The AFU and Urban Legend Archive Drugs orange LSD Select a topic - - - - - - - - Home Searches AFU FAQ - - - - - - - - AFU Animals Books Celebrities Classic Collegiate Death Disney Drugs Food GIF Language Legal Medical Misc Movies Politics Products Religion Science Sex Songs TV - - - - - - - - Other sites

From: iayork@panix.com (Ian A. York)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Sunkist the LSD Psychotic
Date: 2 Nov 1996 17:14:15 -0500

In article <Pine.GSO.3.95L.961101132255.20042A-100000@unixs2.cis.pitt.edu>, Don Fnordlioni <donfnord+@pitt.edu> wrote: >
>guy who took a /lot/ of LSD, and flipped out. He believed he was an
>orange, and wouldn't let anyone touch him or get near him because he was
>afraid they would try to peel him and eat him. This condition stuck, and

Although I've never heard this offnet, various versions of it have been posted here - none recently, I think, and the story isn't in the FAQ. The most common version seems to be the druggee thinking he's a glass of orange juice rather than an orange, and fearing being drunk rather than eaten. That version of the story was posted to AFU back in September; your version (the orange, although lacking the elegant details like calling himself Sunkist - nice job on the reporting of the story, by the way) was posted back in July, and spawned a thread (check out the "LSD Flashbacks" thread in DejaNews) then.

Several people speculated as to why an orange would be involved - for example, Don Erickson suggested that "the treatment of choice for someone tripping and slipping off the edge of what passed for reality was an orange". Martin Gilbert didn't like any of the speculations, noting that "oranges seem to play a significant role in many 'nutter' stories" and citing some of said nutter stories, none of which were familiar to me, but I'm happy to take his word for them. Most of the other speculations seemed rather too logical to me, if you know what I mean, and my own guess would fall with Martin's - that an orange is just common enough but intrinsically whacky enough to be plausible.

Since I have DejaNews up and ready anyway, I can add that the "thinks he's a glass of OJ" story has been reported as a true story ("it happened to some guy in my town", typically) and scoffed at as legend (" Are variations of this legend floating around in every town? Either this guy has lots of friends or there are sure LOTS glasses of orange juice walking around.") by many posters to rec.drugs.psychadelic: not much in the way of details we haven't already heard, though "Glasses of orange juice don't go hiking. They just sit here, orange." is a variant at the least.

I also found a post by one Marcus E Engdahl entitled " LSD hysteria in 1965-66" in which he cites a book called _Storming Heaven_ (looking at the library of congress, I assume this is Storming heaven: LSD and the American dream, by Jay Stevens. (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, c1987; ISBN: 0871130769) and quotes - "Then there was the heavy user who, believing LSD had transmutated him into an orange, refused all human contact for fear of being turned into orange juice."

Now turning to Alta Vista and looking at the web, I find <http://www.cyberteens.com/ezine/Issue3/muroff.html>, where [the] 17-year old [author] says "The story about a boy who locked himself in his room because he thought he was an orange, and that if anyone touched him, he would turn into orange juice, is not just a story made up by parents to keep their kids off LSD. It was cited in the book Mind Drugs by Margaret O. Hyde." (LOC again: Mind drugs, edited by Margaret O. Hyde. 5th ed. (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., c1986. 191 p., ISBN: 0396088139). There's no indication as to whether it's a scholarly tome or a collection of gossip and hearsay. Since the cover apparently says "Straight answers to the most often asked questions about drugs, and therefore sounds awfully like dear old Ann Landers, I'd bet the latter.)

So it's definitely an urban legend, and there's no evidence that there was ever a true case of this, so it's probably a false urban legend. (I hardly need say this, but although medline has 3345 articles on LSD and 4676 which contain the word "orange", there are no articles with both.)

It certainly is true, though, that there is and long has been an association between LSD and oranges. Many of the articles on LSD say, in very similar phrases, "The senses are wide open, and the taste and smell of a fresh orange are unforgettable." Was this in one of the original LSD books, papers, or whatever? If so, then it may well be the source of the "orange" in the UL, which would tend to contradict my earlier agreement with Martin.

Ian "rhymes with LSD" York