My thoughts on the song

[Lan]

I cranked this song up before embarking on a Salvia induced psychedelic journey, here is what I gleaned from the experience.

The marjority of the album serves as Tool's medium foir edifying us in terms of attaining higher awareness of our standing as human beings. However, from what the song conveyed to me whilst on Salvia, it seems as though the band does not fully appreciate the sole use of exogenous compounds to raise conscious level. In essence, they are merely instruments with which to aid us in our path towards a unified, global consciousness. Ticks and Leeches is a word of caution to all of us drug enthusiasts who believe that psychedelics and the like
are the only way to enhance awareness. I felt as though the band was looking down upon me from some distant dimension, informing me I was not welcome in this conscious realm. I reeled in anguish, dizzyingly complex manifestations swarmed my visual space and my heart raced.
Maynard screamed at me:

'Take what you wanted and go! Hope this is what you wanted....Hope this is what you had in mind, 'cause this is what you're getting.'

I was being put on the spot, my every thought and behavior intensly criticized...and then Salvia slowly sent me back to the reality I had known before as the song ended.

I am still passionate about the psychedelic experience, though I understand Tool's viewpoint; it is extremely difficult to extrapolate and integrate into our daily lives that which psychedelics bestow upon us. Some other route must be followed which can allow us to 'stabilize' our awareness so that we may build upon it as a whole conscious unit.

I have not read any other posts on this song, so forgive me if a similar idea has already been proposed.

[oldhickory]

Wow. I can't imagine ticks and leeches on salvia. I tried it with reflection and I still freaked out, trying to hang on to the wall so I wouldnt fall into the vortex that the music was creating. I had to crawl on the ground to the cd player to turn it off because it was too intense.
I have never thought of ticks and leeches being about the psychadelic experience, but now I will have to re-evaluate this song. But its a very good idea

[iAMtheMA!]

you're so fuckin' cool, i want some salvia now.
(seriously)

[El Shaggy]

idunno about Tick and Leeches, but Rock your Body by Ferry Corsten was pretty good on salvia, with Xbox 360 music player's visualizers. Kalideoscopes venturing into other dimensions, weeeee!

your take on T&L is interesting and i never thought of it that way. Ticks and leeches could describe some drug users but doesn't seem to pertain to Psychadelic users, IMO. Psychadelics can show you paths, but you must walk them. To attain your higher consciousness or to go get a burrito.

[insight06]

I like this song for venting purposess, it seems angery and fast, pausing to catch a breath and finishes nicely!

[Birdfleet]

"drug enthusiasts who believe that psychedelics and the like
are the only way to enhance awareness. "

I'm sure you certianly did not think that drugs were the only way to enhance "awareness", or even quite frankley, consiousness. I mean think about it man. You started as a fuckin' baby. I'm guessing that your awareness has increased pretty steadily since then. I'm pretty sure when anyone who knows what thier talking about says something about increasing your awareness, is not tripping all the time, but reading, learning, going outside and seeing things for yourself. Your awsome ability to increase awareness through nothing other that an observation, whether visual, or other, through pure thought, is evident in our great physicists, inventors, and so on, who didnt rely on others to teach them and tell them, but instead taught themselves through hard research, experimentation, and pure thought processing. It's all a matter of how hard you work at something man. If the English physicist Isaac Newton and the German mathematician G. W. Leibniz can develope calculus, independantly of each other, than certianly you could too. Just think man. Think about anything. I'm thinking that your just so stuck in what seems to be the past. Nothing has changed for you because your brain is probably finished growing by itself, and you don't realize it is up to your will and desires to gain awareness. My advice, think of something you dont understand, something that requires a little more understanding than something that can be answered with a dictionary, and fuckin' buy a book about it. Still have questions? Buy another book, go to the place, see the thing your questioning about in real life, goto a university or private institution that is studying or implementing the thing in question. After you get a solid base of understanding through reading the undertsanding of others, through books or whatever, you can begin perhaps go "further" and discover new things, and love to use this quote, "may just go where noones been....ride the spiral to the end..." keep in mind this amount of understanding that you have gained through books would've taken many years for yourself to acomplish starting from ground zero, maybe even a lifetime, so take advantage of these SHORTCUTS! hahah I'd also suggest listening to the entire lateralus album. And how bout instead of doing drugs all the time you practice lucid dreaming? I'd say most of my trips have had astonishing connections with how I dream.


dont fall into the trap so many others have fallin into. dont assume thier is nothing else to be learned or invented.... perhaps you may discover something that will save humanity from being its own demise. Say like in, maybe, Rosetta Stoned?


Just let the light touch you
And let the words spill through
And let them pass right through
Bringing out our hope and reason!

[maggie72]

Rosseta Stoned is about the irresponsible way people try to use drugs to expand their minds