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It all started with a little square of paper. It was about the size of a 20-cent coin with a little corner cut out for “beginner reasons.” I held it up to the light with equal parts fear and excitement. I was going to join the hallowed ranks of those who had dared to plumb the hidden levels of human consciousness; those psychonauts who had taken a glimpse at just how deep the rabbit hole went. I was, to put it simply, about to go on a “trip.”

Psychedelic drugs have always had a rather strange and often misrepresented past. This is mostly a result of the government’s stance on non-state-approved drugs. In schools we are taught from a very young age that “drugs are bad mmmkay” and this notion sticks in many of us without a second thought. It becomes so natural to chant along this mantra that we often fail to realise that many of these drugs are far less harmful than the six pack of Diesels we smash back before going to town. Dropping a tab isn’t going to coat your lungs in tar or take 20 minutes out of your life. Part of the reason why there is this divide is a result of experiments conducted by the CIA in the 1950s.

You’ve all heard the saying that you are your own worst enemy. As far as the CIA is concerned, it might as well be their motto. When they weren’t overthrowing democratic governments or training Al Qaeda, the CIA spent a lot of their time during the Cold War drugging each other. Project MKUltra started in the 1950s as a way to experiment with mind control to create sleeper agents or to interrogate Communists. Think Manchurian Candidate meets Charlie in the Chocolate Factory. One of their stranger ideas was to routinely drug people with LSD, or Lysergic Acid Diethylamide 25, to see what would happen. Naturally this was done without knowledge or consent. Candidates for random drugging included: mental patients; prisoners; prostitutes; and, just for shits and gigs, other members of the CIA. You’d go to the water cooler for a quick drink of water before your board meeting and wind up face to face with Cthulhu on the way back. In one case a drugged CIA operative had a psychotic breakdown while driving, believing that every passerby was a monster out to get him.

The thought of seeing people turn into monsters before my eyes was not an encouraging one. I’d already been through middle school. But any doubts I might have had were already half an hour too late. The tab had dissolved underneath my tongue and it was only a matter of time before my tie-dye shirt would come to life before me. Still, things could be a lot worse. I had an experienced friend with me to guide me through, I was wearing a pair of rose-tinted glasses and, most importantly, I knew where my towel was.

I remained vigilant about anything being a little stranger than usual throughout a brief walk over to the North East Valley. While I didn’t expect rainbows to burst out of the ground or faces to melt into colours, I was expecting at least something to be a little bit off. The streets remained empty, the roads clear, and every now and then someone would come running past us. Supposedly you started to feel the effects after an hour.

One of the primary reasons why the CIA was so interested in LSD is because of its ability to distort how you view yourself and how you view the world. At a certain point you start to feel like you’re melting away into the rest of the world. As if you can see the subatomic particles that comprise the universe and understand the interlinked nature of our existence. You start to realise that you are constructed entirely out of the choices you have made and will continue to make. You lose the attachment to your ego and to your own sense of identity, and it lets you confront yourself in a way you never have before. Suddenly you start to feel extremely anxious. You can see the world drip and blur and start to wonder if you are losing your mind. The ground starts to breathe, walls start to close in around you, and the idea that you are going insane is all you can think about. Piercing bright lights are shoved into your face and a CIA officer tells you that if you do not defect the trip will continue, indefinitely.

I found myself in a cluttered room staring at a record. I wasn’t sure why but the record was breathing. I felt sorry for the record, it spent all day crammed into a little jacket on a shelf. A voice called out from the record. “Are you still with us?” I thought about replying but I didn’t know what the point was; the record was French. A hand touched my shoulder and I looked up to find that my friend’s curly hair had suddenly become an afro. Next to afroman were two other friends who had started their trip an hour before us. Trip Dad sat on a chair looking at the pill bottle of tabs in deep concentration, as if trying to remember something. Next to me on the bed, a book cover transfixed Tree Goblin. Deciding to join in, I grabbed a book at random from on top of the bed and looked at the title. It simply stated LSD-25 with bright alluring colours. I had taken enough English papers to know what my brain was trying to tell me.

Everyone experiences psychedelics in a different fashion and their unpredictability is what ultimately stopped the CIA’s experiments. That and one of their scientists jumped out of a window while tripping – take your pick. Some experience synaesthesia (random flashes of colour when exposed to music), one of the reasons why LSD became such a prominent drug in the counter culture of the 1960s. The sense of connection with the rest of the world coupled with the sensory overload of seeing bright colours when listening to music is one of the things Jimi Hendrix credits to his extraordinary talent. In his mind he was playing colours instead of notes and this heightened awareness helped him compose his songs.

Every step forward, every gust of wind blowing by on a lazy Saturday afternoon, suddenly seemed that much more enjoyable. Walking through the Botanic Gardens I could feel the enormity of every step, and each rustling of leaves came with its own colour. We all walked in silence, all locked in a sense of wonderment atthe living, breathing world of the playground. The swings hung in the air, as if waiting for our buttocks, and in our haste to reach them we realised that the ground would sink and harden seemingly at random. This notion of an ambiguous rigidity of the ground upset Trip Dad and we soon found ourselves asking the ground why it wouldn’t make up its mind. Choice, I yelled at the ground, was what separated us from mindless animals and inanimate objects. You couldn’t just teeter disappointingly between hard and soft like it was 3AM after St Paddy’s. The swing, long forgotten in our passionate debate, sulked and dilated in the corner.

Besides seeing colours, another important aspect of LSD is the shift in thinking patterns. As a child we tend to use what is known as lateral thinking – coming up with indirect and often creative ways to do things. An adult asked what the uses of a CD are would remark on its ability to store and transfer data. This is known as vertical thinking, or using a step-by-step problem solving process where we use what information is available at hand and from our past experiences. A child would remark that you can use it as a Frisbee, a mirror, and run out of the room swinging the CD as a sword. Because the child isn’t using any prior information or knowledge to form an opinion, they can often come up with novel and creative ways to do things. The former CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs claimed that taking LSD was the most important experience of his life, because it opened his mind up to consider possibilities and ideas that his more rational way of thinking would’ve ignored. Considering how prevalent Apple products are, it raises the question of how many products were results of people tripping balls.

With the sun beginning its gradual descent we said our goodbyes to the ambiguous ground and continued uphill. Tree Goblin, true to his name, ran up to a tree and began hugging it. I considered joining him but there was only room for one. Selfish bastard. As the rest of us laid on the grass a pair of guys dressed in fluorescent bunny suits walked past carrying a box of Cindys. Feeling like a slightly less disturbed Donnie Darko I heard Trip Dad ask if they were real. One of the bunny men had the audacity to look shocked and the two continued to walk further down the rabbit hole. Afroman asked me if I wanted to go meet Tim and walked off toward where Tree Goblin was. Eager to talk to someone who would talk back, I followed Afroman, only to realise that Tim was a tree and was being hugged. I began to wonder if maybe Tim was a person and I was merely perceiving him as a tree. Just to be safe I said hello but I don’t think he heard me.

Because of the association between LSD and the counter-culture of the 1960s there was a knee jerk reaction by governments to classify LSD as an illegal drug, and following the conclusion of Project MKUltra research into LSD ground to a halt. Despite the potential uses of LSD as a psychotherapy tool, and its non-toxic and non-addictive nature, it was outlawed by the DEA in 1970 under the Controlled Substances Act.

Night soon fell as we walked through the Gardens and in an effort to channel our inner Frost, we chose the path less travelled by, winding up in a cemetery. Stumbling around in the dark there was a curious lack of feeling. None of us were hungry, or tired, or thirsty. None of us had any desire to go to the bathroom. We weren’t overwhelmed or underwhelmed, to put it in the words of Tree Goblin, “We were just whelmed,” just existing without any purpose or any thought.

Emerging from the cemetery, the eerie silence was gradually replaced by the raucous chorus of drunken voices. Opposite the road a group of guys strolled along in bunny suits carrying boxes of goon, as if it was the most ordinary thing for someone to do. Cars honked and swerved past drunken hordes of students, and already the tell-tale shatter of breaking glass could be heard in the distance. Just another Saturday night. Colours no longer flashed in front of my eyes, the vibrant energy of the afternoon had long faded. I no longer felt connected to the infinite number of subatomic particles in the universe. I no longer questioned the rigidity of the ground. I took off my pair of rose-tinted glasses and squinted at the dimly lit streets.

Coming back to Trip Dad’s room where my trip had started was a subdued affair. It felt like several lifetimes since I had last been in this room. I had travelled ten thousand miles across a million years, only to have at last come full circle. So much of what had happened seemedso fantastical I couldn't separate what was real from what was imagined. I picked up the book titled LSD-25 to confirm if it was real - to confirm that I hadn’t simply hallucinated the book.

I had done it. I had jumped into the rabbit hole and found myself on the other side. I had experienced one of the most vibrant parts of the 1960s counter culture in the span of a day. I had taken a journey into the dividing line of the real and the surreal, what I could see and what I thought I saw. Trip Dad picked up the pill bottle again and unscrewed the lid. A wan smile crept along his face and Afroman asked him what was wrong.

“I don’t know about you guys but I don’t think that was LSD.”

While Trip Dad and Afroman argued over what psychedelic we took, I looked at the book cover and thought to myself that maybe, just maybe, it really was just all in my head.