LSD Experience

2:10 PM: Took 50 mcg. LSD (Had previously (9 AM) taken 10 mg.

dl-desoxyephedrine).

3:05: Euphoric sensation in calves of legs. Suddenly noticed a beauty

in the sky that I had long forgotten. A cloud formation recalled some

distant notion of adventure. No color changes.

3:15: Increasing euphoria; slight color brightening; withdrawal

feeling beginning; slight narrowing of vision.

3:20: Sharpened senses; all stimuli magnified somewhat. Imagination

seems very strong and vivid.

3:25: I feel as if my soul were coming alive again for the first time

in long, grey months. Mind working as it used to, years ago! All

perceptions clear, unperturbed, bright and satisfying. Some inner,

secret part of mind is active once more. All miseries and boredom of

past year seem to be melting away.

3:40: Hyperreflexia in calves and abdomen. Transient tremors in

hands. Great lumbar-thoracic stimulation. Mind calm, withdrawn.

4:00 to 4:15: Lay back and relaxed, with eyes closed. At first noted

nothing in visual field; gradually, purely mental thoughts began to

assume tangible shapes and forms; soon, was “daydreaming” very

vividly, with amazing series of plastic images melting one into the

other. All colors very delicate and luminous, yet not so eidetically

acute as to render them physically palpable. Mostly transparent

fantasies of the mind, which remained at a thought level. Almost

unbelievably productive, yet illusive. Saw gleaming white thighs of

beautiful women; descended into slime of visceral, internal cavities,

all red and wet, warm and palpitating, like child in womb. People

come and go like pale, shimmering ghosts.

4:30: Very dreamy, withdrawn feeling. Slight visual distortions,

which are novel and interesting.

4:40: Took 300 mg. niacin-amide.

4:45: Went out doors—suddenly emerging into a world of unbelievable

splendor and beauty. Colors so dazzling, fresh, and meaningful, as if

had entered into a new dimension of existence. A bed of flowers

so breathtakingly lovely that words do not describe them: brilliant

jewels on dark green velvet. Walked to intersection; hustle and bustle

of American life suddenly assumed visionary proportions: violent

motion on all sides, terrible noise. Still, all colors have new values. I

see everywhere new and breathtaking combinations of subtle beauty

and delicacy.

5:00: Sitting atop a rolling field of grass, like livid emeralds at my

feet. The great bowl of hills beneath blue sky is etched in supreme

clarity, palpable with the warm tones of brown and purple, serene and

calm beyond description. Scene recalls day many years ago in South:

a warm, spring evening, the fresh scent of earth rising in the air, all

pervaded with exquisite longing and poetry. Every color, perfume, and

touch of breeze is animated with new life, perceptiveness, the return

of spring in autumn, in no sense elegiac, but happy, affirmative, and

altogether unexpected. How wonderful to be sitting here once again,

watching the sun go down, knowing that earth had a pain made itself

conscious in which I am benign toward earth like a careless bird! Sun

and soil are rejoicing in my awareness!

5:25: The moment of sun’s departure! Like a religious act. The

mystery of Being spreading through the sky like a great drama. At the

instant of last illumination, all colors suddenly changed: transparent

whites and browns, ghost-like beneath my feet. In the far west,

arising in vaporous light, there shimmer! The world of my childhood

longing . . . that forgotten land of Celtic and Oriental dreaming, all

peach-misted and suspended in the realm of Light.

To 6:15: I have been walking through the Garden of Eden these last

hours . . . or have they been minutes? I left the high lawn and began to

walk home. Gazing upon a field of uttermost enchantment, I suddenly

realized that this was an erstwhile rubbish heap, now transformed

into exquisite surfaces and textures, rich in their own essential being!

Behind me lay the mountains, still pink at the top with jewel-like

sunlight. My attention was so arrested that I had to turn back and

walk toward them, knowing that a veil had been torn from my sight

and that I was seeing them in primal, perfect clarity! There was no

distortion or intoxication about this; only the knowledge of clear

vision, undisturbed and clean, overwhelmed by the beauty of the

sight seen in stark reality for the first time. I turned down a side street

and began to wander where my fancy took me—enchanted on every

side by unexpected glimpses of paradise. Here, a violet rooftop; there,

a blaze of luminous flowers; there, a mass of green against a glowing

evening sky. The sense of life pulsing everywhere was satisfying and

organically stimulating. Human happiness seemed to express itself as

I had not perceived it since childhood. At the bottom of the road, the

older trees pressed in like a primordial forest of vivid gold, sammet,

and jade, magically moved by lukewarm draughts of air. The green

and blazing autumn fluorescence had now assumed another aspect,

heightened by the novelty of recreated childlike wonderment, which

I absolutely and fully possessed. Overhead and on each side was a

virtual orgy of sensuous impressions: streetlamps seen in the dusk

as solitary, luminescent gems in the trees, and mysterious objects

glowing in thousands of darkened recesses, under a somber-burning

sky. At one moment, a manor house appeared out of some old

English novel, and then, a Southern mansion, with white columns

and portico gleaming in pure alabaster. Every garden, every grove of

trees seemed to be a corner of a re-created Eden-world, so palpably

alive that my sight could only riot drunkenly from one unbelievable

scene to another. My body was light? and my movements, effortless,

as I was drawn down street after street, unable to resist each charming

new beauty which unfolded before me. A garden of castor-vines

became a tropical forest, hung with phosphorescent jewels: Every

scent and tactile sensation was powerfully magnified, in consequence

of the vision I possessed, so that nothing was withheld from this

unimaginable feast of the senses. I felt immense pity for the few

solitary persons who passed me, who could never know what beauties

I beheld. How magnificent to have the Veil of Pan torn from my

eyes; to see unspeakable loveliness in every color, surface, shape, and

texture, all drunkenly outdoing each other in pristine intensity; and

to be wandering as a child enchanted, seeing the very heart of Being

with pure, unadorned delight, intoxicated with sheer pleasure! This

drug must be reclassified as a soul-energizer!

6:30: Home, in living room. The deep red drapes are alive with

fire and motion. German folk-songs on phonograph overwhelm me

with emotion, as if I could scarce endure them. Have no trouble

communicating, but withdrawal and somatic feelings still deep.

Taking 50 mg. Thorazine and tea, the latter producing a rich,

warm sensation of joy and contentment. Leaving for town in car;

concentration seems adequate.

Later: Ate more than usual; sensations rapidly abated. No muscular

tension this time, as experienced almost universally before.