Flying into the Cuckoo's Nest

My involuntary visit to the psych ward

In my previous post I certainly dove down the metaphysical rabbit hole yammering on about my recent experience with writers block and how the of science of quantum physics and related quantum entanglement experiments. I was doing my best to surface the scientific evidence that points to a reality where we can all have faith to trust in our intuition more and find some solace in a universe that is more fundamentally connected than we may realize. When I asked my wife what she had thought of the post she told me she hadn’t been able to finish it. Hmm…. That doesn’t sound great. Assuming my wife is one of my biggest fans, if she didn’t manage to finish the post, I wonder who else struggled with it? Perhaps this would explain the stark lack of little red heart emoji’s at the bottom of that piece?

I asked her if she had at least got to the paragraph where I ask the reader to bear with me while I tried and unravel the dense logic implied by modern day quantum physics experiments? Alas, she had not even made it that far. I suspect many others did not as well, so no shame if you too took a detour before slogging through to the end of my metaphysical ramblings. When I asked my wife where she got stuck, she read the paragraph out loud to me. I will have to admit, I myself found the prose impenetrably dense and hard to follow. Shit.

My wife then asked me: “Tom, it seems like so much effort, why do you want to try and figure all this out? Are you trying to figure out the meaning of life or something?” Hmmm… I didn’t think I was, but come to think of it, maybe I am?

My wife and I approach life from two totally different directions. She is much more naturally centered in the moment and intuitive, generally eschewing details. She likes to use a large brush to paint the broad strokes on the canvas of her life, following her convictions and intuitions with more ease. I on the other hand revel in details, I want to weave the canvas myself, mix the paint from its raw elements, and use a fine point brush to build up the details into a grander vision. She dives right in, taking action and following her heart while I tend to pause, being more innately curious and wanting to understand how things work before committing to a course of action. She focuses on the opportunity and imagining positive outcomes, while I focus on risk and try to foresee what can go wrong.

As you may imagine, I am more prone to anxiety and worry while my wife can more easily have faith that “things will just work out.” She brings an optimism and confidence that life has a plan. I, on the other hand, am a skeptic. I think in large part I use “figuring it out” as a way to bind my anxiety. If I can make sense of how things work, I can have more certainty, and ostensibly a little more control in the outcome. The details matter. They are important.

So when it comes to trying to reconcile the seismic shifts in my perception’s of reality that I experienced when first under the influence of LSD, and the subsequent non-psychedelic assisted insights I have experienced either in altered mental states or periods of intense meditation I want to understand the details. They matter. I want to figure it out. I can’t help myself, I am just too curious to let it go. Thus my exploration of quantum physics. A scientific theory with proven experiments that describe a universe were information can be instantly transmitted across space and time. A set of theories that perhaps will allow me to come to a better understanding of what it means to be conscious. What it means to be a “self".

But long before my committed inquiry into the deeper meaning of life and fundamental aspects of reality, there was a young man. In the exuberance and hubris of his youth, he thought it would be a good idea to take LSD for forty-eight hours straight and go surfing. And while he was blessed with the wave of a lifetime, he also broke his mind.

Below is an excerpt that describes what it felt like when my mind started to detach from reality and I was subsequently involuntarily committed to Sharp Mesa Vista Psychiatric hospital.

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Over the following days and weeks, after my fateful wave, life had become more like a dream - floating on a cloud of profound insights.  It felt like an underlying reality of patterns and connection was revealing itself to me, and in this process I started to transform into something else, something not quite sane, something that started to scare the people around me.  

I awoke each morning with an eagerness and optimism I had never felt before, like everything was vibrating at a higher frequency.   The springtime flowers along the roadway quivered with color against the electric blue sky.  Taking a simple trip to the grocery store became a deeply meaningful experience, where casual conversations with strangers felt like significant emotional bonds being created.  I remember thinking that I no longer needed to wear shoes and I made a point of going barefoot everywhere I went - driving, grocery, restaurants, everywhere.  Even on a date, for a girl I had recently met, barefoot at the cafe where she worked.  I was now connected to the world in a way I had never been before, and the soles of my feet had become permanently black.  

Surfing had become an ecstatic experience.  Slipping out into the ocean and sliding under the waves as I paddled out through the surf, my heart slowing down and pulsing with the ocean.  I imagined that I was communicating with the dolphins swimming by, that they could hear my thoughts and I could hear theirs.   We were connected at a deep spiritual level, and at night I would sit on the shore and talk to them, silently, sometimes paddling out in the moonlight to catch waves with them.  I started to pride myself on how little wax, if any, I needed to stay on my surfboard - excitedly calling my roommates and friends to watch from shore. 

Even in this altered state of consciousness I couldn’t help but notice the smiles on my friends face turn into expressions of concern, and then fear.  I had become self absorbed in the discovery of these new and revelatory insights, soaking in the sensory pleasure of being in the moment and the world around me.  In my manic delusion, I no longer believed I had the need for money, and proceeded to take a hundred dollar bill from my savings and tear it into pieces in front of my roommates.   There was clearly some part of my ego invested in this self proclaimed enlightenment as I made these public displays of renunciation. 

Very shortly after my hundred dollar bill incident, my housemates all gathered in the living room and asked me to join them.  They told me they were concerned for me, and asked if I would go down to campus, to see the school psychologist.  I happily agreed, knowing that the psychologists would be very interested in the insights I had to share with them.  This was world changing knowledge that needed to be spread far and wide and once these experts caught wind of these profound insights they would surely help me spread the news.   Wouldn't they?

My roommates and I walked across the stone tiled plaza at the southern end of campus through the bustling throng of students and up the steps of the student services building.  Entering through one of the many glass doors which lined the entrance of the six story concrete building we were quickly ushered into a large office that had several mid-century wood and orange fabric chairs positioned around a coffee table in the center of the room.   At the far end of the room sat a dark wooden desk in front of a long wall lined with books.  A balding middle aged man rose from one of the chairs to greet us, his dark rimmed glasses could not conceal the furrowed brow and obvious look of concern as he introduced himself as the school psychologist.  He then introduced us to his colleague who was standing next to him.  She was a younger, attractive woman, who had shoulder length auburn hair and a more congenial yet pensive expression on her face.   After these quick introductions my roommates left the room and the counselors pulled three chairs into a circle around the coffee table.  They gestured for me to sit down, both glancing down at my bare feet and asking if I would feel comfortable answering some questions.  I was eager to talk and share my story with them, but I could feel some doubt starting to creep into the back of my head.   Why exactly was I here?

The questions started easy enough: Had I been sleeping?  Have I taken any drugs recently?  Did I feel as though my thoughts had been racing?   As they stared intently at me, seemingly captivated with my answers, I went on a rambling discourse of the amazing insights that I had recently uncovered, my new ability to converse with dolphins, and how magical the universe truly was.   At some point in the conversation I shared with the female counselor that it would be a trivial matter for me to bestow her with an orgasm, telepathically of course.   Shortly after this revelatory insight the session was quickly concluded.  

As I stood up to leave, two uniformed police officers entered the room, introduced themselves, and asked me to extend my hands forward, which they promptly encircled with a set of cold steel handcuffs.  This is certainly not something my telepathic powers had anticipated.  A cold spike of fear shot down through my chest.  What was happening?  

One of the officers mentioned that as courtesy he would be cuffing my hands in front of my body so it would be a little more comfortable than behind my back.  With police officers walking on either side of me I was escorted to the awaiting police car that had been left idling behind the building.  My roommates were nowhere to be seen, and it became obvious that my transportation had been arranged ahead of time.  Sitting down into the cold plastic seat of the police car I realized two things.   First, police cars have no padding on their seats, and two, handcuffs can still be quite painful however you are cuffed.      

Less than fifteen minutes later I was being led through the beige wire reinforced glass paneled metal doors of the Mesa Vista Psychiatric Hospital lockdown unit.   My handcuffs were removed and there was a confusing flurry of paperwork, questions, instructions, and the introduction to various medical staff and orderlies.  At some point my street clothes were swapped for a hospital gown and I was escorted to a 8’ x 12’ gray linoleum tiled room with two low slung steel cots.   One of the beds was already occupied.  I had a roommate.

I don’t remember his name, and I doubt he was in a condition to tell me. Something was clearly wrong as he stood there shuffling his feet forward, eyes cast downward, and pacing in small circles with an impossibly long tendril of drool that swung in a pendulum motion from his chin to his rail thin knees that were jutting out from the bottom of his gown.   He was in the thrall of what I later learned was colloquially called the “thorazine shuffle” that occurs when a patient is rendered nearly catatonic when a high dose of thorazine is administered to quell any outward symptoms of a psychiatric disorder.   I quickly caught on, that if I didn't want to suffer the same drug induced fate, that any talk of telepathic orgasms would need to remain between me and myself.  Silently.  

My experience in the lockdown unit really was not too far off what I had remembered seeing in the movie One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, minus the mean spirited nurses and orderlies portrayed in the film.  My most vivid memories of this time were of the other patients.  One of these patients was a tall middle aged rotund woman, who I will call Phyllis; as she looked eerily familiar to the namesake from the popular American TV series The Office.   

My memory of Phyllis is sharp and clear, as if it happened yesterday.  I was looking down the wide, fluorescent lit hallway from my room, watching her in her robe, splayed out on her belly, across the threshold of her doorway, hands stretching out on the shiny cold gray linoleum floor in front of her while she looked up into overhead lights, moaning.  She then proceeded to empty her bowels, directly on her gown and the floor around her.  The rest of the patients just walked right by her, ignoring her protestations, as if nothing had happened.   I remember having the distinct thought at the time: “Holy shit, if someone isn’t crazy before they come into this place, they surely will be crazy by the time they leave.  This place is fucking nuts.”    

I think seeing Phyllis shit herself while prostrated on the floor snapped me out of my halcyon reverie of expanded consciousness and I quickly realized the only way I was going to get out of here was to at least pretend to be normal. I may have discovered the keys to the universe, but I needed to keep them locked tightly away from prying eyes.     

Johnny, one of the other patients, wasn’t making this any easier for me.   Johnny was an angelic faced young man, roughly my age, with shoulder length dark curly hair and an overly animated countenance.   Shortly before I had witnessed Phyllis’s floor routine, Johnny had introduced himself to me and I must have shared some of my LSD gospel with him.   Apparently what I said resonated, because after our conversation he started referring to me as Jesus, telling all of the other patients I was God’s son, resurrected.   

Very shortly thereafter when I met with one of my supervising psychiatrists he exclaimed “So, from what I have heard, you believe you are Jesus come back to earth.”   I explained that no I was not in fact Jesus.  That this was the delusion of one of the other patients, not my own, and that Johnny was going around the ward sharing his revelation with the other patients.  The psychiatrist appeared to believe me and seemed more confident in my sanity.

At some point I was visited by the legally mandated social worker, and the one thing I remember from her visit was her explaining to me my legal rights to file a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus.   What she told me is that after being held for 72 hours I had a right to see a judge and plead my case to be released.  If it was deemed that I was not in danger of being a harm to myself or others then the hospital would have no choice but to release me.   

As much fun as I was having with my new roommate Lurch and my posse of disciples being led by Johnny, this was not a place I wanted to spend an extra minute in.  I had to formulate a plan to get discharged as quickly as possible.   I realized the medical staff, specifically my evaluating Psychiatrist, held the keys to my freedom; and the only way they were going to unlock that door was if I could convince them that my reality aligned with theirs. 

Despite my strongly held convictions that reality was not what it appeared on the surface, that our idea of self was just an illusion, and that telepathy with dolphins was possible; I knew I had to suppress my desire to share these thoughts with the outside world.  My mantra became “no harm to self, no harm to others, appear normal.” 

Part of me did feel a sadness and injustice in having to pretend to be someone who I no longer felt I was, and I resented it. What risk of harm had I presented that required my incarceration? I thought back through the past several weeks about my behavior, my actions, my words.   I recognized they were strange, out of the ordinary, but I had never, not once, threatened or intimated harm or violence against anyone or anything.  In fact, if anything, I was overly compassionate, kind, and joyful in my interactions.   But clearly I had scared people.   I came to realize that communicating strong convictions of a world that does not align with the society's will make you a pariah and someone to be feared.  Someone to lock up.   Poor Galileo.  

So the solution was simple.   Just tell them what they needed to hear.  Just pretend to accept their reality and I would be free to go.  I was mentally preparing my case for the judge when I filed my petition, with each meeting of the doctor accumulating evidence of my normalcy.  Apparently I was doing a convincing job, because on the third day of my 72 hour hold I was released into the much more congenial voluntary ward where you had the freedom to move from room to room, and even leave the hospital if you desired.  Very shortly thereafter I received the news that my supervising psychiatrist declared I no longer presented a risk of harming myself or others and that I was going to be discharged shortly.   

I stepped outside into the bright sunny San Diego skies, elated at my newfound freedom, but quickly began to realize that my behavior over the prior weeks had come with some consequences..   After a flurry of successive phones to my friends and roommates it became clear that no one was interested in giving me a ride home.  In fact I got the distinct impression they would have preferred for me not to return.  Feeling the sting of rejection, and embarrassment, I somehow managed to arrange for a cab and when I returned home it was to some dour looks and little fanfare.   

My return home was disorienting.   The new and exciting world I had discovered no longer seemed so evident or profound.  I started questioning what I had seen and felt, and the memories of my bizarre behavior started to become tinged with shame and embarrassment.  In a brief moment of healthy self awareness I took the remaining tinfoil wrapped tabs of acid and threw them into the bottom of a construction dumpster at a vacant lot down the street from our house, ostensibly so I would not be tempted to retrieve them later.     

As the days went by after returning from the hospital I started to crash.   My friends and roommates were scared of me, I had not attended school for weeks, and apparently I had ripped up all of my cash.  Colors were no longer vibrating as they once had, I no longer felt intimately connected to the world around me, and optimism and excitement were replaced with a dull ache .  The magic had faded.  So what do you do when the magic has faded?   You go find the magic. 

It had been at least a week since I had thrown the LSD away and I was confident that the dumpster had been emptied, but I wondered if perhaps my tinfoil treasure remained behind?   It was night already, but the moon was bright, so I padded down the street in my bare feet and hoisted myself up to the rim of the heavy cold dumpster and peered down.  And there, in the corner, glinting in the moonlight beneath a cut-off piece of lumber, laying in the sawdust, was the foil packet.

The trip that followed was not as intense as the previous ones, but the drama that ensued certainly was.  I had managed to break my mind free again and my roommates were concerned, upset, and didn’t want to deal with my craziness.  I vividly remember sitting on the ratty fabric couch of our upstairs living room that morning, with my roommates buzzing around nervously.   I heard the police enter the front door and start up the stairs.  My heart was racing.  No fucking way I was going back to that looney bin.

I had learned a few things since my last little encounter with the law.  I knew about Habeas Corpus.  “No harm to self, no harm to others.”  If I just kept my shit together the police would be powerless to do anything.  I thought my heart was going to beat through my chest, but I just remained calm and continued to watch the TV while I nonchalantly answered the officer’s questions.   Five minutes later I could hear the police tell one of my roommates:  “Sorry, there really isn’t anything we can do, try to get him to a doctor, that is your best bet.”

Later the next day, when the remaining had LSD washed out of my system, I knew something was horribly wrong.  I felt like the secret tapestry of the universe had just unraveled in my hands, and I was left with a tangled web of fractured thoughts that I was clumsily trying to stitch back together.  I couldn't make sense of what I experienced or even trust that it was real.  What had I done?

I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I had to do something. One of my roommates handed me the phone, and someone wanted to speak to me.   It was my mother, and I could hear the pain and fear in her voice.  After she talked to me, I agreed to have an ambulance take me back to Mesa Vista, where my Mom would come and get me, after she was able to make arrangements to fly the three thousand miles across the country.  

This time I was admitted directly to the more comfortable voluntary in-patient ward.  There was a tree lined courtyard where I could sit on the concrete benches and enjoy the springtime sunshine.  I tried my best to not think about my situation and was looking forward to my mother’s arrival. I participated in art therapy, drawing alligators, birds, and dolphins.  I had group therapy with the other patients who were there for a host of reasons, and I was assigned a doctor to supervise my care.  

A day or two later my Mom had finally arrived; walking into the visiting area I immediately saw her from across the room, her face slightly pale and drawn, yet determined.  When we made eye contact her face softened, the steely resolve in her eyes melting away as I quickened my pace towards her.  We hugged tightly and in that brief moment I felt like everything would be okay.  Somehow she would fix this.

Over the next few days my mom would make daily trips to visit me, but she was in full crisis management mode.  With the help of my roommates she packed up all of my belongings back at the house, made arrangements for someone to store my car, paid my bills, called the university, and worked with our insurance company to locate a mental health facility back in New York.  It was a lot to take on with the faxing of medical records back and forth, arranging for airfare, trying to make sense of my finances, and the simple logistics of what to do with all my stuff while I was stuck in the hospital. 

Towards the end of my stay I had an unexpected visitor.  It was the girl I had met for my first barefoot date a few weeks prior.  I must have made an impression, because she was now sitting across from me in the communal visitors room - her golden hair draped across her shoulders, with soft green eyes and sun-speckled cheeks.  She had brought something with her and handed me a small dark blue book with a picture of a seated stone statue on the cover and the large white letters spelling S-I-D-D-H-A-R-T-H-A along the top.   She had told me it was given to her by her brother, and she wanted me to have it, she thought it would be meaningful to me.

Little did I know at the time how prescient this gift would be, foreshadowing a path I would travel over the next several decades.  In the days that followed I read Siddhartha, a poetic novel published in the early twentieth century by a German author named Herman Hesse.  Siddhartha tells a story of a man on a spiritual journey of self-discovery in east Asia nearly 2,500 years ago.  The narrative loosely parallels the life of Gautama Buddha, absent any specific religious references, and describes a journey of suffering, disillusionment,  insight, and eventual enlightenment.