Greensnake Tries A Mind-Expanding Beverage

Two summers ago I had the good fortune to ingest a substance that made the lawn jump out into multidimensional fractal patterns before my eyes. It was a great experience, but unfortunately the substance that I took seems to have been a gateway drug. It must have been, because after that experience, I absolutely burned with curiosity and a desire to try other ways of altering my consciousness. But what substance to choose? Last December, a totally legal option presented itself to me: coffee.

I had always heard people saying that coffee is a drug. My health is really important to me and I am pretty conservative when it comes to vices (I'm not into alcohol, I don't particularly like chocolate, I don't have a secret stash of smutty jpegs on my hard drive, I've never watched Survivor, I don't have a driver's licence, I'm no gambler, and I don't even eat meat) so obviously I had never tried coffee before! I had always assumed that the commonly tossed-about phrase, "coffee is a drug," referred only to its chemically addictive nature. Did you know that 70% of the headaches in North America are due to caffeine withdrawal? But I digress.

So I started to think about it. Coffee is a drug... coffee is a drug... could it make the lawn hop out into fractals? I doubted it. But what could it do? Should I try it and find out if there was anything more to its "drug" reputation than just its ability to form a habit? Should I should I should I try? One night I randomly read online that some medieval sect of Sufis had used caffeine to get high so that they could commune with God. That did it - my decision was made. I was going to try it.

With a little help from my friend, I soon had a cup of Turkish Coffee in my eager little hands. I was so excited! I was going to get high, I just knew it!

The coffee was dark brown and it smelled great. The first sip, however, tasted terrible. It was bitter and left an astringent feeling in my mouth like herbal bronchitis medicine. I couldn't drink it quickly at all, so I just sipped. Start low and go slow, I reminded myself. At first, the only change I noticed was a slight sharpening of concentrational focus toward the cup of coffee itself. By the time the cup was empty, a thin sweat had broken out all over my skin. I felt like I could write a 40-page research paper on any topic at the library in time for dinner. Was this how those Sufis had felt before they communed with God? I started noticing details all over the room, and my attention was jumping from one item to another. So many interesting things to look at! I decided to have another cup.

My companion was not sure if I should do that.

I insisted, "Come on! I want to get high like those Sufis!"

"If you want to be up all night..."

"That's what they did! They stayed up all night communing with God!" Staying up all night seemed realistic. I felt like I could handle it. Was it a challenge? Throw it at me, I thought, I can do anything! I could get a lot done if I stayed up all night. It would be great!

After my second cup, those details were really standing out. The grain of the wood that the chairs were made of... the reflections on the windows... the clinking of spoons... the whole atmosphere of the cafe came alive, really. Of course nothing was standing out in a fractal- claymation-kaleidoscope way. But everything was standing out in an attentional way, inside my mind. I wondered if maybe I had had some kind of attentional deficit all along, and now the coffee was allowing me to focus my attention? On many things at once?

I realized that my verdict was in. Did I commune with God? No. But coffee was definitely a drug, and not just because it was addictive. I really felt that I had traveled to another plane of consciousness: I had experienced caffeinated awareness.

That Monday morning at work, I watched my co-workers with their coffee mugs and I smelled the coffee brewing in the pot. It was the first time I had ever been able to relate to their rituals. But I still didn't understand. How could something so mind-altering be used so casually in a place of work? In my imagination I subsituted other substances, like my favourite leafy greens, for the coffee. I couldn't imagine people walking around stoned in our office on a Monday morning. Why was coffee so socially acceptable?

I remembered my urge to write a research paper the day before. I think that although coffee is definitely consciousness-altering, the way it alters our consciousness is still compatible with our inherited protestant work ethic. It makes people feel like they can attack a task and get stuff done! And, as I sadly discovered that evening, users can become extremely habituated after only one use. Maybe the morning coffee doesn't affect most workers that much at all. When I did coffee again that night, I didn't get half the effect I had had the day before. I wasn't able to get the same intensity of experience until I had gone more than two weeks without doing any coffee at all.

In total, I did coffee 8 times over the past year. Although coffee exacerbates some of my least favourite personality traits, it is a great drug that's totally legal, socially acceptable in any situation except maybe during sex, and does change your head when you want to feel a different feeling. Nevertheless, I can't see myself getting really serious about it (if you say "grinder" I don't think of coffee), because it is so addictive, you get habituated so easily, and it has a ton of negative health effects. It scares the hell out of me that some people drink 8 cups a day just to feel normal. That's 4 times more than what I had when I first entered into the heightened realm of caffeinated awareness!

It's sad but true: I know that if I were to start to use this substance more often, my use would become abuse, because I would turn something that to me is still magical into just another requisite part of my daily routine. I'd feel cranky without it, but nothing special with it.