My direction in life was permanently altered by taking LSD. In a way, the rides at Disneyland kind of prepared me for my LSD experiences. But almost every time I took it, at some point I'd find myself on my hands and knees, puking my guts out and asking, "What the hell does it all mean?" I took some bad acid in November of 1965, and the after-effect left me crazy and helpless for six months. My mind would drift into a place that was very electrical and crackly, filled with harsh, abrasive, low-grade, tawdry, carnival visions. There was a nightmarish, mechanical aspect to everyday life. My ego was so shattered that it didn't get in the way during what was the most unselfconscious period of my life. I was kind of on an automatic pilot and was still constantly drawing. Most of my popular characters - Mr Natural, Angelfood McSpade, the Snoid, Shuman the Human, Devil Girl - all suddenly appeared in the drawings in my sketchbook in this period, early 1966. LSD put me someplace else. I wasn't sure where. All I know is, it was a strange place. Psychedelic drugs broke me out of my social programming. It was a good thing for me, traumatic though, and I may have been permanently damaged by the whole thing. I see LSD as a positive, important life experience for me, but I certainly wouldn't recommend it to anybody else. (R. Crumb)