Adventures in Blindness

April 21, 2025

I did an experiment in blindness tonight. For a while, I had a sleep mask over my eyes and I did several things. In the process I remembered another similar experiment I did 30+ years ago.

Since my 20s, I have wondered what it would be like to be a blind stoner. I imagined that such persons must exist and that they would have figured out how to find their pot, clean it (remember pot had a lot of seeds in general in the 1980s), put it into a pipe, and manage to smoke it. All without setting themselves on fire. Early experiments around this had me with my cleaning tray in the dark, doing all of the things. I don’t konw if I did all the de-seeding in the dark.

In 1992, while at a pagan festival, I decided to do a more extended experiment. On the last day of the festival, a little after breakfast, I tied a bandanna around my head, covering my eyes. For approximately the next 8 hours, I was blind. I needed help walking around, getting food, going to the shitter, etc. People guided me, along paths etc. I could have just chilled in my campsite, and I suppose that would have had some differente experiences, but I like going out and about. I told myself that the small world of the fest was a safe place to do this experience.

I remember distinctly what it was like eating from a plate. I think i had someone get me some food. Having to prep my food would have been next level. keeping track of the food on my plate by memory and feel gave me a whole neso

I kept the blindfold on until after dusk. When I finally took it off, I was sitting near a fire and it was dark.

That night was when I really met and hooked up with Jewels. What led to us actually meeting and talking was she was sitting down rubbing her shoulder because it had seized up, and she couldn’t drum. I walked up to her, started rubbing her shoulder. We ended up back at my tent and made love just before dawn.

Tonight’s experiment was kind of spontaneous.

It was because I wanted to take some DMT, and i wanted to have as little distractions from the real world as possible. I removed the battery from the ticking clock on my wall to have close to total silence. I made sure to pee before I started, I filled up the water in my CPAP, all of the things that I would normally do, before I put on the blindfold. In retrospect that is cheating a little bit

Deciding to go to the bathroom was particularly challenging. Getting out of the hammock was challenging enough. Finding the door and getting to the bathroom and closing the door behind me was a series of challenges. I had an internal map of my room and where various things were that had been made while I had sight. This feels like cheating a little bit since an actual blind person would not have had this prep.

Once in the bathroom, finding the door and handle to get out took a little while. I found repeatedly that I misjudged the distance for things. It seemed like the door to my bedroom was much further away than I remembered, probably because I was taking small steps. o

I had a whole section where i was trying to get high on the DMT. I realized that having to hit the vape 3 or more times was some obviously fae -flavored shit. There was a section where i was imagining logging my activity, and that logging at the level where i was taking breaths was ridiculous. Also, making this level of detail in a log which was part of a public record seemed kind of ridiculous.

I think i ran out of dmt in the two vapes I’d been using. I got another out of the closet - again by feel. It took a lot to get myself arranged in the hammock between the fitted sheet, the blanket i used for a pillow and he blanket I used for being warm. By the time i was all situated, i was having a hard time remembering to hit the vape, hold my breath, three times. I think I wasted a bit of the DMT. Eventually i decided this wasn’t happening, put on my cpap, and tried to go to sleep. After tossing and turning for a while I wondered what time it was. It was 5 am

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