark Vonnegut's book. forgot the title... (something?) Express.

[American Dream]

previous post: send that kid Mark Vonnegut's book. forgot the title... (something?) Express.

The Eden Express
A Memoir of Insanity

Mark Vonnegut
(Seven Stories)


When Mark Vonnegut graduated from Swarthmore College in 1969, he was at his wit's end. What to do? He certainly didn't want to be a part of the American Way --- either on the murdering fields of Viet Nam or in the board rooms of corporate America.

So what he did was to pack up his despair in his old kit bag and took it and his girlfriend Virginia off to the Canadian woods to a farm located just up from Vancouver, British Columbia. (Their VW was named "Car Car" because in those days, we gave dopey nicknames to everything --- people and dogs and cars alike.

There, he and his hairy friends with their peace love and harmony (and tie-dye clothes and long hair and dope) settled in to become at one with nature and leave all this Nixon-war-capitalism-repression business behind.

Only Vonnegut --- yes, son of you-know-who --- forgot one thing. He forgot the mot inscribed in one of the great travel books of those years: namely, "Where ever you go, there you are." For he had in his brain the seeds of self-destruct, schizophrenia --- which came into full bloom on the farm, for farm (which they called "Farm") was off in the boonies, with little more than shacks, trees, dope, total isolation, and lots and lots (and lots) of rain and gloom (nine months of the year, they don't tell you about the black skies of Vancouver Island in the travel brochures).

His first bout of lunacy was a mild one --- brought on by the departure of a soul mate named Luke and the entrance of some heavy mescaline. All of us from those footloose years who had a visit from the Boogieman during some awful trip may remember The Face, which was either your own face, melting off your skull into the bathroom sink like a vanilla pop-pie, or, as often, another one beamed in from outer space.

An incredibly wrinkled, iridescent face. Starting as a small point infinitely distant, it rushed forward, becoming infinitely huge. I could see nothing else ... When I first saw the face coming toward me I had thought, "Oh, goody." What I had in mind was a nice reasonable conversation. I had lots of things I wanted to talk about, lots of questions it must have answers to. God, Jesus, the Bible, the Ching, mescaline, art, music, history, evolution, physics, mathematics.

The ecstasy did not last very long --- and in Mescalineville, time is all:

He, she, or whatever didn't seem much interested in the sort of conversation I had in mind. It also seemed not to like me much. But the worst of it was it didn't stop coming.


Continues at: http://www.ralphmag.org/BS/vonnegut.html

[American Dream]

“I am mad - but I choose this madness”

— Gloria Anzaldua

[American Dream]

I am a wind-swayed bridge, a crossroads inhabited by whirlwinds … You say my name is ambivalence? Think of me as Shiva, a many-armed and legged body with one foot on brown soil, one on white, one in straight society, one in the gay world, the man’s world, the women’s, one limb in the literary world, another in the working class, the socialist, and the occult worlds. A sort of spider woman hanging by one thin strand of web.

Who, me confused? Ambivalent? Not so. Only your labels split me.

--Gloria Anzaldúa, from ‘La Prieta’

street art in Varanasi by Shilo Shiv Suleman

[American Dream]

“MA”
May 2012
Ma births us, feeds us, heals us, sustains us .Ma is earth, the green that drapes the brown, the red orange yellow green blue purple pink that showers our eyes
she is the carrier, holds life, creates life

मां is my mother, ma builds us from the ground up
Recognize their invisible labor & the conditional relationship many of us have to the earth and the conditional relationship many males have with womyn. She is used and then left, like our earth, used for her resources and then abandoned.

Respect ya mothers, sisters, aunts, & womyn
Know your roots

By Khushboo Gulati



http://kalisherni.tumblr.com/post/24691 ... s-heals-us

[American Dream]

“My certainties breakfast on doubts. And there are days when I feel like a stranger in Montevideo and anywhere else. On those days, days without sunshine, moonless nights, no place is my own and I do not recognize myself in anything or anyone. Words do not resemble what they refer to or even correspond to their own sounds. Then I am not where I am. I leave my body and travel far, heading nowhere, and I do not want to be with anybody, not even with myself, and I have no name nor wish to have any: then I lose all desire to call myself or be called.”

—Eduardo Galeano “Dazed Days”, The Book of Embraces

[American Dream]

Goddess Kali, 1940s Poster.



http://a-thousand-desires.tumblr.com/po ... 40s-poster

[American Dream]

Two Days of LSD Psychosis: experience with LSD

www.erowid.org/exp/73806


DOSE: 1 hit LSD (blotter / tab)

BODY WEIGHT: 145 lb


My LSD experience was the craziest time of my life. Literally.

Prior to my first and only LSD experience I had been using marijuana for less than a year and I had tried coke twice, nothing else. I didn't even drink much before this year, I don't even like using pain killers and I don't take any prescription drugs.

I probably started doing drugs because I lost interest in following the rules, the established order, that had gotten me nowhere. After college I had no where to go. I was the perfect child and student, nothing exceptional, but nothing bad either.

After college I applied for the CIA (this becomes important). After being rejected I decided illegal substance use wasn't a big deal anymore.

I then got a job teaching English abroad where I met a lot of other English teachers, people who thought like me, people who were the most interesting, intelligent, amazing people I had ever met. And they were all drug users. It was because of them, and their stories, and their accomplishments, that I decided taking drugs would not screw up my life.

I was very close friends with Matt, Al, and Rich by the time I decided to try LSD with them. They had all taken acid, shrooms and other psychedelics before. I trusted them, especially Matt. He was older and more experienced and I was a little in love with him.

We jointly bought a sheet with ten tabs on it through Matt's local friend, we'll call him John. Of the ten tabs, I went in on one, John took three, Matt and Al each paid for two and Rich had the last two. John took his three almost immediately, the rest of us were waiting for the right time and place to take them together. It never came, we decided to do what we could and took them the night of Al's birthday, before some of us left the country. It was Monday night, around 11pm.

Although I originally planned on only taking half a tab, we all ended up taking extra dosages because the effects took so long to kick in, it was about an hour and a half before we felt anything. Bad idea.

I took one tab, Matt and Rich took one and a half, John took one, bought off of Matt and Rich, and Al took two.

I was completely unprepared for what would come. I did no research before hand, I hadn't understood what happened to other people when I heard their stories. All I knew about hallucinogens was that you saw things.

I saw some great things. Dragons in the clouds, fairies in the bushes, dinosaurs in the cobblestones. It was all beautiful and animated and great. Then I realized that everything I looked at was far and close at the same time, everything was big and small. I felt like I was in one of those model train set worlds.

I told everyone this and they just laughed at me. I told everyone I felt I hadn't been properly prepared for this. Rich said that no one ever is. I told them that I felt like I was sensing everything at once, or maybe I was in multiple dimensions at the same time. Rich looked at me seriously for a second and said “yeah, but you can't think like that” and then started laughing ridiculously. Everyone else started laughing too. “That was the perfect man,” Matt said. I didn't understand but I got lost in the visions again pretty quickly.

Until I got more and more upset that I couldn't understand anything! When I focused enough to talk again all I could say is “I have never been this out of my mind!” They just kept laughing and ignoring me. And they were playing frisbee! How could they play frisbee when it kept twisting in the air? I couldn't believe that they were tripping too. They were acting normal, just laughing a lot, and not catching the frisbee. At this point I was standing in the middle of the frisbee game, my hands half raised, staring at the dinosaurs moving around, crawling on each other. “I feel like someone's missing.” Rich said. I looked around, realized where I was. Shit. “You're talking about me!” I exclaimed, because I wasn't playing frisbee, and I was the only one tripping (or so I thought). There's no way I can play frisbee in this state of mind, they shouldn't be able to either.

I started to cry, because my mind was so fucked and I was pissed that these guys, who were supposed to be my friends, had gotten me into this without proper warning or taking any precautions. What if something bad happened! None of us would be able to handle it, none of us are sober! This was really stupid, I can't understand anything. That's all I was thinking as I cried in despair. For about half a minute. Then I talked myself out of it. “Okay, this is stupid and useless, I can't act like this around these guys, especially Matt, I might as well enjoy these images while I'm stuck in this state.” “I still feel like someone's missing.” Rich said again. OH, I get it, I need to play frisbee, that's what he's trying to tell me. Playing frisbee was the best idea ever. It was something to concentrate on and it looked amazing. Even if I could never catch the damn thing. It kept twisting, getting smaller and bigger, and entering different dimensions.

I couldn't figure out why they would ever stop playing and they kept moving. I couldn't figure out how we got from one place to another. But it didn't matter anymore, it was just fun. We all stopped playing and gathered up. Not sure why. But while we were all huddled together in a group, one of the locals came up to us. He didn't speak much English, he only talked to John. I tried really hard to make sense of the situation. The stranger was trying to sell us a book, he said it was old, really old, he said he was a traveling scholar, just trying to make some extra money by selling it.

This is when my mind started to take off. I stopped seeing pretty, fun things. I started getting wrapped up in stories in my head. Paranoia and delusions started here.

“Why is he here, now, at this time of night?” was the best I could say to try to help the group realize that this was a scam. I thought they all understood: after all, no one was buying the book. Except John, he kept talking to the guy. And he almost sounded like he was trying to convince us that this book was worth buying.

“He's in on it! He got us the acid, he was using his cell phone all night, even though the rest of us chose to turn ours off to avoid freak outs, and he was trying to hide its use. That's why he was so adamant about buying a hit off of us. To make us believe that he is tripping too. He told this jerk where to find us while we are tripping balls! That asshole. Matt sees it, he knows we've been betrayed! He looks ready to kick his ass!” But Matt didn't.

Other things happened. I saw people in the shadows, they were cops. Now John was an undercover cop. And then Matt was too. Al, Rich and I were going to jail. Then everyone was undercover but me, I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's why Rich kept saying “I feel like someone's missing.” They were all working to bring down a huge drug ring, but they liked me enough that they were trying to find a way out for me.

I ended up running away from them, in order to save myself. Now I was alone and afraid. I even threw away my phone after Al texted “call us when ur safe.”

I sat down and cried, and thought. I thought about everyone who was involved. They were all in on it. Everyone I had met in this crazy country. But wait, that doesn't make sense. Something else is going on here. Something bigger, stranger. Then it struck me! I was never actually rejected from the CIA. My entire time abroad was a recruitment/training process. I had passed, this was the final test. I was in the CIA!

I became really happy, laughed at everyone and everything, everything I remembered about the past I made it fit into the puzzle. Every book I read, every person I met, everything that anyone said to me. It was all a part of some big master plan. I ran around the city looking for clues, playing games, talking to people, entering open doors and climbing on things. All because I believed I was in the CIA, the city I was in had become a movie set, and everyone in it was actors. The city became my playground as I enjoyed justifying everything that had happened in my life. Now all I needed to do was find the way out of this movie set in order to finish this final test. At one point I thought I was poisoned, I thought I might die, but I found an antidote. At other times I thought I needed to strip naked and run into the woods because of something a friend had said. At other times I thought I needed to walk home.

Eventually I decided I needed to climb up a brick smoke stack in order to see the boundaries of the movie set and to conquer my fear of heights. One of the guys I hung out with in this city (thus he was in on it too) said that everyone has a fear of heights and being alone. “Not everyone,” I thought, “just me. I need to get over those fears.” It was about 9am now. I climbed up the smoke stack. I got to the top, it was beautiful, I was happy.

But there was a commotion below me. The actors on this movie set had brought out a fire truck, presumably to get me down, but I knew it was fake. I climbed back down. There were police there now. I got to the bottom and I knew I couldn't let the police catch me. I ran away. But I wasn't quick enough, they caught me and I couldn't get away. “All right,” I thought, “they wouldn't capture me if I really wasn't supposed to be caught. I need to find another way out of this.” They took me into a nearby building.

Believe it or not, the nearby building, the place where the smoke stack was located, the place I chose to climb up to the highest height I could find, was on the grounds of a mental hospital.

I didn't think this was strange, I thought the room they took me into was just another set, full of more actors. They asked me if I have ever talked to a psychiatrist. No, I haven't. Oh, I get it, in order to get into the CIA I need to go through psychiatric therapy. They told me I have problems, that I'm depressed, that I have a death wish, that I've had lots of doctors (this, I thought, was referring all of the friends I had met here), that I'm not normal, that I need help. I thought all of this was about the problems I needed to get over, and how I'm special and that's why I'm in the CIA.

A lot more happened to me in the hospital. I was there until around 11am the next morning. I was in a mental hospital, I talked to mental patients, I acted completely insane, I was completely insane and I talked to the woman lying in the bed next to me about everything I thought I could consider a mental problem about myself. Except being crazy. The whole time I thought it was a game and/or a test. The test/game was to find a way out after I explored my psych. I was discovering things about myself, but a lot of it was bullshit I thought the CIA would want to hear. Like not wanting to do any more drugs.

They had to strap me down and give me drugs (I don't know what) to get me to sleep. In the morning things didn't make as much sense, but the fact that I was there, in this fake hospital, convinced me that everything I had been thinking was true.

Eventually I found a way out like a good spy should. I calmly talked to the staff about how I did not belong there, that if I had problems they should be taken care of in my country, that I had no insurance so they should get rid of my free loading. They had me sign a no consent form and let me go.

I walked back to my flat, started packing. The only clue left that was left, that I thought was right, was that I needed to go home by getting deported.

I hadn't eaten or slept much, at all. I ate, then slept, before actually packing. When I woke up it was because Matt, Rich and Al were outside, making noise, looking for me. They told me they had filed a missing person's report, they asked what happened to me, I lied. I asked what happened to them, I thought they were lying. None of it made sense. I thought I would never see them again. What were they doing here? I was confused and wanted to be alone, but I knew I needed to talk to them. I did. Only a few times did they say things that I could fit into my story. Nothing was making as much sense as it did before.

It was about 48 hours after I had first ingested the LSD. I stayed with my friends, I started to think that maybe, just maybe, I could be crazy. But the hospital. That was real. How could that be?

I finally asked to talk to Matt alone. I didn't know how to start, I still thought I should be playing the game, not telling the truth, I'm a spy... I think...

“What's up?” he said.
“You know how you said that if you're really crazy you won't know it?”
“Yeah...”
“Well, either I'm crazy, or you're in the CIA.”
I looked at him, waiting for someone to finally really confirm everything for me. His reaction was not what I was hoping for.
“What? There's no way that's possible.”
“Then am I crazy?”
“Is that what you're asking me!?”
“Okay, let me tell you why I think that. I'm going to tell you what actually happened to me...”

I told him. I was convinced. But he just kept shaking his head, and occasionally saying “fuuck” and “LSD is a powerful drug.” I was still trying to convince him. But as I went through my story I occasionally saw myself as other people must've during that time. I got to the end of my story. “None of that was real.” he told me. He had to tell me again and again. We had to go through specific things. “None of it.” He told me.

I broke down. It took another day before I was fully out of it. Before I could think straight again. It's been about a month now. I think it took that long for me to feel completely grounded in reality.

I never imagined that I could ever go that far out of my mind.

Now I really believe in the value of LSD for psychiatric purposes. I was in a very good state of mind when I took it, the only pressing issue for me has been what to do with my life and I feel like I received some valuable insight about that, at the very least.

In the end, I think it was an amazing experience. Amazing. I faced all of my fears, I realized what was important to me, I realized I do not want to be in the CIA, and considering no real damage occurred, I had a great time. I had the time of my life.

I feel like I should never do LSD again, my brain and LSD do not seem to get along. But I want to. I want to play frisbee and see dinosaurs and dragons dancing around in the clouds and bushes. Unfortunately, the fear of going psychotic again is still strong and will probably stop me for a long time.

[American Dream]

Paula Duró - Ethiopia, 2012 Paintings: Acrylics and Oil on Canvas



http://red-lipstick.tumblr.com/post/429 ... -paintings

[American Dream]

U.S. Army Chemical Corps Insignia

It was 1974 and Pickard went to San Francisco's federal building to pay his respects.

Tim Scully was on trial for making huge batches of LSD in a Sonoma County farmhouse. Scully believed the drug could raise people's consciousness and had bluntly told the court he had wanted to "turn on the world."

"There was a break, and I walked out into the hall, and he introduced himself as a fellow chemist," recalled Scully, once an "apprentice" to Augustus Owsley Stanley III, the most infamous psychedelic sorcerer of the '60s.

Pickard smiled and handed Scully a U.S. Army Chemical Warfare Group pin with a flask and test tube design...

Army Acid Test