Through the Buried Past

A diffusion tensor image of my dad’s brain would verify what I think happened to him when he went over the handlebars in a pre-helmet era, hitting his head on the pavement and sustaining blunt-force trauma on a scale rarely seen in the context of recreational cycling accidents.

Injury related frontal lobe lesions are well-documented precursors to an impaired executive decision making process, as indicated by his lack of impulse control and, to a lesser extent, his crises of identity. Further compounding the issue is the fact that behavioural changes associated with acquired brain injuries are strongly correlated with social isolation, which leads to anxiety and depression. Moreover, his accident occurred at eleven years of age, when his brain was still developing, which suggests the damage inflicted was not only more pronounced but more permanent.

Would an acquired brain injury account for the sudden appearance of A.? Typically speaking, no. However, if there was a complicating factor in the form of a predisposition, such as a genetic susceptibility to schizophrenia, then I would be less likely to say no. His grandfather’s sister resorted to suicide in order to stop the torment of her auditory and visual hallucinations—a family tragedy that speaks to his increased chances of being on the schizophrenia spectrum.

The next thing to consider are the liberty caps, and I’ll do this by way of another question: Would an acquired brain injury, combined with a large dose of psilocybin and a genetic susceptibility to schizophrenia account for his fireside discussion with A.? Again, I can’t completely dismiss this idea, contained as it is within the dodgy suitcase of his reality. In fact, it’s contained within the dodgy suitcase of everyone’s reality, or rather, everyone who has experienced what they believe to be paranormal phenomena. I think it’s scientifically safe to assume that there’s more to reality than meets the eye.

Recently, magic mushrooms were legalized in Denver, Colorado, and Oakland, California. Congratulations America for showing Canada that you’re capable of pleasant surprises. The legalizations come on the heels of clinical trials that proved psilocybin effective for treating people with treatment-resistant depression and anxiety. A single dose has been shown to revitalize the shrivelled cognitive circuitry of the severely depressed, effectively curing them. What ancient cultures appeared to have known, is now being acknowledged in twenty-first century scientific journals.

Finally, I’d like to address something brought to my attention by a friend who, although conservative in her tastes, has always had my best interests at heart, and therefore I gave careful consideration to her misgivings regarding the motel bathroom scene. She wondered if it was absolutely necessary to include it, because its placement at the end of the book would end things on an awkward note.

A daughter writing about her father’s sexual encounter was still considered untoward, according to my friend. But my dad’s ‘delving day’—as Bukowski would say—ended precisely there, or relatively soon thereafter, so redacting it from the narrative would have been interpreted as me choosing to adhere to the curve instead of deviating from it, and where’s the fun in that? Besides, wouldn’t we all benefit from taking a bus ride through the buried past, remembering who we are, doing mushrooms in a forest, and getting laid?