How About A Positive LSD Story?

cartoon by ZenPencils

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How About A Positive LSD Story?

mainstream media drop acid collectively
recent scientific research illuminates headlines

2016, April 29 - post April 16 & 19
From Sorgenkind To Wunderkind

Now that all floating dust, blown up in our trails like lucent traces, etherealized during last week's annual cerebralatory bicycle ride, slowly comes to settle its self, the time arrives for our shared attention to concentrate on current affairs. First, let us segue into the reasonably recent past for a short introduction. If you've watched the last couple of seasons of internet, like most of us have, you may have come across this particular piece of standup philosophy:

"Always that same LSD story, you've all seen it: 'Young man on acid, thought he could fly, jumped out of a building. What a tragedy.' What a dick! If he thought he could fly, why didn't he take off from the ground first? Check it out? You don't see ducks lined up to catch elevators to fly south. They fly from the ground, you moron, quit ruining it for everybody. ... How about a positive LSD story? Wouldn't that be newsworthy, just once? To base your decision on information rather than scare tactics and superstitions and lies, just once? I think it would be newsworthy ...
'Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death, life is only a dream and we're the imagination of ourselves.
Here's Tom with the weather!'"

- Bill Hicks, Revelations (link)

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!
Well, Bill ... it may have taken quite the little while, quite a few seasons in deed and ditties, but here comes Tom with the news - finally! In fact, in the light of recent progress made in the psychotropics department of neuroscience, some of last fortnight's headlines actually read:
LSD Makes The Brain More "Complete"

But, before we run off, zealously yet blindly, to score and drop us some acid^[!], let's continue until the end of the page, before we turn to another. After shedding more light - and quite literally so - on the interaction between psilocybin and the human central nervous system, with the human brain as their particular focal point (source: abstract / lecture), Robin Carhart-Harris et al * now bring to our shared table of knowledge, a research paper, titled:

Neural correlates of the LSD experience
revealed by multimodal neuroimaging

· for the short of it, click here
· for the full of it, click here
· for the rest of it, click here

- these four links connect to the website of PNAS,
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Not equipped with a pair of seriously scienterrific goggles? Then read about it in some of the science-related media, available online:
Tech Times, LSD makes the brain more complete (link)
Nature, Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness (link)
Science Daily, How LSD can make us lose our sense of self (link)

Some of the mainstream media that picked up on the positive vibes:
CNN, This is your brain on LSD, literally (link)
Reuters, Brain scans show how LSD mimics the mind of a baby (link)
The Guardian, LSD's impact on the brain revealed (link / more)
The Independent, LSD makes the brain more 'complete' (link)
The Daily Beast, LSD makes your brain more 'flexible' (link)

The last article linked in line ends with the quote:
"We think that what we experience normally is reality, but the truth is our brains are just constructing reality for us," - Enzo Tagliazucchi, Institute of Medical Psychology, Kiel Germany; one of the scientists involved in this experiment*, sounding a bit like Dr. Timothy Leary.

Getting dazzled by towering amounts of words on The Screen? Then watch The Young Turks on Youtube discussing the issue: click here.

A Personal Perspective
Of course, we cannot assert that 'brain scans show how LSD', or any other psychotropic compound, 'mimics the mind of a baby'. We may give the actual assertion a spot on the front page, of course, but it seems quite the factual challenge to 1) scan the brain of LSD itself with any techniques available to us, here and now, and 2) pursue a query into the mind of a baby without producing answers of such nondual nature that mostly practitioners of Eastern philosophy may deem useful - no standard issue hard science material as commonly craved in the West.
However, we can study if the way the brain of a human adult, when operating under the influence of LSD, might mimic the way the brain of human baby seems to function, when not operating under the influence of LSD. But first anthropomorphizing a psychedelic substance and then comparing it with 'the mind', a rather fickle concept, instead of 'the brain', seems to me like comparing a telescope with a cosmological theory concerning dark matter. But then again, I do not write headlines for Reuters. Not yet.

And even though a headline like "This is your brain on LSD" seems to try to get an obvious yet valid wink across to the ever so (in)famous "This is your brain on drugs" commercials, this actually sounds quite misleading as well. None of the articles show an actual brain on LSD, just as the original scientific paper does not. They show digital pictures, visual representations of scans made with various neuroimaging techniques, of cross sections of the brains of subjects under the influence of LSD, and of the same volunteers' brains with a placebo, functioning as a control observation.

"... Finicky on semantics much?" mocks the smirking Self.

Quite, but with proper cause, in my humble opinion. When it comes to getting scientifically based messages across, it seems wise to inform as correctly as possible, in order to make sure the ubiquitous Miss Quote and the ever-persistent Miss Interpretation do not start competing with each other beside the headlines, over the heads of the actual scientists, obscuring their findings with oversimplified language, and make their way as watered down memes into the gesunkenes Kulturgut, into our mind at large ... "'God' particle", anyone?^[1]

The Top Of The Tip Of The Iceberg
Of course, all these headlines do not read as interesting as all the content of these articles does. Still, I feel more attracted to read news items titled "LSD makes the brain more 'complete'" than the ones skepticized above. To me, this type of headline speaks a volume of unattached positivity: looking at the bright side without shouting it from the rooftops, but also without overtly ambiguous or sensationalist phrasing. This type of positivity tends to appeal more to the curious reader, more so than a shot of negativity, yet it also helps to remain skeptical, esp:cially with a case like Francis Crick in mind^[2], whilst keeping one eye on Dock Ellis' No-Hitter and another on other recent news about the practice of microdosing returning to a more favorable spot on stage in Silicon Valley^[3], like it supposedly enjoyed during the development of our now-cherished microprocessing power plants.^[4][5]

Then and then again, not one of us can see the whole of the Earth's Ocean at once, as similar as newspapers and other media can only cover a part of the top of the tip of the iceberg that seems to float on its surface. Anywave and shortly phrased: I do indeed feel glad about the fruitful turn our scientific research, our scrutinous study of the effects of psychedelic substances has taken in recent years. As this research clearly yielded results that guide the field in a prosperous direction, and conclusions that pave the way for more and minute examination of the beneficial effects and functions of our interaction with psychedelics, I patiently yet eagerly await the harvest of fruits ripening in the fields of our near future.

From Beyond The Pale To Beyond The Veil
Whatever way we may look at it, it seems rather evident that the uninterrupted strive for scientific justice does indeed prove itself propitious and renders those, who patiently await the unfolding of reason, favorably disposed. From now on, specifically after making scientific progress, yet also particularly after recently lifting the veil that obscured the apparently racist roots of the War on Some Drugs^[6], covered by controversy since the time of its origin during the Nixon Years, ... yes, from now on, we may leave all scare tactics and other fallacies and redundancies, lies and lullabies behind. From now on, let us head out with an honest approach and an open-minded attitude towards psychedelics, incorporate scientific experience in our personal opinions, and confront with love and laughter all residual naivety and lingering ignorance that may cross our path.^[!]

Departure, Fulfilment, Return
Whether intended for scientific, self-exploratory, shamanistic, spiritual or therapeutic purposes, we can consider LSD as one of the most powerful and versatile tools available. With its use, as with other powerful tools, comes a certain responsibility. As Richard Feynman so joyfully shared with us, finding things out can result in a lot of pleasure. But interacting with a psychedelic tool and aiming for "the sheer fun of it" seems like a rather tricky endeavour, to say the euphemized least. See it as a form of traffic: if we do not consider certain rules, we might end up damaging our vehicles.

As the experience itself unfolds in three distinct stages, very much like Joseph Campbell's 'departure, transformation and return' sums up the progression of a traditional epic journey, so does its development depend upon the traveller's initial coordination within the three distinct dimensions: set, setting and intent. In short: set stands for personal mindset, setting describes the local environment and intent encompasses desired direction.

During one's quest, the mind may manifest itself in many guises, and as a tool of transcendence, LSD certainly doesn't come equipped with the most straightforward of manuals. If all of the above already reads like the companion for Verbosity 101, (do not) wait until your third eye feasts on The Psychedelic Experience, one of many books spawned by the acidophilic culture, with quite a lot of practical instructions. Another iceberg's tip, per haps, but rest assured: it has colder feet than all of us do. All in all, as long as we do not regard mere fun as the single, ultimate goal, a psychedelic experience can provide a wonderful ride. And as far as the ride itself goes: do not feel obliged to travel by yellow submarine; a bicycle works just fine.

Trring Trrring!


In memory of Dr. Albert Hofmann
1906/01/11 - 2008/04/29
the father of LSD


* for complete and correct references to the referred research and researchers, please follow the highlighted links to the respective sources, above there or below here:
link 1 (psilocybin research) & link 2 (LSD research)

^[!] Siriusly and for the record: I do not advocate the impulsive, aimless consumption of psychedelics. Personally, I admire the degree of multi-functionality that psychedelic agents may provide to explore altered states of awareness, one that exceeds the degree to which pranayama, trance-dance and zazen may do, for instance, and by quite an order of magnitude. Nonetheless, I do advocate honest education, of ourselves and others, I laud proper scientific research, advise proper guidance, applaud proper training, and proclaim: as we never stop changing, may we never cease to study our Self. 
^[1] Higgs Boson 'God' particle nickname mishap, source: Wikipedia
^[2] Crick-DNA-LSD-mismatch, source: Reality Sandwich
^[3] some of the media mentioning microdosing:
Huffington Post / High Existence / Forbes / Rolling Stone / Telegraph
^[4] Silicon Valley on Acid, source: Scaruffi / Guardian
^[5] What The Dormouse Said, John Markoff, source: NY Times
^[6] some media that can see Nixon's forest through the grapevine: Huffington Post / CNN / Vice / Daily Mail / Daily News

· extrasitual onlinear resources:
LSD - My Problem Child, Albert Hofmann, 1980 (link 1 / link 2 / link 3)
MAPS - the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (link)
Richard Feynman - The Pleasure of Finding Things Out (link)
Joseph Campbell - The Power of Myth (link)
Erowid LSD Literature Vault (link)
Bill Hicks on Youtube (link)
Zen Pencils' website (link)

· satellites on LSD in blogular orbit:
April 16 - Ludic Serendipity Day
April 19 - Bicycle Day
War No More - VII
Bicycle Day 2003 Reprise
A Timeless Goosebumper - 2015.04.18
A Timeless Goosebumper - 2015.04.20


Signing off for today, with a word from the wise:

"Some things take years and years and years as they finally find the right solution, and I am convinced LSD will find the place it needs in the human culture." - Dr. Albert Hofmann, who serendipitously delivered Mother of Rye's child, quoted from the Hofmann's Potion documentary (NFB Canada - source)





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Silently,
the tip of an iceberg
hovers off into the distance

frozen water floating on water

towards the edge
of the horizon

in the shadow
of the Sun

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.: read up - expand the mind :.

all text, apart from the sampled
ⓦ Satyr Barbarossa (cc) 2016