Psychedelic revelations: LSD altered my perception
Here’s how it has opened up my mind in the way I think and feel
Humans certainly are strange. We have the cognitive ability to comprehend, sympathize, and empathize life outside of ourselves. I think out of self-preservation, our capacity to engage in these higher functioning ways of being can become limited. When we feel that there is a threat to our survival, our bandwidth to practice empathy and observe compassion drops. Overtime, through psychological adaptation, the default attention we give to higher levels of consciousness becomes a background concept.
I’d like to make clear that this statement isn’t a judgment on anybody who has defaulted into such a state of mind. Our world at the moment is fraught with difficulties and our mind is an incredibly complex place. It is constantly looking for shortcuts (in psychology we call it mental heuristics). From a physiological aspect, it is a means to reduce metabolic consumption. However from a psychological aspect, I believe it can become the root of all mental issues that plague the collective human psyche. Unconscious development of mental shortcuts leads to the development of unconscious patterned thinking and behaviours. I’d like to posit that one of the most easily achievable ways of leading a life worth living is to walk through every waking moment of life consciously. That is, being aware of all of the decisions we choose to make or not make.
In 1954 Aldous Huxley published The Doors of Perception. This work on the expansion of consciousness has become somewhat of an evergreen read on the subject of psychedelics. He made an important observation on the nature of certain psychoactive and psychedelic drugs — stating that for the many who are unable to perceive consciousness outside of the box, use of drugs can help in opening up the box. Unpacking the implications of this insight, Huxley made observations on the phenomenon of unique thinkers that live among us. Often these people walk the line of brilliance, such as musical prodigies, mathematical geniuses, ones who have excellent visual imaginations, and the ones who are high on the spectrum of creativity. Is it then possible for humans who do not embody this way of perception to glimpse it?
In my early studies of neuroscience, I had made a connection that while majority of humans have the same brain centers that can work to produce all sorts of psychological realities, most are unable to. A part of the puzzle is that genetics can dictate how active (or under-active) key regions in the brain function in the foreground. There is also a nurture component. My current understanding as to why many are unable and unwilling to contemplate the metaphysical is not because their minds are not capable of doing so, but because of external factors that through the process of conditioning over years and decades, have influenced our psychological state.
A challenge to thinking outside of our conditioning might seem ridiculous! What we know is tried and true. If we are to surrender our way of thinking and allow for a drastically different approach — it has the potential to cause a complete paradigm shift. The momentum of this can be psychologically paralyzing for some individuals — it may push them to question everything that they currently know. It is because of this, many stay away from these realms of the mind.
Much of orthodox thinking has become reliant on crystallized intelligence. In psychology this is defined as intelligence that is based upon facts and experiences. This has proven to be incredibly useful in the realm of understanding the empirical and manipulating the material. While this has managed to improve civilization in its living standards, I believe we have made the leap to normalizing this way of thinking as the best way to understanding the universe and ourselves in all of its mysteries. Allow me to use the analogy of applying a screwdriver on a bolt — it just doesn’t work. If we are not using the right tool to understand the metaphysical, any amount of intellectual effort will not get us very far.
Enter into the arena LSD — accidentally created by Swiss scientist Albert Hoffman while experimenting with ergot in the late 1930s. His initial foray into the psychedelic realms is now known as ‘bicycle day’. So the story goes, in 1943, Hoffman had decided to experiment with LSD five years after he had created the compound. In the confines of his lab, Hoffman dropped a heroic dosage of the substance (usually it is recommended for beginners to take less than 50 micrograms, but because Hoffman was his own guinea pig, he had thought ~250 micrograms was a suitable amount). Soon after, Hoffman’s perception was intensely altered, he had struggled to speak intelligibly, started hallucinating, experienced an altered sense of his body in relation to space, and had decided to make his way home on bicycle. There is a good recount of his story that is worth a read in Double Blind Magazine, if for at the very least amusement.
In Hoffman’s lifetime, he has regarded LSD as “medicine for the soul,” and has made anecdotal statements about LSD and its close ties to the mystical. To quote Hoffman “LSD spoke to [him]… when you study natural science and the miracles of creation, if you do not turn into a mystic, you are not a natural scientist.” The point I’m trying to make here is just this: accessing aspects of our consciousness in order to deeper understand our relationship to our environment, our psychology, and our place in the universe requires an intellect beyond crystallized intelligence. The spiritual, the emotional, the psychological, and all intersections between these realms of being human requires a different approach in order to understand. Much of it is so ethereal and abstract that orthodox logic, rationality, and semantics often fail to provide an acceptable explanation.
Dropping acid, dropping our preconditioned way of thinking
The first time I dropped acid was two years after my initial mushroom experience. I had read that there were similar effects in terms of visuals between the two, and so I had made the assumption that mentally it would be very similar. Of course there are differences, but it took two more experiments for me to gain a good grasp on what the experiential difference was. I likened LSD to something more metallic in nature, and mushrooms to something more earth like in nature.
In retrospect, I find it amusing to have described such states of mind using the ancient Chinese five elements (and not knowing about it). In more relatable terms, I would say that while both offered the gift of consciousness expansion, I think the way mushrooms affect our state of consciousness is through a heightened awareness of our emotions in order to contrast the mind. Acid on the other hand seems to expand the minds capability of perceiving itself. So while both achieve the same goal, the road to get there offers a vastly different experience.
While on my acid trip, I had seemingly experienced a down regulation of my cerebrum. Speech was difficult for me to engage in as most of my sentences came out fragmented. On the other hand, perception of sound, colours, textures, and shapes were greatly enhanced. Experience of the temporospatial was also something that was significantly altered. It’s difficult for me to describe what the feeling of distorted time is like. My best attempt is to liken it to dreaming a full dream only to wake up and realize that in reality a very short amount of time has passed. I’d posit that just like the speech centres of my brain are being downregulated to trade off for the heightening of other sensory centres of the brain, LSD effected my brain’s attention towards calculating time to trade off for a heightened awareness of the present moment.
I would say that during my experience on acid, the effects shed insight into what being in an altered state of mind feels like. It was only after the effects wore off and after days of integrating my experience that it would alter my perception.
A different approach to perception
At the time, I had found a particular interest on the literature and work surrounding abnormal psychology. There was a particular quote that I came across in how certain tribes in the ancient Middle East would describe those who had abnormal states of psychology — such as schizophrenia. Instead of saying that they were mentally ill, they would describe them as having their mind with God. This was a paradigm shifting moment for me, as it moved the parameters in understanding the mentally ill. Up until then, I had thought that Western psychiatry was the only lens to understand mental health.
Elyn Saks gave an intriguing TED talk on her first experience with schizophrenia and the on going challenges that she has to face when a schizophrenic episode manifests. Of the list of symptoms that she listed, fragmented speech, loose association, and body dissociation were apart of them.
My initial thoughts to myself was what an interesting (and terrifying) experience — for one to be unable to define the borders of their own body in relation to their surroundings, and to be unable to rationally communicate with others. Beyond that, I found that while this experience was painted in a negative light in the West, a relative version of this experience in the East would be considered a religious experience.
Within the collective knowledge of Vedic practices, those who are considered high level meditation practitioners have detailed states of being, where they have been able to expand their awareness of their surroundings to a high degree. In the same vein of thinking, what Western psychiatry describes as catatonia or waxy flexibility (both symptoms of schizophrenia), we can observe stories of Indian mystics who remain in a singular position for hours and days, or ascetics who have adopted life without use of certain limbs. Of course, there is obviously a difference between psychiatric episodes happening involuntarily, and those who consciously work towards experiencing such states of mind and body.
I’m not trying to minimize the deleterious effects of schizophrenia, but rather, I was intensely interested in the altered states of perception and being. All of these positions of curiosity I had pondered at the time was before I had ever partaken in any psychedelics. The knowledge at large for me at the time was to know that even though two people can share the same physical space, chances are they are experiencing the physical space in an incredibly different way.
Knowing all of this at the time, LSD gave me the gift of temporarily experiencing and sympathizing with those who have an altered state of mind. I personally think that this is a gift — when a drug can act in an incredibly powerful way to alter our state of mind with the potential to expand it beyond our conditioned parameters. If I am to summarize what acid can offer you if you are to partake with the right intention: acid allows you to observe your own mind temporarily from a third person perspective.
Because acid is so powerful in altering perceptions, it can grant us a momentary glimpse in learning how to deeply sympathize with everybody’s differences in perceiving the world. The grand question that it has left me with is: what is real and true about what I know? Questions that are a gateway to deep introspection, and the value of deep introspection is priceless. It is like a software update for our mind and spirit. Doing it frequently keeps our point of view fresh and in tune with our current circumstances.
To introspect is to converse with the self in the most vulnerable way possible. A conversation where we seek out our own polar opposite and engage in a meaningful way to bring about mutual understanding. The conversation brings contemplation, rumination, and further conversation. In doing so, we allow ourselves to take apart mental constructs that no longer serve us, revisit memories that offer learning opportunities, and make space to better build upon our life’s self-narrative.
