Maybe you guys can help me out

[Tobin S.]

I am definitely on a unique path. I was raised going to a Baptist church. When I was 16, the atmosphere of the place just seemed oppressive to me and I quit going. A few years later I would start dabbling in drug culture and I also started reading up on eastern philosophy. I went insane when I was 20 and did not emerge from that hellish experience until I was 30. Since then I went from being an agnostic to being an atheist. I'm back to being an agnostic again. But all through that time I never stopped searching for answers to life's big questions. And now I have some big questions for you guys.

I just read a book called Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey Into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck. The book is about shamanic cultures and the drugs they use to enter the spirit world. It's also about Pinchbeck's personal journey with other psychedelic drugs. The reason the book interested me is that I became insane shortly after a particularly bad LSD trip. The book is very good and there is also a web site devoted to it at www.breakingopenthehead.com I read the book looking for answers and I got some. But it also raised some more of those big questions for me and I wrote to the author on the chance that he might be able to help me out. And now I'm going to look to you guys for some ideas. Below is the e-mail I wrote to Pinchbeck. I'd appreciate any feedback that you might have and feel free to take a crack at the big questions. :)

Hi Daniel,

I hope this e-mail reaches you. It's been a long time since Breaking Open the Head came out. I just found the book a few days ago at a used book store and I wish I would have found it at the time it was originally published. I was just starting to recover from some serious trauma at the time and my ten year other-worldly journey was still fresh in my raw mind. But it's something that I'll never completely forget and I still have questions from that time. Maybe you can help me out with an answer or possibly point me in the right direction.

I will try to keep this brief, I'm not going to write a book here, but I will need to go into a little detail to give you a good idea of what happened to me.

It was early 1993 and I was 20 years old and attending college. I had become bored with school. I was a good student with a 3.5 GPA, but as I was drawing close to my junior year I still could not decide on a major. For some reason that I forget now, I started reading up on psychedelic drugs. I was considering psychology for a major and maybe I had run across Leary or Alpert in one of my text books, but I can't remember. The adventures of those psychedelic icons made me want to start my own investigation, and I did.

I had taken LSD one time before when I was 17. I guess it was some low grade stuff because it didn't really do a whole lot to me. I had a bit of a buzz, I was seeing trails a little bit, and at one point the walls and ceiling started to appear like some liquid that was rippling. I still knew the guy that had given me the stuff and I got into contact with him to see if I might be able to try it again. It turned out that he was well stocked with some blotter that he said was very good.

So one night I went over to his place to start my adventure. You mentioned in the book that set and setting are very important to the psychedelic trip. I have also seen that elsewhere and I think I was conscious of the idea when I went over to my friend's place. We were in the finished basement of his parents' home which he had converted into a little apartment. I trusted the guy and felt safe there. We were in a comfortable setting. I had a couple of beers to get nice and relaxed. He showed me what he had. It was just some white blotter with no printing on it. He said it was strong and asked me how much I wanted. I told him two hits without really understanding what I might be getting into. He took the same dosage and we dropped at the same time. Then we kicked our feet up, turned on some music, and waited for something to start happening.

It was a horrible trip for me. For the first few hours it was an incredible high. I wasn't seeing much in the way of visions, just the trails that I had experienced before, but the buzz was amazing. I had taken the drug thinking that I was going to go to heaven and I looked to be headed that way. Then I promptly went to hell. And I stayed there for ten years.

I dropped out of college shortly after the trip and moved out of the house. At 23 I was hospitalized for being suicidal. They prescribed an anti-depressant for me and sent me on my way. What I was experiencing was full blown psychosis and I don't know how they missed that. I was hearing voices, I was paranoid, I was detached from reality, I was filled with hate, nobody understood me. I would live in that hell until I was 29 when I was hospitalized again for being suicidal. They gave me the bipolar diagnosis that time. The medication they prescribed knocked down my psychosis, but it also made me very sluggish and tired all the time. I was sleeping 15 hours a day. So I stopped taking the medication thinking that now that I knew what reality was I could hold onto it by myself. Bad idea. I was back in the hospital for the same reason again by the time I was 30.

That was the last time. They gave me a diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder, a combination of bipolar and schizophrenic symptoms, and started me on some new drugs. They brought me out of my hellish existence and into the reality that most people experience without any side affects. Compared to what I had been through it seemed like heaven. I was the happiest person on the psych ward.

On June 5 of this year I will have lived 8 years symptom-free. The strongest drug I take now, besides my medication, is a few beers here and there. I haven't taken psychedelics at all in that time. I drive a truck for a living now locally here in Richmond, Indiana. I have a nice home where I live with my fiancee. Everything is going good for me as far as the American way of life goes, but a question still lingers.

What happened to me?

Was it bad karma? I think I would have had to have been Hitler in my previous life to go through the torment that I went through. Brain damage? From what I can gather, LSD doesn't cause biological damage. You mention in your book that the only real danger LSD can cause a person is the unveiling of an underlying psychotic illness, but how does that work?

You also mention in your book that many Indians in South America view physical illnesses as originating in the soul. Is mental illness a physical problem or a spiritual one? According to them my problem should be treated spiritually. I would love to be truly healed of this illness. Is it possible that a shaman could do that for me? If so, where would I find the right person?

Is it possible that I attracted the wrong kind spirit on my acid trip 18 years ago and it has latched onto my psyche like a parasitic soul?

I would love to be able to embark on a psychedelic journey again. I want to see these other worlds you speak of, but I don't think it's in the cards for me anymore, at least not through the use of drugs. But I would love to be rid of this illness that I have and the associated medication. Is it possible?

Tobin