Quotes from the article “Fasting with the Fool – The Seven Progressive Stages of Consciousness Under Fasting.
By Doctor Gordon Tripp

“As a form of reality distortion the practice of fasting has a long and august history. Starvation was certainly twisting the minds of our Neanderthal forebears long before they hit on sativa, somniferum or muscaria.
Fasting is well established as a prelude or preparation for a whole range of spiritual practices across a panoply of religious and folk traditions.”

Some of Doc Gordon Tripp’s experiences:

“Exhausted with cold I crawled with chattering teeth into a vague half-aware sleep. Only to wake suddenly into silent darkness, not knowing where I am, I am wracked with hunger. I realise that I haven’t eaten since leaving Cambridge, who knows how long ago. The dreadful cold seems to have frozen the mechanism of my wristwatch. I rummage through my ruck sack again, searching for the large slab of Kendal mintcake.”

“Lethargy momentarily engulfs me and I wonder again how I could have got so lost. I struggle to my feet, stomach cramping, clutching the internet map, and begin limping through the thickening trees, in a direction I imagine to be south.”

“I was awake, immobile and cold, encased in all the clothing from the ruck sack, the djellaba, blanket and bivvy bag. I find myself to be suspended from a branch by my rack sack straps, dangling precipitously over a steep drop down to melt-water swollen rapids coursing through rock strewn channels. My head feels empty, gently throbbing at the temples. I don’t know how I came to be here…”

“I begin to fear for my sanity as a gross bubbling urge to chuckle inconsequentially grips me by my watery bowels. Like after a building and unrelenting urge to defacate, the released laughter splashes and splatters from my body. Am I laughing? Am I vomiting? Am I shitting? I can’t tell, my diary notes don’t say. I roll hyperventilating in slushy snow, pukie-crappa-giggling or somesuch. I am so hungry. I want to cry. I am lucid suddenly and astonished at the diversity of this terrain, I never knew Morocco could be so varied.”

“I am drenched in sweat or snow, I know not which. I fall into deadening sleep. I wander between snow-laden trees, the path I had cautiously picked out in the thick forest seemed to have disappeared, swept away by fresh snowfalls”

“I believe my failure to identify my geographical dislocation was partly due to having no previous personal experience of either Marrakesh or Mongolia…”

Read the full article here