Today Is The 75th Anniversary Of The Discovery Of The Psychedelic Effects Of LSD

Let me explain to you what happened on this day, 75 years ago. The substance LSD (derived from the fungus ergot) was intentionally self-experimented with by Albert Hofmann. A swiss chemist that was working at the Sandoz Laboratory at that time. After accidentally absorbing a tiny amount of the little known about drug into his fingertips three days before, he had a profound experience where he stated having as what he described as “dream-like” but a “not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition”.

On 19 April, 1938, while at the laboratory Dr. Hofmann wanted to intentionally self-experiment to feel the true effects of LSD. He hypothesized that the threshold dose was 0.25mg or 250 micrograms, but in reality the threshold dose is around 25-50 ug, 100 ug being a standard dose recreationally.

On 4/19/43 at 16:20 Dr. Hofmann consumed 0.25mg of lysergic diethylamide tartrate mixed with 10 cc of distilled water orally. He started feeling the effects within half an hour. He experienced dizziness, anxiety, visual distortions, symptoms of paralysis and a desire to laugh. All normal effects of LSD. He soon asked his lab assistant to take him home, but since it was World War II during this time there was a ban on using any motorised vehicles, so he had to ride home tripping balls on his bicycle. Thus how bicycle day got it's name.

When he got home the trip was intensifying, he started to panic and thought that he was going to die which sent him into the spiral of bad trip. He asked his lab assistant to go to he’s neighbour and get milk because he thought that he poisoned himself and milk would fix it, when she came to the door he proceeded to call her a witch, by the end of the night he had drunk a whole 2 litre bottle of milk.

At the comedown of the experience he began to enjoy the trip more and more enjoying the shapes and colours when he closed his eyes. “Kaleidoscopic, fantastic images surged in on me, alternating, variegated, opening and then closing themselves in circles and spirals, exploding in coloured fountains, rearranging and hybridising themselves in constant flux”. The next morning he woke up feeling rejuvenated and clear headed and experienced an afterglow effect with still some feeling of tiredness.

Since I don’t have LSD I have the next related compound called 'LSA' containing seeds or 'Lysergic Acid Amide' which is a precursor found in Hawaiian Baby Wood-rose seeds. The Lysergic Acid theoretically could be extracted from the seeds and synthesised into LSD, but this method is extremely inefficient. I'm not going to consume them though since they give you a lot of nausea and vasoconstriction (you can get around the negative effects with certain extraction methods).

Sources:

LSD My Problem Child - Albert Hoffman