4 ms·
"no long term health effects from one dose" does not account for the possibility of persistent flashbacks, or for bad trips that can cause lasting psychological
by Communitivity 3y ago
"no long term health effects from one dose" does not account for the possibility of persistent flashbacks, or for bad trips that can cause lasting psychological trauma.
LSD bonds with something in the brain, such that it causes persistent flashbacks more than any other hallucinogen, sometimes years later. Taking it just once to try it might not have any effect, or might cause flashbacks for the rest of your life. Depends on your personal neurochemistry, the dosage, form of dosing, and your mental state. A friend who had taken LSD described it to me once something like this: LSD sometimes takes any cracks (neurosis or psychosis) in your mind and expands them wide open, forcing you to look into them. If you're aware of them already and they're minor, it can be helpful, sometimes expanding your mind to new capabilities. If you've been unaware or worse, in denial, or they're major, then you get a bad trip that may come back to haunt you over and over again over the years.
Flashbacks that continue to occur after the original drug effects have worn off are a medically recognized phenomenon, which is documented in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) as hallucinogen persisting perception disorder.
Flashbacks typically happen in the days or weeks following ingestion of the drug but can happen months or even years after the drug use has been discontinued.
- silveraxe93 3y agoEh... fine. People won't come out unscathed in literally all cases. However the risk from one dose is minimal. If your risk threshold is so close to 0 then we should be banning way more things today.
- scrozart 3y agoI've done LSD numerous times, including "heroic" doses, as have many of my friends, starting 30 years ago (I haven't in a while as i no longer feel the need to blow open those doors). Not one of us has ever had a single flashback, let alone "persistent" flashbacks. If they were ever really an issue, it was long ago with different/absurdly strong formulations.
- GuB-42 3y agoI don't believe in the "LSD binds to something in the brain and this causes flashbacks". LSD obviously binds to something in the brain during the trip, like all psychoactive substances, but after that, it is gone. LSD degrades relatively easily, you only get micrograms of it and there are known metabolic pathways. A more convincing theory for flashbacks is that they are similar to PTSD. LSD can give really intense and memorable experiences, and in the case of a bad trip, they can be considered traumatic. Symptoms show similarities too. Essentially, flashbacks are just memories, good or bad, and in the worst cases, so bad as to haunt you for years. Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder (HPPD) is not like flashbacks. As the name suggests, it affects perception, i.e. senses, commonly in the form of visual noise, distinct from what is experienced during a trip. Think something like tinnitus. We know it exists, but the details are unclear.