A niggling thought
Sep. 5th, 2015 11:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencerOkay, here's what I don't get about LSD.
(Full disclosure: I tried it twice, many years ago, courtesy of a friend. I felt very strange, admittedly, but neither saw nor heard anything out of the ordinary and experienced no cosmic revelations. The only thing that happened was that, about the time it should have been wearing off the first time, my entire field of vision rippled, just once, from top to bottom. It was like "all right, already, you want a hallucination? Here's a hallucination. There. Happy now?" On consideration, I possibly got off lightly; there are things in my deeper downstairs that I would definitely not want stirred up. So it's probably a good thing that I'll never have that kind of opportunity again. Anyway.)
So many people, writing about their acid experiences, have talked about how it showed them that reality was not a fixed thing. Alan Moore used those exact words, in fact. Now I'm quite prepared to agree that reality may not be a fixed thing, though at the macroscopic level where I live it seems pretty damn fixed to me (in a number of senses). I just don't see how one can logically arrive at that conclusion from taking a drug whose effect is to alter your perceptions. I mean, people who drink alcohol don't come away thinking that the world occasionally, of its own volition, goes blurry and revolves around them; they put that temporary impression down to the effect of the booze. How come people who drop acid (and actually get something out of it) don't put their perceptions at the time down to the effect of the acid?
I don't get it. It's not logical. Unless I'm missing something.
(Full disclosure: I tried it twice, many years ago, courtesy of a friend. I felt very strange, admittedly, but neither saw nor heard anything out of the ordinary and experienced no cosmic revelations. The only thing that happened was that, about the time it should have been wearing off the first time, my entire field of vision rippled, just once, from top to bottom. It was like "all right, already, you want a hallucination? Here's a hallucination. There. Happy now?" On consideration, I possibly got off lightly; there are things in my deeper downstairs that I would definitely not want stirred up. So it's probably a good thing that I'll never have that kind of opportunity again. Anyway.)
So many people, writing about their acid experiences, have talked about how it showed them that reality was not a fixed thing. Alan Moore used those exact words, in fact. Now I'm quite prepared to agree that reality may not be a fixed thing, though at the macroscopic level where I live it seems pretty damn fixed to me (in a number of senses). I just don't see how one can logically arrive at that conclusion from taking a drug whose effect is to alter your perceptions. I mean, people who drink alcohol don't come away thinking that the world occasionally, of its own volition, goes blurry and revolves around them; they put that temporary impression down to the effect of the booze. How come people who drop acid (and actually get something out of it) don't put their perceptions at the time down to the effect of the acid?
I don't get it. It's not logical. Unless I'm missing something.
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Date: 2015-09-06 08:41 am (UTC)My only experience of drugs other than alcohol was smoking pot, lo these very many years ago. The first time was great: I felt relaxed, at one with the universe, and very, very wise. (I'm laughing at myself now.) The second time did nothing at all. So on balance, thought I, if it only works 50% of the time, I'd be better saving my money.
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Date: 2015-09-06 07:46 pm (UTC)