Creator of LSD Turns 100

[Doc]

The story.

Now take a look at these nine drawings.

Thanks to this guy, I have permanate trails in my vision, statues still wink, and rainbows are still swirly. Thank you, and God bless you for adding some colour and facination to my life.

I hope you live another ten years before you head off to bat country.

[Occhidiangela]

The story.
Now take a look at these nine drawings.
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LSD inspired the 1960s hippy generation and was immortalized in the Beatles' hit "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," although the band denied any connection. But it was also known as Like Swift Dead

I note that once again, the Moody Blues' "Timothy Leary's Dead" is ignored in favor of the silly little Beatles song. Booo Hissss.

Note: Cary Grant liked it, so it can't be all wrong. He rewrote the book on suave and debonair.

Occhi

[Doc]

LSD inspired the 1960s hippy generation and was immortalized in the Beatles' hit "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," although the band denied any connection. But it was also known as Like Swift Dead

I note that once again, the Moody Blues' "Timothy Leary's Dead" is ignored in favor of the silly little Beatles song. Booo Hissss.

Note: Cary Grant liked it, so it can't be all wrong. He rewrote the book on suave and debonair.

Occhi
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He too, Cary Grant, used LSD to force open the doors of perception in his brain.

[wakim]

... used LSD to force open the doors of perception in his brain.
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Perception or deception?

Did I say that? Or just think it? Was I talking? Did they hear me?

[GenericKen]

Now take a look at these nine drawings.

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I was totally expecting that to be a screamer at drawing 9. Pleasantly surprised.

[Doc]

I was totally expecting that to be a screamer at drawing 9. Pleasantly surprised.
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Like those I do not. Popping up everywhere they are.

Bother me they do.

[Bun-Bun]

I note that once again, the Moody Blues' "Timothy Leary's Dead" is ignored in favor of the silly little Beatles song.  Booo Hissss.
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Quick nit: The Moody Blues song is "Legend of a Mind" from In Search of the Lost Chord. It's been a favorite song of mine since college. :)

[Occhidiangela]

Quick nit: The Moody Blues song is "Legend of a Mind" from In Search of the Lost Chord. It's been a favorite song of mine since college. :)
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Ah, thank you, I had forgotten. Two points for excellent Moody Blues trivia. :blink:

Now, the Myth of the Mind is a song about the White House . . .

Occhi

[LochnarITB]

:wub: :wub: :wub:

The Moody Blues[right][snapback]99166[/snapback][/right]

:wub: :wub: :wub:

I have to take any opportunity I get to quote my favorite bit from The Moody Blues, pulled from here.

Moody Blues On the Threshold of a Dream

In The Beginning

1ST Man:
I think, I think I am, therefore I am, I think.
2ND Man:
Of course you are my bright little star,
I've miles
And miles
Of files
Pretty files of your forefather's fruit
and now to suit our
great computer,
You're magnetic ink.
1ST Man:
I'm more than that, I know I am, at least, I think I must be.
Inner Man:
There you go man, keep as cool as you can.
Face piles
And piles
Of trials
With smiles.
It riles them to believe
that you perceive
the web they weave
And keep on thinking free.

[Doc]

I am hoping that one day the demonisation of LSD will go away and theraputic research can be continued. So much potential for so many mental disorders to be treated. I could see the potential for things like virtual reality to be used along with LSD for theraputic purposes.

Also, the ability to expand the human mind should not be ignored. Sure, it's a crap shoot... But when it works, it can do astounding things for the user.

Some of the long term side effects would need to be cleaned up somehow. The swirly trails, visual time slow down, and the occasional random bubble distortion fish eye effect can be somewhat distracting and annoying. Seeing auras around everything is cool and all for about a week. After a while, the multi-coloured smoke like whispy flames that surround everything just cause headaches. Although it is still sort of cool to look at flying insects... Zooming aura balls are fun to space out to.

And the occasional bubble of LSD stored in a fat pocket that bursts ten or fifteen years later and causes you to think that your showerhead is spraying out billions of wriggling black widow spiders isn't so great either.

[Drasca]

I wish some of us were half as good as that artist. Even though he berates himself (all good ones do that), he uses several techniques common to basic drawing. Singular bold line drawings without lifting the pencil are really fun (not a new innovation, I assure you). Smudging. He looks to be using a coal piece at one point, definitely using flat end of one pencil for.

8 hrs of drawing... ugh. That taps out all reserves.

[jahcs]

8 hrs of drawing... ugh. That taps out all reserves.
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Over 8 hours in a room with an evaluator is enough to make many people batty on it's own. Throw in some mind-altering substances and you could really have a event on your hands.

[kandrathe]

This is a pretty tough issue for me to approach objectively. Personally, while my wife and I worked at making children we both adopted a regime of extreme purity starting at least a year before we decided to take that plunge, and it involved all aspects of our life including food, drink, medicines, air, water, etc. Since that time though, I must confess to straying from the path at times to succumb to some scrumptious temptations.

As a libertarian, I would in no way expect any other person to approach the world as I do, or that my approach is "the right way". My change of philosophy came to me one day when I was thinking about my years raising livestock on the farm. We endeavor to provide our animal charges with clean water, nutritious food, and good vet care. We keep them in a safe environment, and as stress free as possible. When given a choice, why would we not treat ourselves as well?

But, you can see that for someone that eyes a Twinkie as plastic, or a Diet Coke as a potion of vile chemicals, that to embrace endorsing LSD, or even Tylenol for that matter is a pretty huge leap. As for the positive effects of LSD... I don't see much, while the detriments (as you described) are well known. Random rewiring of synapses may appear to be "opening up creativity", but it looks like prolonged use results in brain damage to me.

[Doc]

This is a pretty tough issue for me to approach objectively.  Personally, while my wife and I worked at making children we both adopted a regime of extreme purity starting at least a year before we decided to take that plunge, and it involved all aspects of our life including food, drink, medicines, air, water, etc.  Since that time though, I must confess to straying from the path at times to succumb to some scrumptious temptations.

As a libertarian, I would in no way expect any other person to approach the world as I do, or that my approach is "the right way".  My change of philosophy came to me one day when I was thinking about my years raising livestock on the farm.  We endeavor to provide our animal charges with clean water, nutritious food, and good vet care.  We keep them in a safe environment, and as stress free as possible.  When given a choice, why would we not treat ourselves as well?

But, you can see that for someone that eyes a Twinkie as plastic, or a Diet Coke as a potion of vile chemicals, that to embrace endorsing LSD, or even Tylenol for that matter is a pretty huge leap.  As for the positive effects of LSD...  I don't see much, while the detriments (as you described) are well known.  Random rewiring of synapses may appear to be "opening up creativity", but it looks like prolonged use results in brain damage to me.
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LSD must be used in much the same way one goes about lucid dreaming. For good things to happen, one must be in control, have super human will, and all the mental horsepower one can muster. Also must be trained in meditation and visualisation. If you are not the sort of person that can slice themselves open with a boxcutter with out flinching and ignore the pain, and then procede to stitch one's self up, using LSD to bash open the doors of perception is probably not for you. The level of dedication involved in keeping the mind focused is not something everybody can muster. With the sorts of doses required to achieve these states of higher thought, falling victim to illusion is to accept failure and possibly the loss of your mind.

On the other hand, it showed a great deal of promise with those who are mentally unstable, those with schizo-effective disorders.

LSD has also caused some users to experience vast leaps forward in IQ. But it's a crapshoot.

The side effects... Brain damage? Seeing trails and auras, well, I don't know what to call them, but I am not sure if I would call it brain damage. Auras are interesting. While they do screw with your vision at times, it's possible to see shifts in somebody's mood because the whisps of colour-cloudy smoke around them changes slightly. While you can't always tell what that mood might be, it is pretty obvious when you see it shift. Although angry folk... Or people with a lot of negative emotions tend to have darker more subdued shades, although this is not always the case. Doctors call this sort of thing Post Hallucinogen Perception Disorder. And they are studying some of the folks that took enough LSD to permanantly alter how their brain works, studying what sort of perceptions humans can observe when humans can see auras and halos. Just because the brain works differently doesn't always mean that it is broken, although some times it can be. As it turns out, there really is some "mystical" energy that surrounds human beings. I don't know that it is really mystical, it's probably just something that we don't yet understand, and anything that can't be explained by science tends to be looked at as mystical or somehow magical, when in reality there is probably some very good explaination for it. As for the name, I disagree with calling it a disorder. It's a condition yes... But for many, it is by no means disabling.

There are other worlds, other universes, all to be found by exploring the mind. And like any other means of exploration, you need a means to get there. LSD was one of many gateways. Even its creator laments that its full potential was never truly explored. And as with every form of exploration, there is bound to be casualties, loss, and people horribly crippled and or mutilated from the experience. But that is the cost of expanding your horizons. The oceans have been crossed, the fringes of our space explored, but our minds hold so much more.

It is also very interesting to note that the people involved with LSD, er, the strong minded, iron willed people involved with LSD tend to have very long lives. Leary was right up there in age, and was active and, well, for lack of a better set of words, sharp as a tack right up to the end. A bit fruit loopy maybe... But his mind was stronger than most normal peoples. There has been some speculation that LSD may effect how the body ages.

Sigh. So many questions. No answers coming any time soon.

[Doc]

Oh, forgot to mention. We barely even fully understand what LSD does to the body as a whole. Just look at the changes it can cause on the optic nerves and the changes to how the eye sees.

Definately some potential, but not for everybody.

[kandrathe]

...
LSD has also caused some users to experience vast leaps forward in IQ. But it's a crapshoot.
...
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I'm interested in some of Albert Hofmann's other work on Ergoloid mesylates, like Hydergine and other nootropics.

[Jeunemaitre]

Oh, forgot to mention. We barely even fully understand what LSD does to the body as a whole. Just look at the changes it can cause on the optic nerves and the changes to how the eye sees.

Definately some potential, but not for everybody.
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One of the things that LSD does in the body is affect the routing center of the brain. A single structure in the brain traffics impulses from one end to the other. The optic processing center is in the back, at the opposite side from the eyes, and the speach processing is in the back as well, while the rest of auditory processing is distributed in the sides, near the olfactory centers. LSD can intervene in this distribution center and send shipments to different centers, which gives the experience of "seeing music" (auditory impulse send to optic processing), or "smelling the color yellow" (optic impulse sent to olfactory processing).

We also know that the body is not great at removing it from circulation. As Doc mentioned, it can be storred in a couple different places, and sometimes the effect never disipates entirely because the chemical remains intact and in contact with the brains receptors (like jamming a penny into an old school fusebox) resulting in something like a permanant low-grade trip.

I'm not sure what else to add. It's been several years since my 3 credits in Drugs and Human Behavior, but I think I've gotten most everything right. I think the drug itself could be used responsibly in certain circumstances if it could be modifies to be a bit more controllable (greater receptor specificity, in order to improve predictability of response), but as it is, it doesn't seem like a good idea to administer to folks who already have mental conditions.

Edit: not sure where I was really going. Not trying to kill the conversation, just presenting my opinion. Never tried it myself, but then again, never done much of anything like it. Too many bad experiences with idiot who experimented irresbonsibly.

[Doc]

Too many bad experiences with idiot who experimented irresbonsibly.
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Yeah, see, that's the trick. Every halfwit, idiot, and nitwit would think they have the sort of mental fortitude it would take to handle the experience. Which is why it pains me to say that it's probably for the best that it is outlawed.

That said, suvival of the strong. Let them take it and deal with the consequences. Dennis Leary was right. Not less drugs, more drugs, and give them to all the right people.