Throwaway account. Taking LSD has been one of the most powerful experiences of my life - same level of power as one of my children dying. The first time I took it (rather late in life), it saved my marriage. After the intense trippy part died down, I was able to introspect from other people's viewpoints in a way I was never able to before. I could actually see <i>I</i> was the one being the ass, not the other way around. This understanding and feeling takes a while to wear off (say, 2 or 3 months?) - long enough for me to make some substantial changes.<p>LSD for fun, is great. Try playing an RPG while on a low dosage. You're coherent enough to play and understand it, but the realism spikes a thousand times. (I tried Fallout 3, and really <i>felt</i> as if I was in a nuclear wasteland.)<p>I've tried understanding technical documentation (on low dosages), and found it to be quite understandable and was able to retain everything. Immediately you start visualising and really "feeling" the underlying technology (even if it isn't actually that profound, it'll impact your mind in that way). I haven't done tests to see if this is more effective, but it looks like a promising possibility. (There was a thread on HN a few days back that talked about this.)<p>As far as the dangers, it might very well be. Wikipedia provides the indication that it's relatively safe, with patients that experienced psychosis (a few out of a thousand) to recover within a few days. The rate of psychosis is higher for people with existing mental illness. FWIW, I've been DX'd as bipolar I, with psychosis. As "far out" as LSD has made me feel during the experience, when it's over, I feel much more grounded than ever.<p>LSD is something everyone should seriously consider doing at least once in their life.
<i>For both individuals and society, all drugs present a dilemma: are they worth the risks to health, wealth and sanity? For me, the pay-off is the scientific inspiration, the wealth of new ideas and the spur to inner exploration.</i><p>The most prolific mathematician of all time, Paul Erdős, justified his amphetamine usage in similar terms [1]:<p>"After 1971 he also took amphetamines, despite the concern of his friends, one of whom (Ron Graham) bet him $500 that he could not stop taking the drug for a month. Erdős won the bet, but complained that during his abstinence mathematics had been set back by a month: 'Before, when I looked at a piece of blank paper my mind was filled with ideas. Now all I see is a blank piece of paper.' After he won the bet, he promptly resumed his amphetamine use."<p>[1] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s</a>
"The drugs can take you up in a helicopter to see what's there, but you can't stay.
In the end, you have to climb the mountain yourself - the hard way."<p>Thats a really good way to put it.
As somebody who has smoked pounds...this tripe gets tired quickly. Any effort towards legalization must focus not on broad social acceptance (by representing ganja as some holy, enlightening agent) but rather on analysis of the terrible damage prohibition does to society. Writing of this sort is very snooty towards casual smokers who honestly just want to get high, which should be as acceptable as any other use.
Explaining a drug's effect to someone who's never done it is like describing red to a blind person. They're just not going to get it until they experience it for themselves.
I read her text book 'introduction to consciousness' in a fourth year course in cognitive science. Probably the reason she was able to study parapsychology early in her career was that it was during the cold war when there were branches of the US government that took ESP seriously, and wanted to prove and exploit or disprove it before the soviets. But her rejection of parapsychology was pretty complete, and that text for example did not make reference to it.
<soapbox><p>I just don't buy it. IMHO, saying that using drugs to get to ideas/inspiration is like saying a wheelchair can help you get from one place to another even though your limbs are perfectly adequate. Maybe it'll help you get here but you could have gotten there without it.<p>If you like to get high, don't make excuses for it. Just admit to yourself that you like to get high. People who like to go to strip clubs don't say they go there for the lighting and it helps with design. People who watch TV don't say they watch for the education. Why do people who like to get high make up excuses to make their behavior socially acceptable. If you like to do it, own it.<p></soapbox><p>It's definitely possible that I am completely wrong as I haven't done LSD, Coke, etc.
People should try the sensory deprivation tank. It is a really great experience. You'll have to try the tank many times and just let your mind go before you start tripping. The tank is the best way to get your creative muscles going without actually using drugs.
What's with this rash of illegal drug articles? Am I the only one who still thinks it's morally wrong to do something that's illegal, except in certain very special circumstances set out below?<p>Let me explain what I mean. There are just laws, and there are unjust laws. Just laws should be obeyed. Unjust laws should be changed. If you think a given law is unjust, you should be campaigning to change it, not breaking it willy-nilly. The cost of people taking illegal drugs is huge, from the drain on police and prison resources to the creation of the organized crime rings which support the drug industry, and if you're taking illegal drugs you're responsible for all of that. <i>If</i> you are correct and drug laws are unjust then... well shit, changing them is an important task for you, and you should get cracking on that.<p>Right now there's no great consensus over whether drug laws are just or unjust, but the majority wants to keep drugs illegal, even in California which recently failed to pass (by a huge majority) a legalization of marijuana. If you choose to live in a democratic society, why not obey the democratically ordained laws?<p>Yes, there are circumstances when it <i>is</i> acceptable to break a law which you regard as unjust. One such circumstance is civil disobedience, where you break an unjust law with the intention of getting caught and punished so that you can bring attention to how unjust that law is, but if you're not (courageously) <i>trying</i> to get caught and punished you're not a civil disobedient. Another such circumstance is if the law is so <i>horrendously</i> unjust that following it will directly harm others, but that certainly doesn't apply in this case.<p>In conclusion, if you want to take drugs then campaign for drug legalization. But <i>don't</i> go round breaking the democratically-devised law in the meantime.
Dr Blackmore is a very interesting woman. Her early career was as a para pyschology researcher before she decided she was wasting her time and turned to real science.<p><a href="http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_13.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_13.html</a>
A friend of mine freaked out after taking LSD for a while. She is fine now (it happened twenty years ago), but she was really scared - especially as there can be flashbacks, so you can not just opt out of not experiencing trips anymore.