Jacob Arroyo

Period ½

Losing Sight of Day

Everything was ready to go. Albert had just finished synthesizing a vial of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD) in accordance with his plan to ingest 250 μg on a bike ride. His checklist of items consisted of a jacket, a bike, a vile of LSD, a hat, and an open mind to what events that could possibly take place.

I can’t begin to imagine what level of cognizance that LSD might bring about. Maybe I shouldn’t ride a bike… he thought to himself as he left the lab. Conflicted with possible scenarios, he began to feel anxious. His palms clammed up and his thoughts began to race. He shook himself clean of it, however, knowing that it was a very low dose and that this was merely to achieve what he believed to be the threshold of LSD’s effects. Head up high with a confident state of mind, he reached his bike and began to prepare himself for the journey ahead. He removed the vial of LSD from his jacket and proceeded to drip one drop on his tongue. Intrigued by the lack of taste or physical sensation, he jotted down a quick note in his journal that he made solely for this experiment.

“It’s such a beautiful day,” he quietly said with a soft smile as he began his bike ride. As he waited for the onset of the effects, he made small talk in his head to pass the time. Thoughts of how green the leaves on the trees are and how warm the sun feels on his face were simply thoughts spurred by anticipation. He recalled his accidental exposure to LSD while in the lab and how he felt the subtle yet distinctive change to his perception of reality. Time had passed faster than he expected, as he noticed his environment had flourished with elegance. Colors began to increase in vibrancy and complex patterns grew within the plant life around him. A sense of bliss took control of his train of thought, seeing the beauty in the smallest of things as he cruised along on his bike down the trail.

“I can’t help but feel an urge to talk to others right now. I must see what it is like to talk to another human in this state of mind,” he said as he began to slow down his pedalling to fully take in the scenery. With this initial thought, he set off to his home where he might share this sensation with his roommate. It was a long way home but he didn’t care, as he enjoyed every moment of this growing euphoria. The bike path began to straighten out, and he fell into a trance as cruising no longer required much attention. Trees began to appear on both sides of the dirt path and the sun began to reach the peak of his vision.

With an overwhelming feeling of love for the life around him, he abruptly stopped on the path to stop and observe a patch of flowers. They spoke to him, but through waves of energy. He wanted to see them as he once saw them as a young child. He approached the patch and squatted down to get a closer look. A breeze gently blew towards him, allowing for the flowers to indulge his senses.

“This sensation I once had as a child, I feel it once more. It is beautiful,” he thought to himself as he closely watched the small ecosystem of bugs and flowers interact with one another.

“I must share this with Simon! He will be astounded!” He proclaimed as he turned around and ran back to his bike.

His bike began to take on a bright shine, as every part of it illuminated an aura of industrial colors. He looked to the sky to see if there was a significant change in his perspective on reality. The clouds had a crisp and clear definition to them. He watched fractals flow through the clouds as they moved on with the wind. Each cloud grew in and out of itself; clouds encompassed his sky and refracted the light from the sun. His pupils dilated; every detail was inscribed in his mind as every moment felt like a day full of bliss. Through the edge of the cloud a rainbow glowed, with every color having extreme and distinct detail. A certain sharpness cut each cloud perfectly into the sky that created a remarkable and breathtaking painting. Hofmann had to shake himself of the hypnotic state he began to fall into and focused on getting the word to Simon.

Hofmann noticed that his fine motor skills became not-so-fine, and had to slow himself down before he fell off his bike. A seed of doubt was planted into his mind, as he watched himself fall into a rabbit hole of fear.

“What if I can’t make it to Simon?”

“Will I make it to the town?”

“What time is it?”

“Where am I?”

“What time is it?”

“Where am I?”

“It won’t stop...” he whispered to himself as his world began to warp into a bad Disney movie. This recursive thought loop entrapped Hofmann. 250 μg was more than what he expected it to be, and more than he could handle; the potency of LSD was far greater than anticipated, and he knew that the world he came from would not return anytime soon.

This bike ride turned into a long and strung out mission, as every pedal made his legs feel weak and heavy. His eyes, engulfed by the abyss of his pupils, scanned his surroundings to make sense of what reality had become. Doing his best to stay on the bike and get to town, he pushed himself to keep going at a steady pace.

“It’s been two hours and I don’t feel this ending anytime s-soon… I need to find S-Simon. He can help m-me,” he said to himself with an anxious stutter. He noticed that he was feeling a weight pull down on his shoulders, his eyes began to grow heavy and his legs were becoming unresponsive. He saw what was going on and snapped himself out of the numbing trance.

He had to keep himself going, “The town can’t be very far. I’ve been riding my bike for long enough,” he thought to himself as despair began to overwhelm him. This trip went from a blissful bike ride into a journey of anxious worries and doubtful thoughts. Unsure of what to do, he pedalled faster as his world lost the vibrancy it once had. The sun went from a warm and brightening being of energy to a gloomy and dull star following Hofmann down the trail. Soon he was able to see the town over the horizon. This sight was the push he needed to get through his trip.

“I can see it! Simon is so close!” he exclaimed. A sigh of relief left his breath as he knew that this trip would come to an end soon once he found Simon. With the town in sight, he pedalled on and ignored the world he had endured just minutes before. His vision was no longer plagued by melancholy and was replaced with the growing light of the sun. His path was illuminated and a great wave of energy washed over him. Euphoria replaced despair and the bike ride was absolute joy from that point on. He pedalled faster than ever before with no sign of fatigue.

“Less than a kilometer away!” he proclaimed to the world. He could see the people walking and enjoying themselves on such a beautiful day. Albert slowed down as he was about to approach the streets of town. He began to ponder how he would explain such a sensation.

He winded through the streets, turning corners as fast as possible. His mind was racing with the possibilities of how to explain this wonderful feeling of bliss to someone who had never experienced it. He recognized the streets; he knew he was close. Simon was only a few hundred meters away. He slowed down more in order to keep from flying off his bike as he hit the brakes. He dropped his bike in front of the building and ran upstairs to find his roommate. Each flight of stairs was a new level of a thousand emotions and a thousand thoughts on how to communicate those emotions. He saw his room number, 12-19-4, and felt pure clarity flow into his mind, giving him the exact words to describe his journey. He shook his keys loose from his belt and hastily attempted to unlock the door. With a squeal of excitement, he flung the door open.

“SIMON! I HAVE SO MUCH TO TELL YOU!”

LSD: Universal Cognition in a Simple Molecule

    Throughout history, doctors across the world have performed research on new methods in order to treat and cure chronic illnesses. Research is a process of trial and error; some experiments achieve the initial goal, while others give unexpected results that can be helpful for research in a completely different area. Albert Hofmann was a Swiss chemist who happened to be in a similar predicament. While attempting to find a circulatory and respiratory stimulant that treated migraines without negatively affecting the uterus, he stumbled upon Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD). After discovering that LSD was not the drug he was looking for in 1938, he set it aside for five years before re-examining it in 1943. LSD would later become synonymous with the hippie movement and would gain a bad stigma for being a “dangerous drug” that lead to a rebellion of sorts against society. Despite the public’s negative notion of LSD, the drug has significant psychological benefits for those suffering from addictions, anxieties, psychiatric disorders and schizophrenia. Patients experience a vast change on their perspective of reality through ego death, resulting in lowered anxiety, dependency, and an overall increase in mental health. LSD should be used as a form of psychotherapy for those who suffer from these disorders and be allowed for further research to help similar disorders.

    Albert Hofmann was a Swiss chemist who was working in the field of pharmaceuticals, particularly focusing on the fungus ergot and other possibly medicinal plants. He spent his time delving into the combination of lysergic acid and nikethamide. He was under the assumption that bringing these two together would create the analeptic drug that would help with migraines. However, once he began testing with the two groups, he realized that the end result was not what he expected, and decided to put it aside for further investigation at a later date (Newsletter of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies). In 1943, five years after the initial development of LSD, Hofmann decided to re-examine the drug he made in order to see if it possessed any beneficial medicinal properties. While experimenting with it, he accidentally came in contact with a small amount of the drug through his fingertips. Following his exposure, he began to notice some visual side effects, “Everything I saw was distorted as in a warped mirror” (BBC News). Three days later on April 19th, 1943, Albert Hofmann decided to ingest 250 μg of LSD and take a bike ride home. This was the first intentional ingestion of LSD ever recorded. Following Albert’s ingestion of LSD or “trip”, he discussed his euphoric journey of realizing how beautiful the world is around us and that every little living organism has a purpose. He goes on to discuss the possibilities of therapeutic properties that LSD could possess, especially for those who suffer from depression or psychiatric disorders. However, he’s stated that, “It is very important that one is ‘prepared’ for the use of psychedelics. It is not just fun; it is a very serious experiment” (Hofmann’s Potion). The use of LSD is a very serious subject matter; while it may have been an accident that Hofmann came across, it is of the utmost importance that LSD be used solely for medicinal purposes. This strong belief of Albert lead to spreading the word of the possibilities that LSD has, which lead to the widespread production and use of LSD in psychotherapy across the world.

    Names such as Timothy Leary became staples internationally for the use of LSD in a therapeutic environment. Initially, it was believed that LSD would be useful for psychiatrists of schizophrenics as it would induce a psychotic episode that would help them better understand the daily hallucinations that their patients endured. It was later pointed out that LSD did quite the opposite, and psychiatrists began to use it on their patients to help relieve them of their horrific hallucinations. With this in mind, research began to use LSD to assist those who suffered from severe and lifelong addictions. Myron Stolaroff, an author and psychedelic psychotherapy specialist, explains the psychological effects during a therapy session for someone suffering from addiction.

In a good LSD experience you resolve your inner conflicts, and the loads and the barriers that have developed. You begin to reach down into the depth of your own being. You see more and more levels of being. More and more levels of understanding. Often we like to blame our feelings on other people. And what they are doing to us. But if I feel that it's my feeling and I've produced it, then I'm the only one who can resolve it. And fortunately, these substances allow you see and recognize this. And resolve it (Hofmann’s Potion).

The insight that LSD brought to these patients was praised by psychiatrists around the world, however this spike in research was short lived. Psychologists and psychiatrists were in high demand for LSD from the 1950’s to the 1960’s, leading to an increased production and distribution of the drug across the globe for research. Through this mass production, however, LSD began to slip away from the security of institutions into the public's hands. During this time, those labelled as “hippies” began to recreationally use LSD as a way of better discovering “one’s self”, leading to LSD becoming a street drug. This gave LSD a bad name, especially to the public who saw it as the addictive and dangerous fuel for the “hippie movement” in the 1960’s.

It’s ironic, seeing as how most psychedelics including LSD do not possess addictive properties. “LSD does not produce compulsive drug-seeking behavior. Addiction to hallucinogens is rare, although poly-drug addicts (people who are addicted to several drugs) frequently abuse hallucinogens as well” (Brown University). Despite being shown that it is not addictive, it was still in the shadow of the initial thought that the government placed into the minds of the public. In order to contain this movement, the government began to heavily restrict the production and research of LSD. This choke hold put a quick and significant stop to research of LSD in psychotherapy. Shortly thereafter, the government banned LSD and categorized it as an illegal and dangerous drug that should not be used recreationally or for medicinal purposes (Hofmann’s Potion).

    LSD is now sold to this day through the black market and fails to see the light of day in therapeutic research. The prohibition of most psychedelics has kept research for psychiatric disorders from advancing. Even though LSD has an abundance of positive research behind it, this stigma from the 1960’s has kept society in the dark on the beneficial properties that LSD has. Duncan Blewett, LSD researcher and psychologist, states that, “There are still people who are violently opposed to psychedelics. Very few of them have ever tried psychedelics; and 99% of the opposition to them comes from people who are completely ignorant of their effects” (Hofmann’s Potion). This veil of ignorance has been over the eyes of the public for decades. The irony of the situation is that LSD is one of the most researched drugs in existence, yet most of the public fail to see beyond what they have been lied to about for generations. There are thousands of studies that have concluded that LSD shows promise when used in a controlled environment to help those with anxieties, addictions, psychiatric disorders and so forth.

    Research was abundant in the 1950’s and 1960’s, and studies even to this day on LSD have shown positive results. In 1959, there was a study to examine if LSD had any medicinal properties when treating alcoholism. 40 alcoholic patients were given LSD two separate methods of administration and testing. Results showed LSD was able to allow the patients to find better self acceptance from within, giving positive results on their alcoholism. The study recorded quotes of the patient’s experiences with LSD in the psychotherapy sessions. Some quotes were,

“I had finally understood by experience the feeling of union with the cosmos", “"There seems to be two of me and there seems to be a conflict between these two”, “During this period I was swept by every conceivable variety of pleasant emotion from my own feeling of well-being through feelings of sublimity and grandeur to a sensation of ecstasy", “I was conscious of an extremely acute sense of awareness of perception of another's mood, almost thoughts. I likened it to the recognition of emotional atmosphere that the child or animal seem to have" (N. Chwelos, D. B. Blewett, C. M. Smith  and A. Hoffer., 1959).

The study concluded that patients noticed an overall uplift in mood and brighter outlook on life and made steps towards a brighter future. It also stated that further research is required to solidify the positive effects of LSD in addict patients. This is one of many studies that have taken place since it’s first synthesis 70 years ago. Another study in 2014 involved patients and the ingestion of LSD in order to help with anxiety from terminal illnesses. This study had similar results to the one from 1959, with patients feeling more content with who they were and showing decreased levels of anxiety with increased positivity in their situation. (The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease)

    LSD is a complex drug that can have extreme psychological effects on a person’s mind. It is extremely potent and requires the utmost safety and precaution when used, especially in a controlled environment with a patient and his psychiatrist. LSD has shown time and time again of its positive psychological properties and how it can assist those who struggle daily with addiction, anxiety and psychiatric disorders. Research for LSD should be used and kept away from negative bias backed by ignorant opinions. Science does not have an opinion, it only has the truth. This truth can lead to better and safer treatments for people who desperately need it, such as war veterans who have the weight of the world on their shoulders through PTSD. Instead of using a pill with a plethora of negative side effects, he could be a patient in an experiment who uses LSD in one session to help alleviate him of those horrors he goes through everyday. With an open mind and strong safety, LSD can be a very useful drug in the world of psychotherapy.

Work Cited

Hofmann’s Potion. Dir. Connie Littlefield. Alive Mind, 2002. DVD. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpSLjdPiSH8

Peter Gasser, MD, Dominique Holstein PhD, Yvonne Michel, PhD, Rick Doblin, PhD, Berra Yazar Klosinski, PhD, Torsten Passie, MD, MA, and Rudolf Brenneisen, PhD. “Safety and Efficacy of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide-Assisted Psychotherapy for Anxiety Associated With Life-threatening Diseases.” The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. Volume 00. Issue 00 (2014): 1-8. Web.

Brown University. Brown.edu. Brown University Student Services. Web. January 29, 2015

Dr. Albert Hofmann. “LSD: Completely Personal.” Newsletter of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. Volume 6. Issue 3 (1996) Web.

http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v06n3/06346hof.html

“LSD Inventor Albert Hofmann dies.” BBC News. BBC. (2008): Web. February 13 2015.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7374846.stm