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Anybody have some legitimate technical or scientific insights while on LSD? I'm talking along the lines of something like discovering General Relativity or figu

Anybody have some legitimate technical or scientific insights while on LSD? I'm talking along the lines of something like discovering General Relativity or figuring out a solution to a technical problem because you tripped on LSD.

fancyPantsZero 7y ago
Kary Mullis claimed that LSD helped him discover the PCR process for which he won the Nobel Prize: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kary_Mullis#Use_of_hallucinogens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kary_Mullis#Use_of_hallucinoge...
zelly 7y ago
Francis Crick reportedly visualized the helical structure of DNA while on LSD. He was known to use it heavily at the time and freely admitted to it. Kary Mullis was on acid[1] when he invented PCR, which is responsible for the field of modern genetics. Probably a lot, lot more from people who wouldn't admit to it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kary_Mullis#Use_of_hallucinogens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kary_Mullis#Use_of_hallucinoge...
- dekhn 7y ago
  Kary Mullis took a bunch of acid and ended up writing this paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/218663b0 https://www.nature.com/articles/218663b0 I don't think he was on acid at the moment of the conceptualization of PCR, though- the origin story most people tell involves him driving a car at night to a conference (I guess that doesn't preclude being on LSD). When I met him in person, I couldn't get him to give a straight answer to any question I asked (I think he was suffering from dementia). TBH I'd be really surprised if academics were taking LSD in '52-53, although there was definitely a long period where basically anybody could order it in quantity from Sandoz. Of course, from MK-Ultra we know the CIA was giving it to people around that time (including dosing agents), and by the early 60s, universities like Stanford were giving it to research study participants (Ken Kesey, Robert Hunter, etc).
  - zelly 7y ago
    I don't remember where but I heard a story from someone in Crick and Watson's lab who said Crick would casually take LSD like people smoked cigarettes or drank coffee. It's not out of the question that someone in the medicine/chemistry field would have early access to the latest and greatest drugs. What a shame that a great original thinker like Mullis ends up with dementia. It's crazy that solving aging isn't a #1 international priority.
KhoomeiK 7y ago
Not sure if you'd consider it a technical or scientific insight, but I mentioned this on another HN post a while ago: I was able to visualize four dimensional structures on LSD. I can't see it "instinctually" anymore, but I had a vision of our universe as the 3D surface of a 4D hypersphere, and from that perspective it's subjective whether you consider the entirety of the universe inside of you or outside of you. After coming down I thought it was probably some nonsense that my brain dreamt up, but I analogized it as a 2D surface of a 3D sphere and it makes complete sense. Drawing a circle on a sphere and calling one side of the line you draw the "inside" is completely subjective—we just tend to call the smaller side inside. If you grow the circle to the greatest meridian of the sphere, which side is now "inside"? Is my brain on the inside and the universe on the outside, or is the universe on the inside and my brain on the outside? I also kept seeing (when I say "see", it isn't the type of hallucination that appears like a real object in front of you, these all form in my mind's eye but are more vivid than what I can usually visualize) these grid-like, branching "corridors". I'm not sure what the best term for it would be and it may have not been 4 dimensional per se, but I don't think the way it's laid out would work in 3 dimensions. It was like I was floating in an intersection with rows (x), columns (y), and aisles (z) passing through me. A lot of this is hard to visualize when not tripping.
- friendlybus 7y ago
  >and from that perspective it's subjective whether you consider the entirety of the universe inside of you or outside of you This is the internal/external split which is a fundamental problem in psychology and sociology. I don't think it's solvable.
- crimsonalucard 7y ago
  Were you actively attempting to visualize a 4D structure while tripping or did it just appear?
  - KhoomeiK 7y ago
    They appeared by themselves but I could manipulate them. Most visualizations are usually part of some train of thought though, they don't appear out of completely nowhere.
conchy 7y ago
There was the guy that pitched a no-hitter: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dock-ellis-lsd-nohitter/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dock-ellis-lsd-nohitter/
friendlybus 7y ago
This idea overlaps with the idea of shamanic flight which is one of the first 'cognitive technologies' we used. Since the beginning of time there has been people who report to have elevated experiences and have come back from these heights with new information. Vervaeke's lectures on cog sci discusses it in his early episodes.

fancyPantsZero 7y ago

Kary Mullis claimed that LSD helped him discover the PCR process for which he won the Nobel Prize: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kary_Mullis#Use_of_hallucinogens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kary_Mullis#Use_of_hallucinoge...

zelly 7y ago

Francis Crick reportedly visualized the helical structure of DNA while on LSD. He was known to use it heavily at the time and freely admitted to it. Kary Mullis was on acid[1] when he invented PCR, which is responsible for the field of modern genetics. Probably a lot, lot more from people who wouldn't admit to it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kary_Mullis#Use_of_hallucinogens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kary_Mullis#Use_of_hallucinoge...

dekhn 7y ago
Kary Mullis took a bunch of acid and ended up writing this paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/218663b0 https://www.nature.com/articles/218663b0 I don't think he was on acid at the moment of the conceptualization of PCR, though- the origin story most people tell involves him driving a car at night to a conference (I guess that doesn't preclude being on LSD). When I met him in person, I couldn't get him to give a straight answer to any question I asked (I think he was suffering from dementia). TBH I'd be really surprised if academics were taking LSD in '52-53, although there was definitely a long period where basically anybody could order it in quantity from Sandoz. Of course, from MK-Ultra we know the CIA was giving it to people around that time (including dosing agents), and by the early 60s, universities like Stanford were giving it to research study participants (Ken Kesey, Robert Hunter, etc).
- zelly 7y ago
  I don't remember where but I heard a story from someone in Crick and Watson's lab who said Crick would casually take LSD like people smoked cigarettes or drank coffee. It's not out of the question that someone in the medicine/chemistry field would have early access to the latest and greatest drugs. What a shame that a great original thinker like Mullis ends up with dementia. It's crazy that solving aging isn't a #1 international priority.

KhoomeiK 7y ago

Not sure if you'd consider it a technical or scientific insight, but I mentioned this on another HN post a while ago: I was able to visualize four dimensional structures on LSD. I can't see it "instinctually" anymore, but I had a vision of our universe as the 3D surface of a 4D hypersphere, and from that perspective it's subjective whether you consider the entirety of the universe inside of you or outside of you. After coming down I thought it was probably some nonsense that my brain dreamt up, but I analogized it as a 2D surface of a 3D sphere and it makes complete sense. Drawing a circle on a sphere and calling one side of the line you draw the "inside" is completely subjective—we just tend to call the smaller side inside. If you grow the circle to the greatest meridian of the sphere, which side is now "inside"? Is my brain on the inside and the universe on the outside, or is the universe on the inside and my brain on the outside? I also kept seeing (when I say "see", it isn't the type of hallucination that appears like a real object in front of you, these all form in my mind's eye but are more vivid than what I can usually visualize) these grid-like, branching "corridors". I'm not sure what the best term for it would be and it may have not been 4 dimensional per se, but I don't think the way it's laid out would work in 3 dimensions. It was like I was floating in an intersection with rows (x), columns (y), and aisles (z) passing through me. A lot of this is hard to visualize when not tripping.

friendlybus 7y ago
>and from that perspective it's subjective whether you consider the entirety of the universe inside of you or outside of you This is the internal/external split which is a fundamental problem in psychology and sociology. I don't think it's solvable.
crimsonalucard 7y ago
Were you actively attempting to visualize a 4D structure while tripping or did it just appear?
- KhoomeiK 7y ago
  They appeared by themselves but I could manipulate them. Most visualizations are usually part of some train of thought though, they don't appear out of completely nowhere.

conchy 7y ago

There was the guy that pitched a no-hitter: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dock-ellis-lsd-nohitter/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dock-ellis-lsd-nohitter/

friendlybus 7y ago

This idea overlaps with the idea of shamanic flight which is one of the first 'cognitive technologies' we used. Since the beginning of time there has been people who report to have elevated experiences and have come back from these heights with new information. Vervaeke's lectures on cog sci discusses it in his early episodes.