Zombian Thoughts

Zombian Thoughts [Part I - The Early Years]

When I encountered a new monster as a kid I wanted to know how to defeat it, in my teens and twenties I wanted to consume more ideas about the monster, these days my interest is in discovering what secrets and insights the monsters have to share.

For the last few years I have devoted some part of the summer months to researching monsters from the original D&D Monster Manual (1977-78) and this July was spent researching the very last monster in that bestiary: the Zombie. I had considered myself a minor Zombie-phile (including running a 'Zombie Apocalypse' RPG scenario way back in high-school, a life long love of gore make-up and drawings, and even tracking down a 'Flyboy' action figure to buy) but the ocean of Zombie lore was far deeper than I imagined.

The popular interest in Zombies has caused an explosion of academic interest and in my efforts to track-down Zombie information I have gathered journal articles on Zombie's deep Haitian cultural background, using Zombie outbreaks to model epidemiological theories, the 'zombie question' in philosophy (which always seemed pointless to me - but that is another posting!), and dozens of other papers: existential zombies, zombies and gender, zombies and the carnival, zombies and capitalism.

The intellectual approach is vital but not sufficient in the realms of tetratology (monster studies) so I also watched zombie movies, listened to zombie soundtracks, played zombie-games and, most importantly, told my the shadowy corners of my brain that they could play with zombies, and soon enough, strange insights about the Zombian strain of the undead came bubbling forth.

So for the next month or two I'm going to post one insight or stray thought about Zombies in this thread.

1 - The Fine Line between the Living and the Undead

The first entry is kind of a cheat because it is an anecdote and not an insight, but it is too weird not to mention.

These days I live a pretty rural life and trips into the local urban areas are infrequent, but the arrival of my brother and his partner at the airport is good reason to hop in a car and drive through the cluster of towns that ring Sudbury. Their flight from Newfoundland was a lengthy one and so we decided to stop and pick-up some food for them. As Steph headed in to buy some pitas, I took the opportunity to scout out a residential street. In was a balmy July early evening and the street was growing dark but a 'No Exit' sign promised a short trip and, in my experience, dead-end streets almost always have secret trails or sights waiting for those who explore them.

The sole light and motion of the sleepy street came from an open garage where a man slowly worked as two kids bounced around like super-balls. Passing-by on the opposite side of the streets I thought I heard one of the kids say, "Zombie Apocalypse." After a pinch of shock I discounted this because having been so steeped in Zombie research my brain was obviously overly primed towards zombie. What were the chances that the first random bit of speech I would overhear after a month or two of rural seclusion would be about Zombies? Also the word 'apocalypse' sounded so alien coming from a child's mouth, 'apocalypse' is an adult concept.

The next words I overheard were unmistakable, "See, there is a Zombie now!" There was no one else on the street so I had to briefly turn back toward the garage. The two kids were peering out at the edges. I waved back and continued on. As a life-long walker of dark streets I'm used to cautious reactions to my presence, women will cross the road rather than walk by, motion-sensor lights will flick on bringing peering eyes to windows, police cars will circle you. Still such suspicion is rare and fleeting and the beauty and mystery of night-darkened streets is too great. The end of the street is marked by a dented metal road bumper and the darkness conceals what lies beyond until I'm at it's edge, then a large clearing appears. I hop the bumper and find myself at a large cross-road of local walking trails, frogs go silent then start croaking again, a few fireflies float around in the summer air. A few moments of wonder before thoughts of airplanes and pitas nudge me back into motion.

Returning back I stay to the far side of the street from the garage but my presence is quickly noted my the zombie watchers and presence is questioned.

"Who are you?"

"A Zombie," I holler back.

(long pause)

"Then why are you wearing shorts?"

"Zombie get hot too," I reply in drawled Zombie speech.

"We have paint-ball guns!"

Since I was walking while answering their questions I'm out of audible range and just wave good-bye and continue on. The mixture of strangers on dark streets and the talk of weapons leaves a cloud of menace in the air, but street soon ends in the bright glare of a Pita Pit.

Driving on to the airport the absurdity of the encounter forces a crazed smile: Did I really get identified as a Zombie on my first trip into a town in months? Did I honestly respond by identify myself as a Zombie? Where those kids really talking about the Zombie Apocalypse when I wandered by? If North American culture wasn't saturated in Zombiedom and all thing Zombian it would be unbelievable.

That night I recall the time when a friend's very young son dubbed me "Rob the Robber" and glared at me with eyes that alternated between real suspicion and knowing humour. The warrior spirit is strong in kids, especially boys, and the protection of the home and neighborhood comes instinctually. Much of my own childhood was occupied with scouting, patrolling with binoculars and walkie-talkies, practicing with weapons, brandishing fake guns and setting up traps. In 2015 the eternal folk-devil of 'The Robber' exists beside modern folk-devils like Zombies and Terrorists. And seen in a darkened mirror I might be mistaken for all three.

A few days later a friend shows up unexpectedly to visit my brother while he is in town. As we are all talking outside I notice he has a deteriorating Zombie bumper-sticker on his van. I don't even blink. It is the Zombie's world now, we just live in it.

2 - Dreams of the Dead

The line between the living and dead appears to be firm. Yet this is clearly not true.

As we age or sicken we grow more and more like a corpse unlike we become one. Even once 'dead' many people have come back to life again, sometimes awaken in a coffin or as an autopsy began. A startling occurrence but one that still happens even with all our medical advancements in determining when someone is 'dead'. These situations the material blurring of life and death, but the psychological blurring is even harder to untangle.

When a loved one dies, we are haunted by them. Items around the house remind us vividly of them, certain routines or holidays can bring memories of them flooding back. Those closest to us carve deep neural pathways in our brains, so even when they physically die, our brains still keep them alive in very real and painful ways. Perhaps one of the most touching and disturbing ways is when dead loved ones return in our dreams.

I have had many different dreams of lost friends, parents and animal companions. Some of them are positive dreams where you rejoice in being able to interact with them again, many are melancholy dreams. I have awoken once or twice after having dreamed of a lost loved ones only to slowly and painfully realize that they weren't actually alive.  

There is one type of this dream that I believe is one of the core foundations of humanity's belief in the malicious undead. It often occurs in the first few months of grieving. The loved one appears normally at first in the dream, but a separate section of your brain knows this is not right because they are now dead. The brain is split in two: the main part is dreaming of the loved one, the other part knows the horrible reality of their death.

As this forbidden knowledge sips though into the dream, the loved ones is changed by it, they seem 'wrong', they darken, or take on a menacing aspect. As is the nature of dreams, these changes can quickly intensify, the loved one becomes monstrous or starts to decay and you are now in a primal nightmare with the classic 'zombie', but even if you can prevent this outcome and keep their image stable it is still disturbing. A lost loved one staring silently at you as strange shadows grow on them is hard to bear, an aura of 'wrongness' grows but you don't want to let them go.  

The knowledge of their death keeps unconsciously pouring through the cracks of your dreams distorting and darken them. Sometimes they are in pain, or angry - but you don't know what to do. Sometimes they lash out or attack you. Welcome to the Nightmare Kingdom of Undeath.

This nightmare scenario does not always occur. I have said some heartfelt good-byes to lost loved ones as they stood before laden with dream-shade. I have confronted them with knowledge of their death ('But... you're dead....') only to have them respond with a smile as they act as normal as ever. Sometimes the dream will just crash into awakening when unable to resolve the conflicting knowledge.  

We live in a very materialist culture and so we think that the 'undead' have to be actual walking corpse and we wonder about how they overcome rigor mortis or what part of the brain we need to disable to kill them or why they are allergic to sunlight. The far more scarier truth is that most of us will have to encounter the undead some day and they will not be material, and they will not be an anonymous stranger. Neuro-science might help understand the brain processing that causes these dreams, but when you encountered a beloved and deeply mourned loved one in a dream and the shadows twist and grow dark on their face, you will truly comprehend why the 'undead' have haunted humanity since we first became conscious of death. Someday, if you are lucky enough to have your death mourned, it may be you staring out from the growing shadows.

Quick thought:

Did you know that the word Zombie is never mentioned in any zombie movies. It is always refered to as the undead, walking dead etc. Any thoughts.

Ha! My very next post is going to be on the origin of the word 'zombi(e)'.

I don't think that 'zombie' is a forbidden word in zombie movies but it was not mentioned in the original Night of the Living Dead (1968) where they were called 'ghouls' and not even thought of as zombies! In Dawn of the Dead (1978) the word is only mentioned once (I think by Tom Savini's character). Some vampire movies will also go out of their way not to say 'vampire'.

3- The term 'Zombie'

Some part of the zombie's magic is it's name. A Creole (Franco-African) word that is both exotic sounding yet familiar and simple. If you stuck to anthropological and pre-20th century accounts of the 'zombi' you would find that one its' most consistent trait was the ability to fly.

This is because the term zombi broadly refers to a Haitian supernatural spirit and the concept was brought over from West Africa by the slave-trade diaspora, and is traced back to a variety of Africans term that can stretch between meaning a god to an idol to a minor evil spirit.

In the oldest reference I can track down (which does not seem well-known even by academics) is the 1697 French play “Zombi of Grand Peru: Tales about Ghosts and Adultery in the Tropics” which is a sex-farce about a Countess who wants occult powers. The term zombi is not clearly defined in the story but it some sort of hostile night-spirit or bogeyman that has poltergeist-like powers and the ability to shape-change. This fits in with later anthropology that has the zombi haunting houses and shaking people.  Sticking with French texts but advancing nearly 200 years, we find this definition in Schele de Vere's Dictionary of 'Americanisms': " Zombi, a phantom or a ghost, not unfrequently heard in the Southern States in nurseries and among the servants."

Even when used in the context of spirit possession in later anthropological studies the term zombi is applied to the soul removed not the body left behind. It is not until 1927, a decade after the US occupation of Haiti had begun, that the term 'zombie' was applied to soul-less bodies labouring in sugar fields.

In the modern world of Monster Manuals, Pokedexs and Zombie wikis, we expect our monsters to neatly fit into taxonomic categories and get angry when they don't (vampires don't sparkle!) but the real world of shamanism and supernatural folklore has little concern - or ability - to fit every spirit or monster into such neat boxes. To find the zombie's secrets we must leave behind the safe realms of corporate-created monster lore and return to the messy human world, not an easy task, but all zombie-trodden paths return to Haiti, so we go there next.

4 - The History of Haiti

Everyone should now the story of Haiti. It once was the wealthiest slave colonies in the Western Hemisphere but it was also one of the cruelest. It was ruled by Spanish then French Catholic masters who called it Saint Dominic and they ruled ended in 1791 when the first Afro-Caribbean general of the French Army led a successful slave revolt.  The Haitian revolt was inspired by the American revolt against the British king and the French revolt against their royalty, it was a revolt based on the Enlightenment idea that human beings deserved "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" and this remains Haiti's motto.

It is one of the few successful African slave revolts in history - and the white rulers of the world have never forgiven Haiti for it. France immediately saddled the new nation with enormous debts it claimed its former colony owned them and began the 'austerity-strangulation' so common to our current day, the racist American elite looked at a  Republic of ex-slaves with horror, as one famous politician put it, " "Think of it! N------s speaking French!" Hated by many Western elites and saddled with a tragic history of centuries of slavery Haiti struggled to form a true nation-state for over a century.

Then exactly 100 years ago, in 1915, the U.S decided to claim it as colony and began a two-decade military occupation. Some of the first changes the US made were to remove the Haitian constitution's ban on foreign land ownership,  to take complete control over Haitian finances, and to use slave-labour to build military supply roads.

"Military camps have been built throughout the island. The property of natives has been taken for military use. Haitians carrying a gun were for a time shot at sight. Many Haitians not carrying guns were also shot at sight. Machine guns have been turned into crowds of unarmed natives, and United States marines have, by accounts which several of them gave me in casual conversation, not troubled to investigate how many were killed or wounded." - The Nation magazine (1920)

The occupation ended in infamy as the US withdrew under public pressure and violent resistance in 1934. The US had made the capital city Port-au-Prince the HQ of a repressive political and military machine and this apparatus continued after the US left to control the rural peasant forcing them into factories to produce commodities for the US. The rest of Haiti's history is similarly is dark.

It is during the period of the US occupation, 1915 to 1934, that the 'zombie slave' monster will be forged in the public's mind as American travelogue accounts, stage plays and the movie White Zombie (1932) are produced. The 'zombie slave' is a monster gestated in the blood, horror and racism of 500 years of white colonialism.  It is an imperial monster, a colonial monster, a racial monster as produced by the American media industries of the 1920s and 1930s.  The monster will be 'white-washed' in the 1950s and 60s but I think that any real understanding of the zombie must come to terms with the long dark real-world history. Again and again we will find a zombie silently holding a dark mirror for us to gaze into - and we must keep looking in these mirrors if we are to understand what these mute monsters have to tell.

5 - Zombie as Revolutionaries

 
Here is a Haitian-American author on the memory of Haiti's occupation by the US:

 

One of the stories my grandfather’s oldest son, my uncle Joseph, used to tell was of watching a group of young Marines kicking around a man’s decapitated head in an effort to frighten the rebels in their area. There are more stories still. Of the Marines’ boots sounding like Galipot, a fabled three-legged horse, which all children were supposed to fear. Of the black face that the Marines wore to blend in and hide from view. Of the time U.S. Marines assassinated one of the occupation’s most famous fighters, Charlemagne Péralte, and pinned his body to a door, where it was left to rot in the sun for days.

Like what was done with Che Guevara, the Marines then took a picture of Charlemagne Péralte's body and distributed it across Haiti to demoralize the resistance. Bags of the photos were actually poured out of the back of aircraft to distribute them, it soon became one of the most powerful icons of the Haitian resistance. Péralte could be considered a 'zombie' because his influence streched beyond the grave through the photo - but he is also in the 'zombie' tradition in a way few Westerners realize.



One of the earliest instances of organized resistance against Caribbean slave masters occurred in 1694 when a growing community of escaped slaves  - the 'maroons' - were attacked by the Spanish overlords. The maroons had grown increasingly brave in their resistance and they were lead by an elected war-chief known by the title 'Zombi' and lived in a fort called the 'palace of the Zombi'. When the Haitian revolt occurred in 1792 it began with a Voudon (Voodoo) ceremony where the rebel leaders pledged loyalty to each other, one of the most savage rebel fighters was called Jean 'Zombi' and he was later incorporated into the Voudon pantheon of gods/saints.  

In both cases the term 'Zombi' is a honorific given to a hero of anti-slavery rebellion. Some have suggested that this is because 'zombi' is actually a term for an African god, and while this is completely possible, I think the traditional meaning of the term described earlier (part 3 of this series) of an 'evil spirit' suffices. Consider how the famous joint US-Canada WWII commando unit was called 'The Devil's Brigade'. A quick internet search also shows military units called Red Devils (French), Blue Devils (US-French), Black Devils (US), Devil's Own (British), Devil Dogs (the US Marines) ect...  It is easy to see how a culture's icons of evil can become a complimentary nick-name in times of war and struggle.

This adds a twisted layer to the US-created 'slave zombie' monster of the 1920s-30s. The 'slave zombie' was born out of Haitian occult tales of soul-possession and undead servitude but as it appropriated the term 'zombie' it made it the mark of complete slavery to a (voodoo) master. So the tales of 'Zombi' chieftains fighting the Spanish or 'John Zombie' killing French slave-owners were relegated to obscure footnotes and buried by the massive American 'zombie' media industry that defines 95% of what we think of zombies - but for some Caribbeans or Voudonists I suspect the term still has an aura of strength, resistance and liberation to it. And to call Charlemagne Péralte either 'Zombi' Peralte or Charlie Zombie is no insult at all.

6 - Zombies as the Mentally Ill

Just as the US occupation of Haiti was about to end due to the bad press it was receiving, an anthropologist visited the nation to describe it's secret socities. The anthropologist was Zora Hurston, a remarkable woman and one of the first American-American anthropologist. Hurston died in poverty but her reputation has undergone a Renaissance in the last decade to the point of her receiving her own Google Doodle.

The book she wrote on her experience, Tell My Horse (1938) has received much academic theorizing but no-one has yet noted that book's similarity to a modern breed of books spawned after 9-11. The basic idea is that a liberal member of an ethnicity whose country is now be colonized by the US, visits that country, talks to authority figures about some backward element of that country, visits a few shady place, and then praises the civilizing effect of the occupation.  The occupation of Afghanistan has spawned a few of these books. Today Hurston is famous for her fictional books but it is Tell My Horse that not only talks about zombies - but gives also a photo of one.


Hurston`s photo of a `zombie` at a Haitian mental institution

This picture should be as well known as Peterson's Bigfoot film or the 'Surgeon's Photo' of Nessie, except it shows us something most people try to avoid looking at, a person with mentally illness.





Like those faked cryptological photos, this photo is also `staged`with it`s low-angle and high-contrast lighting, but it is unmistakeable a photo of a real person as Hurston explains,

I had the rare opportunity to see and touch an authentic case. I listened to the broken noises in its throat.... If I had not experienced all of this in the strong sunlight of a hospital yard, I might have come away from Haiti interested but doubtful. But I saw this case of Felicia Felix-Mentor which was vouched for by the highest authority.

Felicia Mentor was thought dead by her family for nearly three decades before she turned up on her families farm and said, "I used to live here." Presumably the family later had her committed to an institution.

What Hurston had found in this case was a Haitian cultural practice where a poor family that had suffered the loss of child would often adopt a mentally ill person and claim that they were the dead loved one returned after a period of zombie-dom. A sort of 'adopt-a-zombie' program that helped both parties. DNA testing has proven that the adopted zombies are not actually the dead relative or child but this seems a minor point.  After centuries of revolt, social chaos, dictatorships, natural disasters and occupations Haiti has  little health-care and a surplus of poor bereaved families and homeless mentally ill people. The cultural concept of 'zombie' allows these two classes to form relationships to help alleviate suffering. 'Zombies' are a many things in Haiti but their roles as an 'excuse to care about each other' is perhaps the most shocking to Westerners.  

Once reminded that 'zombies' are mostly mentally-ill people it seems obvious, here is a slice of a excellent 2009 essay on the topic

Ackerman and Gauthier conclude that zombies may be “imbeciles or certain mentally ill people, especially catatonic schizophrenes [sic], demented or amnesic, who wandered off and were sighted later” (Ackermann 1991: 490). Similarly, medical psychiatrists Roland Littlewood and Chavannes Douyon successfully diagnosed three purported zombies: one with catatonic schizophrenia, the second with “organic brain syndrome and epilepsy consistent with a period of anoxia,” and the third with a learning disability—likely fetal alcohol syndrome (Littlewood and Douyon 1997: 1095). These data indicate that zombies are not a bizarre class of Haitians but in actuality mentally ill people. Moreover, this seems plausible for an impoverished country like Haiti, which offers little institutionalized care, especially in the rural areas (Farmer 1996: 262).

When a Quebec nurse and doctor went to Haiti to investigate reports of zombies they came to the same conclusion in their 1991 journal article:

Mentally ill persons with a history of hospitalization constitute between 28% and 44% of the homeless in the United States (Gelberg et al. 1988; Koegel et al. 1988). About 12% to 17% of these are schizophrenes (Breakey et al. 1989; Koegel et al. 1988). A description of their behavior almost reads as does the list of zombi properties (Bean et al. 1987). Indeed, mental illness combined with vagrancy appears as a possible explanation of zombi cases (Davis 1988a:66; Dewisme 1957:139; Pradel and Casgha 1983:64).

Incidentally, one famous "zombi" was diagnosed long ago as a wandering schizophrene (Mars 1945, 1947:76), and a houngan from Port-au-Prince stated that zombi tales could be explained by the peasant habit of using imbeciles to guard their fields (Dewisme 1957:130). We are not overly impressed by the fact that a medical death certificate accompanied the case (and only this one) of Clairvius Narcisse. Hospital folklore abounds with horror stories.

Zombies represent a real horror story. The horror of inadequate mental health care, high child mortality, and a nation punished by the Western world for the audacity of refusing to be slaves.

7 - Zombie Powders

In the early 1980s Wade Davis, a B.C anthropologist, went to Haiti looking for the possible drugs that lie behind zombies. His idea was that the 'zombie powder' used to transform humans into zombies according to Haitian lore might actually have some psycho-active ingredients in it amongst the cocktail of human remains, toads, lizards, millipedes, tarantulas, ground glass, and various plants.  Specifically he wondered if tetrodotoxin (TTX) from puffer-fish and  anticholinergic alkaloids (i.e blocks acetylcholine) of Jimson Weed were being used - as the first is powerful paralytic and the second is a powerful deliriant. The tetrodotoxin would place the victim in a death-like and coma while the  anticholinergic alkaloids would be administered afterwards to keep the victim in a twilight state of delirium.

Tests of the samples Davis brought back did not support his hypothesis and the scientific community quickly discarded the whole idea.  Davis's book on the subject was made into a Wes Craven film of the same name (Serpent and the Rainbow) which was an interesting film though but being was too political/intellectual for horror crowds and too commercial for academics it did not help the careers of wither Davis or Craven. A recent investigation by a Vice Magazine reporter also failed to confirm any psycho-active ingredients in Haitain 'zombie powders' - though the video travelogue documenting his search is a dryly humorous bit of documentary film-making (so I'm linking the first episode below)



Despite the storm of controversy and lack of hard evidence Davis's hypothesis was not a wild theory. The idea that Jimson Weed (and other members of the nightshade family) may have been used as a poison in Haiti is born out by the fact that the plant well-known for its psychoactive compounds - and sometimes deadly poison - across the plant including long-time use in India, Africa and North America where it has been used for everything from ritual vision to aesthetic during bone-setting.

Intriguingly Jimson Weed is called the 'zombi's cucumber' in Haiti. Though this last name might suggest it was used to create zombies, it should be recalled that 'zombi' also means an evil spirit so perhaps 'devil's cucumber' would be a better translation and this is very close to one of it's English names of 'devil weed'. Yet the fact remains that effects of Jimson Weed do resemble some of the modern traits of zombiedom. I have tried Jimson Weed once and can attest to some of its' effects - but to really get an idea of what an anticholinergic alkaloid does to your brain you must turn to the great vault of psychedelic experience called Erowid.com. But before we go to Erowid here is a trip report from way-back in 1705 from the colony of Jamestown (hence Jim's Town Weed > Jimson Weed)

... some of them ate plentifully of it, the effect of which was a very pleasant comedy, for they turned natural fools upon it for several days: one would blow up a feather in the air; another would dart straws at it with much fury; and another, stark naked, was sitting up in a corner like a monkey, grinning and making mows [grimaces] at them; a fourth would fondly kiss and paw his companions, and sneer in their faces with a countenance more antic than any in a Dutch droll.

In this frantic condition they were confined, lest they should, in their folly, destroy themselves — though it was observed that all their actions were full of innocence and good nature. Indeed, they were not very cleanly; for they would have wallowed in their own excrements, if they had not been prevented. A thousand such simple tricks they played, and after eleven days returned themselves again, not remembering anything that had passed.

The English soldiers ate the Jimson Weed because "this being an early plant, was gather'd very young for a boil'd salad" - "early" means it sprouted in the early spring. I find this very intriguing because another 'early' poisonous plant you can find in western North America is the water hemlock. One can imagine starving people gobbling down the first green shoots after a long winter only to find themselves on a bad trip we cannot imagine. The reason I know about water hemlock is that it also known as 'wendigo weed' - water hemlock causes swelling (as does wendigo possession) but perhaps it also leads to alter states like Jimson Weed...

Here are some more modern examples from the Erowid Jimson Weed vault:

From Steve’s point of view, in a nutshell, I had started acting weird when I had gotten the water from the kitchen. He said that he was trying to talk to me but I would just have this blank stare like I couldn’t see him, and then ran outside into my shed in the backyard and started talking to myself, and after an hour or so I ran out of the shed with this scared shitless look on my face and fell down, and crawled back into the house, into the bathroom and he said I was trying to drink out of the toilet, he pulled me up and carried me into the kitchen and put down on the floor and got some ice for me. [...] around midnight I sprang out of bed and ran into the bathroom and got in the shower for an hour and then went back into my room and put a shirt on backwards and some boxers but no pants and ran downstairs and stood in the kitchen for 10 minutes, just standing there. He said then I freaked out and ran upstairs into my room and he said he had to push me onto my bed and hold me down until I stopped moving, and eventually fell asleep, then he did.  

or

My first and last datura experience started with me and 2 friends sitting around at a house deciding to rip off a Datura plant. After finding one and tearing a few flowers off it we sat at mates house and boiled it all up for half an hour and drunk about 3 cups each.

Now I'm a very experienced drug user but what happened next I was totally unprepared for...

At first the only feeling I felt was extreme muscle tiredness and I was almost un-able to stand. Neither could my friends. BANG! I'm at my friend's flat chatting to his flatmate, I say 'I want to go home now'. He says 'you are home'. I say 'I want to go to home where my mum lives'. SHE says 'I am your mum'. BANG! I suddenly realize I am at home, its almost midday. As my memory comes back I remember smoking many invisible cigarettes, thinking my mum and brother were friends of mine, talking to invisible people. Basicly not knowing where, what, how, or why.

I later found out I had been crawling on the floor, where we originally drunk the datura, eating 'bugs' while my friend convulsed and foamed at the mouth. When his straight sister called the ambulance, I lept off the balconey in pursuit of a friend who was actully on the other side of the house. Then my mum was called (by whom I still don't know) and she took me home where I spent hours rolling imaginary joints, snorting imaginary lines, talking to thin air about crap and basically scaring the shit out of my family.

I can tell you its a very disturbing experience to take a drag on your ciggerate and find out you dont have one.. Or to talk to your brother about himself thinking he's someone else... or having your friends come round to see how you are, having a long chat with them only to realize they are not there. I cannot remember it all as it was only three days ago and I can't operate properly (its taken 2 hrs so far to write this because i cant see).

I do remeber trying to smoke my belt, throwing my cat in the bathtub, thinking my mum was Spike Milligan. The list goes on.

I'm actually having trouble picking samples because they are many horrible/amazing stories. The whole experience vault for Jimson Weed is a great read and funny as hell in a dark Hunter S Thompson way. Unlike LSD and Magic Mushrooms where people have small periods of disassociation but generally know they are tripping the Jimson trip has the scary ability to make you forget you are tripping and act in a totally disassociated way. Yet once divorced from reality people tend to act out habitual, almost muscle memory, actions. They smoke imaginary cigarettes, take showers, get up for work - in essence they are the zombies of Romero's Dawn of the Dead! They also carry on long conversations with people who are not there, sometimes even dead people, an aspect I experienced.

The modern 'zombi powders' of Haiti might be inactive mixtures but the 'zombi cucumber' still packs a punch. And I think the question of the relationship between botany and anthropology remains a fascinating ground for research,

QUESTION In The Walking Dead, why aren't there more children zombies?

ANSWERS
*The audience is more likely to be comfortable seeing an adult zombie being killed than a child zombie. While they're reasonably dehumanized, the show having zombie children walking around and being killed by the survivors in every episode is likely to put some viewers off.

*Agree that the idea of child zombies would be a huge turn off for many viewers. I believe they exist 'in universe' however the producers felt this was an area they just didn't want to go

*But the whole point of the series is to groan about ambiguous moral decisions...

http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/29347/why-dont-the-people-alive-in-the-walking-dead-use-animals?rq=1

Hobb wrote:
Re: What you would add/fix in Project Zombie

[...]

2) kid zombies - this is so essential I wonder if their omission was a design choice - since Romero's NoTLD kid zombie have been a core motif. Scary and darkly funny at the same time.

I'm beginning to suspect that the elimination of 'kid zombies' is hallmark of a more conservative zombie/survivalist genre that blossoms post-911. Removing kid-zombies removes a key transgressive element of the Romero zombie tradition. The daughter-zombie killing her parents is the heart of Night of the Living Dead, while Dawn features a graphic killing of two zombie kids.



Here is a list of 'zombie kids' I found trying to find a good picture of Dawn's zombie kids (I couldn't)....

http://www.inevitablezombieapocalypse.com/2010/03/list-top-10-zombie-tots/

Here is an interesting take on the current state of morality in Walking Dead

wired.com wrote:But over the last year, The Walking Dead has transformed itself from grinding, repetitive misery porn into a vital survival drama by setting its characters free from the two things that have hindered them the most: stupid people and contemporary morality.

A mere two seasons ago, Rick was the one trying to protect people from the dangers of the real world rather than forcing them to face it. But times change. Last night, when Rick found himself in the woods with a massive horde of zombies creeping his way and two survivors who could barely walk, his advice was far more pragmatic: “They aren’t all going to make it,” he told Glenn and Michonne quietly. “You try to save them, but if they can’t keep up, you keep going.” Forget leaving no man behind—pragmatism is the modus operandi for Rick Grimes 2.0, and it is sweet, sweet music to my ears.

When the show began over five years ago, we were tethered to Rick Grimes, an Atlanta sheriff who became the de facto leader of the survivors. Although the former lawman’s black-and-white morality has slowly faded to gray, his ethical evolution has been slow, inconsistent, and often frustrating.

After two more seasons of watching loved ones torn to pieces for the slightest miscalculations, Rick has finally grown battle-hardened, ruthless, efficient—more like Carol. “These people are children,” Carol says quietly, as she watches the townspeople fumble about, more concerned with pasta makers than learning how to handle a gun. When Deanna Monroe, the leader of the community, asks Rick how many people he’s has killed, he shrugs. “I don’t even know how many by now. But I know why they’re all dead: They’re dead so my family, all those people out there, can be alive.” The choice seems easy now, or at least obvious.

After Deanna informs Rick that they don’t kill people—even dangerous people—because it’s uncivilized, he tells her slowly and carefully that it’s time to get with the program. “We have to live in the real world,” he says coldly. “Your way of doing thing is done. It’s going to get people killed.”

Weakness isn’t just a fatal flaw at this point: it’s an anachronism. People who don’t know how to survive at this point are like people who have no immune system, and the world itself is the disease.  It’s a process that can be dangerous, not just for those who aren’t strong enough, but also for anyone else who can’t quite embrace the Darwinian ruthlessness it demands. Indeed, the latest (apparent) death of a major character can be traced directly back to a decision to spare an incompetent Alexandrian, reaffirming yet again how fatal it can be to coddle weakness. Soft hearts get eaten.

It’s taken more than five years, but it seems like we’ve finally entered a second act where Rick and company can turn their attention to a far more interesting question: When the biggest threat to their lives is no longer their own lethal idealism, what new challenges and dangers will they get to face?

Rational pragmatism demands we kill the weak (or let them die)!
Idealism and mercy are fatal flaws!
We must not hesitate to kill others to protect our own!
Social Darwinism is the law!

But no kid-zombies please - that's going too far...