Flashback Download: Giving Birth on LSD

Thank you so much for these posts, Sylvia. You are an inspiration! The pure and 'innocent' energy and love you experienced is something, as a hippie of the 80's, we lived to keep alive, though it's pure manifestation most of us had only dreamed about. We knew it was real, we caught glimpses of it in small moments of grace and light, but invariably heroin ruined everything, even our beloved Jerry Garcia, and with him an era. I never really realized until reading your stories, the reality of the dawning of the age of aquarius, and the governments direct role in polluting it with heroin and attacking the movement from that angle, slowly and painfully, like crack in the ghettos, I never really saw it as the same, I live(d) it, and I am personally affected by it to this very day. First hand knowledge of a time when the 'flower children' were not yet ravaged by addiction is good for the soul! As many of us awaken from our psychic sleep of the last two decades, your life experiences , I think, are an invaluable aid in healing and making sense of that period of our lives, who we have become, and how do we proceed from here.

I can't wait to read more of your story. The "get out of San Francisco" card was something as a generation, my brothers and sisters did'nt have the chance to play, some survived, some did not, some still struggle. One of those still struggling just tonight asked me, what if, what if drugs didn't alter the idealistic path we set out on in our youth? Your stories, for me, are a connection back to the wide eyed idealistic teenager, and confirmation that the energy we felt at that time was and is real, and exists outside the entanglement of drug addiction it became associated with. Tell us more Mama Sylvia, tell us more.

This is one of the coolest things I've read, thank you so much for sharing. What an experience that must have been!

Namaste

Thanks for the trip, we want more words.

just a few questions. You wrote that Richard the Drummer took Todd to the park just after you started labor,
" I told him to give it to bring him back home in a couple of hours so he could watch his sister be born on his first trip."
This is a most mysterious sentence, to give what? was this his first acid trip watching his sister being born? I am most curious about Todd and who he is now.

Thanks for sharing your gripping story from the late sixties in SF. It feels authentic and familiar; from your perspective as a woman and mother, a few years older and farther along the spiritual path than most who were there. We don't have enough stories written by those who experienced that time and place. We are blessed to have you on Evolver.

Really cool story, thanks for sharing! Look forward to reading the next installment :)

Your contribution here, Vintage Tripper, is refreshing - and one of the reasons I come back to peruse the offerings at Evolver now and then. I'm grateful for your ability and willingness to candidly share your reflections about personal enlightenment and heartfelt choices, and that you do so anecdotally rather than didactically.

I also appreciate and empathise with the need for your readers to express their feelings about the controversial act of giving birth on LSD. I get the feeling that you wouldn't be offended by another person's criticism of your choice, and in light of some of the harsh words spoken, I hope with all my heart that that's the case. Soul Traveller's questions were excellent; thank you for your clear and complete answers. Wildthing's observation that "to say that taking LSD when you gave birth in those days was somehow out of sync or not wise, is neither here nor there, people in those wild challenging experimental moments were just doing what seemed natural" is well-put too.

After an internal "yippee!" when reading your story, I put myself in your place and found myself pondering various questions - mostly existential and unanswerable ones. The two that seem most meaningful to the comment thread, if not the content of your post specifically, are: 1) How might LSD interact with the hormones, neurotransmitters, and other chemicals (including endogenous DMT, possibly) that would be coursing through mom and baby during labour and childbirth? and 2) What kind of "trip" might an unborn baby have, with no known frame of reference except the sensations s/he had experienced in the womb?

After reading the criticisms, my feeling on this is that, of all the things that unborn babies often encounter without giving their approval (e.g., nicotine, caffeine, meth, aspartame, all kinds of prescription meds, non-food "food" additives and chemicals like pesticides, malnutrition, violence through abuse of the mother, abortion), unadulterated LSD during birth would most likely be one of the more innocuous and (dare I say it) beneficial - just as it is when done thoughtfully and occasionally (remember people, set and setting) by consenting adults. What I can say is that if I were a fetus and I had a lucid and informed choice about what I encountered in the womb, I'd take the basics first: concern and care from a mother who is loving and kind, who eats whole, organic foods, and who cultivates a really good vibe and of course wants to share it with me. Oh, and if my mum deliberately chose to give birth unconventionally, i.e., underwater, at home, and/or while tripping on LSD, I'd like to know I could trust her judgment. You show good judgment, Vintage Tripper. The Disclaimer that apparently got a few readers in a bit of a tizzy - reminding them that you're sharing an important, personal anecdote and not prescribing anything, and most importantly advising them to consult with their own "Teacher Within" - is evidence enough for me.

This virtual tour is compelling; please keep it up!

That is an absolutely incredible story, and thank you so much for sharing.

-Not for me. Cannabis and other psychedelics put you into your deepest stuff, and if you could handle it, you could break on through to Higher Consciousness and a fuller understanding of Life itself. Of course psychedelics are tricky. Set and setting—as Leary pointed out—are very important, as are one’s intention in using the substance and how much inner work a person had done – how well one knew one’s self.-,

These are like words taken right out of my mouth, the only 'hard drugs' i have ever taken is MDMA and have always felt a profound sensation of 'plastic, fake, synthesized, inorganic, alien" and though the experience can be most pleasurable and euphoric, i had always felt 'dirty', and rather on mushrooms and with cannabis, it is a much cleaner, earthy feeling, a sensation of Oneness with this planet as you consume something IT has made for you to open your consciousness into it's depths, not what man has made to 'party' and get 'wasted' on, it's the very same feeling with alcohol and even, i found after my first experience not too long ago, with acid, a rather unusual and indescribable sensation that is not too unlike psilocybin at the same time it is completely unlike psilocybin. The 'trip' was there, for me, but not the feeling of Oneness with myself and this Universe, that i love so much. Perhaps it was because i was too worried of keeping in reality, and the set and setting environment were much too intense. It is much the same with cannabis as i have learned to classify it as a mild entheogenic plant teacher, instead of just getting super high by myself, as i viewed it even just a year or two ago, i now smoke preferably alone and meditate, practice opening my chakras and kundhalini, don't get me wrong i still like to have fun (when i can control myself) but i find it becoming more and more difficult to converse with friends and play around and joke when i am slipping in and out of dimensional realities in the middle of conversation, much like how it is with psychedelics, and even with just cannabis. It opens me up into my self, my imagination of reality and conscious thought, this planet and this very universe itself.
Much love
-A.

I love this story.

The thing that strikes me most about the comments is that there a handful of people upset about this, or thinking it's a bad move. In reality despite lots of effort by the government no one has ever found anything wrong with LSD.

In the hospital they pump you full of opiates, cut you open, then dose you heavily with anti-biotics, that's like hundreds of times worse than LSD is for you, why aren't you guys picketing hospitals?

After just having had a baby, and learning a lot from our midwives and documentaries about it, I just don't get the strange values and misconceptions that our culture has surrounding child birth.

If anyone could show me and solid backed up evidence as to why LSD is wrong than I'm open to checking it out, but I haven't seen it, and I've spent quite a bit of time looking. Also if anyone can show me any evidence as to the models in babies minds when they are born that could be potentially upset by LSD I'd be open to that also, but once again it appears modern civilization is at a bit of a loss.

-Invisible Agent

"No one really knows exactly what happens when we think, therefor we can never really ever know anything." -Michael Larson

www.BarbelithLives.com

Sylvia,
First thank you again for all that you have written for us all to read, ponder, enjoy and grow from !
While I never made either of the two primary pilgrimages of the entry into the age of Aquarius (sanfran or greenich , I did white lake ) , my beloved did live in the haight off & on from 66 to 68& I feel that her path & yours might have crossed in S.F. I feel that two such parallel sources of wisdom , magic & spirituality would have been strange attractors even in the centering of vibrations that was Haight - Ashbury circa 66-68.
I agree with others that your recollections and experiences of these transformative times and places in the (suppressed) evolution of our cultures are priceless. Worth much , much more than the fears and errors of a few who have yet to evolve into the acceptance of the otherness of others. It may be worth noting that everyone does the best they can with where they are along their path(s) in their evolution of consciousness. Not everyone is far enough along in their path not to need to control or censure the actions or words of others. Nor in our current society is everyone yet free of the constant fear broadcast into our environment , nor freed themselves from the repeated misinformation & disinformation propaganda of the drug warriors ' - war on humans.
1st , For the record , from the tablet description , place & time , it's fairly certain that the "purple wedge" was made by Augustus Stanley Owsley III & therefore safer & more free from impurities than even pharmaceutical grade Delysid (lsd) from Sandoz Laboratories .
2nd , lsd does cross the blood brain barrier at the brain & also the similar placental barrier, so it would have affected the incarnating life, however no one who was not that child or it's mother knows anything of what was experienced.
3rd , lsd is a very minor vasoconstrictor & even a major vasoconstrictor would not "cut off" blood or oxygen.
4th , uterine constrictors are found in ergot alkaloids (ergotmetrine , elymoclavine) not in lsd , this is a myth rising from the confusion of natural sources of lsa with synthesis of lsd , so taking morning glory seeds or eating discolored rye seeds would not be wise for a pregnant woman who was not already in labor.
5th , There are no hallucinogens , that is a scare word used by propagandists and drug warriors , similar to psychomimetic ( mimicking psychoses ). Since there are no experiences inside the substance itself - the substance cannot cause you to see anything that is not there . The effects are from the removal of perceptual filters & the enhancement of senses, so actually you're seeing what is real , just usually discarded by perceptual filters as not relevant to your survival & if it's real, even if it something(s) you've never experienced before
then it's not a hallucination, therefore it's not a hallucinogen .
6th , the imagined construct of what incarnating souls would experience as the body of a child being born to a mother who had ingested at onset of labor , a mind manifesting substance is not credible except as a projection of the fears of the writer. It is much more likely the child's experience was similar to her mothers' a calm and joyous occasion , with pain not perceived as negative. Given that all mind manifesting substances markedly enhance empathic and telepathic abilities ( by removing filters) I think it much more likely that Sylvia's account of the birth is accurate, after all she & her daughter experienced it , no one else here did.
7th , beings not yet incarnate have no way to give consent for what their parents experience , nor can their grandchildren or any successive generations , so it's a false and misleading issue. I could hint that most of us choose to some extent to whom we are born , and know to some extant what is going on with the mother & child prior to incarnation at birth , but then someone would demand proof & at that point all I can say if you're not yet enlightened enough to know how some of "reality" happens to you then you have not had the experiences that would allow you to know without questioning, perhaps you need to widen the number or types of paths you are pursing if they have not lead you to any greater truths than unwarranted censure of another's' words of her actions taken long before you knew aught of her beautiful exsistance . Allow me to remind you gently, as She hath harm'ed none, it be not thy place to call harm.
" A rising tide - drowns those without boats " - Cee Are