"'Where's the ether?' said my attorney. 'This mescaline isn't working.'
I gave him the key to the trunk while i lit up the hash pipe. He came back with the ether-bottle, uncapped it, then poured some into a kleenex and mashed it under his nose, breathing heavily. I soaked another kleenex and fouled my own nose. The smell was overwhelming, even with the top down. Soon we were staggering up the stairs towards the enterance, laughing stupidly and dragging each other along, like drunks.
This is the main advantage of ether: it makes you behave like the village idiot in some early Irish novel... total loss of all basic motor skills: blurred vision, no balance, numb tongue - severence of all connection between the body and the brain. Which is interesting, because the brain continues to function more or less normally... you can actually watch youself behaving in this terrible way, but you can't control it.
You approach the turnstiles leading into the Circus-Circus and you know that when you get there, you have to give the man two dollars or he won't let you inside... but when you get there, everything goes wrong: you misjudge the distance to the turnstile and slam against it, bounce off and grab hold of an old woman to keep from falling, some angry Rotarian shoves you and you think: What's happening here? Whats going on? Then you hear yourself mumbling: 'Dog's fucked the Pope, no fault of mine. watch out!... Why money? My name is Brinks; I was born... born? Get sheep over side... women and children to the armoured car... orders from Captain Zeep.'
Ah, devil ether - a total body drug. The mind recoils in horror, unable to communicate with the spinal column. The hands flap crazily, unable to get money out of the pocket... garbled laughter and hissing from the mouth... always smiling."
Hunter S. Thompson - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas