- seCtIon FIVe: BoRDeRLAnDs
history (Hofmann, 1980; Stevens, 1987). In 1943, Albert Hofmann, a chemist at
the Sandoz laboratories in Basel, Switzerland, was working with ergot, a deadly
fungus that grows on rye. For eight years he had been synthesising a long series
of ergotamine molecules in the hope of finding a useful medicine. Then on Friday
16 April, he synthesised a batch of LSD-25. He began to feel unwell, went home to
bed, and experienced a stream of fantastic hallucinations.
Hofmann suspected that, although he hadn’t deliberately taken any, the LSD might
have caused the hallucinations. Like any chemist wanting to test psychoactive
drugs on himself (Shulgin and Shulgin, 1991), he began with what he thought was
a tiny dose. On Monday the 19th, at 4.20 in the afternoon, with his assistants pres-
ent, he took 250 micrograms. At 4.50 he noted no effect, at 5.00 some dizziness,
visual disturbance, and a marked desire to laugh. Then he stopped writing, asked
for a doctor to be called and, with one of his assistants, set off home on his bicycle.
As he cycled at a good pace he seemed to be getting nowhere. The familiar road
looked like a Dali painting and the buildings yawned and rippled. By the time
the doctor arrived, Hofmann was hovering near his bedroom ceiling, watching
what he thought was his dead body. Instead of the fascinating hallucinations he
had had before, this time he was in a nightmare and assumed he would either
die or go mad. He did neither, and this first acid trip is now regularly celebrated
with re-enactments of his famous bicycle ride (Stevens, 1987). In 2006, the track
along which he rode was renamed Albert Hofmann Weg in honour of his 100th
birthday. He died in 2008, aged 102.
LSD turned out to be active in tiny doses, and in fact, Hofmann had taken the
equivalent of two or three tabs of acid. Like many people since, he had discovered
that acid produces the sense of going on a journey, or trip, that can include joy,
elation, wondrous hallucinations, deep insights, and spiritual experiences, as well
as terrifying horror and despair, and the disintegration of self. To many users, it
seems that it opens up the contents of their mind, revealing memories, hopes,
fears, and fantasies – both good and bad. This is why there can be bad trips as well
as good, and why the term ‘psychedelic’ is appropriate.
A typical dose of only 100 micrograms induces a trip that begins within half
an hour to an hour and lasts anywhere from eight to twelve hours depending
on bodyweight, dose, set, and setting. LSD has a chemical structure related to
serotonin (5HT) and binds to receptors for serotonin, dopamine, and adrenaline.
Although non-addictive, tolerance does build up with frequent use.
The classic work on LSD is The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience by Robert
Masters and Jean Houston (1967), who observed 206 drug sessions and
collected accounts from over two hundred people. They describe bodily
distortions, synaesthesia, seeing one’s own double, and becoming one with
various objects or creatures in the environment, as well as profound religious
and spiritual experiences. Early research exploring the use of LSD in therapy
yielded extraordinarily positive results (Grof and Halifax, 1977), but research
was effectively banned by the drug laws of the 1960s, not beginning again
until half a century later. Similarly encouraging results are now again being
generated, for example in uses of LSD for the terminally ill (Gasser, Kirchner,
and Passie, 2014).
