I remember reading this in an interview, and unfortunately, all I could find was the general quote, not the interview itself. Anywho...

“I think psychedelics play a major part in what we do, but having said that, I feel that if somebody's going to experiment with those things they really need to educate themselves about them. People just taking the chemicals and diving in without having any kind of preparation about what they're about to experience tend to have no frame of reference, so they're missing everything flying by and all these new perspectives. It's just a waste. They reach a little bit of spiritual enlightenment, but they end up going, 'Well, now I need that drug to get back there again.' The trick is to use the drugs once to get there, and maybe spend the next ten years trying to get back there without the drug.”

The general theme of the song is that this guy has a very unexpected entity encounter, presumably while on drugs, but he has trouble making sense of it. The experience is on a whole other scale than he’s used to, and doesn’t know how to integrate it into his sober life. The experience itself is a rather personal & spiritual one, but when following the emotional reaction to it (I.E. They chose me!!! This shit never happens to me!), he can’t really know how to comprehend the whole thing.

I really need time to digest this song along with the rest of the album. I like it in many ways, but the humorous side of it really threw me off. Sometimes expecting things in a new album makes it difficult to appreciate what’s there.

BTW, anyone else love the HOLY FUCKING SHIT (repeated)? Seems very appropriate.

Oops, forgot the link.
http://en.thinkexist.com/quotation/i-think-psychedelics-play-a-major-part-in-what-we/763591.html

very interesting. MJK is very vague about the spiritual enlightenment... perhaps that is because (inherently) the experiences are unique for everyone. I had actually sort of gotten the impression that he may be frowning on drugs from this album.

So this quote is a new development. I'm just very frustrated that I can't grasp what he is talking about when he says spiritual enlightenment. Although I think that the music itself has taken me closer to that state than anything ever has.

He tends to talk about an awareness of the metaphysical side of things, which is best summed up by the Bill Hicks quote, "all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, we're all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively". In other words, everything is comprised of the same material - energy/light/matter, and so every person is inherently connected to each other and apart of the same "direction" exisitance is headed towards collectively. Drug experiences can inspire that type of awareness, and I think what Maynard is saying is that a person should be able to recreate that awareness sober... as well as even that high while sober, through meditation (or, meditation combined with drugs, even better!).

I really don't have a sense of any positive or negative perspective on drugs. I think I need more time to digest it. That and the songs with drug references seemed to be rather satirical in nature.

Yes. I love it. This song is brilliant.

I think you're pretty much on track about the song. I'll add a few words. Like you said, he has the experiance, and doesn't know what to do with it. At first, he is totally taken back by it. Doesn't really know what to do with it. And as he tells his story, he begs for you to belive him. He is almost as confused about it as you, but the experiance leaves something behind, something solid and un moving. Something that cannot be lost again. And from this point, the experiance guides him from that day on, little by little, on how to aproach full understanding and comprehension of what is going on, day by day. Until one day, he will see the whole picture as it is. But the song in general communicates the experiance to the listener. and how he feels about it.

"but I forgot my pen"

seems like he is saying that he had an extraordinary experience, and the one piece of evidence that would have (proven that it happened - or - was the most enlightening or transcendent) was lost from is memory. perhaps as a result of drugs?

trust me after a healthy dose of psilocybin you may change your mind about the music takeing you far. i understand what you mean but unless youve been "there" youd have no idea. the music can take you far but the mushrooms take you beyond. and as mjk says the key is doing it once and then spending the next 10 years getting back there without it. im 2 years into it and its a long bumpy and lonely road but only lonely since 90% of people cant relate to what you may be going through post experience.

Totally agree. Well said.

yeah nevermind the ET part or area 51, almond eyes or the stealth banana.

this is definitely about being high.

give me a fuckin break.

might as well say right in two is about how we love one another.

i'm convinced that people cannot read around here. the sarcasm in RS is not that subtle. I mean "Don't know. Won't know. Don't know. Won't know. God damn! Shit the bed!" obviously reads "fuck off and stop bothering me your 'everything is a message of enlightment and spiritual revelation' crap! leave me the fuck alone!" No, people don't read that.

On that note, a friend of mine just heard the album for the first time, and she gave some insight as to what "shit the bed" might mean. It's typical for a victim of sexual abuse, like MJK, to lose control of their bowl and shit their bed. It's usually a result/sign of fear and rejection of the idea and thought of being invaded/intruded... it's almost a self-defense mechanism.

This is the greatest song that I have heard Tool do in a fucking long time.

As much as I still hate you for calling me a Junkie, we do share the same/similar views on a lot of things, except those that are drug related. If anything, I respect you for being real.

Just want to put it out there.

where in the fuck did your friend get that from? lol don't know of any rape victims shitting themselves. wouldn't that just make it worse? I'd guess that would be the last resort in dealing with something so traumatic. your not saying the aliens raped the rosetta stoned character are you? OMG o_O


anyways shit the bed is an expression from liek the early 80s.


similar to our version of "owned"

umm yeah.... ok ... whatever....

hi, i think the vocals show that the song is about mushrooms or acid and aliens, at the beginning he is freaking out, weirdest vocals ive heard maynard ever do. then the aliens tell him something to help the world, well those that want help. and then he doesnt know if he is high or real, and as he comes down he is trying to remember the words. he even says some about not knowing what it means but remember it. then he forgets, and the goddamn, shit the bed, i see as like alien abduction or sleep, where he wont remember. it is not literally, goddamn i shat in the bed. it is oh no, not the bed again.

Haha, ya, well saounds like youre friend did a bit too much 'analyzing'. Way too technical. remember, this is a possitive art form. not about a straight up personal experiance by one individual. It's about the human experiance in general. What we choose, and what we learn.

Only if you people from the East could feel how it is in the west.

Uh, it's not like I ignored the alien aspect of it. The song strongly resembles someone who had an entity encounter while on a psychedelic.

I have heard it used differently, as an exclamation. "Shit the bed!" same as "holy shit!" It's not nescisarily in the literal sense. Kind of like in Sober: "Jesus, won't you fucking whistle something but the past and done?" They aren't saying that Jesus is whistling. (I just had to explain this to somebody yesterday! haha)

If I thought I saw ET, I might say "Goddamn, Shit the bed!"

im going to start using that in my everyday life...in place of holy shit. did anyone else hear something about "am i alive, am i dead, {sunkist and sudafed}, i cant remember what they said, god damn i shit the bead!" i cant find any correlation between sunkist sudafed and the alien drug thing.

"After calming me down with some orange slices and some male spooning"

Sunkist = orange slices
Sudafed = whatever he says for the male spooning part

also, check this guy out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.V._Shereshevskii

reluctant genuis turned crazy and thrown into an asylum.

does that theme sound familiar?

strapped down to my bed...?

Sunkist being an orange drink - orange and citrus are rumoured (emphasis on rumoured) to either lessen or increase the effects of a psychedelic substance, particularly LSD.

Sudafed - not sure if y'all have it there, but over here Sudafed is an over-the-counter nasal decongestant - the actual drug is Pseudoephedrine. Sudafed is frequently used in drug labs when preparing speed. I believe the drug itself does speed up your metabolism in a similar way to speed.

Not sure if that's what's intended here, but that's how I would tied Sudafed into the drug theme.

all oranges do for you while tripping are replensh vitamin c that is depleted dureing the process. the only reason it may be smoother is because you back opn nomral level for the most part and not vitamin deprived

Anyone on here ever actually done a sizeable dose of Peyote? In an intense peyote trip, there are often "god" experiences where the user will talk to "God". That entity will give the user a conviction or comission, but the details are often vague.

"seems like he is saying that he had an extraordinary experience, and the one piece of evidence that would have (proven that it happened - or - was the most enlightening or transcendent) was lost from is memory. perhaps as a result of drugs?"

As much as I can't stand people who would love to think that there is nothing good that can come of drugs, I have to address you here.

This song is about having a deeply spiritual experience on some heavy psychedelic. He didn't forget about it "because he was on drugs". He was GIVEN the ability to tap into that frame of mind BECAUSE of the drugs, chief.
(this is not to say that it cannot be reached without drugs. But dropping acid or eating a handful of shrooms sure makes it fuckin easy)

And I am a junkie. Self-imposed methadone program. ;>

I've had that urge. It had something to do with wanting to see everything, take it in, and eventually be a part of it. At least it was for me. Look around, how well do you really know your block and, are you a part of it? These are questions psylocibin forces you to ask. At least they did for me. As for Sudafed, well, I'm not sure but its links to drug manufacturing are known.

It sounds like your friends aren't enlightened either. What MJK says is pretty straight forward and has been done by "mystics" for a long time. Our bodies naturally produce psychadelics and there is a means to release them, not that I know how.

I love how right after the leak it was all 'OMG This song sucks What were they thinking this has to be a hoax' and now people are catching on.

"lost my pen"
the only way for him to communicate the experiance is to express it. now in the way to express it is up to him, but he will find that there is only one way. now it's up to you to figure that out, if u want, its not like ur gonna get anywhere with it...

anyone here read Be Here Now? this songs relates DIRECTLY to some concepts presentered there... basically the author experiments with acid, has a huge experience, but seems to not understand it and once he comes down is lost on how to explain it, hes disconnected from it. the person in the song i think tried psychadelics, had a huge experience, then didn't know how to make sense of it or retain it once he was back on earth.

I think it's more possible that he's says "shit the bed" because he shit the bed. Don't read so much into it. When people have seizures, they often are strapped down to protect them from injuring themselves, such as falling out of bed, biting their tongues, and will sometimes shit and piss themselves. Semms like the guy tripped, seized and is coming out of it, not sure if he's alive, but realizing that something isn't right, looks down, and realizes he shit himself. Why does everything that Maynard writes have to have some mystical quality. YOu guys read way too much into it.

I thought that was Timothy Leary.

Anyways, there are few things that take me to that place of higher conciousness; one of them being Tool. Tool can really be described as sex; when in intercourse, I get this feeling of completion. Joining with my opposite, finishing the circle so to speak. With Tool, I feel the same way. Without the sweat.

Bonus.

You sweat during sex? Gross!