That's sort of the memory that I have in my head, lol (and of course I've seen the movie). I don't remember anyone really being mean, but most of the people who physically moved me around were guys. I've been in children's mental hospitals many times since then, but they seem less bleak. Some people never get out, now that would be bad.

I've had the misfortune of being locked up. I was lucid the entire time and able to give the desired answers to the staff despite still being "out of mind", though I often wonder if that itself was a definitive fact I was either misdiagnosed, or simply a perceptive and disciplined crazy person =].

About the Bundy story. Did he keep a knife next to your throat during the entire conversation? And I imagine that in such a situation, I wouldn't wait till the next day to wake up my friends, I'd do it as soon as I got the chance. Why didn't you?

It's interesting, because I've thought about the insanity defense over the years. Obviously, I couldn't have been held responsible when I was completely blacked out, but when I remember being there (even though I was hallucinating), I wonder if at those times, I would have been culpable? There were levels of lucidity throughout that period and I am assuming that I would have been legally responsible only some of those times. Who knows?

The knife was by my throat the whole time, but we were actually having sort of a normal conversation some of the time, which was strange. Of course, we had toked quite a bit before we went to sleep and I guess that's why they stayed asleep, I wasn't being quiet after he let me get up.

One friend was very young and didn't toke (also long hair, but sleeping between the others, I was glad it wasn't him), so I don't know why he didn't wake up. I think I just thought that I would wait for morning. I know that it was starting to get light when I told them and I was freaked the whole time up until then.

For most of my life I would have handled things differently, because I was much rowdier and tougher than when I was young (and might get myself killed) Today, I would go back to doing it the way I did then and talking my way out.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
I know at some point they picked me up and took me back to the nurse's station in my ward. I remember thinking how unconcerned they were about my condition, but I guess it had something to do with Thorazine's side effects and how I wasn't being given enough of another drug that prevents the muscle spasms. They gave me a shot, put me in bed and after a short while, I walked out of my room.

I was in the mental hospital for about two months after I woke up. (That's the best way that I can describe it. I was somewhere else and then I wasn't. It felt much like a very vivid dream and the truth is, even though I had suddenly become aware, my last months in the institution were actually less real to me than those fleeting moments when I was out in the street with my dog.) But I was on my way to reality!

Like everyone else, I went through a variety of "group" sessions designed to get me in touch with the real world. The only reoccurring thoughts that I have on those sessions were, that while the leaders were well meaning, I still had difficulty sitting on those slippery chairs, so I was constantly being admonished to get up off the floor. I may have been on my way, but it was still going to be a long and difficult trip.

Until the electrical shocks and my eventual awareness, I had no idea the other people around me were as crazy as they were. One unfortunate young man was both unable to feel pain and extremely disturbed at the same time. Although his fingers were gone, he still delighted in showing everyone that he still felt nothing by stabbing himself with whatever was available at the time. Every crafts class ended in him being taken away by security, bleeding all over the floor, while the nurses just shook their heads nervously. I imagine that he is long gone by now...

Unlike movies I've seen and probably because of the nature of our dementia, I certainly don't remember forging any bonds with anyone in there and I doubt anyone else would remember me. One good thing about that was that I also don't have any particularly bad feelings toward the experience, which I know sounds crazy (!) in light of the fact that I was an almost perpetual battle with both security and my demons. I suppose that is a testament to the positive effect of being insane if you happen to be locked up in a mental institution, the mind is nothing if not interesting.

(The legal papers show the lawyers for the state suddenly going ballistic! Having been judged insane, the law at the time did not allow me to be held against my will once my sanity had been restored. Now, I still had very little clue about what was going on, so if they had wanted to keep me for a longer period they probably could have (and I would have probably agreed), but my court appointed attorneys were bound and determined to get me out.

It's interesting to me that at this time I wasn't required to be in court in person for this aspect of the hearings, perhaps the judge had tired of me and felt that I was best represented by professionals.

The transcripts show various doctors testifying on my competency, arguing that now that the court ordered treatment had worked, it was unfair that I continue to be punished. They felt that mental hospitals were not to be used as de facto prisons, simply because of the complexity of deciding who was in fact sane. This may have had more to do with funding issues than my sanity, but the battle over my specific case seems real.

Because the charges had been dropped, the lawyers for the state felt that allowing someone with only a tenuous grasp of reality back onto the streets without any oversight might be dangerous. So the battle raged on...)

The original post about the electric chair had me googling and finding out that Colorado never had the electric chair, but I figured it would either end up making sense or not or be a metaphor. Regardless, I didn't want to interfere with the story.

As an odd aside to this, back in the mid 1980's I was buying antiques for a house I bought in the mountains. I saw an ad in the newspaper for "Old Sparky", the electric chair used in Texas. It was a hundred dollars, which seemed like a good price, so I went across town to look at it.

Sure enough, it was an electric chair. I thought about buying it, but it didn't feel quite right having something like that in my house. That house was very weird and isolated (I thought it would help me quit drinking at the time, lol.), so it would have probably made for some very strange dreams. I've always wondered who bought that thing and the stories that they might have to tell.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
I remember the importance that was placed on contributing to the group. It was felt that if you couldn't participate, then you shouldn't be allowed to leave the hospital. At this point I do remember several friends coming to visit me and I did start thinking that maybe it would be nice to get out. I remember talking in these unruly and bizarre circle settings, but I have no idea what I said. (Cabbages and kings, I suppose...)

We made crafts, we went to an exercise area, we went to dinner and time passed. I think that the overlying criteria for getting out of a mental hospital is your own personal realization that you are more sane than everyone else around you. As reality returned, I began questioning the reason for me being locked up (and being force fed pills all day long).

When the nurses couldn't give me an adequate answer, I suppose the powers that be decided that it was time to let me go. It was ordered that I continue with once a week sessions with a psychiatrist, so I began a year and a half long study of my mind, coupled with a multitude of various prescribed drugs and an even larger compliment of non prescribed ones, substances specifically chosen by my friends and myself to bring me back to our very unusual vision of what was real.

My friends picked me up from the hospital and we we immediately headed for the Red Rocks Amphitheater, for a serious lesson in mind expansion climbing to the top of Ship Rock while experiencing an otherworldly dream state, the required exercise for all space travelers at the time. Back in the fold of my friends, who were already aware of how differently my mind worked, I could get back to the all important business of freeing my mind of convention and normalcy, which sounds somewhat comical today, but was completely de rigueur for the time.

I'm well aware of how this sounds to the non travelers among you, but we all have our callings in life and mine was, at the time, to reach for the stars. I don't question others because they don't have this intense and difficult drive, but I simply feel compelled to know more, even when that elusive "more" leads me down some very dangerous paths.

The psychiatrists that I went through were a seemingly random series of people chosen by the state, all nice enough, but obviously we had different goals, so pretty much I was just putting in time. On the very last visit that I ever had, I underwent an epiphany right there on the couch.

I looked up at the doctor (A nice enough guy and one whom I hold very kind thoughts. He would drive me around to look at houses, my life long obsession, while he delved into my thoughts.) and instantly knew that if I was to find myself in all this deep thinking, it would have to be me doing it. I exclaimed, "You can't help me, I'm the only person in the world who can discover what all this means!"

And with that, I stood up, walked out of the room and never went back. I never heard from the doctors or the state again.
---------------------------------------------------------------

I just wanted to add, that while the above story is true, I did change the names to protect the innocent.

Jack Webb itt.

Don't worry, I have more to come, I'm feeding my POG addiction for a couple of days, lol.

Tyler, I just wanted to thank you for your stories - they are truly fascinating. I started reading from the beginning of the blog tonight and couldn't stop until the end. You really should pursue writing in the future.

Thank you for your kind words, they are appreciated! I survived POG and I am ready to write again. While I enjoy WW, it is a very intense experience for me and I think it's probably more designed for the young, lol.

My ideas for the next series of stories are a leap forward in time. I decided after the last one that I needed to focus on the third phase of my life for awhile, one which moved in an almost opposite direction from the first two.

The stories are -

"Riots in Bangkok"
"Scatterlings of Africa"
"President Clinton and I work for the British government"
"Marlon Brando and I are presented to the Queen"

After the first stories, I now understand that your minds are immediately drawn to the famous, but these must be told in order for them to make any sense.

I thought I'd comment on this gif before I started, because it's actually a part of my life (or should be, lol). Mike Tyson is my favorite boxer of all time and a few years ago he was in real financial trouble. I read that he was offering to fight one round with anyone who put up the money.

Now, as I remember it, the amount was a hundred dollars, but it could have been a thousand, lol. I told my students that I was considering flying out to Vegas (The ring was in some casino) and going a round with him. One kid asked why I wanted to pay Tyson to beat me up and I laughed and said it was for the story, of course.

Well, I didn't go out, so I missed that story and for the rest of my life I wished I had.

And with that, the next story begins. I decided to not start with Asia, because that was an earlier time, (even though it sets some of the stage) so I'm beginning with England. As usual they start off strange, but will make sense in the end...

I heard a voice calling out for a killing. Just one voice in a crowd of thousands. I listened to it carefully and realized that it was my own. We were calling for someone's death, had the year 1605 really been that long ago?

It was November 5th and I was wandering in the ancient market village of Lewes, East Sussex, milling about in the teaming crowd. I had purchased a full pint of ale and I was stumbling along with the throng. We heard the drums in the distance and we began to fear the oncoming hordes. It was near dusk and the fog was growing thicker, adding to the dread.

Suddenly, out of the fog a flaming barrel appeared, rolling down the High Street, heading straight for the crowd. We heard explosions and screaming, the slow procession of drums growing louder and louder. We wanted to run away, but we knew it was already too late.

Out of the fog appeared a wall of Vikings, their heads adorned with helmets crowned with horns. Each one held a burning torch and each one chanted something, but I didn't understand the words. By the thousands they came, wave after wave, followed by their allies the Moors. The smuggler boys, dressed in black and white stripes, red caps on every head, were following closely, picking up the discarded torches and handing a new one to the invaders.

I could see the fear in the eyes of the children, as the smuggler boys began throwing bangers into the crowd. There was screaming and crying, but there was nowhere to run to now. Other smugglers were pulling huge aged carts to carry the spent torches, while they teased the crowd with more "rookers", their huge explosions burning everything they touched.

The Vikings began setting the village of Lewes alight, while the few town elders tried to keep the crowd from going insane. This burning procession had started at the little church of St. Thomas a Becket's and marched until they met up with Neville Juvenile, the children of Crewe, whose drum led march had begun at the Snowdrop and crossed the River Ouse. Invaders from another world, instilling fear with every step.

And when the villagers thought that nothing worse could befall them, they heard in the distance, at the opposite end of the village, the sound of a single bagpipe. They knew it meant the Southovers, the monks and buccaneers who marched under the banner of the Tudor Rose and William of Orange. Little children began to cry.

They slowly marched down into the village, heading right for the Viking hordes. Dressed in the clothes of soldiers, straight from the English Civil War. In front of their procession they carried seventeen flaming crosses, one for each martyr lost to the plot. On each of their faces was a grim determination, as the hue and cry for death grew even louder. Yes, I am embarrassed to say that I heard my voice loudest of all.

As I looked back at the Vikings, I finally saw the evil truth, for on top of the stakes of the very last clan, everyone of them dressed in the cloth of heathens, a bloody head was impaled. And at that terrible vision, the crowd pulled back in horror.

My arm was burned in the confusion and I tried to run out of the crowd, but I was blocked by the screaming masses and so there I remained to await my fate. At the very moment that the English met up with Vikings, came another group, marching down a third street heading straight into the village center. It was the final blow for Lewes and it meant that all was lost. For this group carried a huge key, the symbol of the town itself. It meant that the secret societies now ran the village and their final will would prevale.

At the moment before the collision, the groups suddenly turned away from each other and simply marched past without incident. And at that very moment things became very scary indeed. The crowd was still screaming and trying to get away from the explosions, but it was understood that a decision had to be made as to where your loyalties lie.

A wrong turn in political affiliation could very well mean the end of your life. It was at that very second that I became an official member of the Secret Society of Crewe, a designation that I still carry proudly to this day. So, I joined in behind the heads on stakes, behind the sign that stated "no popery", behind the young smugglers throwing explosives into the crowd and marched proudly out to the great burning grounds.

The roiling crowd carried me along for about a quarter of a mile, when we came to a small creek. When I climbed up out of the valley, I saw the most amazing sight of my life. Huge bonfires raged and young men were running into them, while on the other side other young men ran out screaming in flames. I had entered the sacred ground of the mighty Cliffe, which had kindly invited the smaller Crewe to take part and together they had planned a spectacle, a vision, a fantasy.

Their friends rushed forward to put out the fire on their clothes, while others stood by chanting, drunk on alcohol and the heady experience of being truly alive. The scene was surreal, a bleak look into what can only be described as Dantesque, but at that moment I became the believer, an acolyte of the bizarre.

I saw three Bishops standing in small boxes high atop wooden poles, crying out to the crowd in Latin, being read from ancient scrolls. As they rode their precarious platforms, twenty feet up in the air, I saw the crowd screaming at them and calling for their heads. In the confusion, I asked the person next to me what was happening. He said it was the final act in this strange and terrible tale, for the crowd was charged with silencing them, using whatever method they could.

They began shooting off rockets, setting the Bishops clothes alight, but that only made the Latin come louder, enraging the crowd even more. They began hurling the great bangers, which set the poles on fire, and as the flames raced up toward the priests, it seemed as if the people themselves had won. The crowd was pulling frantically at the poles until finally everything tumbled into the fray. I could only see a mass of confusion, but I heard the horrible screams, I knew the end came quickly, because I could hear the Latin no more, only the voices of the British, triumphant in their bloodlust at last.

It was only then that I looked up and saw the most amazing sight thus far; huge effigies, rising to what looked like forty feet into the night sky. When the crowd had finished with the men of the cloth they looked up at these totems and began to cry out for their destruction. Louder and louder, until a torch was put to each one. One of them was some king and one was some pope, but one looked oddly familiar, although I still can't place it to this day. As the flames began to grow, huge fireworks began blasting toward these figures and the crowd grew dangerous.

I decided that I had seen enough and I thought that I had better get back home. I worked my way out of the crowd, in the direction of the small pub where I had started out. Everywhere I looked people were injured, with others in the crowd trying to render first aid. I had difficulty working my way through what were tens of thousands of crazed villagers, but I persevered.

When I arrived back at the pub, I was struck by two thoughts. One, that I was happy that my little yellow Austin Mini was still sitting where I left it and two, every other car in what had been a crowded parking lot, was gone. As I looked up the streets of Lewes each way, I could see fire in every direction, but not a single other car.

I had one of those thoughts, where you know that you have made one of those mistakes that may put you in a position that you might not get out of, but I tried to banish that from my mind. I jumped in my car and prepared to drive out into the flames.

It was like something out of an action movie, I came crashing out of a wall of flames and into at least twenty British soldiers pointing their machine guns at me and hollering at me to stop. A young officer ran up to my window with a look of horror on his face and screamed, "What are you doing here?".

I could only shake my head and honestly answer, "I have no idea!".

The moment he heard my accent, the expression on his face went through a complete change. He realized that I was a clueless Yank, pretty much as lost as I had ever been in my life. I told him that I lived about forty miles away in South Hants and that I just wanted to get home. He stated to me that the fire was blocking every way out and they couldn't let me continue.

After I explained to him that I was giving an important lecture the next day, he went over and talked to a few others in his group. He pointed out a little shortcut, through some very narrow lanes, ones that they knew did not have too many fires in them and told me he would let me try.

I wish I could say it was easy, but I had to crash through many small bonfires, driving over sidewalks and around drunken crazed people the whole way. But suddenly, I was out into the night, driving like a madman and the entire story became like one in a dream. My drive home was a blur of confusion as I drove back to reality...

Monks on the hill, overlooking the burning village of Lewes.

A large smuggler group -

The Moors -

I began with this story, because it best encapsulates this series of adventures in the UK (and elsewhere). I was taking classes in Washington DC, in preparation for a year as a Fulbright Scholar, lecturing at several colleges at Oxford. My field of study was primarily Public Administration (computer application and learning theory), with particular emphasis on curriculum implementation and design.

My lessons in Washington consisted of learning how to party with the "swells" and what it took to be accepted. I wouldn't say they didn't think a rube from Denver could hold his own in the clutch, but the lessons were wonderfully eccentric, with that lighthearted touch that the British seem to reserve for us Yanks.

I met another young adventurer in class who knew that I traveled the world looking for unique experiences and he is the one who recommended Lewes to me. I'm not one for talking about "bucket" lists, because I think life itself should be lived with that philosophy, but if I had never been to Bonfire Night in Lewes, it would certainly be at the top.

It was the most primal, exotic, dangerous thing that I have ever witnessed. Every year the London politicians threaten to shut it down and every year it comes back in force. (In fact, the heads on stakes are paper mache effigies of whoever complains about the bonfire and they too are thrown into the fire.) The famous and the small are all consumed, because for that one night, in that sleepy little village the secret societies hold the keys.

It is irreverence at it's best and I hope it never fades. Dangerous? You bet, but with all the injuries comes a sense of witnessing our very history. I say long live these clubs, they talk to us from the past.

With that I begin the rest of my story, a tale that's difficult to believe. But where is the best beginning for a story about Britain? Why, that's in Africa of course, with a young soldier going through my little bag of peanuts with his bayonet, asking, "What are these?".

"Maybe next year."
"Maybe next year?"
"Yeah, maybe next year."

That's how I got the idea to climb Kilimanjaro. I'd been living in the UK for about eight months and the sun hadn't come out for a whole day even once. I'd always assumed that I would move to the UK when I retired, because I've always dreamed of owning a huge old haunted looking house, something barely visible in the fog.

The part I forgot about was that most of that spooky grayness comes about because of the British weather, which is overcast much of the time. So I asked my friend when the sun was going to come out and when he gave me that answer, I knew I needed to travel south.

I figured I could make it a working holiday and the Kenyan government would give their support while I visited schools and reported on their implementation of the National Curriculum, which was in use at the time. I knew that there was political turmoil going on in various parts of the country, but my work in education rarely involves politics.

As a part of my Fellowship, I met the British ambassador several times at the embassy in London and we had hit it off, making jokes about our respective birth states. Much of my work was either lecturing on educational topics or attending parties with local dignitaries. Many times the parties involved various "royals", so the six of us who were awarded various Fulbright Awards that year, received extended training in areas of diplomacy.

The ambassador knew I was living in England for a year and a half alone and that I liked to travel, so I was asked to give several lectures in other parts of the country. I would drive around lecturing and sightseeing, having the time of my life. All in all, it was an exciting time, but I still felt the need to feel the sun on my face.

I thought that I could do the climb, something that I'd always wanted to do and see Africa for the first time. I decided that I could fit in the Serengeti, while reviewing whatever schools the Kenyans wanted me to see. (The reason that I chose to only review schools in Kenya was because they used the curriculum I was familiar with.) I began doing the paperwork required for the trip and started training for the ascent.