by Howard Marks
At the lower frequencies of flashing, nothing especially striking was seen. But at higher frequencies an illusion began to build up. I think it was at a frequency of twenty-three flashes per second that the picture became most vivid.
I was by the seaside lying on my back on the yellow sand, with the blue sea on my left. I had no desire to turn my head to look at the sea or sand, so that in a certain sense I could not actually see them. Normally, if a person lies on his back, little more than the sky is visible. Yet my appreciation of the sand and sky was certainly visual. It is hard to convey these illusions. If you lie on your back you can picture to yourself the sand and sea without looking at them; it was like that, only the picturing was as vivid as seeing them.
It was a bright day at the seaside. The sky was blue, and the sun was down straight into my eyes. I tried to close them and found them shut already.
I was not alone on the beach. Just out of sight, to my right, were three women. They were exceedingly lovely women, and again I could see them only in a certain sense. Suppose I were to meet one of these women, I would not be able to recognise her. All the same, I knew a lot about them because I could appreciate their presence so vividly. Their womanliness was most intensely felt.
This was not an ordinary erotic dream where one experiences certain sensations and even emotions more vividly than in the waking condition. It was along those lines, but much more impressive.
It was not just that I liked or loved these women very, very much. Rather, it was that I felt a wonder that was really there, really there in the illusion, if you follow me; it just cannot be described in words.
What a pity the sun was so dazzling. I wanted to lie back and enjoy the feeling of the presence of these women. They were so very kind.
When the frequency of the flashing light was twenty-three, everything was just right. When it went higher than that, the dream deteriorated. So, when we had covered the frequency range, I asked the lady psychiatrist who was turning the control knob if I could have twenty-three again. She put the frequency back to twenty-three, but this time it wasn’t so good. Also, I had the greatest trouble in understanding that she had given me twenty-three, although she repeated ‘This is twenty-three’ many times quite clearly.
Then the flashing light was turned off and I ‘came to’ or ‘woke up’. It is not clear how to describe it. I was extremely surprised to find that there were only the lady psychiatrist and myself in the inner room of the laboratory.
‘Only you and me? Oh well, just you and me. It’s all quite friendly, isn’t it?’ I remember saying, rather foolishly.
When the lady had finished her research, a man came in to record the electro-encephalogram. ‘For goodness’ sake, try and keep still just half a minute. I can’t get a decent recording,’ he said.
This puzzled me. I was keeping still. I was lying on the couch and was not making any muscular movements. I was apparently floating about in space, but clearly that would not affect him or his instrument – that only affected me.
‘You don’t mind me floating about, do you? That doesn’t affect your instrument, does it?’
‘You’re wriggling,’ he said.
‘I’m just getting comfortable. I’ll be still for a quarter of an hour.’ I lay still for what seemed about a quarter of an hour, floating for much of the time.
‘There you are,’ I said. ‘I hope you got a good record.’
‘You were still for about a minute,’ he said.
The thought occurred to me that since time seemed to pass so slowly, and since my speech seemed at this particular period to be of normal speed, it would seem to follow that I would be able to utter many more words in a given time than would normally be possible.
Accordingly the attempt was made, at my suggestion, to count up to as high a number as possible in five seconds. I seemed to count very rapidly for a long time, but I only got as far as thirty.
The experiment had started at 10.15 a.m. and it was now 4 p.m. We had had sandwiches and coffee for lunch. It was thought to be safe to take me along for a cup of tea in the common room. The custom is to take afternoon tea so that now, at 4 p.m., only one person remained, a pharmacologist who was a good friend of mine. He knew all about LSD and looked at me pityingly. I began talking to him with the boring, monotonous half-nonsense speech I was compelled to turn out.
‘Now then, Bobby, I know I am boring you, you see I can’t stop talking. I am cut off from reality, but one thing is very real and that is the terrible look of boredom in your eye. So please don’t go on listening.’
Back we went to the laboratory. It was about that time I first felt that I was split into two people. The following report is made with particular care:
There were two of me walking down the corridor. The two people were not very accurately localised in space, but the main one corresponded to the position where I would have been had there been only one of me. The shadowy or more tenuous individual, the naughty one, was slightly to the left. We could talk to each other, exchanging verbal thoughts, but not talking aloud.
The main person was really me, but in an improved form. He was a very strong character. He had an effortless strength that I never knew before that I possessed. The other individual on the left was much less well known to me.
‘Why not jump out of a window?’ he said to me.
The invitation had a compulsive quality which was difficult to resist. But just as I was considering it, the main person answered for me, speaking with effortless strength.
‘Of course not. Don’t be such a bloody fool!’
I was delighted with this man, with myself, that is. I thought, ‘I had no idea what strength of character I had.’
Those in charge were beginning to get a bit worried as to what was to be done with me. The effects which would normally have worn off by now were lasting for an unexpectedly long time.
They asked me whether I thought it was safe for me to go home.
‘Take me home,’ I said abruptly.
I was a little worried that I might want to jump out of the window when I got home, but decided to rely on my superself to look after the naughty one. I never told the experimenters that I was at times double.
The lady psychiatrist was to take me home, so she asked me to tell her the way.
‘Hell, it’s up to you to get me home’ was the thought that was in my mind. What I said was ‘Drive round this roundabout for about a quarter of an hour and then turn off to the left. I’ll tell you when we come to it.’
It cannot have taken much more time than was used in uttering that sentence to have driven a quarter of the way around the roundabout. But it seemed that that remark took the usual time and yet occupied only an inconsiderable proportion of the long time which appeared to elapse in going round the roundabout.
The psychiatrist seemed worried.
‘Is this the turning?’ she asked.
‘You’ve been driving quite some time now. Yes, I should think this is it. Try it, anyway,’ I replied.
The road we were on was not recognisable, but I had ceased to bother. The day’s work was over, and I relaxed. Actually, as the map showed, we had gone 180 degrees around. I was prepared for the journey home, which is one mile precisely, to seem very long in the car. So I settled down to endure it.
‘Bristol Road,’ I said. ‘When you come to Bristol Road you turn right, then left down Bournbrook Road.’
She did a right turn down Bristol Road but, being wrong already, the turn took her farther wrong.
It was really surprising how much the psychiatrist relied on me to direct her to my home. I must have failed entirely to convey to her my inability to interpret the changing world around me. I could, however, feel her anxiety and worry, and could see that she had her family on her mind. But one of the final symptoms of LSD was beginning to develop in me, and that was lassitude and complete selfishness. I did not care if her children were waiting for her, or if she had a party. If her house had been on fire, t
hat would have been entirely her problem.
‘We may be wrong. We may be right. Drive what way you will,’ I said.
She stopped to ask a policeman the way. And, after what I believe now was a real half-hour’s car drive, we arrived home.
The psychiatrist explained the situation to my wife. ‘He can’t help talking,’ she said, gave a brief résumé of the case, and then drove off.
‘No, thank you, darling, I think I won’t come in just now,’ I said to my wife. ‘I will go for a walk. Keep the children away from me, will you please?’
I had a compulsive urge to do violence to my children and did not like to tell her about it.
‘Are you safe? Can you get back?’ she asked. For her, the situation must have been extremely distressing.
‘I haven’t a hope of crossing a road with traffic on it. How can I possibly judge speed?’ I replied. ‘But I can go round the block. I will always turn left. It is about half a mile round, so you will see me going past from time to time!’
And I set off.
Although the nausea was still present, the muscular system felt in order, and the exercise was more pleasing than usual. Also, the concertina effect added interest. I had a feeling, too, that the exercise would help work off the effects of the drug. There was no difficulty in recognising the different streets, and no question of becoming lost.
I must have gone around a great many times. I remember passing some people to whom my wife and I had previously made a friendly approach, but who had snubbed us decisively. Should I now, with the licence, as it were, of being able to blame any peculiarity of behaviour on the drug, go and tell them what I thought of them? But no, I did not. The ordinary natural human reserve prevented it. I noticed this myself and regarded it as a most excellent sign that the drug action was abating.
I still could not stop talking to myself on the way round. But I could not sense when I was really talking and when I was merely having verbal thoughts. To find out, I would place a hand to my lips. I could then tell from the movement felt whether I was talking or not. Whenever the test was made, I was talking, but could not stop.
I got into conversation with one gentlemen who was cutting his hedge. For an Englishman to speak to a near neighbour after passing him six times during an evening since there was no one to introduce us, suggests a certain lack of reserve, but the fact that the conversation did not start until the sixth encounter was an indication that recovery had started.
After walking around the block, at a brisk pace, for about an hour to an hour and a half, I went into my own garden.
‘Keep the children away from me, please!’ I said to my wife. I could not convey to her how important it was that she should do this, nor do I know myself to this day how great the gap was between the violent thoughts in my mind and their possible execution.
Most fortunately, the children were both in a blessedly and amenably happy mood. When Patricia called they ran into the drawing-room, settled around her, and she began to read to them, having explained that Father was not well and that he wanted to sit undisturbed in the garden. I settled down in a deckchair, bathed in the evening sunlight, and looked at the happy little group in the drawing-room which I could see through the French windows. The children could see one looking at them, and waved to me.
That scene made a big impression. I felt that I was a long way off, and that no effort of mine could bring me any nearer. But I knew it would be all right if I waited; so I waved back to them, and settled down to wait.
The nausea wore off and other effects of the LSD seemed to be abating. So after a while I agreed to read to the elder child, Robert, in bed. The reading was a failure from his point of view. His father seemed inattentive, and to be reading so poorly and slurring his speech so badly that the story was barely intelligible. From my point of view, the concertina and stretching effects were troublesome again. The boy seemed to have such peculiar limbs. While I was reading to Robert, Patricia was ringing up some friends, both doctors, who had invited us to have dinner with them that evening.
‘I would much rather bring him along than leave him at home with the “sitter-in” and the children,’ she explained, ‘if you don’t mind.’
So off we went to dinner.
Over coffee, in my slow and boring way, I began to address my host on the subject of fireplaces, and the theory of heating dwellings.
‘There is a little man on the roof,’ I said, and paused, confident that I could resume without being interrupted. There are few who dare pause in a conversation. Most of us have to scurry on desperately, fully conscious that if the flow weakens someone else will nip in. It is rare to manage the pause. Two very effective constituents of the technique are, firstly, to get your audience to lose the thread of the conversation, and that had been ensured with my opening remark, and, secondly, to have the confidence not to mind boring the audience. This I had to the full.
‘He has a thermometer in his hand,’ I continued. ‘He measures the temperature of the smoke. “Bad,” he says. “Too hot.” Now, with any convenient apparatus he measures the mass of smoke and of hot air, i.e. the mass of all that comes up the chimney. Knowing the mass and the temperature change he calculates the amount of heat entering the sky.’
My host politely adjusted his features to simulate interest but his distress was apparent. Furthermore I knew he had got me quite wrong. He thought that I thought there was a little man on the roof with a thermometer and a telephone. I knew perfectly well there was not. My mental processes, with respect to thinking of the little man, were approximately normal. That is the way that I, and probably many others, would normally consider the question of heat waste in fires. The only abnormal aspect was reporting the mental processes directly, instead of transposing them as one normally would by saying, ‘The heat loss to the sky is equal to that absorbed by raising the temperature of the waste gases from the temperature of the room to that in the chimney.’
‘He phones down,’ I went on. ‘He says “How much fuel have you burnt?” You tell him. “Your efficiency is only five per cent,” he replies. Don’t you see? The only thing he needs to know is how much fuel has been used, and how much heat has gone into the sky. Then he knows what the efficiency is.’
We went home, Patricia driving of course, and so to bed. I did not take the barbiturate sleeping tablet I had been given. I had had enough drugs for one day.
The night was very wakeful, but it did not seem too long. An eye was seen very clearly from time to time in the darkness. This was neither distressing nor particularly interesting. Just an eye – rather diagrammatic.
Next day, unfortunately, I still was not right. There was no question of getting out of bed. I just lay there talking, babbling rather, mostly about my past. Often I cried, which was very distressing for my wife, who naturally thought it represented a condition of deep grief. As far as I can remember it did not. It was as though my body were crying and I was outside it, admittedly feeling rather hopeless, but not moved to tears.
The colour distortion was still there. The psychiatrist and others from the laboratory came to see me, looking very worried – and green. All their faces had that unpleasant green tinge. I still wanted to jump out of the window, but had no feeling of wanting to commit suicide. It was an absolutely specific compulsion to jump out of one particular window in the bedroom. I was no longer split into two, and the very strong character who had been so easily able to resist the temptation before had gone. The temptation was vaguely associated with the naughty character but he was not very distinct from me now. It was more as if I myself wanted, in a purely irresponsible way, to jump out of the window.
I was in bed for a few days and when not babbling or crying, I lay very limp and completely apathetic. I must try to convey why I made no attempt to get up and generally pull myself together, because the reason was interesting and important. I saw my own mind divided somewhat in the way that Freud sees it, divided into parts having different functions at different leve
ls. As in his scheme, the different functions and different levels were represented as having different positions in the diagram. In this case the diagram was not drawn, but was thought of as being in the head. Now one part of this diagram sees ‘will power’. It was rather low down, and lines went vaguely from it to other parts of the brain which represented different channels through which the will power could exert its effects.
I could see quite clearly in the diagram that this drug had paralysed the ‘will power’ section. I can remember saying, ‘I’m prepared to do battle against the ordinary afflictions but hell – I’ve nothing left to do battle with. This drug has cut me off at the source. It’s completely knocked out the will power.’
After a fortnight I was still very jumpy and susceptible to illusions. In the bathroom, I could see pictures made from the irregular condensation of steam on the walls. The pictures in steam were noble, and reminded me of the strange sweetness of the women by the seaside.
Then there was the insect.
One morning, on looking into the sink, I saw this enormous creature, standing at one edge. It looked so real that I frankly did not know what sort of action to take. Rather feebly I blew on it, and to my horror it made grotesque movements, impossible for any normal insect to achieve; and with these movements it fluttered around the sink. The illusion of the movement lasted only about one second. But one second can be a long time and the sensation in the solar plexus was felt very strongly indeed. Then, with immense relief, I could see it was only the black charred remains of a piece of paper.
The most striking illusion of all was the Christmas card on the mantelpiece of the nursery at home. One day, coming down to the nursery stove before breakfast I saw a horrific face looking out of the card. Again, there was that shock of fear. I braced myself to look this damned face straight in the eyes. It would not change into any other kind of picture. I walked up closer, and then I could see it was really nothing but a little drawing of a cottage. I took a step back and again the horrific-face interpretation reappeared. At a certain critical distance the two pictures alternated just exactly in the same way as the cubes commonly shown on inlay patterns will alter suddenly and independently of any effort of the will. I began to practise obtaining the cottage and repressing the face. I used to do these exercises for perhaps one minute every morning, to try to learn to suppress the horrific images. It would make a nice story to say how I thus became master of my fate, and cured myself by my own determined efforts. But things didn’t happen that way.