Dropping LSD in the US Navy...

This is raw and unedited portion is from a forthcoming publication, which takes place in 1991, and I am 19 years old.  I was in San Diego, California, in the US Navy and introduced to LSD for the first time... these scenes take place after several tabs, lots of beer, cannabis and dancing in the streets. 

The hatchback was opened after we parked and I was assisted out, wobbly and angular I was helped up to my feet, brushed off and taken into a home.  The home belonged to a female friend of my Navy colleagues who welcomed us, and guided the group into her large living room.  She helped lower me into a large bean bag where I lay staring out of the skylight centered within her ceiling.  The room was decorated with various art depicting pentacles, and deities I had no reference point of identifying them.  This was my first exposure to anything Occult, Witchcraft and Pagan.  One of my friends asked if I was ok, and I must have gave him a thumbs up, as he told me to do the breathwork he had showed me and enjoy the ride.

What happened next is a kaleidoscope of experiences that set the course for further inquiry into later on.  Our host sat back on her own stack of pillows and bean bags, everyone else settled down and she began with a low humming, shaking a rattle, and followed with a deep rhythmic chanting of which the words escape me all this time later.  This was to be my first guided entheogenic meditation.  I was told to focus on her songs, and instruments, surrender to the music, and let go.  I stared up at the skylight, noticing the stars and what appeared to be a ship within the window.  I felt like I was underwater looking up at the hull of an old ship.  This frightened me a bit, and I was told it was a decorative object, which slightly pulled me out of the visuals, but subsequently I surrendered and I quickly shot past and above the ship, looking down upon the window from outside now seeing the ship for what it was, a decorative object.

I floated for a while, took in my surroundings from above, and desired to be back in the room where the music was within.  My being returned, grounded unto my physicality, and noticed all my fears had been alleviated and I wondered what this was all about.  The geometric fractals upon the walls pulsated with the Flower of Life, the words of her song driving the patterns around us to shift and pulsate.  As I think back to this time this was my first, dare I say, shamanic experience.  There are quite a few parallels to Ayahuasca ceremonies I have been a part of in the last ten years that have very similar, or the exact, patterns I saw back then.

My 19 year old brain was racing to process all of this, trying not to allow my thoughts to interfere with the experience.  I again calmed myself, and focused on my breathing.  The guide may have noticed me getting uncomfortable and anxious in which she sang instructions on breathing.

Deep inhalation through the nose, deep exhalation with a count to four each way.  This helped immensely and I focused on my breath as I began to enter a glowing tunnel and the rest of the room disappeared.  My trip took me to a shire-esque setting where I travelled horizontally to the right of my view where I encountered hobbits with straw like joints.  The hobbits (such as found in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings) gripped these joints, fixed in the right side of their mouths, with their thumb and index finger twisting the joints back and forth.  The sound this made I likened to a squeak a balloon will make when you rub two of them together.  From there I was shot into the stars and confronted with numerous doorways with sigils and runes around them, which meant nothing to me at the time as I had no knowledge of what they were.

As I passed through each gateway I felt my brain and skull were tingly and a surge of goosebumps rose over my whole body. I had bodily sensation but inward I was flying through what looked like neurological receivers and transmitters shooting thunder at one another.  I must have fallen asleep as next I recall being awoken and told the group was leaving.  I clambered back into the car for another fun trip, this time back to base.

I was incredibly high, very much tweaking as it was described to me, and walking underwater into my dorm on base.  I was confronted by the front desk Petty Officer who was apparently yelling at me as my “friends,” escaped his wrath by scurrying past and onto the elevator.  From what I gathered he was showing me my name upon a document pinned to a cork board.  I had missed front desk duty, I was on standby for the primary guards, but the rule was to remain local in case someone could not be on duty for any reason.

I really could not process his Dali like face, melting like the villain in Raiders of the Lost Ark, I was horrified and then giggling at the lil gremlins climbing said cork board.  The Petty Officer in Charge dismissed me to my quarters where more fun was to be had.

The room was separated into four quarters where four students occupied each section.  My own area was to the left of the room door, and I collapsed into bed.  I just wanted to pass out and rest, realizing I need to be on point for inspection in the morning.  However, the tabs were beginning to peak again and I felt very nauseated.  I got up, stumbling and falling over my night stand, I disturbed my roommates who yelled colourful adjectives my way.  Once in the hall I knew I wanted to vomit, and tried to make my way to the bathroom across the hall, which did not go as planned.  I relieved my sore guts all over the hallway floor and into the bathroom.

I grimaced at the bright lights and stood between two bays of sinks, with mirrors above each one. I saw myself into infinity as the mirrors on either side of me reflected into one another.  I moved close to the mirror and sink on my right, noticing the mess on my face I quickly rinsed.  My whole body felt relieved from the vomiting and rise, quite light, and more floaty.  For a reason that escapes me, I poke at the mirror and it rippled as if a stone was pitched into a body of water.  It was not just this singular mirror that rippled, ripples flowed across every mirror on each side, which cause me to heave once again, this time into the sink rather than on the floor.  I was increasingly aware of each retching noise I made, and prayed to whatever beings lay within this space that I remained undetected.  My bladder suddenly screamed at me for relief.  I shuffled over to the urinal and began to pee, as I did this I was staring at the lil air freshener mat that was within the urinal.  The holes began to widen, and tiny green, silvery beings climbed out and up into the rest of the urinal.  There were a lot of them and I attempted to fend them off with my pee stream, but they scattered, hundreds of them up and along the wall above the urinal. I stopped peeing, zippered up and stumbled back to my room quite frightened.

I collapsed back into bed, and fell asleep.