What's Inside Your Head?

I recently drove my husband home after a colonoscopy.

They put you under sedation when they do a colonoscopy, which is why they don’t allow you to drive yourself home, and when he woke, he looked at me groggily and said to the nurse, “I know I’m not supposed to say this, but I really like my wife.” Then, he started singing to her (David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” “Ground control to Major Tom ….”). He told her he hadn’t “passed gas.” They pump your colon full of air during a colonoscopy so, afterwards, you are supposed to. She said, “Yes, you did, as we were wheeling you over here.” “Oh,” he said, his face clouding over, “passing gas is bad.” He cheered up, though, when she gave him some apple juice. When I was pulling the car up and a nurse was wheeling him out in a wheelchair, he did “airplane arms.”

It was sweet.

But I’m going to be having my colonoscopy soon. (My husband and I are both 50, the year you are supposed to start having them.)

While my husband’s head is full of sweet, happy thoughts, I wonder what it going to come out of mine. I think I may be a hissing, spitting, howling wet cat. I might tell the nurse to fuck off and go running down the hall in my hospital johnny. Who knows?

I have often wondered about the appeal of psychedelic drugs. According to the Wikipedia entry on “psychedelic experience,” the word “psychedelic” is from the Greek for “mind-revealing.” If my dreams are any guide (did you know that most dreams are negative?), what would be revealed for me are snakes and spiders and monsters that will chase me, except I won’t be able to move.

Umm, no thanks.