I decided then to explore it much more thoroughly. I wanted more trips, to have more experience, to develop it more. I had to find people who had material, that I could get them to sit with me. I remember being with - oh, he was a physician - he was exploring the materials, and I wanted to try grass. He said all right, come by the house here, and I’ll have some grass for you and we’ll turn on. Well, I was smoking cigarettes in those days. He laid out some joints for me and told me how to inhale it and hold it and all that and so I started to smoke the grass. I smoked it like cigarettes. I inhaled a big drag, held it in my lungs as long as I could and blew it out, then inhaled another one. I did that through two and a half joints, and this was good stuff.

What happened was I really freaked out. I got paranoid as hell! I was lying down on the couch there after I had finished a piece. The agony of the damned went on and on and on such as can happen. Paranoid as hell! Scared to death of everything. If the phone rang I knew it was the police coming in and there was nothing I could do but just give myself up and all that kind of stuff. It was torture! It was a horrible bummer; I had never had a bummer like that in my life until then.

Myron: Were you alone?

Jacob: No, he was there. Some place, about two to three years into it, he came by and put a dish down by me and I picked up my eye and looked at it. I didn’t know what it was. I picked up my eye a couple of years later and looked at it and it was some ice cream, with a spoon. He said, “Have some ice cream, Jacob; go ahead.”

I picked it up and I took a spoonful of ice cream. I never tasted such ambrosia in my life! It was the exact opposite experience of what I was having. Heavenly! I ate and ate and ate for I don’t know how many years. Every bite was so beautiful! Finally I licked the spoon and I licked the bowl clean. I put it back down, laid back on the couch, and went right back into the bummer!