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Confirmation 95
wasn’t scenery, it was space, and that’s the closest I can get to it. I don’t know if I’ve described it very well, but it was terrifying. For if I had rolled off, I would’ve been killed instantly on impact. If anything would have happened to one of these swallows in the air, it would’ve plummeted 3,000 feet to the valley floor.
S: That’s the kind of danger you felt last week?
A: A little bit. But it wasn’t that something was really going to happen to me. I wasn’t really afraid of falling. It was more being confronted with the enormity of something in front of me, that had I been there—in the space—I would not have survived. Do you know what I mean? It wasn’t so much that I was in danger of being forced out there, but for the first time I really saw it.
S: You think for the first time in your life you really saw that enormity last week?
A: Yes. The first time that I can remember. I don’t ever remember having felt that way. The drug experience is different. It’s fleeting, you know, your mind races when you eat these kinds of mushrooms or else it just sort of stands still and you can sort of stare at something for a long time and not really be aware of what you’re seeing. But I’ve never really freaked out on drugs. I’ve never panicked on them or anything. I just sort of have experiences that seem sometimes marginally profound.
S: Do you take drugs a lot?
A: No, I don’t think so.
S: How often did you take hallucinogens?
A: Oh, I haven’t taken them in years, since I got pregnant
certainly. When was the last time I ate mushrooms? I don’t even remember, it was a while ago, it was two or three years ago.
S: Do you miss it?
A: Well, you know, I sort of do but I’ve got a bunch of them in the freezer and I haven’t eaten them. It’s like you need the right time, and I certainly wouldn’t want to do it when I had my child around. I wouldn’t want to be responsible for anything.
S: Do you think the reaction that you had was similar to a drug experience?
A: Well, yes and no. When you’re on drugs, at least when I’m on drugs, I always know I’m on drugs. I’ve never lost it so much that I really thought that I was somewhere else. I guess maybe some people


































































































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