Too Much to Dream is a fascinating and bold memoir of addiction, told with brutal honesty through the lens of psychedelics’ history in popular culture.

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Too Much to Dream places the story of a young man’s drug addiction inside the larger history of psychedelics, spirituality, and popular culture. Readers are taken on a drug-induced journey in search of a mystical experience—a higher meaning to the universe that’s not founded in religion but instead fueled by substances, comic books, punk and psychedelic rock ‘n’ roll, role-playing games, tarot cards, science fiction, Aldous Huxley, and Carlos Castaneda. Peter Bebergal reveals how the ancient desire to alter consciousness arose in a geeky sixteen-year-old boy, and asks if this desire is part of a deeper human longing that will continue to manifest itself for generations to come—even at the edges of a strip malls in the suburbs. Bebergal’s story gives a personal face to an examination of a cultural history of drugs and mysticism, drawing radical lines between drug addiction, pop culture, and religion.

Drawing on personal experiences as well as extensive research, Too Much to Dream includes interviews with writers, artists, and psychologists.