Psychedelic Dreams

Dreaming and the Psychedelic Experience

2007-04-26T01:00:37Z

The decade of the 1960s produced one of America’s great watersheds. It was a decade defined by rebellion, indulgence, and a revaluation of American values, the result of which became a change in the social consciousness of a younger generation uniting against authority. The youth of the time stood up against governmental decisions and came through with the Civil Rights Movement and Feminism, two idealisms that reverberate today. The emergence of the Rock and Roll music genre and the explosion of Beatlemania in 1964 led the way for what we know now as Pop Culture. And the breakthrough of a massive counterculture into mainstream society resulted in prolific drug use as a means to transcendence.
Psychedelic Literature was one outlet for the consciousness expansion that came along with drug use. Aldous Huxley, Tom Wolfe, and Hunter S. Thompson all contributed to the genre with tales of altered consciousness that border the edges of dreamland. Psychedelic literature relies on characteristics of dreaming in order to give readers a sense of what is going on, and it also reflects theories of dreaming that suggest that dreams are meaningful and useful for personal and social development. However, the two states of consciousness differ in that the psychedelic experience is able to impress the dream-state onto reality and open doors of the unconscious during waking, thus affecting the users reaction more so than would a dream.
Aesthetic contributions to the psychedelic arts include bright colors and intense visual imagery, dreamlike tones and descriptions, as well as a difficulty in language and expression when dealing with experiences and emotions. It is interesting to note the similarities between the psychedelic arts, particularly the literature, and the natural state of dreaming, a likeness that is due to the central figure of hallucinogenic drug use.
Without the natural counterpart of dreaming the experience achieved through the ingestion of psychotogens would be extremely foreign to most people. The strong bond that was formed between humans and hallucinogenic drugs is due to the fact that people encounter the same reality every night in their sleep. The similarities between the psychedelic state and the natural dream state give the drug user the ability to keep somewhat sane in a world that is visually and emotionally changing constantly. In “A Working Paper: Memo on the Religious Implications of the Consciousness-Changing Drugs,” Joseph Havens admits that the “whole experience could be reinterpreted as a kind of dream,” except that “one feels closer to normal waking consciousness under the drug than in dreaming, and is sometimes able to choose ‘where he wants to go’ and to recall where he is and what is happening to him” (220). The experience takes place in a dream world that is altered to give control to the dreamer with which he can notice sensual changes in the physical world and reflect on his position in the universe.

Psychedelic Literature

2007-04-25T19:11:22Z

Psychedelic literature broke through to the American public in 1954 with Aldous Huxley’s publication of The Doors of Perception and continued its popularity through the 1970s. The literature of psychedelia promotes hallucinogenic drug use and often describes the experiences of its characters through dreamlike imagery, such as visual condensation, and hazy tones. The writings of psychedelic authors encompass both fiction and non-fiction, (most frequently categorized as Journalism), with an emphasis on an altered state of consciousness that blurs the boundaries of reality, creating a kind of fictitious reality for the reader and the drug experimenter. The emotions and reflections of the hallucinogen user connect with that of a dreamer in that they both report moments of elation and intense fear, an analysis of the self and society, and a difficulty in expressing experiences in a logical lingual fashion. After his experience with the hallucinogen mescaline, (a derivative of peyote, which is found naturally in a species of cactus) Aldous Huxley, a well known author and scholar, published The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell, recounting and analyzing his experience. Through his work Huxley laid the groundwork for what would become the art of psychedelic literature.
Famous communes of drug experimenters led to other works such as The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, by Tom Wolfe, in which he writes of the adventures of the ever popular Merry Pranksters. The Merry Pranksters were a gang of prolific hallucinogen users led by Ken Kesey (the well known author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest). The group had a ‘home-base’ in La Honda, California, south of San Francisco, however, much of the book looks into their cross-country travels on a bus, named "Further," covered in Day-Glo paint and full of acid. Although Wolfe himself barely took part in the psychedelic drug experience his account of the lives of the Pranksters puts to use the qualities of psychedelic literature that allow him to capture the state of mind and emotional rollercoaster that is the LSD ‘experience.’
The echo of the psychedelic culture of the 1960s carved the way for later works of the 70s such as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, in which author Hunter S. Thompson analyzes the effect of the previous decade while indulging in the drug culture that sprung out of it. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is considered non-fiction and is usually categorized with texts in Journalism. The main character, Raul Duke, although with a different name is clearly Hunter S. Thompson; they share the same profession, the same lifestyle, and the character actually gets a telegram at his hotel addressed to Hunter S. Thompson. The story recounts the adventures of Raul Duke and his lawyer in Las Vegas as well as the nightmares that become reality with over abundant drug use. In 1998 Raul Duke's story was retold on the big screen starring Johnny Depp.

What is the Psychedelic Experience?

2007-04-20T07:07:58Z

The word ‘psychedelic’ was originally used in a letter from Dr. Humphry Osmond to Aldous Huxley in 1956; from the Greek words psykhe (mind) and deloun (reveal) the term is supposed to define something as ‘mind-manifesting,’ or revealing. LSD is the most popular of the psychedelic drugs. LSD is a hallucinogen, or psychotogen, that promotes visual hallucinations as well as feelings of anxiety, elation, and aggression, interestingly the same three emotions reported most frequently by dreamers (Hobson 261). LSD-25, or lysergic acid diethylamide, was synthesized in a laboratory in 1938 by chemist Albert Hofmann. It was not until 1943, however, that the hallucinogenic properties were discovered when a minute amount seeped into Hofmann’s skin and he reported slight hallucinations and feelings of dizziness. LSD was available for investigational research among physicians and psychiatrists, and monitored experimentation began in the United States as early as 1949 (Novak 90). By the mid 1960s LSD-25 reached soaring popularity due to easy accessibility and the personification of its effects throughout popular culture. Advertisements for the drug appeared in newspapers and magazines and popular figures such as The Beatles openly admitted use of the drug to reporters and in their music. Groups like the Merry Pranksters and Leary’s East Coast following became a curiosity that consistently shined in the public eye. Their support of LSD use and promises for social and personal transcendence resulted in a breakthrough of a massive counterculture into mainstream society.

But what is the psychedelic experience? It is commonly reported and accepted that the LSD, or any drug, experience is based on three factors; the drug (obviously the type of drug one takes will alter the result of the experience), the set, or the psychological makeup of the individual and their personal expectations of the experience, and the setting, the place where the drug is taken. The set, or the expectations of the drug taker, was commonly considered, throughout investigations, to be the most influential of the three. In an article published in The Journal of Philosophy in 1964 Huston Smith questions the validity of the drug induced religious experience and claims that the expectations for a religious experience will most likely result in one. Smith contends that “given the right set and setting, the drugs can induce religious experiences indistinguishable from experiences that occur spontaneously” (520). And he is not alone in thinking that the expectations of the individual can monumentally persuade the overall value of the psychedelic experience. Timothy Leary’s book The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead is basically a self-help book on ways to achieve mystical revelations through psychedelic drug use. Tom Wolfe, however, lashes out against the theory of set and setting in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test through a mockery of the popular doctrine:

You should prepare for the experience by meditating upon the state of your being and deciding what you hope to discover or achieve on this voyage into the self. You should also have a guide who has taken LSD himself and is familiar with the various stages of the experience and whom you know and trust…and Fuck that! That only clamped the constipation of the past, the eternal lags, on something that should happen Now. Let the setting be as unserene and lurid as the Prankster arts can make it and let your set be only what is on your…brain. (233)

The Pranksters preferred spontaneity over planned out experiences. Every member of the group strived to achieve the “Unspoken Thing” that didn’t need discussion but rather manifested itself within the experience. Tom Wolfe describes in a chapter entitled “The Unspoken Thing” the effects of the ‘experience’ declaring, “What they all saw in…a flash was the solution to the basic predicament of being human, the personal I, Me, trapped, mortal and helpless, in a vast impersonal It, the world around me” (127). This revelation, of being trapped in oneself, forced the group closer together within the experience and changed the course of their lives towards introspection and a revaluation of values and norms. Further Wolfe explains “Under LSD, if it really went right, Ego and Non-Ego started to merge […] things that seemed separate started to merge too” (140). The idea of a compounding of ego and non-ego is a popular concept within dream interpretation especially that of Carl Jung, but here it serves the purpose of enlightening the drug experimenter. On the very next page Wolfe wants to convey that once “his doors of perception [are] opened for an instant,” he sees that “each moment, if he could only analyze it, reveals the entire pattern of the motion of the giant being, and his life is minutely synched in with it-” (141). Naturally achieved mystical dreams and visions often claim the same epiphanic discovery of the pattern of the universe and an individual’s role in it. Jung describes such dreams as “Big Dreams”, and argued that it is within such dreams that the dreamer is able to access the Collective Unconscious.

The Reality of Nightmares Just as dreaming comes along with its natural counterpart, the Nightmare...the psychedelic experience comes in too forms, the enlightening and the frightening. When a person chooses to undergo the ‘self-experiment’ he must be willing to accept that it may not be what he expects, as Hunter S. Thompson explains, “Buy the ticket, take the ride…and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well…maybe chalk it off to forced consciousness expansion” (89). Nightmarish scenes and a distraught central figure are qualities that can characterize the entire text of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The book opens with a dream-like sequence in which Raul Duke is fearful of bats that are “swooping and screeching and diving around the car,” and immediately follows with an inventory of the trunk of his car:

We had two bags of grass, seventy –five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a wild galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. (4)

This extensive list of drugs allows the reader an insight into the journey that is to come, and it ties in accurately with Hobson’s theory of dysphoria.

It's all about the Brain: Hobson's Theory

2007-04-19T08:01:42Z

J. Allan Hobson is a Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, with at least four book publications relating to dream studies. Most important in the Psychedelic discussion is his book The Dream Drugstore which sets up a three way analogy between the psychedelic experience, psychosis, and dreaming. Hobson establishes his theory through a scientific analysis of brain chemistry during all three conscious states.
Serotonin and Dopamine are two neurotransmitters that are closely linked to psychosis and dreaming through either increased activity or dormancy. Interestingly enough they are also closely linked to the brain's activity during a psychedelic drug experience. In chapter 13, entitled “Good Trips and Bad: The Psychedelics” J. Allan Hobson claims that “dreaming, delirium, and psychedelic states all share a common generic mechanism: a shift in the neuromodulatory balance of the brain” (251). He finds a likeness between dreaming and psychedelic drug use in that they both induce a block of serotonin to the brain and likewise a link between psychosis and psychotomimetics, which is an enhancement of the neurotransmitter dopamine. The modulation of serotonin creates for both the dreamer and the drug user visual hallucinations, while the dopamine boost induces feelings of euphoria and dysphoria. Ultimately in his work Hobson would like to inquire into whether “waking consciousness can be altered in such a way as to maximize the autocreative aspects so prominent in dreaming while returning enough wake state consciousness to critically analyze, validate, and report the creative product,” in other words Hobson would like to understand the dream state in terms of its waking counterpart, the psychedelic experience, in a way that can be used to benefit creative processes (9). That is not to say, however, that Hobson advocates the use of psychotomimetic drugs. On the contrary, he states in the first section of his book that although it is the ‘drug-brain’ dialogue that he is studying he admits to a “deep-seated bias against it,” however, “we have learned so much from drug experiments that we need to know about them even if we prefer more natural, physiological and psychological techniques” (31). In The Dream Drugstore Hobson explains that “Subsequent psychiatric studies revealed that whereas euphoria was common in the 2-13 mg range, dysphoria regularly replaced it at doses above 25 mg,” and since with most drugs the tolerance level increases with regular use, it seems that nightmarish experiences become the norm the more a drug is used (249). This theory becomes evident in the texts when characters, such as Raul Duke in Fear and Loating in Las Vegas, ingest hallucinogenic drugs in excess.

Drugged up dreamy testimonies

2007-04-15T15:38:31Z

The literature of psychedelia promotes hallucinogenic drug use and often describes the experiences of its characters through dreamlike imagery, such as visual condensation, and hazy tones. The emotions and reflections of the hallucinogen user connect with that of a dreamer in that they both report moments of elation and intense fear, an analysis of the self and society, and a difficulty in expressing experiences in a logical lingual fashion.

The visual condensation of objects is probably the most obviously shared change in the senses. During Aldous Huxley’s unforgettable mescaline trip of 1953 he is asked to look at several items and report what he is seeing. At one point “the investigator directed my attention to the furniture,” after which Huxley’s mind produced a compression of desk-chair (21). In The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test a Prankster, Sandy, has taken acid without the sanction of the rest of the group and is forced to conceal his intoxicated state. This is a problem since the visual hallucinations are driving him mad, and he is unable to discern who people are. In the shower during Sandy’s unauthorized acid trip he looks down at his body and sees a strangers, and then suddenly “it isn’t a stranger, its his…mother…and suddenly he is back in this body, only it is his mother’s body-and then his father’s-he has become his mother and his father” (95).
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas cites the dreamlike condensation of reality and hallucination when Raul Duke is forced to check into his hotel under the influence of LSD. As he walks up to the reception desk he is found face to face with a woman whose “face was changing: swelling, pulsing…horrible green jowls and fangs jutting out, the face of a Moray Eel!” (24).
Language also provides a link for the psychedelic experience with the natural state of dreaming. Often the tone of a piece of psychedelic literature is so dreamlike that it would be indecipherable were it not for known drug use. Narration within the texts progresses as would the unfolding of a dream; the language always within the confines of the space-time that exists in everyday life, and the character not imagining the situation but living it. In Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Raul Duke tries to concentrate on remembering who Lacerda is while battling an outside world of horror:

The name rang a bell, but I couldn’t concentrate. Terrible things were happening all around us. Right next to me a huge reptile was gnawing on a woman’s neck, the carpet was a blood-soaked sponge-impossible to walk on it, no footing at all. “Order some golf shoes,” I whispered. “Otherwise we’ll never get out of this place alive. You notice these lizards don’t have any trouble moving around in this muck-that’s because they have claws on their feet.” (24)

Raul Duke is able to consciously act and take part in the dream-like world around him. The impression of the dream world onto reality allows for the drug experimenter reflection upon the situation and voluntary action that is very rare in natural dreaming. Aside from narration of the experience other qualities of dreaming tend to appear during hallucinogen use. The condensation of objects is a result reported by both the dreamer and the drug user. As reported by J. Allan Hobson the three most common emotions of the dream (anxiety, elation, and aggression) also tend to be the leading feelings of the drug experience. There is a shared characteristic of forgetfulness whereas when the sleeper wakes up or the experimenter comes to only strong feelings persist and memories fade into non-existence. As described in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Clair Brush’s moment of intense emotion is illustrated as “a great flash of insight,” and further she points out, “I’ve forgotten it now, but there was one instant when everything fell into place and made sense, and I said aloud, ‘Oh, of course!’”(277). Sharing many common elements with a naturally achieved state of consciousness it is not surprising that people are attracted to drug experimentation.

The End of the Psychedelic Era

2007-04-08T16:19:15Z

The downfall of the psychedelic movement came from a lack of interpretation and reflection. The younger generation got too entangled in the experience and stopped trying to understand how it could help them understand reality. George Harrison explains in The Beatles Anthology, “And then I started finding that there were people who were just as stupid as they’d been before, or people who hadn’t really got any enlightenment except a lot of colours and lights and Alice in Wonderland type of experience” (179). By the end of the 1960s the drug experience had become more about fun and rebellion and less about personal transcendence and enlightenment. Pop culture icons and scholars alike began to pull away from hallucinogenic drugs, and mainstream culture followed suit. On October 31st 1966 the Merry Pranksters hosted the ‘Acid Test Graduation,’ during which diplomas were handed out to pioneers of the psychedelic movement and an era of natural transcendence was proposed by Ken Kesey. The Pranksters and others like George Harrison began to reject the commercialization and popularity of LSD and boasted of natural means by which to arrive at the same state of consciousness. With the start of a new decade LSD went from the front page of newspapers to the back of peoples’ minds, and the craze was considered over by the end of 1969, leaving only the psychedelic arts to represent a time of ‘consciousness expansion.’

To view a video of the Acid Test Graduation visit Zane Kesey's myspace videos: Acid Test Graduation

It is doubtful that America will ever again experience a decade like the 1960s. However, reflection on the era will never end. It was a time when a generation could explore altered states of consciousness openly and without refute. The emergence of hallucinogenic drugs created the ability to search the depths of human consciousness and achieve a greater Understanding of the reality in which one lives life. Aldous Huxley ends The Doors of Perception with a glimpse of what will become of the hallucinogenic drug user:

But the man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out. He will be wiser but less cocksure, happier but less self-satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable Mystery which it tries, forever vainly, to comprehend. (79)

Although a new understanding, and ultimately a new reality, can spawn from an experience in psychedelic drugs, the world in which one enters with hallucinogenic drugs is not one which is foreign to us but rather a state that we have become familiar with in our dreams. Although hallucinogenic drug use will not result in the same experience for everyone, and perhaps is not intended for use by all, understanding our minds in terms of different states of awareness and knowing the brain chemistry that persists in those conscious states can fundamentally help us understand how our minds work and how we can use altered states of consciousness to benefit our normal waking lives.

About the Author and Further Reading

2007-04-07T16:26:09Z

Megan is an English Major at Queens college and will be graduating in December 2007 with her bachelors degree in English Literature and Philosophy. She lives in Suffolk County, "out on the Island," as they say, and is looking forward to moving to Lexington, Kentucky next year to relax and enjoy the country. You can contact the author at mmoriarty100@qc.cuny.edu

The full text of the paper upon which this webpage is based can be downloaded here.

Further Reading: Beatles, The. The Beatles Anthology. San Francisco: Chronicle, 2000. Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. New York: Oxford, 1999. Hartmann, Ernest, M.D. Dreams and Nightmares: The Origin and Meaning of Dreams. Cambridge: Perseus, 2001. Havens, Joseph. “A Working Paper: Memo on the Religious Implications of the Consciousness-Changing Drugs (LSD, Mescalin, Psilocybin).” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 3 (1964): 216-226. Hobson, J. Allan. The Dream Drugstore. Cambridge: Bradford, 2001. Huxley, Aldous. The Doors of Perception. 1954. New York: Harper, 1990. Jung, Carl Gustav. Dreams. New Jersey: Princeton, 1990. Leary, Timothy. “Introduction.” LSD: The Consciousness-Expanding Drug. Ed. David Solomon. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1964. 1-21. Novak, Steven J. “LSD before Leary: Sidney Cohen’s Critique of 1950s Psychedelic Drug Research.” Isis, 88 (1997): 87-110. Smith, Huston. “Do Drugs Have Religious Import?” The Journal of Philosophy, 61 (1964): 517-530. Thompson, Hunter S. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. 1971. New York: Vintage, 1998. Wolfe, Tom. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. 1968. New York: Farrar, 1999. Image Credits: The Beatles, "I am the Walrus"; http://www.televisionheaven.co.uk/mmt.htm Psychedelic art; http://www.acidtrip.com/secure/part8.htm Aldous Huxley; http://www.directionjournal.com/vision/gauld.html Merry Pranksters Bus; http://www.hazardous.com/gallery.html Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Book Cover; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_and_Loathing_in_Las_Vegas Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Movie Cover; http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/20945.jpg Albert Hoffman; http://www.miqel.com/entheogens/psych_today_wired_revival.html LSD in the USA; http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/dea/product/lsd/toc.htm Acid Test Hangout; http://www.britannica.com/psychedelic/scene/kesey.html#089p4 Ralph Steadman,Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Car Scene; http://ralphsteadman.com/ The Dream Drugstore Cover; http://www.erowid.org/library/books/dream_drugstore.shtml Ruby Slippers LSD blotter; http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/3/38/300px-Ruby_slippers_image.jpg Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas check-in scene; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_EvWIlEix4 Tomaselli "New Jerusalem" 1998; http://www.insecula.com/us/oeuvre/O0026544.html