After the Fall ...

Crashing on that wave at Trestles.

After posting the draft of my prologue, many of you have asked what happened on that wave after I shot off the top and started to fall backward down through the crashing lip towards the surfer below me. Below is an excerpt from Chapter 2, which picks up on the story of my fated wave.

But before I share the conclusion of that story, I wanted to take a moment to talk about the thematic significance of this incident and how it serves as narrative arc for the memoir. The focus of my memoir is on sharing my personal journey of coming to a deeper understanding of my connection the world around me, and how it has lead me to leading a more connected and fulfilling life. Those initial experiences I had on LSD opened up a world to me that I did not know existed. A world of splendor and exciting insights, almost too overwhelming to comprehend. As you read further into my memoir you will hear the story of how exposure to these profound insights so rapidly and intensely actually broke my mind.

Over the next several decades, as I explored different realms of expanded consciousness via different meditative practices and studying of eastern religious doctrines, I have come to see that there are both safe and unsafe ways to take this journey. One analogy that I really like is that of a sail boat versus a rocket pack. I find meditation to be more like sailing a boat. You hoist a sail, and let the wind direct you while you navigate your ship. If the seas get rough, you can lower your sail and slow your progress as you ride out the storm. Psychedelics on the other hand are like strapping a rocket pack onto your back, and once you light that fuse you are going on a ride, with very little way to navigate your trajectory or control your speed. You may end up going much further than you want, or even diving over a cliff and crashing. I was lucky enough to recover from my crash, but there are many others who were not so fortunate, either dead or permanently suffering from some form of psychosis.

I have a theory that psychedelics, meditative practices, and some forms of “mental illness” shine a light on a more fundamental nature of reality that can be either enlightening or destructive depending on how one comes to these insights and the tools they have developed to navigate this more profound and fundamental reality.

In my case, I would like to think I have survived this journey (but one can never be sure) and the wave I describe in the prologue can be seen as a metaphor for the path I have travelled. As such, I weave the story of this wave throughout the prologue of the book, later again in chapter two, and a surprise ending in the epilogue. I won’t spoil the metaphor by explicitly defining the symbolism of it, partly because I can’t take credit for it. It wasn’t a premeditated effort; it just happened and I realized it after the fact. But perhaps more importantly, I don’t want to superimpose my interpretation of its meaning onto you, the reader, because, like all art, meaning is subjective and its power lies in the deeply personal connection you form in relation to the art.

Below is an excerpt from chapter two, which picks up right at the end of the prologue, which if you haven’t read yet, I recommending reading here.

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Chapter 2 Excerpt:

It was the spring of 1989, the evening before my fateful day at Trestles, and the sun had set a couple hours earlier.  Just a few hours prior I had taken my first dose of LSD that evening.  I made my way upstairs to the living room of our oceanfront home after gazing, for what felt like hours, at fractal patterns of the crystalized fiberglass embedded in the resin of Sawyers clover green surfboard.  I was sitting there on the couch casually chatting with one of my roommates, both fascinated and confused.  My sense of self had started to melt, I was now permeating into the world around me and my identity had started to expand.  In conversation, I glanced into my roommate’s eyes, momentarily seeing myself looking back.   We had become the same person.  There was no more Tom and other, it was all just all … Self.  For a flash I had a profound and powerful insight that we were the same consciousness.  The moment quickly faded, but a fissure had appeared in a crevice of my mind.  A crack that started to widen, cleaving apart, as I began to separate from reality.

I didn’t sleep that night, and at some point I remembered I had promised Julian that I would join him and some of his fraternity buddies for our inaugural trip to Trestles.   The swell and winds were supposed to be perfect, and Julian and I had never surfed this famous wave.   One of his friends was bringing along a buddy, a semi-pro surfer, who was going to show us the ropes and serve as a guide to this iconic and over-crowded surf break. 

I realized that without any sleep I was going to have a difficult time surfing, and hypothesized that if I took more LSD it would give me just the boost I needed to stay awake.  So I popped a couple more tabs of acid a little before Julian and his friends showed up in the pre-dawn hours.  On the car ride up to Trestles I could feel the LSD energizing my brain and a euphoric sense of peace and excitement settling over me, carrying me out into the ocean; to that fateful wave and the “oh-shit” moment of dropping in on that other surfer.  

There I was, surfing my first wave at Trestles, having just mistakenly snaked the surfer behind me and trying to get out of his way as fast as I could.  I shot off the top of the wave, only to realize instead of exiting safely I was becoming inverted and falling backwards, back down the face of the wave. Even with the LSD surging through my system I still had the presence of mind to realize I was about to be on the receiving end of the scorn and derision of everyone in the lineup.  I had just committed the cardinal sin of surfing etiquette - both dropping in on someone, and then crashing into them, risking their safety and mine.   

As gravity took hold and I fell down back through the wave I could feel myself hitting a hard surface; I wasn’t sure if it was my board, the other surfer, or his board.  Instead of being afraid of the impending physical harm from the wave slamming a board into my face, or having a fin slash through my flesh, I found myself slightly detached and curious about what was going to happen next.  Time had slowed down and I was keenly aware of how warm the water felt against my skin. I was infused with a calm knowingness that if I just stayed relaxed I would be safe. 

Miraculously, the typical violence and wrenching of limbs that normally occurs when falling into the impact zone of a wave this size didn’t seem to be materializing.   Instead I felt supported by something hard and firm, an invisible hand.   Despite being underwater, I took a tentative gasp of air, as I felt water droplets tickling my face and I could see daylight poking through patches of a white watery foam.  Completely disoriented, this sensation lasted for just a moment.  It was then that I realized I had somehow come to land on my own surfboard, and I was still riding the wave.   I was on my back, with my head resting on my tail patch and when I looked down towards my feet I could see blue sky appearing out from behind a falling curtain of water.  An instant later I felt myself shoot out of the watery chamber into the clear sunshine, resting on the calm shoulder of the backside of the wave.

I leaned forward, confused, bringing my legs down on either side of my board while sitting up, just floating there in the bright sunlight.  I really had no idea what just transpired and reality was feeling very distorted.   What just happened?   Was this a hallucination?   

I could hear cheering and yelling from the surfers around me - and when I looked around I could see most of them staring at me with grins on their faces.   “Holy shit dude, did you really just get barrelled laying down??”   It then occurred to me what had just happened.    When I fell backwards, I had landed on my board and it must have slipped sideways down the face of the wave while rotating towards the open shoulder.   While I was contemplating how relaxed I felt and surprised by the lack of the inevitable violent thrashing, my fins had grabbed the perfect spot on the wave face and accelerated it forward - with me along for the ride and the wave safely curling over me.   In my wildest dreams, I could never imagine accomplishing anything close to this.   It was a miracle. 

Sitting there in the splendor of the sunshine the magnitude of what happened started to sink in.  I could see the surfer who I dropped in on paddling towards me and I made eye contact with him.   I started profusely apologizing to him, for ruining his wave, and with a wide smile on his face he responded “No way, that was amazing, I am just glad I got to see it”  I had surfers paddling up to me asking “hey, are you the guy who just got tubed on your back?”   For the remainder of my session I sat on my board, content to simply watch the other surfers dancing on the waves while my mind chased the sparkles of the sun’s rays bouncing off the ocean in front of me.

Over the following days and weeks, after my fateful wave, life became more like a dream, floating on an electric cloud of profound insights.   Reality was revealing itself to me, and in this process I started to transform into something else, something not quite sane, something that scared the people around me.   I don’t have clear memories of that time or if I ended up taking more acid or not.   But I do know I didn’t need any more LSD, I was now on some other kind of trip.  As each day went by my sense of self was eroding away; bright waves of expanded consciousness lapped at my brain, leaving behind a confused vestige of myself in the wake of this grandiose vision.   I was having a psychotic break….