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