As long as LSD is illegal users will worry about being arrested. This shouldn't be a problem if you keep the following things in mind; (1) you should not let anyone in who is not a part of the original crimp; (2) if you come into contact with an outsider he will not know you're high. It's not obvious to him the way it is to you — you don't have to make explanations; (3) even if he suspects you're high he can't prove it; (4) simply being high is not grounds for arrest. If it will make you feel safer, make sure there are no drugs in the house.

A fifth thing people worry about in sessions is whether their companions are playing some sort of trick on them. They are are "paranoid" feelings you hear about. You may think your friends are looking at you strangely or that their words have hidden meanings. The knowledge that you have chosen your session mates from among people that you trust, and that the paranoid feelings are a common occurrence on LSD should be enough to keep you from getting too embroiled in these fantasies. Think of something nice about your friend and he will look rather less menacing.

Basically there is really nothing to be afraid of in the session. This will be clearer if you analyse the situation as follows: Suppose you didn't take LSD, but just decided to get together with a few friends and sit and think for 16 hours with occasional conversation. You might get bored, but you'd be in no special danger. In the LSD session, the external situation is just the same as the one described. The only difference is in what's going on in your nervous system. Your body chemistry has been changed in such a way that for 16 hours you will experience and think very differently from the way you usually do. But that can't hurt you. The next morning you will wake up pretty much your old self except that a very unusual 16 hours will have been added to your life experience.

If one of your session-mates is playing "Get me out of this" do not tell him you will bring him down, and do not offer to get him a doctor or an antidote. Do remind him that the experience is transient if that's what he's worried about, and do assure him of your support.

Four other games ("Baby," "Couch," "Drunk," and "Let's' have an orgy") overlap to some extent and have at their common root an attempt to evade responsibility in the session.

Evasion Games

On LSD there is no excuse for such games. Consciousness is heightened, not clouded, and there is no particular impairment of muscular coordination, beyond, perhaps, some initial dizziness. If you get into any of the following games you'll know it's your own fault, whatever you may let others think.

(1) "Baby" is where a session participant acts helpless and expects others to look after him. He communicates only in monosyllables or meaningless noise, wants others to pay attention to him and fetch him food and water. I suppose Freudians would call this "regression to the oral stage." If you play "Baby", you will miss the joy of sharing the experience with your friends. Besides you will feel like a fool later, and nobody is likely to want to turn on with you again.

(2) "Couch" is where you decide the session was made for your personal psychoanalysis and start telling whoever will listen all about your childhood traumas and current neuroses.

Now a degree of self-exposure in a session is good. As you see through some of your phobias and hang-ups you feel elated and want to tell somebody, and you often find that your friends have been hung up on the same petty thing that you have, and you laugh over it together and enjoy the feeling of relief.

Playing "couch" is another matter. Pouring forth your entire stream of consciousness out loud is not honesty, it's an attempt to monopolise attention, and it also tends to keep your mind in a rut, shutting ou new ways of looking at your problems.

(3) "Drunk": the person who plays to try to avoid any existential encounter in the session by reducing it all to silliness. He knows that anything he may be experiencing is "only the drug" so he's not about to let it move him. He giggles and snickers incessantly, moves with exaggerated clumsiness, and generally acts the buffoon. The trouble with the person who plays "Drunk" is that he won't leave room for anything else. Nothing can be sacred to him. He can't say anything sincere without immediately qualifying it with a nonsensical or cynical remark. Often he shows that he thinks of his "indulgence" in LSD as a dissipated or naughty thing to do. In other words he does everything he can to shield his little ego from the impact of LSD by pretending that he is just on a drunk. He cheats himself and brings his companions down.

(4) "Let's Have an Orgy" is like "Drunk", only worse. At one of my first morning glory sessions there was a boy _ who kept stamping the floor nervously insisting "Let's put on some records and have a bloody party" — somewhat to the confusion of others, who, just feeling their way into this new state of consciousness, were not at all in the mood for a party but wondered whether they were being party poopers for not going along with their demands.

Some people faced with the strange and disquieting initial effects of LSD, respond by flinging themselves into a frantic pursuit of sensual pleasure. It is a kind of way of playing "Get me out of this" without the streaming. And like "Baby" and "Drunk" it draws on the cultural association of drugs with irresponsibility and wild behaviour. To help convince himself, the player usually tries to draw his companions into the game. The forced nature of this behaviour is obvious when you realise that LSD actually decreases, at its peak virtually eliminates, physical cravings. Loud music, food, sex games, jumping around, can do little to comfort the person whose real problem is that he wants to drown out his thoughts.

If one of your session-mates is playing this game, do not feel that you have to play it with him in order to be a good sport. Sit quietly and encourage him to do the some. The real pleasures of the session, including the sensory, come without seeking them, without straining, without doing anything.

Your companions will notice any absence very soon. Time passes slowly for them — even a ten minute absence can seem like an hour. Yon are in a state where you are easily distracted. Once you wander off there's no telling when you'll get back. And all the while your companions can think of little else than "Where's Harry? Is he all right? Shouldn't we send somebody to look for him and make sure?"

You may feel that of course you're all right and it's silly for them to worry. Nevertheless they will and this is quite natural. There is still a certain amount of distance between you and the unbedrugged world. Your friends aren't sure but that you could get into some kind of trouble. It seems us though you've been gone for an awfully long time.

In the second place, you are confusing categories if you think that seeing as much as possible during a session means wandering around and seeing as many physical places and things as possible. The trip is internal. Moving around and seeking a large variety of external stimuli is only a distraction.

A third reason is that people who are going through a session together form a small community. Staying together helps keep everybody turned on, by mutual reinforcement. You would find that people outside are not so easy to comunicate with, not having been through this very intense experience with you and your friends. Your friends need you to help maintain the group feeling, and you need them. So stay together. This doesn't mean you should shut yourself off from your non-psychedelic friends — but there will be time enough to see them when you're not high.

If another member of the group pulls a Where's Harry? on you, do not send a person who's high after him, as this will just change the game into one of Where Are Harry and Bill? If there is someone there who hasn't had any LSD, you can send him to find Harry and try to persuade him to come back, or at least make sure he's o.k.

The feeling that you know just what is going on in somebody else's mind, or that they are thinking the same thing you are thinking, often occurs in sessions. Sometimes you're right and sometimes not. The question whether actual telepathy takes place during sessions (or at any other time) is a controversial one. But one thing is certain: at least sometimes when you think you know what your companion is thinking, you are definitely mistaken.

Verbal attempts to establish whether your effort at mind-reading has been successful are most unsatisfactory when conducted during a session. This is because verbal exchanges under LSD consist of about one-tenth words and nine-tenths innuendo. Unfortunately, the innuendo which the speaker intends to communicate, or thinks h has communicated, is often very different from what the listener thinks he meant. The result ranges from hilarious confusion to paranoid suspiciousness and annoyance.

Facial expressions are not an adequate indicator of thoughts either, because you can see them distorted, and can project your own feelings onto them.

An unfortunate byproduct of the game of "Mind reader" is that the player may feel let-down and betrayed when his companion fails to act on the understanding which the "Mind reader" erroneously thinks has been reached. Or the "Mind reader" may become paranoid when he thinks he perceives hostile thoughts in his companions. Also, he may confuse his companions if he adopts an "I know what you're thinking" or "You know what I mean" attitude. The companion wonders desperately how to respond in this situation where he is in the impossible position of not knowing what his friend thinks he knows his friend thinks.

The rules to follow in order to avoid these hang-ups are (1) Don't assume that you know what your companions are thinking, even if it feels that way; (2) Don't assume that they know what you are thinking; (3) Avoid extended conversation during the peak of the session. Do not try too hard to make sure that you understand what one another are saying; if this effort becomes too involved, give it up and have a period of silence; (4) When you do speak, speak literally rather than figuratively, in brief concrete sentences; (5) If asked a question, give a literal, straightforward answer.

If you wish to experiment with ESP during a session this should be agreed upon by the members beforehand. Like other scientific tests, this is best postponed until you have had several experiences with LSD.

Novices in LSD sessions sometimes become convinced that they know the answers to all the mysteries of life and the universe. The very people who are most dogmatic about this are often the most confused and perplexed around hour seven when they are returning to ordinary consciousness.

Go lightly. There are valid insights to be had in the psychedelic state, but their value lies in their applicability to daily life. Remember that you are in a transient state, and think of how you can put your insights to work to help you lead a better, richer life in your ordinary consciousness. Do not force your ideas on your companions. There is nothing wrong with expressing your thoughts, but you should respect the fact that your companions have thoughts of their own.

If you ever feel that you have all the answers you may be sure that you don't — no matter how many sessions you have had.

"Let's Call It A Day"

"Let's Call It A Day" is the commonest of session mistakes, and perhaps the one least deserving of being called a game, since it so often results from ignorance, rather than from any dishonesty or evasion. It is simply the attempt to terminate the session too early.

An LSD session lasts at least 12 hours, more often 16. But between the fourth and sixth hours the intensity of the experience drops sharply and the remaining hours are a kind of levelling out. This time has sometimes been called the "re-entry period." The re-entry period retains the accelerated thoughts of the earlier part of the session, with somewhat more visual distortion and somatic sensations, and less of the euphoria and flexibility of mood. It feels a lot more like the normal state than the earlier hours, but it is not the normal state. Most people who have not been told otherwise assume that the session is over when they reach this point around the fifth hour and try to go back to everyday activities, go out, eat dinner or try to sleep.

This is a mistake, because rushing back to everyday activities tends to dissipate the insights of the session, and it also tends to be depressing or "a bringdown." Sleep is impossible, and premature attempts usually make you uncomfortable. Eating too early in the session can make you feel sick.

Actually some of the most valuable work of the session can be done during re-entry. This is the time when you can think over the insights of the session, from a vantage point somewhat closer to your usual state. In fact whether your experience is merely an isolated event or is relevant to your life as a whole may depend largely on how you use your re-entry time. Stay in one place, together with your session-mates. You can talk more now than you did before, but periods of silence are still helpful. Sit quietly and meditate; don't become distracted. This takes patience, because re-entry hours pass very very slowly. By the eleventh hour it is O.K. to-eat a light meal or to go off by yourself if you want to. After sixteen hours you should go to bed and get some sleep. If you have difficulty sleeping at this time a light dose of librium or phenobarbital will help. You will be somewhat high until you go to sleep.

A Few Tips:

• A session is tiring enough without staying up all night. Get a good night's sleep and start in the morning.

• Shun mirrors. On LSD you usually look awful to yourself in the mirror, probably because your pupils are dilated, and you see all your pores. You don't really look that bad.

• Don't stare at a companion, just because his face is changing into a multitude of different forms. He doesn't know why you're staring.

• Respect the undrugged state — you have to live in it. Write your memoranda in a form that will make sense to you tomorrow.

• To avoid bad session games: Stay in one place; Don't talk too much; Be considerate of your companions.

(Continued next page)

page 12

So You've Had LSD

(Continued from P.11)

So You've Had LSD: It was your own, unique experience. You may be wondering whether various aspects of your session were typical or not. Undoubtedly some were and some weren't. Since you are a unique person, your experience was not quite like anybody else's. If in the coming weeks you find, talking it over with your friends, that something happened to you which nobody else is expressing, that, at any rate, is very typical.

I think most people, just after a session, realise intuitively that they should not turn on again soon — but sometimes they forget how they felt and do it anyway. Therefore you should make a decision now about how long you are going to wait and stick to it.

If you do take LSD again, your next session will be different from the first — in fact each following session will also be different. There is something very special about a first session which is never quite repeated. Do not try to repeat or relive past sessions, but be open to what each new experience has to add to what you have learned.

Now that you have had this experience, what do you do about it? People have been asking this question ever since psychedelics were discovered, and it has never really been answered. Do you go turn on everyone that you can (hoping that maybe they'll figure out what to do about it)? Do you emulate the hip crowd, adopting their "psychedelic" fashions and jargon? Should you become a monk? Take up Buddhism or astrology? To whom should you turn for advice?

Because the use of LSD is a controversial social issue you will have to decide what part you will play in the social and legal conflicts over this issue. It may be my own bias, but I feel that everyone who owes something of value to LSD should take some part. There is something eroding to one's integrity about keeping silent and doing secretly what others are going to jail for. Of course you do not want to go to jail yourself and thus curtail the good you can do. It is necessary to learn the law regarding LSD and to learn for what people are prosecuted and for what they are not. One is not, for instance, prosecuted for writing or speaking out about his experience or the LSD issue in general.

The ways in which people incarnate their vision are as individual as their lives, and this article can go no further in telling you how to do it. You will find some of the answers in your sessions and in your life experiences between sessions.