Through a glass, darkly

April 17, 2025April 17, 2025 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments

Weird dreams last night. Lots of rain; a bicycle with a dynamo light I couldn’t get working; a close encounter with a mystery motorist who nearly clipped me as I wrestled with the unresponsive light; long drives with people I knew through vaguely familiar landscapes and towns; a small, dilapidated guest house that likewise had the feel of someplace I’d lived before; a couple of friendly dogs I didn’t recognize; and a visit to and some conversation with a genial old man living in a single cluttered room.

What finally blew me out of bed at 5:19 a.m. — and I mean had me out of the rack and onto my feet in some fight-or-flight reaction — was the sound of a woman either laughing or crying.

Herself watching a cute-animal video on the iPad? The garlicky pasta sauce I made for dinner? La Llorona?

Wasn’t Herself. She was in the kitchen making coffee and entertaining Miss Mia Sopaipilla. And she had disturbing dreams too, about her late mom and an old friend who passed not long after Herself the Elder. So it could’ve been the pasta sauce, I suppose.

La Llorona? A strong maybe. This is the Southwest, after all, though my crowd, the Ó Grádaighs of County Clare, is more closely associated with the banshee, an Irish herald of death.

So it may be relevant that yesterday I spoke with one old bro’ about friends and relatives gone west, and with another about the Doors, who took their name from Aldous Huxley’s book describing his experiences with mescaline, “The Doors of Perception,” its title likewise lifted from a William Blake metaphor in his book, “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.”

If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.

Now, I have had my own experiences with mescaline and other psychedelics, starting in “high” school and continuing off and on into the Eighties. And they certainly took the Windex to my perceptual doors, if only for a little while.

But these days I see “through a glass, darkly,” as did Paul in 1 Corinthians 13, adding, “now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”

Or, as newspaper lingo once had it: “More TK” (more to come).

Y’think? Naw. Maybe? I dunno.

Until further enlightenment arrives, I’m betting on either garlicky pasta sauce or acid flashback, though the latter doesn’t explain why Herself had weird dreams too. An acid head she was not.

The good news? We have leftovers. So, “more TK.”

Microdozing

July 12, 2022July 13, 2022 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 32 Comments

It could’ve been an acid flashback, or maybe a contact high.

But after getting pretty deeply into “How to Change Your Mind” by Michael Pollan, I started to have some truly bizarre dreams, especially in the morning, just before officially waking up.

My favorite so far: I was the new guy at some newspaper and an artsy bunch was trying to arrange coverage for some event. I was asking who, what, when, where, and why, and also whether the artsy bunch might be able to provide, like, y’know, some art, an’ shit, when an old hand snickered and nodded toward the photo department.

“I beg your pardon,” I told the artsy bunch. “I’m new here, and I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes until I find out how big their feet are.”

Happy Veterans Day?

November 11, 2021 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 26 Comments

Speaking as one of the “countercultural peaceniks of the 1960s and 1970s” who was fond of “illegal, mind-altering drugs,” I’d like to say, “Right on, man,” to the veterans who have been advocating their use in the treatment of post-traumatic stress, anxiety and depression stemming from their military service.

Writes Andrew Jacobs of The New York Times:

Researchers are still trying to understand the mechanics of psychedelic-assisted therapies but they are widely thought to promote physiological changes in the brain, sometimes after just one session. On a psychological level, the drugs can provide a fresh perspective on seemingly intractable trauma, giving patients new tools to process pain and find inner peace.

Lord knows they put me through a few changes. And while I can’t claim to have achieved inner peace, I did manage to find my path.

Jose Martinez got a later start on a much harder road. After losing both legs and his right arm to a roadside bomb in Afghanistan, and enduring 19 surgeries, ceaseless pain and an addiction to opioids, the former Army gunner became an evangelist for psychedelics.

“And now I understand what I’m actually here for in this world, which is to make people smile and to remind them that life can be beautiful even when it’s not so easy,” he said.

“Not so easy” doesn’t begin to describe it. They tell me Charlie don’t surf. But Jose does. That’s beautiful.