Turn Left at Venus is a novel by Inez Baranay, published in 2019 by Transit Lounge.

For the APS’s My Psychedelic Experience project, Inez has kindly given us permission to publish a section of the chapter “were we the dead?” which describes an acid trip experienced by the main character, Ada, then aged around 30, in San Francisco in the mid 1960s.

After a particularly difficult year where I had been using methamphetamine in addition to the other problematic drugs I had used on and off for many years, my life was in ruins. I was unemployed, excluded from my profession, facing criminal charges for drug possession, isolated and broke.

On the final night of the retreat, I posed a question that has been weighing heavily on humanity: what does the future hold for our planet?