The Edge's candid admission about this unusual creative experience came about when Bono this week recalled the band's past as "high times" while reflecting on the Joshua Tree period in a radio interview. But the lead singer insisted that there were "no drugs" (on the horizon) during this creative period for the band - only for The Edge to butt in to tell Bono that he was forgetting about how he had tried magic mushrooms!
"Well, this was a bit later, but I had one funny moment with the mushrooms. This was a metaphysical experiment, you understand? It was very spiritual," The Edge confessed during an interview with Zane Lowe on Beats 1 Radio, which has just been uploaded on YouTube.
"I took a few, waited 40 minutes, nothing happened,” he said. “So I doubled, trebled down. It’s even worse because I actually went to bed. So I’m in the middle of a dark room watching firework displays that are happening in my imagination. The I started to understand the secrets of the universe.
"I had this moment of insight and I was thinking to myself, ‘I will never remember these tomorrow, I have to record these insights’. So I crawled across the floor, which took me about 25 minutes and got to my recording walkman, got back to my bed, hit play and then the red light came on so I spent another 25 minutes looking at the red light.”
The Edge believed he had on tape "all of the important secrets of the universe" and then promptly forget about it until the next evening. "I finally realised, ‘Oh my God, I made a recording of the secrets of the universe. I better go listen to what that was’,” The Edge said. “So I went up and it was still on record and the batteries are all worn down. So I put new batteries in and turn the tape over and hit play.
"All I could hear was [muffled voice] cos I’d been talking into the battery compartment. Lost! Not a single audible word. Just think, the secrets of the universe were that close.”
You can watch the full interview here, with The Edge mentioning the magic mushroom incident around the 16 minute mark...