Purple Haze
Once again I found myself alone. Alone beside my husband. Rusty. We tripped all night with Sandy and Jim and when we all said good night, Rusty and I laid on the floor with a bed made of blankets while Sandy and Jim retired to her bedroom. Rusty drifted off quickly but my mind was still working at full speed which meant - no sleep. I was thinking how we are always alone with our thoughts. No one can really be with us one hundred percent. Rusty was with me, but yet, he was not. He could not be inside my mind. And at that moment, my mind was filled with exploding fireworks displaying brilliant colors. Now that was cool once upon a time, but I was bored with it. The novelty had worn off and I just wanted to go to sleep.
Sandy was my roommate in college and Jim was someone we met as a neighbor. We introduced the two and they hit it off instantly. Sandy was a tall, thin, blonde woman, beautiful and intelligent. She was a concert pianist and music teacher. Jim was very handsome with brown hair that fell over one side of his forehead. He worked selling high-end cars and made quite a nice living for himself. They were both brilliant conversationalists, so we always talked late into the evening. Jim was a Sagittarius , like myself, and philosophy simply rolled off this tongue.
Rusty and I met in high school. Rusty was a Leo, my perfect match, astrologically. I was head cheerleader, a short, blue-eyed blonde. Very straight. No drugs. No sex in the back seat. I was more athletic than he. He was more technically minded. He was one of the best looking guys in school, as far as I was concerned. His hair was almost black and his eyes were a sincere hazel green. He was in a fraternity and I was a sorority girl. He was a little shy, but asked me out with no trouble at all and I loved the way he kissed. I melted in his arms right from the start.
When he graduated from high school, he joined the Coast Guard and worked as a Quartermaster, or a navigator, learning the positions of the stars using a sextant, as well as various other instruments to locate the position of the ship and any oncoming traffic. He came home from time to time and charmed me with his knowledge of the constellations. Lying in the grass we would stare up at the stars and he would point out the most brilliant ones in the sky. After two years, Rusty returned to the mainland (poor thing was stationed in Hawaii) and we married, having a huge wedding, as was the tradition in the South, 300 people, 7 bridesmaids, a beautiful off-white silk dress, decorated with pearls and crystals and fitting snugly to my body. We spent our honeymoon in New Orleans during the first week of Mardi Gras, then I left college and moved with him near his base on Dolphin Island in Southern Alabama.
When his service was over, we moved to Auburn, Alabama where he was studying Veterinary Medicine at the University. I worked as a secretary and went back to school to study Philosophy. We would come back to Birmingham from time to time and visit friends and at the same time we were starting to smoke a lot of pot and drop acid. Things were starting to change. We were home from Auburn that weekend, ready to free our minds and get to the place of happiness where love was the only thing that was real. That evening, as we tripped with Sandy and Jim, something was different in an astonishing way. The acid we took was incredibly pure and giving us all hallucinations we had never experienced before.
Jim noticed it first and said, “Do you see the angels surrounding us? Tilt your head backwards a little and close your eyes half way and allow them to come in to your vision.” We thought, ok, why not? So collectively we sat around in a circle on the floor with no lights but candlelight and did as he said. It didn’t take long until I could see these heavenly creatures surrounding us with love and affection. Their bodies were transparent and luminous and I was stunned into stillness as they hovered above us and between us, moving in and out. Then, in an instant, they disappeared and I saw the entire universe with the planets revolving around the sun and the stars shining benevolently, all filled with compassion and love and in the next instant, it was gone! Apparently, I was the only one of the four of us who saw the universal vision, and it was so brief I was not sure I actually had seen it.
When it was over, we all fell backwards on the floor, starring at the ceiling wondering what just happened. We talked for hours, each of us trying to describe our own take of the vision until we were so tired that our eyes were beginning to close on us even though our minds were filled with amazement. Gradually we decided to give it up to the comforts of sleep and went our separate ways.
As we laid on the floor, I could hear Sandy and Jim laughing, tumbling around on the bed and springs squeaking. I had been married now for three years and sex was not in the forefront of Rusty’s mind. Besides, I never felt horny on acid, so I wondered how they could get it on. I was a little jealous, but realized their new fascination with each other. Anyway, I was really tired and the thought of sex melted away with the next thought flowing in. We had partied long into the evening, taking a hit of LSD called Purple Haze. It was sweet and mellow and gave the most wonderful gifts with it’s gentle lavender glow!
Jim turned us on at a party around six months previous to this night. “You guys are gonna LOVE this! Its Mescaline! It’ll make you laugh and see colors. We’re having so much fun! Come on and try it!” We were a little afraid but everyone at the party was affirming Jim’s declaration. “It’s fantastic” they all said. “People have been lying to us all along. There are no bad effects! It’s all been a lie! This stuff is great!” So, expecting only to listen to the Grateful Dead’s new album and smoke some pot, Rusty and I looked at each other and said, “Should we?” Overwhelmed by the atmosphere and happiness of everyone around us, we decided to go for it. Jim pulled out some little pink tablets we later came to know as Pink Microdot, not mescaline at all, but LSD! We swallowed them with some soda and sat back and smoked a little pot. As we laughed and talked and listened to the Grateful Dead album Charlie brought, we began to feel the acid ‘coming on’ as we became light headed and giggly. Then gradually, I felt as if my whole body was glowing with a light that produced an amazing bliss. We sat around in a circle on the floor and our laughter started to increase as we joked about the effect of the drug as well and the ridiculous structure of the society we lived in and all of our illusions. We laughed until tears were running down our faces and we were in complete ecstasy, literally rolling on the floor! Jim said, “Watch this.” He waved his arm across the sky and we saw not only one arm but thousands of arms following in perfect unison behind the first, synchronized in a beautiful flow. Brilliant colors were everywhere we glanced!
At one point, Jim encouraged us to get up and go outside. The trees were dancing as we stood outside on the balcony! They were not only dancing, but they were sending out love beyond any comprehension. “Look at that,” I exclaimed. “The telephone poles are even dancing!” We were spinning around in circles, dancing alone instead of with each other and it seemed as if all our insecurities left us instantly. We did not need the approval of anyone in the group. We were at one with ourselves and with each other.
When I went to the bathroom, I looked in the mirror at my makeup and was astonished! “What the hell is this stuff?” I thought. It looked so artificial. Mascara was running down my face and my eyes were the size of saucers. I didn’t understand what I was feeling, but knew something was unnatural here and at the same time, I felt so natural inside. So I washed my face, kicked off my heels and rejoined the group. We laughed about literally everything in our world wondering why we were born in such illusion and were amazed at how the LSD brought us clear vision instantly. As the night moved on, conversations began to get deep while we were all still feeling something amazing.
We discussed the lyrics of the Dead’s new album and talked about a different type of lifestyle and purpose. We stared at each other and professed that we could see each other’s aura. We saw everything was love and light and pure bliss. The feeling I got from the acid was one of incredible ecstasy, self-satisfaction and happiness. I thought I had truly tapped into the truth of the universe and I never wanted to go back to the world of material pursuits ever again. I knew instantly that this feeling is how we are all meant to be naturally, but for some reason that truth was covered in our sober reality. How could I keep this feeling forever, I thought? I felt truly blessed to have found this little pink pill and knew that this would be the start of a whole other lifestyle based on love rather than money.
After hours of laughing, dancing, talking and listening to music like I never it before, we decided to drive up to the mountain and watch the sun rise as our high slowly subsided. It was like seeing the sun for the first time, so humbling, so filled with love and color and compassion that I was grateful beyond words for the experience. We were coming down from the amazing high by that time, so Rusty and I decided to go home.
We were staying at my parent’s house because we were home from college, and they had an extra bedroom. When we arrived at their home, they were awake, having just finished breakfast, Saturday morning. We walked in the door and my parents looked surprised. I thought they knew we were on drugs! In that state of consciousness I thought everyone knew, not only that we were tripping, but knew the truth we just discovered. I thought they could see we were different in some way. Drugged. Guess a little paranoia kicked in. But that was crazy. Of course they had no clue, even though our eyes were dilated, extremely glassy and we couldn’t wipe the smile off our faces to save our life. They were clueless. We hit the bed, slept most of the day and realized that our life had changed forever! Those little pink pills filled our hearts with love and for a moment I even thought we should slip one in my folks iced tea. Wow! That would have been a mistake! As we later found out, not everyone is open and accepting to the truth that acid would produce. Still today, some people simply don’t want to know the things we discovered that night as we found a new lifestyle in Jim’s living room.
But, back to the floor with Rusty while Sandy and Jim were in the bedroom. It must have been around five thirty or six in the morning and I still couldn’t drift off to sleep. We had taken the hit of Purple Haze around 7 pm the night before and talked and laughed and played and danced for hours. But now things were quiet. Sandy and Jim were asleep, I guessed. Rusty was asleep next to me and there I was, lying awake, sleepless, paint buckets of color exploding in my mind, over and over again. I tried to dissolve them into nothingness in order to melt into a deep sleep, but they kept bursting and exploding, over and over again like fireworks in red, blues, bright yellows and hot pinks until I just gave up. I’m really tired of this shit, I thought. With every good thing, something bad always comes along with it. And the bad for me that night was that I couldn’t go to sleep, and my body was tired from all the dancing and spinning, laughing and letting those tears of joy flow. This trip was getting old! I was so tired and yet my mind was projecting brilliant technicolor. I appreciated the beauty of the colorful fireworks and was amazed at God’s creation, but I just wanted to sleep. Finally, I thought to myself, Ok God, if this is what you want for me, I’ll just watch these fucking colors explode in my mind all morning and ‘go with the flow’. I’m tired of trying to control it, so, whatever you want, you can do with me.
And that’s when it happened. . . . . .
Drifting slowly at first but then moving at breakneck speeds, I began a ride through a sort of ‘Tunnel Experience’ journey, but not like those you’ve heard about from people who have near death experiences and move through a tunnel seeing all their past relatives and friends. It was something completely different. I did see friends and relatives, but in a completely different context. I saw myself. I saw myself go through my past 100 lives, one after another as if each life were only moments in the grand scheme of things. But even though my ‘self’ was moving like a freight train, I viewed every second of each life as if I were watching a movie, hanging on every word. If you ever saw the movie “Defending Your Life” with Meryl Streep and Albert Brooks, it was like visiting the ‘Past Lives Pavilion,’ but way more realistic. Their journey was made up of funny experiences with Lancelot and cannibals. My journey was about self-realization, things done that hurt other people, right and wrong choices and the reasoning that kept me imprisoned in a material body. As I experienced the review of my lives, I was simultaneously aware that others go through the same experience at death and that this thing didn’t just happen to me. It happens to everyone at some point in time as a matter of evolution! And I seemed to understand and know what this experience was all about. I also knew the number of 100 was real and everyone who experienced this remembered their past 100 lives, not 10 or 25 or 69, but 100.
At the end of the journey, there was an abrupt stop and I was facing three Very Large Demigods (or somebodies). I didn’t know who they were at the time. Still don’t. All I knew is that they possessed the power to move me along to the next dimension. They were filling the sky or the space in front of me, their bodies adorned with golden ornaments and golden crowns sparkling with beautiful bluish light reflecting off of all the gold. They were smiling sweetly with great compassion and speaking with no words but communicating something where words were not necessary. It was some sort of psychic communication as they said, “You see, referring to my past hundred births, you do understand why you have to go back, don’t you? We know you are trying hard and we wish we wish you were ready to move on, but you are not yet ready. That illusion you just once again remembered, allows you to make the effort and take the journey necessary to reach the goal. We love you but you will have to go back, go back, go back, go back, go back” and they disappeared from my mind as I found myself feeling extreme regret and sadness. But that was not all I was feeling. I was astounded and amazed and understood myself to be quite fortunate to have just been given a gift so extraordinary only a self-realized soul could understand.
The pain I felt of regret I realized was the real pain of death. We fear death because we fear not existing anymore, but we do not understand the pain. The pain is not physical at all. The physical pain lasts for only a few seconds. The pain is not from your head being cut off or a heart attack, a car accident, cancer or anything else. The pain is from regret because when we see our past lives, we see our illusion. We see that life after life we have made the same mistakes and have not changed, not evolved. The pain is from realizing this wonderful and special human life was given to us and we sometimes simply waste it away. And another thought, again from “Defending Your Life,” (those Demigods, as I saw them, were portrayed as Judges in the film but I didn’t have a chance to defend my life at all. The conclusion was obvious and unchallenging!) I was going back. I was going to take birth again in the material world and take another body. There was nothing I could say or do to stop it. It was happening in that very moment.
Screaming from my heart but not from my mouth, this tormented soul shouted “no, no, no, no, no” as I lost all consciousness and everything went black. The next thing I knew, I was aware that I was somewhere else. Where? I was inside the womb of my new mother! I was cramped, being pushed around and nibbled on by something, and was so extremely miserable that I was praying, “Please Lord, please let me out of here and I promise, this time I’ll do it. I promise, this time I’ll do it.” Over and over again I prayed to get out of that hellish situation. (If Yamaraja was the God of Death like a warden in a prison, then the womb is definitely one of his prison cells.) I was in full knowledge of the absolute truth in those moments, or months, and simultaneously knew everyone else was also completely aware in that cramped womb, if they were fortunate. That awareness is the strangest feeling. You know everything! You are aware of all the 100 past births you remembered on your way out of your last body. You were aware of all those 100 human lifetimes previous to this one, when you were consciously begging for mercy to get out of that womb. The agony was unbearable!
At last, I felt an incredible pressure pushing me and something squeezing me that was so painful I felt like I was losing consciousness until . . .
I was out of the womb and into the world!
The womb opened like a cracked egg with a baby bird peeking its head out of the shell. Pushing with great difficulty and feeling like I was screaming, “Get me out of here!”, I struggled to escape the womb. The light against my eyes as my head pushed through the cervix of my mother was bright and caused me to squint. I was free, but surprisingly, I did not feel the joy I was expecting! I was not happy now that I was out of the womb. I prayed to God to let me out and thought I would be happy if I just got out, but things went from bad to worse! Why? Why? Why? Because the memory of the promises made to the Lord of my life, began to fade. The knowledge of my past 100 births began to dissipate in my mind and I once again screamed within my soul, “No, no, no, no, no! I don’t want to forget!”, but it was too late. The memory of what I promised faded as quickly as did the 100 births I experienced in that tunnel and in the womb. I was covered by illusion! My heart was broken and I cried and cried as the people surrounding me looked down and were so happy to see me, though I was incredibly sad.
I knew instantly from the experience that the reason a child cries when it is born is because of the loss of that memory. We are thrust into ignorance once again in that very moment. I was thrust into the ignorance of forgetfulness. Illusion fully engulfed me as I lost all my tears and became happy instantly with all the smiles surrounding me, hands caressing me and touching me with kindness. Completely ignorant, or ‘thick as a brick’ as I like to call it, I stopped crying and sucked my thumb. The illusion was complete.
Dream, Hallucination or Reality?
There is something here that needs to be clarified. It may have seemed impossible, but it was Real. What happened was not an LSD hallucination, although it was definitely induced by the mind-altering drug meant to put me in an altered state of consciousness. It was an anamnesis experience, not a dream. What happened was, a connection to my memory or sub-conscious was opened, triggered by the acid and God, I supposed. What happened was a pure anamnesis experience. The acid itself would not have the ability to create that accurate of a vision. This was a memory!
I REMEMBERED dying, being in the womb and taking birth. I didn’t dream about it. And just as in hypnosis, memories can be triggered, so my memory was triggered by LSD. Vividly!
One study I heard about regarding LSD in the seventies explained that acid destroyed concept patterns within the brain. That made perfect sense to me because for a person who experimented with the drug for any length of time, he or she began to see the world in a whole different light. I was one of those people and I was often amazed at the great illusion we were all in. So LSD does things we have never really even investigated for any length of time to understand it’s possibilities. Dr. Richard Alpert and Timothy Leary were on the path to explore its potential, but were cut short by people in this world who intended we stay in illusion, stay consumers. But LSD could definitely transport you to other places. So why not trigger deeply repressed memories? A process of Rebirthing, was done in the seventies, and was known to trigger birthing memories as well, so why not LSD? All I know is that I remembered!
And as time went by, I discovered both ancient as well as recent civilizations used mind-altering drugs for enhancing consciousness and inducing memories. American Indians used Peyote or mushrooms, Indians from Peru used Ayahuasca. Many cultures used ganja or pot for their meditation and awakening and even in ancient Egypt, it appeared that the blue lotus created an altered state of consciousness helping initiates to connect with the deepest forms of truth in order to transcend this earthly adventure and enter the kingdom of the stars.
But why me? Why was I allowed to access that memory when so few have professed to remember? Maybe I did something in my past life, or past so many lives, to start a process of questioning my existence. I don’t remember those past lives now, so how am I to know. As a child of around five I remember sitting in the back seat of my parent’s car with my sister and my parents were, of course, in the front seat. I remember thinking, “Who are these people? What am I doing here with them?” I thought, or more realistically felt, something I used to call a ‘toothpick feeling’. I felt insignificant, misplaced, in the wrong body with the wrong people surrounding me. I still feel that way, and I’ve never felt I belonged in this world. I was scared in school, afraid of other kids, afraid of my teachers and confused about what I was supposed to be doing. My mother accurately categorized and nicknamed me ‘a scatterbrain’ because I was always in some sort of daze, not really down to earth. That shit, when your own mother belittles you, will do terrible things for your self-esteem!
Anyway, I was shocked when I came back to external consciousness from the experience that morning at Sandy’s apartment only to find Rusty sleeping next to me. I gently moved his shoulder a little to see if he was waking and said, “Rusty, do you remember?” “Remember what?”, he said. “Do you remember what it is we are supposed to be doing?” “Yeah, we’re supposed to be sleeping,” he said. “Anyway, what are you talking about?”, and he rolled over and went back to sleep.
I laid back on the floor again and stared at the ceiling. What was that? What was it? What am I supposed to be doing? If I try, surely I can remember. I’ll just lay here and let it come back to me like remembering a dream. And funny, most of the experience was very transparent, but I could not for the life of me remember what it was I was supposed to be doing. What did I promise? I was completely disturbed as I got up and went to the bathroom. I looked in the mirror searching for something, anything that might give me a clue as to what had just happened. What I experienced was real and I knew it, but I didn’t understand it at all. As I looked in the mirror, I searched for any answer in my eyes. Maybe, I thought, if I stare in these eyes, I will remember who I am and what I am supposed to be doing. But nothing happened. My eyes didn’t talk back. They were as dumfounded as I was and I was in shock!
I left the apartment and walked around outside as the sun was coming up and the sky was moving its clouds with different shades of pink and lavender and gold on that April morning. The dew was on the grass and was reflecting the morning sun. I bent down to take a drop on my finger, like it might be the nectar from a honeysuckle flower and I tasted it with curiosity. I sat down in that dew-covered grass and realized I was completely alone. Again. I knew at that moment that no one could ever know what I now knew. But at the same time I thought, someone must know! There must be someone who has experienced the same thing. Why did this happen to me? Who am I to get this realization? I was a nobody.
As the sun began to rise in the sky, I went back into the apartment and sat silently as I watched Rusty sleep. Finally, Sandy came out of her bedroom yawning and went to the bathroom. “Oh, you’re awake,” she said and I said, “Yeah,” feeling weird, thinking, You’ll never know exactly how awake I am! Gradually everyone woke and stretched and laughed about the previous night and discussed the possibility of getting some breakfast. And that was that. I cautiously asked everyone, “What do you think happens at the time of death?” Sandy and Jim made jokes about it laughingly saying something like, “In my case, I’ll be running from the devil, full speed ahead.” I tried to talk about it, but no one seemed very interested. The night before was the time for deep discussions about profound experiences and no one wanted to talk about anything heavy the next morning. The trip was over. So we separated and Rusty and I headed home while the two lovers did whatever they were going to do that day. I was deeply emerged in my experience as I continued to look in the mirror and wonder what the hell just happened! Who was I and what the hell was I doing on this planet and how the hell would I ever discover the truth.
As we drove home I tried to explain the experience to Rusty, but it was like talking to a wall. He couldn’t relate and I could understand. How could he? He wasn’t there! And I was confused! I experienced something amazing on Purple Haze and was realizing again that I was alone.