cannabis – 1 More World

Psychedelic Therapy…Is A Trip

My fate was sealed, my dad would soon be using his belt to give me a spanking. But why? I didn’t understand why. We didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t do anything wrong. We were playing with our toys and they broke. We weren’t doing anything stupid, we were just playing with them. What am I being punished for? It didn’t make any sense to me. To my angry dad, however, this is how he would teach us a lesson about taking better care of our things.

While my brother was getting spanked first, I slipped away and hid underneath my bed. It’s such a classic, child-like response. But I’m a small boy, about to be a victim of injustice, (or should I call it abuse…?). At six, I had no adult options. So I hid.

I can hear them calling my name, all of them. Yep, including my brother Bill. After he got it with the belt, he was happy to join the search party. At one point early in the hunt, I see Bill enter the bedroom we shared, the bedroom where I’m hidden. His feet walk over to the closet. I see it swing open. It’s quiet for a moment while he looks. Then it closes. I’m right here underneath my own bed. Surely he will look here next. But he doesn’t. He leaves the room and I am still unfound. Even at that age I had the presence of mind to think, How absurd is it that nobody has thought to look under the bed?!

Because of how our house was situated, I could hear some of their conversations from my hiding spot, “Where do you think he is?” My mom asks, “Do you think he could be hiding in the garage?” My brother says he’ll check and I hear the back door open and shut.

Underneath the bed I wait and worry. I’m confused about what I did and what to do now. I don’t want to get a spanking. It’s gonna hurt. I start thinking, Seems like I’ve been under here a long time. Should I try to make a break for the front door? But then what would I do? Where would I go? Maybe if enough time passes, they’ll kinda forget about it. Or maybe once I’m found again they’ll be so happy I’m safe…I won’t get spanked. But I also consider that maybe I will get it double.

I hear my brother come back from the garage. “He’s not there.” More conversation. “Look in the bedroom again,” she tells him. The scariest real-life game of hide ‘n seek is coming to an end. My brother enters the bedroom a second time. I see his feet stop in front of my bed, he crouches down and sees me. He lifts and turns his head to aim his voice down the hall and shouts, “Mom! Found him!.” He turns back to me, smiling, and says, “You’re gonna get it now.”

—————————————————————

Why All the “Voodoo?”

When referring to somatic therapy, both in the subtitle immediate above and in previous posts, I include the word “voodoo.” I even titled one entire post “Freaky-Ass Voodoo.” (which you might want to read before this one). Why such a seemingly derogatory / potentially offensive word choice? Am I trying to delegitimize this type of therapy from the get-go? Actually, not at all. The most obvious reason for calling it voodoo is… because it sounds funny and gets your attention. More interesting is the second reason. There will be aspects of this type of therapy that, when you hear about them, will seem borderline supernatural…like voodoo.

somatic – Here’s what Webster’s says is the definition:

1. of, relating to, or affecting the body; 2. of, or relating to, the wall of the body

To keep it simple, when you hear “somatic therapy,” just think “body therapy” and you’ll be fine.

Somatic therapy works from the premise that unresolved emotional injury (trauma) is “stored” in the physical body. One quick example of the general mind-body link that should be relatable for many is the “nervous stomach.” I once heard the stomach referred to as our “second brain.” This certainly resonates with me. When I’m stressed out, my stomach will surely let me know. External stresses can turn a normal stomach into a storeroom for anxiety. But it doesn’t stop there. Back problems, neck pain, and even less obvious body parts of the body like a knee or shoulder, can house emotional pain which sometimes manifests itself as physical pain. And there is no statute of limitations on unresolved emotional injuries, either. Childhood trauma doesn’t magically go away. It stays buried in your body and agitates to be resolved.

No Bells No Whistles

Despite feeling pretty sure this whole psychedelic-assisted somatic therapy thing I committed to is on the level, a part of me reserved suspicion. Before being introduced to my therapist, I thought… if he pulls out a bell and starts ringing it in a circular motion around my head in order to ‘harmonize my chakras,’ I’m out. No hate for harmonized chakras here, I’m just saying that’s not the type of therapy I signed up for.

I met Gabe for the first time in-person on May 20th. Our first several appointments were via Zoom (thanks to Covid), and all were what they call “dry” sessions, meaning without any drug-assistance. On that Wednesday, it was my first time at the brick ‘m morter Innate Path Clinic on Holland Street, and my first time in the lounge chair. I can assure you that no bells touched my chakras, and I found Gabe to be just as firmly grounded in the rational world as I am.

In a typical session, what is it that I’m actually trying to do? That’s my question. Immediately, I have found it gets tricky. As I understand it, I’m trying to mentally navigate my way into a state of mind where I can see/feel the connections between emotional-memories and specific sensations in my body. No, not an easy thing to do. First, you have to get your mind hyper-tuned-in to your body and, just like with meditation, that takes some practice. The second factor is that somatic therapy will have you burrowing into some rather uncomfortable emotional-memories, which can be extremely daunting for many.

Yes, I’m saying “emotional-memories” because for somatic therapy to be effective, you have to do more than simply recall a moment in time. Unfortunately, you may have to emotionally revisit times in your life that really, really sucked.

But don’t worry, you will have two allies in your corner- your therapist, and the wonders of chemistry.

Step Aside, Self

Whoa! Altered states of mind can be super cool and I will take you inside my head in a few minutes. Just a couple more things need to be said first.

As we all know, the human mind has some truly incredible capabilities. Add psychedelic compounds to your brain and you’ll be absolutely astounded at how incredibly expansive your mental capabilities become.

Along those lines, I want to re-emphasize a point I made in a previous post, one that I regret not calling out more forcefully at the time. You should remember me talking about how hard its been for me to make a decision about what to do with my house in Austin (now that I’m living in Colorado). Keep it or sell it was the simple question, but my emotional/sentimental ties to that house I’d owned for over 30 years made it anything but simple. One evening back in April I ate a square of dark chocolate with 10 mg of cannabis. By the time I was ready for bed, its effects were diminished, however…. As I was falling asleep I continued thinking about the question, keep it or sell it? Keep it…or…sell it? With surprising clarity (in at least the thinking part of my brain), the right answer emerged from the deep: Suddenly, I knew I should sell it. Here’s how the cannabis effect was key. When in my “elevated” state of mind, I still had all the same sentimental concerns towards the house, but now those emotions sat down next to my rational thinking self, and did not stand in front of it.

That’s one of the special little powers of cannabis, ketamine and other psychedelics, and why these compounds have become useful therapeutic tools. Asking your emotions to stand on the far side of the room for a few minutes allows your rational mind to think through difficult subjects more clearly.

It can also work in reverse. For someone like me, someone who protects himself by thinking his emotions away, it may be my rational mind that is asked to “take five,” so that my emotional self can find its way to the front of the room.

Why You Be Trippin’

I went through the checkout line at the Sprouts the other day and took notice of something we’ve all had both direct and indirect experience with in many different situations. The cashier rang up my items and sent them down to the end of the station where I stood ready to bag them. As I placed the arugula, fruits, cereal, chopped pecans and another half-dozen items into my [Virtue-signalling alert!] environmentally-friendly, brought-from-home shopping bags, I took notice of the cashier. In that small window of time between her scanning my items and me completing payment at the card reader machine, I noticed that the cashier’s eyes were fixed to some non-location half-way between me and who knows where. She was gone, taken by her mind. I kepted bagging, but also watched to see how long she would hold this spacey stare before returning to her place behind the register in lane 3 of the Sprouts on Arapahoe in Boulder, Colorado.

And………… she’s back, ladies and gentlemen. I was tempted to ask her, “Where’d you go?” But I resisted, thinking she might feel embarrassed at being busted for her daydreaming. The point of all this is to give you a sense of what it’s like to “trip.” She was at work, stone cold sober, but still mentally transported to some other time and place, even if only for half a minute. Daydreaming is tripping. Meditation is tripping. Sleeping is tripping. Getting into the zone…. is tripping. These sober categories of tripping vary in their flavor and intensity but they all demonstrate your brain’s natural ability to transport you away from the here and now.

When certain chemical compounds are introduced into the brain, they do an awesome job of accentuating this everyday ability we already possess. Add a therapist, a blindfold, and a comfortable lounge chair, and there you have it. Welcome to psychedelic-assisted therapy.

Good Enough for Me

Last thing before we take a little trip ourselves. I started doing the somatic therapy in April. It’s now August. You’d think I should be able to confirm to you whether it “works” or not, right? Agreed, but sorry… I still cannot say. Not because I’m being secretive or cagey, I can’t say because I don’t know. The course of somatic therapy is a bit of a process. Among other things, it involves some degree of trial and error. Patience is unfortunately required.

In talking about psychedelic-assisted somatic therapy, I want to be super clear that I know almost nothing about it, really. And it’s better this way, right? What you’ll hear is solely my experience, siloed away from outside influences. You see, before committing myself to this method of therapy, I did about 2% research. [It’s how I roll, yo.] I got the gist of what it is, it made intuitive sense to me, plus my friend said the clinical research studies behind it are legit. That’s good enough for me.

As this post goes live, my course of therapy is still ongoing. So, wherever I’m headed…I’m not there yet.

Canada, Going Rogue

The therapy clinic where I’ve been going makes use of just two types of psychedelics, both legally available- ketamine and cannabis. Yes, cannabis…the same substance that is legal in Colorado but still counts as a crime federally and in a bunch of states I wouldn’t want to live in.

If you thought psychedelic-assisted therapy meant tripping-out on LSD or mushrooms, you were wrong. Just as I was wrong, too, when I made that same assumption in the beginning. LSD and magic mushroom therapy does exist but only in certain radical, rogue nations such as….Canada. But it’s okay. If it’s been found that cannabis is effective in this treatment, no shade needed.

Ketamine, the other psychedelic used in my therapy, is one of those drugs that already had 18 different medical uses before they figured out its potential in this context. Ketamine affects the mind by distancing it from the body in a way that’s helpful to this therapeutic work. It causes you to mentally drift away from your body, the chair, the room. Even so, you remain perfectly lucid. It’s strange but nice feeling.

Ketamine Tastes Yucky

Here goes! I take a tablet of ketamine out of the prescription bottle and place it underneath my tongue. It tastes quite yucky, something like an aspirin were you to let it dissolve in your mouth instead of swallowing it with a gulp of water. Gabe tells me it’s best to just let it sit there, to not suck on it and move it around like you might do with a cough drop. I resist swallowing even my saliva, letting the nasty taste build up in my mouth. If the ketamine enters the stomach, it’s useless to the brain. But when absorbed into your bloodstream through the tissues of the mouth, in about 15 minutes, it will begin to take you away.

“I think I’m starting to feel it,” I tell Gabe. The ketamine tablet has dissolved completely at that point and I luckily have a mint with me to replace its taste with something more pleasant. I place the blindfold over my eyes, pull the little ringed cord on the side of the Lazy-Boy lounge chair, and recline myself back as far as it goes.

“What are you feeling? Describe it for me.”

“I feel kind of a tingling sensation in my arms and legs.”

Gabe asks me to turn inwards and see what else I notice. Pretty soon I feel like I’m floating around in my own mind. My attention comes to my body and I give it a slow mental scan. My right shoulder feels cool on top. I wonder if that means anything. Should I tell Gabe it feels cool? Wait, what was that? My left foot feels like it’s buzzing? Is that something…or is that nothing? What I am supposed to be noticing? Honestly, these are the thoughts I’m having. The whole experience is shrouded in mystery.

Gabe asks me to “zoom in” on whatever part of my body is calling my attention. I do this as best I can. In a short time, my mind ends up surfing around my childhood home on Creekwood. I am very willing to let myself go there because I figure that’s kind of the point. In theory, the person I was supposed to be got left behind in that house a half-century ago.

That’s one thing I experienced with the ketamine. Childhood memories became more than just stories I’ve told and retold throughout my life. With the assistance of this drug, I am able to put my mind back in the house on Creekwood with little Gary and visualize in greater detail what each scene was like. I want to be clear that we are still talking about fragmented memories and visualizations. It’s not like watching a movie.

It’s my first time ever doing ketamine so today’s session isn’t about seeking breakthroughs. The body and brain must first be comfortable with ketamine’s effects. It’s a foreign state of mind so trying to rush into the hard core therapy work doesn’t typically bear fruit the first time you do it. It’s a step-by-step process, not a one trip and done type of deal. Even so, my first time on ketamine I visited the memory of that is the scene described in the opening to this post. The hiding beneath the bed, my brother finding me, the spanking, the injustice…this was not a lost memory that the ketamine helped me recover. But what the ketamine did was bring the whole scene closer to the forefront. I was much more able to mentally crawl beneath that bed with my six year old self and be a present-day witness to his confusion.

I feel this story of the unjust spanking must be significant, meaningful. But whether revisiting it in the Lazy-Boy or as a scene in my blog, I’m not able to feel it. I cannot find the emotion of it, the fear, the injury. The protective shell I have placed around my emotions is strong. More work is needed.

The Dam

My first two sessions with Gabe were dry, the next three were aided by cannabis (edible). Now I’m working with ketamine. But regardless of the chemistry, every session is 90% me lying still and going into what is essentially a deep meditative state. Gabe mostly just sits there and observes me, occasionally checking-in to see where I am.

Much of my personal challenge is tapping into hard-core emotions. This is true of me in the everyday world and within the context of therapy, too. I am all dammed-up. Seven weeks into my therapy and I haven’t shed a tear. The small waste basket, partially-filled with used tissues, that I always see waiting there to the left of the lounge chair as never had an addition from me. Maybe I got a little misty-eyed once or twice, but I have not been able to “crack the nut,” as it were, in order to let it go.

There was one particular session with the ketamine where the feeling of being dammed-up became more prominent than ever. I was frustrated. Why can’t I do this? Every week I lie back in this lounge chair and “nothing happens.” Gabe hears my impatience. He summarizes in words what I’m feeling and offers them back to me. “Why isn’t this working?” “Why can’t I get it.” I nod my agreement.

I am so used to meditating that when I feel my eyebrows are furrowed or my jaw is tensed, I consciously exhale to relax them. But Gabe has told me it’s more useful to lean in towards those feelings and not try to breathe them away. So I furrow my brow and let it be. I tell him I’m having flashes of angry thoughts and feel like I’d like to hit something. He asks me if I’d like to try punching a cushion. “I don’t know what that would do.” I say to him, “That seems gimmicky.” I pause for another beat, before saying, “I mean, I’m open to trying it.”

I hear Gabe leave the room and return seconds later. He brings over a large sofa cushion and holds it in front of me. Still with my blindfold on, I sit up in the chair. My right hand makes a fist and I stick my arm out forward until I can feel the fabric of the cushion on my knuckles. He adjusts it so it’s a little closer. “Okay, you ready?” I ask him. He tells me to go for it.

I cock-back my arm and punch. Something moves within me. I reel back my arm and punch a second time, even harder. A wave of something within pushes me to a cliff. I feel my anger! Pressure builds at my face, behind my eyes, and I clench my teeth. I punch the cushion a third time with all the rage I can find….

That’s when the dam breaks. It breaks, and I gush. For the first time since childhood I cry from my core. Waves of raw emotion are released and I feel them tumble out of me like warm water has been poured over my neck and shoulders. Throwing those punches has unlocked a storehouse of anger and I am finally able to let a chunk of it go.

For maybe a minute I sob heavily and relish in the feeling. Tears drip from beneath my mask and my sinuses clog. I reached blind for the box of kleenex I’d always seen on the small table next to the lounge chair but never needed until today. Gabe assists me and places a couple of tissues in my hand. I go through them immediately and ask for a few more.

“Wow!” I exhale. “Just wow.”

After the deluge has subsided, we talk softly about what happened. Minutes pass, some in silence, then Gabe asks me if I would like to go for another round. I accept the invitation. Once again he brings the cushion up to my fist and I release upon it another 4 or 5 times. The tears come again, not as intensely as before, but I am still very happy to see them. Gabe helps me find more tissue.

I am now aware of being balled-up in the lounge chair, my back arched forward and my knees up close to my elbows, the blindfold still covering my eyes. I am drained. In this pose, I sit. Gabe waits patiently.

After a time, I lower my feet back to the floor. A smile comes to my face. A bit of joy has entered the room. I did it. With my head still bowed forward and my blindfold on, I slowly raise my arms above my head in triumph. I have the feeling of…victory.

It’s a Process

Indeed, it feels good to finally see a crack in my hardened shell. But I also know this “breakthrough” does not mean I’m at the end, not by a longshot. However, for someone like me, someone who’s heart-range is severely limited, anything that expands my emotional capacity is a step in the right direction. I am happy for the “progress.”

I will continue to blog about my experiences in therapy and do what I can to bring you along for the ride. Where exactly we are headed remains unclear to me. However, as I continue to peer further and deeper behind the scenes of the forces that molded me, my suspicion is that love, or the lack thereof may somehow lie at the core of it all. Stay tuned.

——-

Next up, the 1 More World blog finally arrives to the night of the avalanche. Now you will see how every previous post fits together like pieces of a puzzle.

Cannabis for an Alien, Part III

It was April 21st, a Tuesday evening. I ate the dark chocolate square at 7:30. In about an hour and 10 minutes it will start to kick in. I check the clock. By 8:40 I should start to notice a subtle shift in the way my thoughts flow.

Before eating the square, I hesitated, maybe tonight’s not a good night for this.

Ugh. The problems I was having with Marianne, the next door neighbor of my house in Austin, were weighing heavily on my mind. Over a month had passed since coronavirus cancellations wiped our calendar clean of guests and Marianne was agitating to be paid. Paid for what?! There were no guests. I understood Covid was wreaking havoc on Marianne’s expectations of income and she was stressing out. Now her texts to me were stressing me out. It got bad, too. She would send me streams of texts throughout the day, each one more demanding than the last. My phone was blowing up and my stomach was in knots.

One week prior to the 21st I’d eaten the same amount of chocolate edible and had an interesting thought while lying in bed, lights out. I pondered what I should do about my house in Austin. Things were headed south with Marianne, I could feel it, but at that point didn’t know just how bad it would eventually get. From somewhere in my brain emerged a truth. The right answer was for me to sell my house. All my insanely deep emotional ties to this wonderful house I’d owned for 32 years remained intact, but those emotions sat next to that truth….they didn’t sit on top of it. That was the cannabis effect.

Here I am a week later and spending another evening with this strange new (to me) organic compound. The situation with Marianne has worsened and I’m in need of answers. What truths will emerge this night as the cannabis sprinkles my mind with fairy-dust?

Where I began and where I ended that evening are miles apart. With cannabis’ silent influence, one thought led to three, then three to a dozen more. The avalanche had begun….

————————————————————————

The “Stoner” Brain

One loose-end I still want tied up relates to the part about cannabis getting you lost in thought. No joke, it can be great if you’re doing some mundane chore like cleaning the house or folding laundry, but…. well, it’s all good until it’s not, right? If you are cooking dinner and need to somewhat stay on task, getting lost in thought about why holes in the bottom of the strainer have that particular pattern, may not be what you need at that moment. This is where the term “stoner” enters the conversation.

If you’ve ever dealt with someone while they are truly stoned, you might quickly conclude pot is making them dumb. This is not actually what is happening. They are still as smart (or smarter) than ever, they simply cannot corral their thoughts enough to be relatable during a normal conversation.

When lost in thought, you might forget you left the water running, or that you walked away from the cash register with your cell phone still on the counter. As dosage in your system increases, the faster you will think, the more things you will notice, and the more lost in thought you will become, until a threshold is reached where functioning in the everyday world becomes a “challenge.” If you can’t keep your own thoughts in order, navigating moderately complicated tasks can take on a comical tone. I do not wish to imply it’s a bad or harmful state of mind to be in. One simply needs to be choosy about when and where it’s okay to let yourself “spin out,” a term I think is way more descriptive than getting “stoned.”

For me this is one of the biggest busted myths about cannabis. Based on all of the movies, sitcoms, stand-up routines and personal anecdotes, of course one would conclude it turns your mind into potato salad. The reality is your mind becomes a smorgasbord of thoughts and it’s hard to know which to eat first.

Yrag Returns

I know many of my friends are already on-board the cannabis train (and several cars ahead of me, too), but just as many are not. Will any of my friends read my account and begin to reconsider their own view of cannabis? And what of the blogosphere I am now a part of? It’s a big place and perhaps one of those 100 million anti-marijuana souls out there will stumble upon this post (plus Parts I and II) and think about cannabis just a few degrees differently than before.

There is also a completely different group of people who I would like my story to reach. It’s all the party people that have never considered cannabis an intellectual catalyst. Maybe it was years ago when they last smoked out, got stoned, ate a bunch of snacks, and had Good Times! If that was you, I bet you missed out on the kind of perspective-shifting benefit cannabis offers and that I have now described at great length.

Or, maybe you are like Yrag the alien was….and become a late-bloomer.

Where is young three years ago Yrag? Wait! I see him over there in a bath of unadulterated chocolate bars. “Yrag! Come, let’s talk a bit more.”

“I need you to listen carefully. You’ve been carrying around a whole lot of misconceptions about marijuana for too long already. It’s high time we pry you out of your rut. When you’re truly ready, here’s how to derive the most benefit from introducing cannabis into your life.”

“It sounds like you want me to join a cult,” says Yrag. “But I’m willing to hear you out.”

“That’s good enough for me,” I tell him. “First, go with an edible. From everything I’ve heard and read, edibles have more of that perspective-shifting potential than smoked weed does. It’s also very easy to manage your dosage”

“Okay….edibles. I’m ready.”

“Dude, you won’t be ready for another few years.”

“Whatever. Just tell me what I need to know.” If not impatient, Yrag seems genuinely curious.

“Okay, start with a very small amount, like 3-4 mgs. Do it in the evening when you don’t have much else going on. You don’t have children or other immovable obligations like the majority of people do, but even if you did it wouldn’t matter. Such a small amount will not alter your ability to do anything you normally would.”

‘Next thing… lower your expectations. As we talked about around the dinner table in Part II, you’re unlikely to “feel” anything at those small doses, but trust me, it will be there. The influence of cannabis is so dang subtle. Simply go about your business and see what comes from the experience. You may end up saying, Well, that was a big nothing burger….but I bet you’ll still find you’ve had a productive evening.”

Yrag says exactly what I expect him to, “This idea that you can take a drug but don’t feel anything, still seems strange to me.” He’s such a hard head.

“That’s why I’m telling you, because it’s a common misperception. Okay, last thing and probably the most important… Be patient. It took me 2 ½ years to finally come to an understanding of what pot is and isn’t. Pot is not an earthquake; it’s not one and done. The benefits it offers come slowly over time as small shifts to your way of thinking begin to accumulate; and your mind steadily expands.”

Yrag nods in understanding. “Okay, bro. I appreciate someone trying to explain it like that. But I have one more question…”

“Go for it.”

“Is this one of those things where you can learn about it all day long, but really….you have to live it to get it?”

“Yes it is, young Yrag. Yes it is.”

With that last word, Yrag thanked me, and turned away. In this misty blog-world of time travel and made-up conversations, Yrag was unable to see the purple parrot beneath his next step. He stumbled comically and fell to the ground, hitting his head on a garden gnome. The knock to his noggin did not kill him outright but was just hard enough to make him forgot everything I’d said. [Sigh]

——-

I will end this epic 3-parter with a roughly transcribed quote I heard in a podcast just a couple of weeks after the night of the avalanche. When I heard it, I thought, That’s exactly what happened to me!! It was awesome validation of what I intuitively knew at that point but could not have summarized as well as it’s done here:

Cannabis allows people to gain a greater perspective…gives them the opportunity to step outside the momentum of their own lives and look at things with fresh eyes… and make clearer decisions. This is one of the best things that drugs provide, an escape from the momentum of this life that you’ve created….or found yourself a part of. It’s very difficult for people to stop behavior patterns, to look at themselves objectively, and rethink, regroup, reassess. This is one of the best things about cannabis and a lot of these other drugs. They give you a new-found perspective that allows you to reconsider everything.

Next up, let’s not board this train made of money and politics. It’s going in the wrong direction.

Cannabis for an Alien, Part II

Will my hands tingle? Will my nose feel warm? Will I get a dizzy sensation? What!? How will I know if it’s working? My friends around the table are chuckling at my questions, but also don’t really have any answers for me, either. One person says they sometimes feel a warmth at the base of the skull. No one else concurs.

I was at a dinner gathering with about five or six friends. We’d finished eating and one of the friends popped open a Tupperware container full of “treats.” This was more than a year before I turned 50. Remember, I was still a complete novice at this point…an alien exploring a new planet.

Feeling comfortable enough with where I was in life and with the friends I was with, I boldly agreed to eat a treat.

After downing the sweet treat, I wait. I am not so ignorant about cannabis to not know it takes a while to have an effect. That is when I start asking my totally legitimate questions. The fact that I can’t get a straight answer out of my friends is perplexing. Why doesn’t someone just tell me what it’s like. I feel like my friends must be messing with me. With what I know today, however, I understand why they were unable to hit me with a short answer. Altered states of minds don’t have short answers.

If you know me even 1%, you know I like to explain things. I am sometimes good at it, too. I wonder….how would the person I am today have explained cannabis to my earlier self? If the me of today had been a guest at that dinner– which would be back-to-the-future level cool –the question is what would I have said to Yrag? That’s what I’ll call my former self….Yrag. (pronounced EE-rahg). Yes, I’m quite aware that’s just Gary spelled backwards. But it’s perfect! In those days, at least regarding cannabis, I was indeed quite backwards. So, here is how I would have explained cannabis to young Yrag, alien from the Planet of the Saints.

Kicking In

“First off, Yrag, you keep asking what you’re going to feel. Well, you may not feel anything in particular at all. If you’ve taken a low dose, the mind can be affected without the body feeling anything different…. until the dosage becomes stronger. That’s why you’ll hear a lot of people say they did pot but “nothing happened?” Or, that they “didn’t feel anything?” Well, something was happening…they were simply missing it because of their expectations.”

Yrag asks, “Was what I just ate a low dose or a high dose.” I turn to the friend that brought them. With a shrug, she delivers the most predicable answer ever, I don’t know, everybody’s different.

“Just tell me how I’ll know when it starts kicking in,” says Yrag, glancing at his watch but instantly not remembering what it said.

“Well, it can honestly be hard to tell,” I respond. “…unless the dosage is high enough so that it’s obvious. IAnd if that’s the case, your body might feel a kind of internal vibration all over, not just in your hands. It’ll be nice. But if the dosage is below a certain threshold, again…you may not be able to feel it at all.”

Yrag is getting impatient, “So, if I can’t feel it, I’m back to asking the same obvious question, how will I know it’s doing anything?”

“Well, here’s where it gets tricky and why nobody else at this table has been able to answer you. You might notice few things but they’re all very abstract. For example, your sense of time may start to seem a little off. You’ll start finding yourself lost in thought. And, you’ll probably start noticing things more. Like, ordinary things. Something will catch your attention and you’ll just start thinking about it. You might think, Hmmm, I never noticed these placemats have a scene of the Eiffel tower on them. Were these bought during a trip to Paris? Or maybe just a trip to TJ Maxx. They probably sell these at TJ Maxx. Look how the artist drew all the people wearing yellow shirts. I wonder if that means something. And then you’re like, Wait, what just happened?” I then add, “It can be a little disorienting.”

“Oh geez! Why am I even doing this? Feeling disoriented doesn’t sound like much fun at all.”

“Dude, relax. Just chill and go with it.” I lean back a bit. “Knowing you as well as I do, I think part of the problem is that you’re looking for a science exhibit in an art museum. Or maybe you’re thinking it’s like alcohol. It’s not. Nobody else will tell you this either, but it’s actually not about ‘having fun.’ And anyway, you can’t just do it once and expect to get it. Tonight you’ll have one experience, hopefully a positive one. Then you’ll have an idea for the next time. Stay open-minded and explore. You have to gain some experience with it to know what feels right to you and in what situation.”

Yrag’s listening with his arms crossed. “Well, whatever, I guess I’m in it now. How much longer ‘til I don’t feel anything?” he says critically.

“I said you might but you might not. It depends on the dosage!” Now I’m thinking, Man, this is harder than I thought. “For now, just know this…people like pot because, in one way or another, it simply makes them feel a little better… less stressed, and even a little more appreciative of the world around them. And if you’re curious enough to learn about it, it will probably have the same effect on you.”

——————————–

World Library of Cannabis Knowledge

I may be done with Yrag (for now), but I’m not anywhere near done. And here is why. My perspective on cannabis is genuinely unique. I came from a place of extreme self-imposed prohibition against drugs, as defined by me with the help of Jesus, God, and Ronald Reagan. I am also unique in that my introduction to cannabis began so late in life and was entered into so extremely gradually. Therefore, I am able to explain the effects of cannabis in ways someone who used it early in life and in a very different context, could not. What I have is an outsider’s perspective.

As I talk about cannabis in greater depth, keep in mind that my own personal use of cannabis (so far) has been extremely limited. For starters, I only have things to say about the effects of cannabis at relatively low doses. Also, I don’t smoke it, edibles only. After all my personal trauma around smoking, I’m just not there yet. (When I get there…I’ll blog it.) Finally, I won’t be talking at all about the many reported benefits of cannabis, like the treatment of anxiety, arthritis or epilepsy, or who knows what else. I won’t talk about these things because I don’t know anything about them.

With all that background out of the way, we can finally dive into the nitty-gritty of cannabis. By the time I’m done, you will see how the topic of cannabis becomes both a section of my puzzle and the catalyst that helps me work it.

[Note: Regular cannabis users may find almost nothing I say regarding cannabis particularly interesting. You already get it, but there are still millions of people out there that don’t.]

Does Cannabis Make You Smarter?

Here’s what cannabis does to you in the most non-scientific terms I can think of. It changes how the brain thinks in small and subtle ways, but still manages to have surprisingly powerful consequences. This is because any small shift in how our brain processes incoming information is also a shift in our perspective. Imagine if you wear a pair of glasses that allows you to see everything you look at from above, like having an overhead camera. Your surroundings are exactly the same, but when seen from above, different elements of the scene are noticed. This is what cannabis does, not to your vision, but to your thinking. Routine subjects get a fresh look from the overhead view. It’s kind of like approaching a familiar intersection from an odd direction, it will seem different to you and you will notice new things.

For reasons explained in my previous post about possibly being Jesus [Link], I’ve long had some serious ruts in my way of thinking about drugs and alcohol. A shift in my perspective towards these two things has taken decades to come about. What’s so ironic is that the one drug, marijuana, prohibited by a particularly deep trench in my mind, all along had the enormous potential to free myself from that rut and many more. One of the most popular and readily available drugs out there was all around me, and I could not reach it.

Superpowers

When you are in a cannabis-influenced state of mind, that little shift in perspective is what leads you to notice things with fresh eyes. Simultaneously, cannabis gives your mind permission to explore. Which is how you end up getting lost in thought. This can be a great thing…it can mean focusing your mind on a single train of thought and really exploring it from all the news angles.

Here is the key. These new avenues of thinking made possible by cannabis don’t go away when the effects fade from your system. Once you’ve thought about it, it becomes part of you. This is exactly what is meant when they say marijuana expands your mind. It expands your thinking while it’s with you, and then your mind stays expanded when it’s not.

Taking this a step further… Pattern recognition is one of those things the human mind is particularly well-suited for. With that little fairy-dusting of cannabis on our thinking, more possibilities are considered, and essentially thinking becomes slightly enhanced, like going from regular to HD. You become “smarter.” Yes, I just said that. But don’t get too excited, it’s not like the movie Limitless (with Bradley Cooper), where he takes a pill and it makes him infinitely smart. Even without the Hollywood treatment, however… marijuana definitely moves you in a smarter direction. Who knew?!

One friend described being on cannabis as having a mini “superpower.” Yes, it’s kind of like that.

In Cannabis for an Alien, Part I, I mentioned that time can seem distorted while on cannabis. This happens because one effect cannabis has on your brain is that it marginally “speeds up” your rate of thinking. How literal this is I’m not sure; it could just be the perception. But I tend to believe it’s literal based on the feeling that time slows down. As the brakes come off your thoughts, you will fit more of them into, let’s say…10 seconds of time. Therefore, those 10 seconds will seem elongated. Same goes for a minute, same goes for an hour. More thinking, more pondering, more perspectives, more connections, more of life happens in the same amount of time.

Chocolate Chunk

Vanessa, one of my close friends in Boulder, who does not do pot at all, told me about having smoked it with friends a few times when she was much younger. The handful of times she did it, she felt weird and self-conscious the whole time. Unsurprisingly, she soon concluded it wasn’t for her and that was the end of that…. until late in 2019.

In the second half of 2019, my own comfort around pot was firmer, but still not where it is today. I was eating an edible 2 or 3 times a week, but only when I could count on: a) having the house to myself, b) having nothing important to do, and c) not having to interact with anyone. The amount I would eat was typically a 10 mg chunk of either a chocolate bar or a gummy- both readily available to me at the dispensary down the block. It was cool! I would play the kind of music I’m into, slice up some fruit for a fruit bowl, and simply have a good evening.

One afternoon, Vanessa and I both eat an edible with the plan of just hanging out. This is my first time to eat an edible with the intention of hanging out with someone. But we’re friends and it’ll be kinda this fun experiment. It will be Vanessa’s very first dabble since back in the day, and possibly her very first edible ever. She eats one 10 mg gummy, same as me. Not too long after it kicks in, however… Vanessa is not loving it.

But that is not where her part of the story ends. About a week later, Vanessa tells me she ate half a gummy on her own and got a bunch of stuff done around the house. Hmmm, lower dose and a far better, more productive experience.

There are probably millions of people out there that, like Vanessa, tried pot a few times when they were younger and then stopped because they either consciously decided it wasn’t for them or they “outgrew” it, whatever that means. My take on this common phenomenon is that the doses were typically too high to be useful.

Walter White

A quick word on dosage. Me saying I ate a 10 mg gummy means nothing to the uninitiated. Here, this should help. When you buy a package of gummies from a dispensary, each one typically contains 10 mg. Think of 10 mg like a standard amount in the same way 12 oz is the standard amount of liquid in a can of Coke. You can always drink more or less than one can, of course, the point is that the ubiquitous 12 oz portion has become the baseline soda quantity living (rent free) inside everyone’s head.

For me, 10 mg is a staying in, no obligations, no interactions dose. If I have obligations and interactions ahead of me, I wouldn’t do more than 5 – 7 mg. Even a phone call on 10 mg was not something I was comfortable with for a very long time, not because I’d be talking all crazy and shit, but I might start feeling self-conscious about losing my train of thought. (Hmmm, are there still insecurities within me that need to be protected?)

I would always cut-up my gummies in the kitchen to split the 10 mg dose. I would transfer the little orange, yellow, or green, sugar-coated squares carefully onto the cutting board, reach for a knife from my set, and carefully slice that evening’s gummy into a half or two-thirds. You’d have thought I was Walter White from Breaking Bad. At that point in time, despite being an outspoken advocate for it in thought and conversation, I still owned large fragments of marijuana’s social stigma and I didn’t even know it. That stigma wouldn’t be cleansed completely, by the way, until some time after my tepid exploration of psychedelics had begun in early 2020.

Against Cannabis? Go Punch Coconuts

Up until near 50 I carried a personal prohibition against doing pot. To be super-clear, this personal choice of mine in no way interfered with my enthusiastic support for marijuana as a concept. I truly had no idea what the hell it really was but that didn’t matter. My opinion that it need to be legalized everywhere was based solely on my logical interpretation of the facts surrounding it. For example, pot doesn’t kill anyone, alcohol does. Alcohol is legal, pot is not. Makes no sense!

Also, for one group of adults, lawmakers in this case, to tell everyone else they can’t ingest some plant, again…. Makes no sense! Imagine two people stuck on an island and one of them finds a plant that makes them feel better when they chew on it. But then the other one says, “Hey, buddy, I say you shouldn’t chew on that plant and if I catch you doing it, I’ll lock you up in that cave over there.” If I’m the plant-chewer, I would tell my island-mate to go punch coconuts.

I make this point about being universally in favor of it and personally against it to emphasize just how hardcore my own internal prohibition against pot was. It was definitely not philosophical.

Just Say Yes to Curiosity

What really bugs me today is that the person I was yesterday was so incurious about both alcohol and pot. I feel like I am an intellectually curious person by nature. But my Goody Two Shoes brain had somehow constructed a steel wall in front of these two ultra popular substances. Being curious about them never even occurred to me; these items were on the other side of the wall between good and bad, and I functionally operated only on the good side. My religious upbringing cock-blocked my own freedom of thought.

Another big component of my story (and the story of many others) has to be the media component of Reagan’s War On Drugs. I was in my late teens when Just Say No and This Is Your Brain On Drugs campaigns were all over the airwaves. My mind was already conditioned early by Jesus. The Just Say No media blitz sealed the deal. It was brainwashing with a one-two punch. That’s how I became a man in my 50’s approaching cannabis one eye-dropper drip at a time.

So, while I have always been rational about the need to legalize it, think of all the people out there still clinging to the double-whammy of being opposed to it both personally and legally. Public opinion towards legalizing marijuana is at an all time ‘high’ at around two-thirds. But this still means approximately 100 million people in the US remain brainwashed by the same Jesus, God, and Ronald Reagan that did a number on me. It also means we don’t live in a democracy, but that’s a story I’ll get to later.

What happened to you, 100 million souls? Why are you still against this? Who told you it was wrong or bad? Who closed your mind?

For the love of humanity, legalize it! For the love of yourself, just say no to all the external influences that have suppressed your freedom of thought and stunted even your curiosity.

It took me more than a half-century, but I finally came around.

——–

Learn of Yrag’s eventual fate when Cannabis for an Alien, Part III goes up next week.

Cannabis for an Alien, Part I

Several years ago, mid-morning on a Monday, I receive a text from my friend Ernie. Hey dude, I’m at the hospital. I had to go to the emergency room last night.

Ernie is in his mid-forties and in reasonable shape. But as the doctor explained to him after performing a heart exam, his heart looked like it was in its mid-seventies and not in shape. After this incident, Ernie made some lifestyle changes and he’s fine today.

One interesting little thing from this episode that we laughed about later was what happened at the hospital when they asked him if he smoked, a very relevant question for someone in the emergency room with chest pain.

Cigarettes, no. But Ernie does regularly smoke the devil’s lettuce. And decriminalized or not, we were all living in Texas where pot is illegal. So, when Ernie was in the emergency room bed and a nurse was asking him a checklist of questions, Ernie starts worrying about whether or not he should say that he smoke’s pot or not. He knows at some point that question will be asked. Its not legal, remember.

Towards the end of a substantially long health questionnaire the nurse asks, Do you drink? Ernie tells her yes. How many per week? “Like 2 or 3,” he says. Next question, Do you smoke? He knew the question was referring to cigarettes, but if he needed to tell her about his pot usage, this might be the time. After one last debate in his head, he makes a face like he’s doesn’t want get smacked and confesses, “I smoke weed.”

Ernie has never been in this situation before. His own personal usage is far removed from doctors and hospitals, and authority figures of any kind. Pot is illegal. ILLEGAL! The nurse looks at him and asks a follow-up question, How often? Like a little kid who doesn’t want to get into trouble but thinks he might, Ernie says slowly with his voice rising at the end, “Ev-ery-day..?

The nurse glances at him quickly and does this quick mini-shrug. She doesn’t even add a note to the questionnaire.

The mystery still hanging in the air today is… if it didn’t even matter, why did she want to know how often?

————————————————————-

My Honey Is EXTRA Suweet 😉

2017-2018 were a couple of rough years for me and sleep – falling asleep, staying asleep, sleeping long enough into the next morning -none of these things were happening. In the days, weeks, and months after the break-up, I’m pretty sure what I was going through was normal under the circumstances. It was a 10 year relationship that had ended. We were a great couple in many ways; we’d even gone around the world together. It didn’t matter to my grieving that I initiated our break-up. The emotional path of living through such intense adult themes runs through a dark valley, regardless of how you got there.

I have this one friend in Austin that is known for her superb knowledge of “herbal” remedies, if you know what I’m saying. In 2017, I personally had zero practical experience with marijuana. It was just another one of those things tons of people do that I historically (see previous post) resisted. But since I was having such trouble sleeping and I’ve heard many people use cannabis to help them sleep, I asked my friend what she might suggest to help me.

I tell her that in past rough periods of my life when I’ve had trouble falling asleep, I would drink some Sleepy-Time Tea- the one in the green box that has the bear falling asleep in front of the fireplace. My friend thinks on it for two seconds and comes up with the perfect solution. I leave her place with a jar of honey.

That evening around 9:30 PM, after the water has come to a boil and the grassy-leaved tea bag has soaked for 5-7 minutes, I twist open the jar of honey I’d paid $20 for. It looks just like any other honey, though its scent includes a few molecules of cannabis oil. My friend suggested one teaspoon stirred into my tea so that’s what I did.

I got better sleep that night. And the next night, too.

Drinking the Sleepy-Time Tea before bedtime is as much about the ritual, as it is about any actual effect chamomile and lemongrass has on the mind or body. [me whispering: that’s what Sleepy-Time Tea is- chamomile and lemongrass.] When I begin preparing the tea, I am signaling to my body that bedtime is coming soon. When I drink the tea I am in a comfortable chair. It’s dark except for the light still on in the kitchen; more notes to my body that I am winding down. Adding a teaspoon of cannabis-infused honey to my ritual was simply giving me the extra help that I needed to fall asleep during this challenging post-breakup time in my life.

The mental prohibition against using cannabis I carried into my 50’s was similar to the one I’d had against alcohol up until my 40th birthday. I was the 40 year old alcohol virgin! Let that sink in for a second. In my teens, my 20’s, my 30’s, I never touched alcohol. I didn’t. I wouldn’t. I deferred a thousand times simply saying, “I don’t drink.” A granite conclusion was formed in my head long ago that alcohol was more bad than good, so I wouldn’t drink it. And so I didn’t.

Forty is a threshold-year for birthdays and a natural time for reflection. When I reflected on my reasons for not drinking, the reasons I told myself, at least, all those reasons came back N/A. This was a slight bit of “progress” in my changing and growing as a person, but nothing equal to the transformative moment I am living through now and blogging about today. At forty plus one day, I was still marching down the same corridor as always; this time I was willing to have a drink in my hand.

As the challenging months of 2017 trudged on, I returned to my herbal remedy friend several more times for the jars of honey that were helping me heal by helping me sleep. One day, probably because she was out of honey, my friend suggested I try cannabis in “tincture” form- a tiny bottle of liquid cannabis extract with an eye-dropper for a cap. She warned me it didn’t taste “sweet as honey,” but I took it anyway. On the October day of 2017 when I departed Austin to begin my Reboot, a full mini-bottle of tincture was packed in with the rest of my toiletry items.

Physics 102 and Baby Steps

While living with my friend in Modesto, I took a college-level physics course. Why? I’ve always been very science-minded, and solidly regret not pursuing one of the sciences as my chosen field of study. Become an accountant and you’ll always have a job, is what I heard over and over. They didn’t tell me I’d be miserable and that choosing a course of study out of fear was a bad idea. You hear me people?! NEVER MAKE A LIFE CHOICE OUT OF FEAR!

The two college-level Intro to Physics courses are Physics 101- Motion, and Physics 102- Electromagnetism. I had taken the course on motion roughly 10 years prior and thoroughly geeked-out on it. With my heart set on getting into solar, the time was right for me to tackle electromagnetism, which is essentially the study of electricity.

Here’s really why I’m telling you this. Understanding physics (for me, at least) is a brain buster. It’s the world of atoms, invisible force fields, and the conductivity of everyday substances. To grasp the concepts, I had to mentally dive deep into the material. I was taking a no-joke online physics course taught by a highly sought-after Physics Professor from Rice University. I would spend hours inside the Modesto Junior College library studying my physics course with crazed determination. At night I would wind down for sleep but still be doing mental battles with some of the more challenging homework problems.

At this point in time, my hard break-up happened nearly a year earlier. Even so, I was still not standing on enough firm ground and hadn’t fully regained my ability to sleep like a normal person. Thankfully, my cannabis extract, in the form of that little bottle of tincture, was still there to help. The bottle I’d left Austin with was almost finished, but…being in California where marijuana is legal, I could easily get more. It lasted quite a while with me because I was only taking half an eye-dropper every 3 or 4 days.

Since I was virtually always studying, the nights I fell asleep with the aid of cannabis were the same nights I’d worked through a good deal of physics homework problems. What I noticed was that on cannabis-nights my falling asleep mind was creating wonderful visualizations of the microscopic world. Electrons, for example, could ricochet down a copper wire, knocked off their host atoms by the repulsive forces of electromagnetic energy. I was ever so slowly, so cautiously, so carefully, beginning to experience a small sliver of marijuana’s potential.

Baby steps indeed.

Feeling Funny

My slow trek down Pot Lane that began with the addition of cannabis-infused honey to my Sleepy-Time Tea, was actually predated by three other late-in-life cannabis experiences. Because no one could explain to me how to approach pot, I made the classic mistake of doing too much and only became more confused than ever about why anyone would want to do pot in the first place. Just like on my 40^th birthday, when I relaxed my prohibition against alcohol, I did the same with pot on my 50th. Since I wasn’t even close to overcoming my aversion [see Smoke ‘em If You Want To Live] to smoking a burning anything, I ate a bit of some dessert-type treat with cannabis oil as one of the ingredients.

We reserved two bowling lanes at Speakeasy’s in downtown Austin. Make no mistake, Speakeasy’s in not a bowling alley, it’s a bar. They just happen to have 4 bowling lanes on the second floor just for funzies. The whole set-up is a throw-back to the roaring 20’s, so it makes sense that the bowling lanes do not have electronic scoring; you have to keep score on your own.

We are on the third frame when the edible starts really kicking in. Having no prior experience with pot, all I know is that I start “feeling funny.” It’s my turn to bowl and I become acutely aware that things are different. I throw my next ball down the alley and don’t get a lot of pins. I’m not much of a bowler anyway so this isn’t unusual. But my mind starts rapidly questioning my actions. Did I only hit 3 pins because of the pot? Is the ball taking forever come back to the ball-return, or is it just me? Am I acting weird? After hitting a couple more pins on my second throw, I try to add up my score. But I can’t. I keep losing track and second-guessing my ability to add simple numbers. Someone steps in and I go back to the chairs. Is it getting warm? I tell the friends around me that I may need to skip my turn the next time around.

I leave the cluster of chairs at the end of the alley and find a nearby couch. It’s getting still warmer. Sweat starts accumulating on my forehead. I need to be still. My girlfriend and others are checking on me, the birthday boy. Someone touches my arm. “Whoa, you’re really clammy.” I tell them I am feeling nauseous. Seconds later someone hands me a glass of water. I take a couple of swallows. What is happening? My 50th birthday was supposed to be extra great because I was doing pot for the first time. Instead, it just got weird and awkward for everyone.

One of my two friends that has the most experience with pot suggests I “go get some air.” I walk with both of them, one in front, the other behind, as we wind our way through the night-time crowd of people, down one flight of stairs, into and out of more people, past the two overweight bouncers at the entrance, until we are outside in the cool night air. Once on the street we find a bench to sit on. I feel flushed and discombobulated; the fresh air helps. When I speak, I am in no way incoherent. So, to my pothead friends there to the right of me on that Congress Avenue bench, I say, “I don’t understand why you guys like this stuff.”

If only I knew then what I do now. Cannabis for an Alien, Part II is coming soon.