October 26th, 1975
Today I had an incredible experience. I still am not sure what to think of it.
I decided last night to stop smoking. I still haven’t had a cigarette yet. Today I have been slightly hyperactive– mildly edgy– and really absorbed with not smoking. Lynn, George, Richard and I all went out to Great Falls this afternoon for a fall cookout. What we expected to be mildly overcast was knife-cutting, blood-curdling cold. The afternoon was sort of a disaster. Sort of not.
Anyway– just before Lynn and George got here I decided to smoke a joint. I rolled a moderately sized joint. Now, this is not unusual. In the past couple of weeks, I have been smoking regularly. But today something happened. To begin with, I was acutely aware of the fact that Lynn and George did not want to go– but, felt compelled to follow through because of the effort Richard had put out. Richard, in his crazy-assed way, had a whole group of people intimidated into doing something no one wanted to do. So, I was aware of all these feelings. Also, I could sense that Lynn and George were fighting. Lynn was very upset.
Just after we got in the car and on the way, I realized how super-stoned I was. Pleasantly– relaxed. But then, quickly, in a matter of moments– I went through a series of physical freakouts and mental hysteria. The first thing I noticed was the loss of feeling in my hands and arms. Then I realized my entire face and neck were numb and I had no sensation of breathing. I was sure I was breathing, but I couldn’t feel myself breathe. At the same time that all this was happening, I was getting shots of hot flash adrenalin– I was twitching and shaking– I was afraid I would start convulsing. Meanwhile, my mind is operating about four full-length crazy broadcasts at once: the radio blaring, Lynn and George fighting, Lynn crying, phoniness, negativity. It kept flashing through my mind that I was dying. I thought of Lynn’s mother dying suddenly. I thought of Laura Huxley’s book where she spoke of “toxic” amounts of adrenalin being pumped into the bloodstream. I thought of how Lynn’s mother first noticed she couldn’t talk.
It was a big-bad reaction. People have been hospitalized for “overdose” of marijuana. I have had bad reactions on peyote and mescaline– and marijuana. In fact– when I first started smoking it happened all the time. But why today? WHY? Friday, when I took the day off from work and stayed home I must have smoked four or five joints.
Big dose of the destroyer side
of mother Kali.