Big surprise, acid trip insights not particularly insightful.
I did have some pretty awesome insights on acid & shrooms in college... when I finally "groked" material I'd been studying nonstop for weeks on end. Like certain organic chem reactions which are obvious when you have a giant molecule floating in front of you and the pi-orbitals are REALLY HUGE AND NEGATIVELY CHARGED... or like seeing the force vectors during a frisbee's flight and getting an intutive feel for the underlying equations.
But getting that point did require many many hours of solving differential equations, doing integrals, and learning about the convenient fiction of "molecular orbital diagrams". The knowledge was just under the surface, understood by rote and analytically. The drugs just sped up the process of making that understanding intuitive and wholistic.
That's an excellent high brow explanation.
The first night I tripped my lady friend and I ended up at one of those 24 hour pancake houses, 3-4 am after a night out. I remember being completely fascinated at the reflected light on the faux wood grain which revealed all the many layers of scratches & dings in it's multi-patterned surface. That of course unlocked the many secrets of the universe!
The next day however, it wasn't so brilliant afterall- but I did retain a residual underlying understanding of .. "something" - profound but all too vague.
I'd like to hear Julia tell this story first hand.
As far as splitting birds, more likely that what was seen was the same as anyone present but not tripping would have seen and that the effects of the acid created something far more profound in it's users.