Snakes on a Brain

Post on 15 January, 2020 by Dallin Malmgren

Edith’s birth­day cake when she was four years old.

My grand­daugh­ter Edith loves snakes. She has a big stuffed one that she likes to car­ry around with her. She has a more real­is­tic plas­tic one that she enjoys set­ting in strate­gic places. She has lots of snake books. She thinks it is hys­ter­i­cal that I am afraid of them.

I believe I know how that hap­pened. I have a vague mem­o­ry of going on a hike with my broth­er. We were on a fam­i­ly vaca­tion, and I think I was about four or five. We came to this shal­low creek that had a mud­dy, sandy bot­tom. So we wad­ed in and start­ed squish­ing around like it was quick­sand, sink­ing deep­er and deep­er. I was in up to my knees. All of a sud­den a big black snake was swim­ming through the water toward us. I couldn’t jerk my feet out of the mud. I guess we just splashed and the snake went away, but that one instant was terrifying.

Dur­ing my short-lived (thank­ful­ly) hal­lu­cino­genic phase, I was in the woods with my friend Dan­ny Dougher­ty, trip­ping mer­ri­ly along. I looked into a crevice and I saw a snake. Its eyes looked direct­ly into mine. I sup­pose they’re not to blame, but for some rea­son God chose to make snakes the most evil-look­ing organ­isms in His entire cre­ation. (Thus the ser­pent in the gar­den.) I looked away from my snake…and sud­den­ly the leaves on the ground teemed with snakes, the branch­es of the trees began wrig­gling and trans­formed into snakes. In abject ter­ror I turned to my friend Dan­ny. Our eyes met, only it wasn’t his eyes; they were now snake eyes, that cold, rep­til­ian, soul­less stare. Then Danny’s face mor­phed into a snake face! Hol­ly­wood couldn’t have done it bet­ter using CGI. I screamed and the next thing I knew the real Dan­ny was shak­ing me, say­ing, “Dallin, Dallin, it’s only a bad trip.”

I took LSD five or six times after that, and when­ev­er I took it I was imme­di­ate­ly filled with fear and para­noia, ter­ri­fied that my world would sud­den­ly dis­solve into a mass of writhing snakes. I’d stay in one room tena­cious­ly cling­ing to real­i­ty while my brain absorbed the effects of LSD. I was such fun to trip with! In fact, one time I talked my friend Randy into a bad trip. I had just fin­ished describ­ing my bad expe­ri­ence to him, but he didn’t seem to get it.
“What are you afraid of?” I asked.
“Bugs.”
“Okay, so imag­ine that all of a sud­den there are bugs every­where, crawl­ing all over the floor, fly­ing, land­ing on you, crawl­ing into your ears…”
The next thing I knew he was wrapped up like a ball, scream­ing his lungs out. Per­verse­ly, it made me feel better.

Why did I keep tak­ing LSD? I guess because I knew the prob­lem was not with snakes, it was with my psy­che. Like the line from Bob Dylan’s clas­sic “Talkin’ World War III Blues,” spo­ken by a psy­chi­a­trist: “I wouldn’t wor­ry about it none, those dreams are only in your head.” My sto­ry has a hap­py end­ing, even though I cer­tain­ly don’t advo­cate ther­a­py by hal­lu­cino­gen under any cir­cum­stance. The very last time I took acid, I was out on a hip­pie farm in Mis­souri. I went out into the woods by myself, trep­i­da­tious but deter­mined. I had a rev­e­la­to­ry expe­ri­ence sit­ting by a pond, a John Lennon-esque Pri­mal Scream rev­e­la­tion. I was med­i­tat­ing and I felt myself going deep­er and deep­er into my mind, like pages were flut­ter­ing back­ward and I was get­ting younger and younger. I end­ed up in a fetal posi­tion, and I saw a tremen­dous flash of white light, which filled me with inde­scrib­able joy. I stood up and the world was beau­ti­ful, gor­geous, per­fect. On the way back to the farm­house, a big brown mot­tled snake slith­ered across my path about ten feet in front of me. I stopped and took a deep breath. I watched it move away into the under­brush. I walked on. I was cured. I was not a Chris­t­ian back then, but I am cer­tain God was very present in that whole stage of my development.

Okay, yes, I am still afraid of snakes—but not ter­ri­fied like I was then. When I met my wife, we were both mem­bers of a zeal­ous Chris­t­ian com­mu­ni­ty, I a new con­vert, she a pas­sion­ate dis­ci­ple. We were very drawn to each oth­er, and so we would some­times pray togeth­er, espe­cial­ly about what our rela­tion­ship should be. We were doing that very thing one day in her back­yard, and when I looked up there was a huge snake mov­ing through the bush behind her. If I believed too much in omens, I would be with­out my love­ly wife.

But I didn’t, and we mar­ried. A few years lat­er I was mow­ing the back lawn and I glimpsed a snake mov­ing through the grass. I ran in to tell Karen. “There’s a huge snake out there!”
“Does that mean you’re not fin­ish­ing the lawn?”
“No, it means I’m putting on my boots.” And I did, tall ones.
A few rows lat­er I saw the snake flash again, and the lawn­mow­er got it. I went and got Karen, who came out to exam­ine my kill. It was a 12-inch garter snake. She laughed her head off.

A few years ago I was in my garage and I watched a six-foot corn snake crawl in and hide behind some box­es. Did I men­tion that when Karen was a child, she used to attend class­es at the St. Louis Zoo, and she once had large harm­less snakes wrap them­selves around her arms and neck? So I went and got her. She grabbed that suck­er by the tail, car­ried it out to the wood­ed area behind our house, and let it go. I was very grate­ful that nobody drove by and saw us.

Edith’s dad­dy has promised her that some­day he will get her a pet snake. Hmmm. Cross that bridge when I get to it.

Comments

  • Reply

    One of Edith’s favorite sto­ries I tell her is the one about us grow­ing up near “Snake Stick Park.”

    And trip­ping in the woods is mag­i­cal. I think you should try it again someday–but not with me. I don’t need your snake para­noia killing my buzz.

    Bethany Malmgren15 January, 2020

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