The 'bizarre' story of the world's first LSD trip |
'A kind of dream world appeared': The 'bizarre' story of the world's first LSD trip
Dr Albert Hoffman accidentally discovered the hallucinatory effects of LSD in April 1943. In 1986, he told the BBC about a "terrifying" bicycle ride home from the laboratory – and about how his "problem child" drug changed the world.
"At the end of the synthesis, I got in a very strange psychic situation. A kind of dream world appeared, a feeling of oneness with the world." Dr Albert Hofmann, a Swiss chemist, was working on a routine experiment at a pharmaceutical firm in the town of Basel when he made a world-changing chance discovery. His first experience with what would become known as LSD was gentle and intriguing. His decision to take the psychedelic drug three days later resulted in terrifying visions and one of the most unusual bicycle trips ever.
Warning: This article contains graphic descriptions of drug use
The story began on Friday 16 April 1943 when Hofmann was preparing a fresh batch of lysergic acid diethylamide, a compound he had first synthesised five years earlier. The 37-year-old was studying medicinal plants by experimenting with ergot, a fungus that grows on corn, to see if a drug derived from it could help midwives prevent post-childbirth bleeding. Owing to its German name, Lysergsäurediethylamid, the compound is now better known as LSD.
Interviewed on the BBC in 1986, Hofmann said that his unexpected first experience with the drug reminded him of "mystical" childhood moments in woods and forests. The sensation of "seeing the true aspects of nature, the beauty" filled him with happiness. Hofmann wondered if this pleasant and dreamy state was in some way connected with the crystals of LSD that he had been purifying. While he hadn't eaten any of the compound deliberately, he may have got some of it on his fingers. This would imply that the substance was very potent. He decided to find out by experimenting on himself when he was back in work on Monday.
Cautious by nature, he began with what he thought was the smallest dose that could have any effect. "I started with 0.25 milligrams," he recalled, planning to increase the amount only if nothing happened. "But this very small dose, the first dose of my experiments I planned, was very, very strong," he said. After taking the drug, Hofmann began to feel unwell, and rode home unsteadily on his bicycle through the streets of Basel. As the journey progressed, things got weird. His vision distorted as if he was looking in a fairground mirror. By the time he made it home, his sense of reality had disintegrated.
When Hofmann stepped into his sitting room, he was startled by how completely it seemed to have changed. "The room itself and the objects in this room had quite a different form, different colour, different meaning," he told the BBC. Even an ordinary chair appeared to be a "living object", as though it were moving from within. "That was so unusual that I really got afraid that I had become insane," he said.
The bizarre hallucinations continued all evening. A kindly neighbour who brought him milk as an antidote appeared to have transformed into a witch. "At times, Hofmann felt as if he was dead, and........