OT, Perelandra:
Read up also on Feynmans experience with acid and John Lillys sensory deprivation tank
"Richard Feynman
Richard Feynman was an extraordinary intellect who revolutionized modern physics. During his astounding career he helped design the atomic bomb, created a Nobel Prize winning theory of quantum electrodynamics, became a skilled safecracker and exposed the flaws which had led to the space shuttle Challenger disaster. His autobiography Surely you're joking, Mr Feynman! is full of anecdotes as to how he used his vast repertoire of arcane mathematical knowledge and plain common sense to outsmart and outwit the scientific, political and military establishments.
Feynman was a brilliant scientist long before he sampled marijuana and LSD while in his mid 50's, but he did claim to have learned from the mind-expanding experiences. Feynman was a friend of John Lilly, a researcher who pioneered the use of the tanks, studied psychedelics and consciousness, and is best known for his work with dolphins. Feynman's use of these illegal substances was mostly in the context of experimenting with his own consciousness while in a sensory deprivation tank.
While experimenting with his mind and memories in Lilly's tanks, Feynman also met Baba Ram Das, formerly Professor Richard Alpert of Harvard, friend of Timothy Leary and author of Be Here Now. Das instructed Feynman in how to achieve out of body experiences, which Feynman accomplished while in the tank.
Feynman found that pot helped him to achieve the hallucinatory state he was seeking. "Ordinarily it would take me about fifteen minutes to get a hallucination going," wrote Feynman, "but on a few occasions, when I smoked some marijuana beforehand, it came very quickly."
Feynman also tried LSD under these circumstances, but in his biography Genius by James Gleick, Feynman is described as being "embarrassed" by his LSD experiences. Feynman also received some criticism from his colleagues for his admission. In an essay called To Smoke Or Not To Smoke, Dr Lester Grinspoon wrote that "Feynman, by courageously acknowledging his ongoing use of marijuana, won the respect and appreciation of many and the enmity of others."
Id really like to know what embarrassed him so
I mean, Ive been puked on, drenched in the stuff, and even that wasnt even slightly disturbing in that context.
