How To Deal With People Tripping Balls, According To The Grateful Dead

What we have here is a flyer for the security crew on the Grateful Dead reunion show about how to deal with concert-goers who are tripping on acid, which, let’s be honest, is probably most everyone there. Their advice? Don’t feed the animals. Don’t interact with someone having a bad trip. Different mammals, same advice; don’t provoke anyone that would much rather be left alone.

According to the memo, which made the rounds in preparation for the Grateful Dead reunion shows this summer, there are two kinds of trips; a “pleasurable experience” and an “unsettling experience.” Here’s how you know things are going just fine for your buddy:

Pleasurable experience:

The guests should be left alone or with their friends

My sit or recline in trance-like state.

May dance or spin with intricate and repetitive hand motions.

Feel that items touching their skin are heavy.

Increased sensuality.

Accurate! This is the baddie:

Unsettling Experience

We should notify RockMed of these guests. DO NOT MAKE CONTACT WITH THESE GUESTS.

May be combative.

Pose a danger to themselves or other guests.

Disregards the presence and personal space of other people.

Poor judgement, may misjudge distances, height, and strength.

May act on their increased sensuality (removing clothes, PDA, etc.)

Confused or disoriented to their surrounding

What do you do when your pal has gone off the deep end? Or rather, when they’re having what RockMed would prefer for us to refer to as an “Intense Psychedelic Response?” Here are the directions that were given to security on how to handle these gentle Deadheads:

Approach calmly.

Don’t make the person feel surrounded.

Speak in a quiet, non-aggressive voice. (Aggressive posture or behavior may produce an escalated, combative confrontation with the guest.

The memo also warns security not to touch people who are tripping because LSD can be absorbed through skin-to-skin contact, which leads me to believe someone’s seventh grade health teacher wrote this memo.

Whatever, though. I don’t know how else you’d get through a Grateful Dead show.

[via Live For Live Music]

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