Untruthful: Morning Glory

Morning Glory
Saturday, March 24, 2007

A new video, and a blog on last night's events:

Watch, comment, and rate it on YouTube

The video is a freestyle guitar and vocal performance by John Kaplan, Chris Daly, and I. I was inspired for some strange reason, to sing a strange song about an animal called a "Wildabeast"

Why? Morning Glory. Seeds that anyone, even a small child could buy, from any store that specializes in gardening. The seeds and the flowers contain a chemical known as LSA or d-lysergic acid amide. This chemical is generally considered a precursor to LSD, but in my experience with it, it is very well a force to be reckoned with on its own. In case you're wondering how closely the two are related, LSD contains a chemical called lysergic acide diethylamide. I later read that LSA is, in quantity, 10-15% as potent as LSD, but large quantities would have to be consumed (of the seeds, since they have only trace amounts of LSA in them) in order to gain some type of psychedelic effect. 350 seeds turned out to be enough. It turns out that each seed contains about 1ug (1 microgram, or .0o1mg) LSA. That means we took in .35 mg of LSA. The average "hit" dose of LSD in the 1960's was 100-150 ug. Using the data that says LSA is 10% as potent as LSD, then we took in 2.3 - 3.5 hits of acid. Menards sold me drugs.

As for the effects; more that I had anticipated. The seeds were very bitter, and upset my stomach quite a bit. I nearly vomited. However, I found that when I went outside, the fresh air helped my nausea disappear almost completely. I breathed deeply.

Suddenly I noticed an odd feeling. A tingling sensation at the back of my neck, like someone was watching me. I felt the presence of a handful of people walking around me. It sort of felt like walking around in the mall, but not being able to see all the people. I felt like I might bump into someone, so I walked slowly. Suddenly, I felt one of the negative effects I had been warned about: a leg cramp. I promptly laid down. It was late, and the moon was out, as well as the few stars that had managed to outshine Saint Paul's light pollution. They all appeared to be moving about, slowly migrating across the sky. I was getting cold. Shorts had been a bad choice. I decided to go back inside.

Once inside, I felt somewhat claustrophobic. My nausea came back a bit, but not nearly as bad as before. I drank some water to settle my stomach a bit, and then went off to socialize. The effects were no longer slowly approaching, it was difficult to walk, and I could hardly hold a conversation without bringing up some strange topic, or using some sort of imaginary word. I felt unusually social. I couldn't seem to run out of things to say. Then I heard something beautiful: a guitar. My guitar, in fact. John was playing it. We decided to write a song. We soon found out that the seeds had both amplified and warped my creative abilities. I said so many strange, half-coherent things in my some 10 minutes of freestyle jamming, I don't know where it all came from. I also enjoyed story telling very much that night, and thus my song vaguely resembled an epic tale.

Time seemed to be moving quite slowly, for the whole night seemed to last something like 10-15 hours. I actually went to bed quite early (around 1am), and managed to wake up to a very unpleasant hangover/comedown, as well as a limp from one particularly bad leg cramp. The effects of this hangover lasted a full 24 hours.

Was it worth it? Yes. This experience vastly changed my perspective on psychoactive chemicals. And though I don't have any desire to completely quit using such substances, I really can't bring myself to use them as frequently after this experience (at least, with out some guilt). It changed my views on music, and on frequent use of such substances, and most importantly my views on my own mental health. I have no doubt, that if I were to eat those seeds more than a few times annually, I would go insane.

I hope this was a helpful little story. If you plan on using the seeds, please let me know, I can give you all the info you need, and maybe a bit of advice on how to go about it :)