Get High Without the Possibility of Going Broke, Getting Busted

James Nestor wants you to get totally high -- without spending much money, and without risking arrest. He's written a book (subtly titled "Get High Now") that collects dozens of time-honored techniques for achieving altered states.

OK, so Nestor has a beard, lives in San Francisco, and drives a car powered by cooking oil -- don't mistake him for some peace-and-love hippie numbskull. He admits that many of these exercises seem a bit "New Age" at first glance, but that they're based in cold, hard facts.

As for what it truly means to be "high"? "What we're talking about is not taking a bunch of acid and jumping off a bridge, or smoking pot and watching 'Star Trek' for four hours," Nestor cautions. "We're talking about having a different perception on the world. [It] is something that every culture since prehistory has sought to do."

We asked Nestor to teach us his ways, including breathing techniques derived from LSD studies and how binaural beats can unleash your inner Einstein ...

Beat off for greater concentration
One of the most accessible techniques in Nestor's guide involves binaural beats -- samples are available on the book's Web site, so get your headphones ready. "If you listen to them for an extended amount of time, something very strange starts happening to your brain. Your right brain and left brain start to synchronize. In MRIs, you see the physiological change in the brain taking place." Prolonged, concentrated listening will actually result in bizarre, hard-to-fathom phenomena. "Your brain is gonna hallucinate a three-dimensional tone outside of your head," Nestor says. Fun fact: "Women, [during] their menstrual cycle, will hear completely different tones as they go through that."

More than just WTF
Sure, we love experiencing a trippy "tone hovering outside of your head" as much as the next guy, but these binaural beats also claim concrete effects on your mental state. Different frequencies modulate your brain into different brainwave patterns. There are four basic states: theta ("extreme relaxation, right before you go to sleep"); alpha ("awake consciousness, but not intense concentration"); beta ("really intense concentration, like if you're talking and multitasking"); and delta ("deep, dreamless sleep.")

It's the theta state in which our minds live up to their best potential. Nestor says that most people reach theta immediately before bed -- sort of an inconvenient time to exploit your creative juices. With binaural beats, you can do an end run on your own biology, entering theta states at will. (And yes, we realize that we sound like Tom Cruise raving about Scientology right about now. But give it a whirl -- and share your experiences in the comments.)

Take my breath away
Who knew there was so much weird science around the way we suck air into our lungs? Nestor's guide highlights various breath-work used throughout the world to attain a natural high, from holotropic breathing to Kriya breath-work. (Some of these techniques originated from government tests of psychedelics "to bring people down in a nice cozy way during LSD testing.")

More involved techniques of breathing and meditation -- such as transcendental meditation -- were popularized by the Beatles and are also a regular part of the day for both Howard Stern and David Lynch.

The more elaborate breath-work techniques are too intensive to gloss over here, but Nestor recommends starting with a rather simple one known as Sun & Moon Breath: "All you have to do is take your right thumb, put it against your right nostril. Breathing only through the left nostril, keep the mouth shut. Breathe in very deeply, and breathe out thoroughly, 30 times. This will cause a physical change -- it will calm your nerves and open up blood vessels." Swap the technique -- cover the left nostril, breath through the right -- in order to "charge your vaso-motor system." (Before you scoff, Nestor notes: "This isn't something I made up. This shit has been around for thousands of years for a reason: It works.") "Maybe I wouldn't do this at a public urinal or on a date," the author says, "but do it at home, in your office when no one's around, bored on Thanksgiving ..."

Letting it all hang out
A few of Nestor's techniques for getting 'high' have to do with bucking social convention and simply going wild. There's glossolalia, the time-honored art of speaking in tongues. (Check out "Jesus Camp" for a truly scary look at its youngest practitioners.) Nestor recommends unleashing the creepy-ass voice hidden within your psyche. "We all have our own tongue," he writes. "Speak it for five minutes."

The author notes that "non-sexual" public nudity can also be quite a natural high. And the French art of parkour is recommended; it's a fancy term for traversing a space by any means possible, "doing whatever it takes to just keep going." (Let's just hope you fare better than Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute.)

Going a bit nuts was "a rite of passage" in ancient cultures, Nestor explains, noting the Bacchanalia in ancient Greece and the Yam Festivals on the South Pacific Islands. "I'm not saying everyone rip off their clothes, start speaking in tongues, and run around ..." (But we are. Let us know how it goes in the comments.)