Slashdot Mirror
Lysergically Yours
April 16th, 1945: Dr. Albert Hoffman's work on obstetrics pharmacology at Sandoz Laboratories is unexpectedly interrupted by a "stream of fantastic pictures and extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors."[1]
The following weeks saw Dr. Hoffman and his colleagues perform a series of self-experimentations which led to the discovery of the psychotropic effects of D-lysergic acid diethylamide 25, the most potent hallucinogen yet discovered -- and better known as LSD. The doors were suddenly flung open for a new age of exploration into the human mind. Government sanctions however quickly put an end to this line of research. Lysergically Yours, the first novel from Toronto-based author Duff supposes that this research program is still going strong, but not in the places one may traditionally think to look for it.
The reader is first introduced to Johnny, a computer science student at the University of Toronto and one-time high school acid dealer. It is through the lens of Johnny that the reader meets the book's delightfully diverse cast of supporting characters. From Lyle the punk-rock chemist to Tinka the manic witch and surprisingly affable career criminal Ivan, Duff continuously delivers with characters that you almost expect to run into the next time you're on campus despite the fact that they are so eccentric as to verge on unbelievable. As a former University of Toronto student myself, I must admit that the setting of the book was also wonderfully realized. From Convocation Hall to Lash Miller Chemical Laboratories to the basement of Hart House, Lysergically Yours romps across the university and the city bringing to life each locale that it touches.
The story itself is somewhat hard to classify. The opening throws Johnny and the reader into a very tense scene in which Johnny is the prisoner of Korean and Vietnamese mobsters and the building in which he is being held is being assaulted from outside by unknown forces. From this action-movie introduction, the story flashes back and begins to relate a decidedly non-action-movie drug culture caper story wherein Lyle and Johnny attempt to fund illegal research and a hedonistic lifestyle through the synthesis and sale of LSD. By the end however, as Johnny and Lyle find themselves deeper and deeper in trouble, the plot of Lysergically Yours verges strongly on the science fictional, yet Duff manages to wrap it all up into a bundle which leaves the reader feeling both entertained and satisfied.
At times the discussion of the technical details of drug synthesis and of various less than legal money-making schemes seem unnecessarily verbose, but perhaps they will be appreciated by those who are more familiar with the fields or even looking for a few pointers. In general however, Duff's prose is poetic in its spareness and simplicity. His dialogue also is unflowery and believable, conveying a real sense of character and situation. Even the far-sweeping conclusion of the novel, suggesting a world forever and fundamentally changed by the actions of a couple of punk rockers, is presented in a crisp and unapologetic style. As a reader, I could not help but be reminded of Neal Stephenson and, to a certain extent, Philip K. Dick.
My largest complaint with Lysergically Yours is that it is too short. Weighing in at 120 pages, the book is an easy read but leaves you feeling that it could have easily been expanded to fill twice as many. Still, in a time when most books seem to be guilty of the opposite sin, I am willing to forgive Frank Duff this indiscretion.
Another thing which makes this novel worth noticing is that it is released in affiliation with No Media Kings, an organization started by Toronto-based author Jim Munroe to promote a return to grass-roots media. In accordance with this "media of the people, by the people and for the people" ethos, Frank Duff has released the novel as a free e-text under the Creative Commons Attribution/Non-Commercial/Share-Alike license. This license not only allows the text of the novel to be freely distributed in any medium, but also explicitly allows for anyone to create derivative works from the novel for any non-commercial purpose. The use of this contract follows in the footsteps of successful science fiction author Cory Doctorow. The book is available as a physical artifact at a variety of small bookstores or directly from the author via his website where the e-book and several of his other shorter works are also available for free download.
[1] Hoffman, A. (1980) "LSD: My Problem Child," New York: McGraw-Hill.
Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, carefully read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
I have some of the most vivid memories of what I was doing while I was spun on acid.
I don't know if that is a good or a bad thing but I certainly know that no matter what it was that I was saw, thought about, or did, LSD opened doors in my life that I would never have explored otherwise.
Absolutely. Everyone should take LSD at least once in their life. It really opens your eyes to things and I still have many insights into life that I think I might never had without it. I took it about 10-15 times (last time was more than 10 years ago.) I have never had a flashback, and only one 'bad trip' (which was terrible, but is really a product of the environment you expose yourself too while on it.) LSD has really been demonized but I think it is pretty harmless. If you really can't bring yourself to take LSD, try shrooms. You get the same affect but for a much shorter time.
that Albert Hoffman is remembered only for LSD.
Fact is, he created the first nootropic (cognitive enhancing) drug, hydergine, and deserves far more recognition for that than for LSD, or any of the other drugs of far more utility that he created.
The fact that he's not recognized for this only indicates that most people would rather be stoned than smart. That's a damn shame for him, and shame on them.
Oh, and shame on the US for not approving hydergine for use. It's one of the safest drugs there is, and useful to most anyone. Unfortunately, like many good drugs, the patents are owned by non-US companies, so no US company stands to profit, and so the FDA doesn't approve it. If it were the case that nootropics weren't useful, then Nobel laureate Eric Kandel wouldn't have announced devoting the remainder of his career to creating them.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
It is difficult, as a person who has experienced hallucinogenic states, to explain to someone who hasn't, just what it's really like. There is definitely something to be learned by experiencing these altered states. It helps to remind us that what we experience in our minds as "reality" is anything but real, and that we really don't have direct access to "reality" as it truly exists. It even might cause you to doubt that there is anything such as the "true nature" of things.
Feynman had an idea, which when he moved to a profoundly different mental environment, appeared ridiculous. The important lesson to be learned here is that what seems very reasonable and sane about reality could be equally ridiculous, and we're just in the wrong frame of mind to "see" it.
His understanding had been no more real than the things he was seeing in the chamber.
That's really the entire point. Who knows what "real" is, when your conscious perceptions of reality can be so profoundly altered by taking a few milligrams (or in this case, micrograms) of some chemical compound?
In a psychedelic state, it is common to look at normal waking life that used to seem so normal, and feel that it is completely ridiculous.
In fact, there is no logical basis to claim that either state is "real," or "ridiculous." Drugs whack you upside the head with the philosophical truth that "reality," as we commonly define it, doesn't really exist in any relevant way. It is only psychological reality which matters.
(BTW, I haven't taken any psychedelic compounds in a long time, and don't plan to again.)
My experience was that the value of psychedelics was not in any supposed revelations about the outside world, but what they revealed about me.
It's been a long time since I've used any psychoactives other than alcohol (I even gave up caffeine last year), but I tried LSD, mushrooms, dextromethorphan, and even PCP once (that was an accident, we thought it was something else) when I was younger. My memory of all of them was kind of like the cave in Empire Strikes Back - what you experience is "only what you take with you."
Seeing the entire world visibly altered by your perception of yourself can be a really powerful experience, and tell you a lot about who you are. I worry about the people who take LSD, then see a monster when they look in the mirror. Maybe it's just self-doubt, but maybe there is a valid reason why they see themselves that way.
It's really too bad that the majority point of view seems to be that psychedelics are something that should be banned. There are certainly some dangerous drugs out there, but other than nightmare-incuding substances like PCP I would say that they're all in the same general safety range as alcohol, especially when used in the proper setting.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
I had a rather peculiar home life and developed into an extremely self concious, introverted, self loathing kid. My mother was chronically depressed, my dad worked enough so that I only saw him on weekends, I found out later that my siblings and I were intentionally kept seperated from our extended family because of emotional rifts between my (Ma & Pa) and their siblings. I had an incredibly difficult time interacting with my peers, was gifted (enough to eventually score 2200 on the GREs without studying) but on the fast road to flunking out of high school.
And then after some experimental tries, I dosed on 7.5 hits of gel tab and sat around a playground at 1am. I climbed up the slide, sat on the top, and intended to slide down it. As I sat at the top, I looked up at the stars and was immediately struck by the oddness of my situation. I was legally insane, sitting on a slide on a cloudless moonlit night, and staring straight up at the stars.
And then I was hit with the question: "What am I like?" It just kept going through my head over and over until the syllables didn't even sound like English. The phrase was just some gibberish that inquired about the most fundamental core of my whole identity. "What am I like?"
Then I felt like the star above me was perfectly in line with my spine, that the universe was locked onto me and turning around me. (This has always been my way of relating to Achilleus - the one Man in history with the audacity, confidence, blackened heart, and glory to defy the gods. This is mostly tangential, hence the parenthesis, but at the time Achilleus was my most idolized literay figure and therefore this had great coincidential significance.)
I sat like this for probably 15 minutes. "What am I like?" Fuck it, at my core, I am everybody else.
I did not slide down that slide. While I was up there, the act of sliding down really took on a monumental significance to me, but I can't really define it. I climbed back down the ladder.
Ever since that night, I've felt like I'm just as valuable a person as anyone else. I assert myself, I speak up, I feel like I'm worthy of being liked.
As another poster described, it is incredibly difficult to relate your LSD experiences to someone who hasn't taken them, but that was my two cents. LSD can be some dangerous shit, but rightly or wrongly, I feel like I got 15 years of therapy in 15 minutes.