Wait, You Want Hallucinations?

I work in the music industry, so I can tell you that it’s all drugs, sex, and rock n roll. Actually, it’s not. Trust me, the music industry is not the sexy mass media image that is usually conveyed to the general public. Yes, there are bands that go nuts, like the Allman Brothers having their band name spelled out in cocaine on a private jet. But those are far and few between. In my experience, bands are actually really sedate and the better the band the more straight edge they get. The most that they do is get a little drunk after performances and smoke. Once in a great while there will be a band that will smoke pot, but that’s maybe one in ten at best. Part of this is because being a musician means that you’re broke, so you can’t do the harder drugs, but part of it is also a devotion to the craft. In fact, most of my life is standing around waiting and doing sound checks and their life is living in a van playing car games or working a 9-5 job. Sexy? No. Fun? Yes.

Band groupies are a whole different story. These are the people that go completely nuts. They get trashed, smoke pot, and just lose control. Fans in general are the ones who just go berserk and I overhear a lot of their drunken conversations. Being an engineer means that I’m ignored. It’s actually in the job description that I need to be heard as little as possible, my job is to disappear into the sound. As such, I don’t get a lot of credit or noticed that much. After all, a lot of people think that all I do is move sliders and turn knobs. But then again, playing the piano is just target practice. And that’s led to overhearing some really interesting conversations.

One that comes up here and there are discussions of hallucinogens like shrooms and lsd. Personally, I never had that much of an interest in them before I had my own psychotic episodes. And now that I have a proper diagnosis and hallucinate on my own, I really don’t want to be near these drugs. But what fascinates me is the difference between my view of hallucinations and other people’s view of them.

The fan’s view seems to want an altered state of consciousness and sees hallucinations as a way to achieve some other state of mind. I think it’s curiosity more than anything else. But they seem to avidly seek out the opportunity to see things that are not there. Maybe because they think that it’s controlled and can turn it off after a while then they’ll be safe. I’ve heard differently, people have taken shrooms and not come back and that possibility goes way up if there is a history of mental illness in the family. To me, it just seems like the most idiotic thing that one can possibly want.

This is probably because I hold an entirely antithetic view of hallucinations. I get them naturally. My brain trips on its own juices. And I take very careful precautions to never go there again. One episode was enough. Losing control is also just not an option for me. I don’t know what my voices say, and I don’t care to test them at all. Blacking out is one of the most frightening things that has happened to me. I probably won’t hurt anyone, I actually seem kinda docile when in that state, but I’m never going back because I could do some seriously stupid things.

It’s odd, it’s almost as if some of the normal people out there want to be me, and I don’t want to have that side of me. And if I ever wanted to go back, all I’d need to do is drop my zyprexa, drink heavily, smoke some pot, and I’d probably land myself in that position again.

But I guarantee you that if I hallucinated around these groupies on my own accord, they’d be scared to death of me. It wouldn’t be like if I was on acid and started talking to people that weren’t there. They’d piss themselves and call the cops. My hallucinations are scary, their hallucinations are fun and cute. It’s the same thing, I just do it naturally with a few nudges by other drugs. I kinda pisses me off and makes me feel old. To me, they’re young and naive and have never encountered the dark side of their minds. Sometimes, I rather wish that they would. Ultimately, hallucinations aren’t enlightening. Black out psychotic episodes are quite the opposite, they are one of the most frightening things that one can go through. And it’s worse that every time I have a drink or am near a joint that I suddenly think that I might tip over the edge. Instead of having fun, I watch my brain like a hawk waiting for it to go off. I’d rather have a knife held to my chest again.