WEBVTT - Acid Flashbacks 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:06.040 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.040 --> 0:00:13.760 Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:16.239 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Dulin, and 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:17.560 I want to just throw this out. At the beginning 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:21.000 of this episode, we are about to talk about l 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:25.400 s D, about asset, about psychedelic experiences, and uh, I 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:27.280 just want to go ahead and at the front of 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:31.600 the podcast just remindered everybody, Uh, you know, don't do drugs, kids, 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:35.199 use common sense and uh, and don't take anything we're 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:38.920 about to to discuss as a mandate to go and 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:42.639 try any of these powerful substances exactly. This is just 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:48.760 an exploration of some of the byproduct experiences that one 0:00:48.840 --> 0:00:52.280 has with LSD or what has been reported. So again, 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:54.920 it's just an exploration of the how and the why 0:00:54.960 --> 0:00:58.360 of LSD and flashbacks. Yes, that being said, it's not 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:02.520 the first time we've covered psychedelic experiences on the podcast. 0:01:03.040 --> 0:01:06.520 We've talked about Timothy Leary before, We've talked about John C. Lily, 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:09.200 and we did two episodes The Scientists and the Shaman 0:01:09.600 --> 0:01:14.400 about scientific research related to uh, psychedelic substances. Yeah, I mean, 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:19.440 there is resurgence really in hallucinogenic drugs right now, because 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:23.360 there there is a very good amount of information that 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:25.800 tells us that they can be used in a medical 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:28.720 setting for for various things. And again, if you're interested 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:32.400 in exploring that, check out the scientists and the shaman. Um. 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:35.000 I believe that's information is in there. But today we're 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:39.360 going to talk about really the idea of the LSD 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:43.720 experience in flashbacks and whether or not flashbacks really exist. 0:01:44.319 --> 0:01:47.960 And uh, of course I'm talking about tabs, trips, white lighting, 0:01:47.960 --> 0:01:52.040 and window panes, and I'm talking about school assemblies because 0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:55.280 school assemblies. Yeah, I don't know any of these terms. No, 0:01:55.360 --> 0:01:59.640 I mean school assemblies in this sense that these institutions 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:04.400 help to keep some key acid flashback urban legends alive 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:07.720 throughout the generations until they could be properly adopted by 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:09.280 the Internet. Oh yeah, I see. The first thing that 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:12.160 at that school assemblies was slang for LSD or something, 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:14.160 because it should be, because a lot of what we're 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:18.560 talking about is in that gray area of of recreational 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:23.160 drug use, of counterculture drug use, and uh, and that 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:26.160 that alone is kind of a breeding ground for for 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:30.040 ghost stories about experiences. Oh, I have a buddy and 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:32.320 he knows this guy who once did such and such, 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:33.800 you know, and there's some sort of wild story. And 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:36.959 then to your point, to school assemblies uh and anti 0:02:37.040 --> 0:02:39.919 drug messaging often pick up on these ghost stories or 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:44.359 sort of fabricate their own scare stories about the horrors 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:47.799 of drugs. And you know, as is generally the case 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:49.919 with this sort of thing, the truth is is not 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:52.239 is not quite on either side of that, it is 0:02:52.320 --> 0:02:55.200 somewhere in between. Yeah. I think a classic example of 0:02:55.240 --> 0:02:59.160 this is the Orange juice Man. Yes, okay, so we're 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:01.519 talking about a's a I who's smuggling what like a 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:04.760 hundred tabs of acid. Yeah, and some some guy a 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:07.760 friend of mine knows the guy right right, Yeah, he was. 0:03:07.840 --> 0:03:11.639 He was in Canada. He's about to crush the border. Um. 0:03:11.680 --> 0:03:14.560 He had them strapped to his body and they started 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:16.440 question him. They put him in this room and he 0:03:16.480 --> 0:03:19.360 got like super freaked down and started sweating, and then 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:22.360 he started absorbing the tabs of acid and then he 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:24.919 thought he was an orange and he started to peel himself. 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:29.840 WHOA for the rest of his life. Yeah. There there 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:32.160 are variations on this too, where he where it will 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:34.320 be a somebody who is again either has it strapped 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:36.200 to his body or he's about to get busted. So 0:03:36.240 --> 0:03:38.800 he eats an entire sheet of acid and uh and 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:40.720 for those of you aren't familiar, like a sheet of acid, 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:43.360 it's like like little pieces of paper with little drops, 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:48.040 little little blots of this substance on it. So in 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:50.800 this variation on the urban legend, he eats all this 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:54.800 entire sheet of acid. Uh, just trips his mind out 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:57.720 and suddenly believes that he is a glass of orange juice, 0:03:57.800 --> 0:04:01.120 and for the rest of his life sets there, presumably 0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:03.800 in a padded cell somewhere, believing only that he is 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:07.440 a glass of orange juice. Now, when I heard this 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:12.280 story as as a tender youth in uh, Michigan, it 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:15.280 was a girl, some girl who you know, we didn't 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:18.840 have the specific name, but someone in our community who 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:21.039 took all this acid and tried to peel herself as 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:25.040 an orange. I see the peeling yourself like that one 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:27.840 has that kind of grizzly level to it, which is 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:30.960 which is kind of horrifying and scary. But I think 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:33.720 I actually like the orange juice one better because that 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:35.960 one is all it's a little less grizzly, it's like 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:38.960 it's a little less on the surface frightening, Like it's 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:41.600 not one of those like PCP peel your face off 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:44.320 and feeded to a dog kind of stories, But it 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:46.960 has a subtle horror to it that is that is 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:49.200 still effective because it gets down to what a lot 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:52.760 of the fears with acid are. A lot of the 0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:55.920 fears around psychedelics is that I will take something and 0:04:55.960 --> 0:04:59.719 it will change who I am. It will change who 0:04:59.760 --> 0:05:02.920 I and how I experienced the world forever. It'll break 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:06.120 my brain and therefore break my universe, because what is 0:05:06.120 --> 0:05:10.680 the universe but my uh, my conscious experience of it. Yeah, yeah, 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:12.360 I was what I'm saying. That plays into this whole 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:15.919 idea that you could permanently break your brain, which is 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:20.120 another urban myth that comes up from this idea that 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:23.320 seven times a charm, right, Like if you take acid 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:27.200 seven times, after that you are insane. Yeah, which again 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:30.440 that's just there's no nothing scientifically or legally to back 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:33.000 that up. It's just something that people said. Another one 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:35.559 staring at the sun. A bunch of hippies did acid 0:05:35.640 --> 0:05:37.599 once and they all looked up at the sun till 0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:39.719 their eyes burned out of their heads. I love that 0:05:39.760 --> 0:05:41.840 one because this was a story that was picked up 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:45.520 by California newspapers in nineteen sixty seven, so it appeared 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:48.440 a couple of times in print about four students who 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:51.279 sustained permanent damage their corneas were just fried to a 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:54.000 crisp after they couldn't look away from the sun because 0:05:54.000 --> 0:05:57.000 they were so incapacitated. And it was also backed up 0:05:57.000 --> 0:06:02.359 by a mysterious spokesman for the Santa Barbara Optimological Society. 0:06:02.480 --> 0:06:04.160 Now there's another case we do have to mention, and 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:05.920 this one is a much darker one because this one 0:06:06.000 --> 0:06:09.400 does involve an actual death, uh, specifically the death of 0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:14.000 Diane link Letter, Uh, the daughter of the famous Art 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:17.920 link Letter who his talk shows and specifically, kids say 0:06:17.920 --> 0:06:20.360 the darnist thing that was one of his you know, uh, 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:23.000 the original kids say, they're understand that was kind of 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:27.520 his his big show. His daughter tragically died October ninety nine, 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:30.000 twenty years old, jumped out of a window. Felloward death, 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:34.719 and there has never been any direct evidence connecting LSD 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:37.960 to her death. A person present during the event made 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:41.440 no mention of LSD. The police toxological tests performed on 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:44.839 the body UH didn't show drugs in the system. But 0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:51.239 Art link Letter became a very vocal opponent of LSD, 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:54.560 very outspoken about it, and he claimed that LSD had 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:57.680 caused her death and later that LSD flashbacks led to 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:00.640 her suicide. Yeah, and so this is this very great 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:03.320 area that we're going to enter into today about LSD 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:06.680 use and flashbacks, because you don't know what her psychological 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:11.240 state was before after the use of LSD. And also 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:15.920 this idea that flashbacks could have influenced her decision runs 0:07:16.000 --> 0:07:18.400 counter to some of the information we have on how 0:07:18.560 --> 0:07:21.360 LSD is metabolized by the body. And we'll get more 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:23.640 into that. And and I don't want to vilify the 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:26.280 late Arn't link Letter at all because obviously a very 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:28.560 tragic event happened in his life here. And I think 0:07:28.560 --> 0:07:31.000 it's just human nature too. You want to know the 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:33.560 reason for it. And if you can put up put 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:37.400 the blame on something like ls D, you know, or 0:07:37.440 --> 0:07:41.360 the culture surrounding it, I mean, that's that's understandable. Sure. 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:42.800 And you have to think about all the media at 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:44.440 that time. Tom you just have this, you had re 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:47.200 for madness, you have all these You've had the stories 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:50.160 of people burning out their eyes, and and the danger 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:55.080 in general of of of hippie culture and hippie counterculture, which, 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:57.480 if you think about it, it must have been super 0:07:57.680 --> 0:07:59.840 terrifying for people at that time because they came out 0:07:59.880 --> 0:08:04.120 of the team fifties, right, everybody's still wearing suits all 0:08:04.160 --> 0:08:06.720 the time, and all of a sudden they turned around 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:09.240 and people are growing their hair out along and listen 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:12.240 to crazy music. I mean it must have been terrifying 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:14.760 to people who had lived their life in a certain 0:08:14.800 --> 0:08:18.520 way and had known nothing else. Yeah. I mean, of course, 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:20.960 on one level, I mean, it's always no country for 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:22.840 old man, you know, it's like the older always going 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:25.000 to be frightened, terrified and threatened by the youth and 0:08:25.000 --> 0:08:27.840 the things that they're into. But but yeah, particularly for 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:31.960 that time, there was this tide of change and and 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:35.160 and drastically different values that seemed to be be coming 0:08:35.160 --> 0:08:38.520 at them. Um, rapidan, the rapid changes. Yeah, and so 0:08:38.640 --> 0:08:41.280 and then you have you have this LSD, which is 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:42.960 we're about to discuss. They've been around for a while, 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:46.040 but it's really making uh, making its power known. At 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:49.199 the time, Um, and you had all these scare stories 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:52.280 that were out there, some misinformation, some some correct imforma. 0:08:52.280 --> 0:08:54.800 I mean, at the very heart of it, kids were 0:08:54.800 --> 0:09:00.600 taking this and seeing things, experiencing things, experiencing an altered 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:03.719 state of consciousness, and and that alone, you know, you 0:09:03.720 --> 0:09:06.000 can see where that would would be threatening. Now, another 0:09:06.000 --> 0:09:09.760 bit of urban legend misinformation about the LSD that was 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:11.679 making the rounds of the time and continues to make 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:14.839 the rounds today, is the idea that you take l 0:09:14.960 --> 0:09:16.960 s D and it's gonna have its effects on your 0:09:17.000 --> 0:09:19.040 in your mind, but then it's gonna a little bit 0:09:19.040 --> 0:09:21.080 of that LSD is gonna get stored away in your 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:24.920 spine or in a fatty tissue, and then later, uh 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:28.920 you know, maybe months, maybe years even uh, this uh, 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:32.240 this LSD, this stored LSD will reactivate and suddenly you're 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:35.520 having this crazy flashback and you're you're you know, and 0:09:35.559 --> 0:09:37.920 you're may not be at a music concert at this 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:40.880 point in your life. Maybe you're changing a diaper, driving 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:46.240 a car, and suddenly you're in in mortal danger. Um. 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:48.920 But that is not the case, and we're gonna talk 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:50.959 about why it's not. So let's take a closer look 0:09:51.000 --> 0:09:55.719 at LSD or life. Sergic acid die ethel IMiD. Yes, now, 0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:59.320 hallucinagens have been around for ages and ages and ages, 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:01.960 dating back all the way through human history. But LSD 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:07.040 is semisynthetic, so we didn't have this until the nineteen thirties. 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:10.080 All right, So let's look back to nineteen thirties. Swiss 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:13.880 chemist Albert Hoffman. He's studying the compound lesurgic acid, which 0:10:13.920 --> 0:10:17.679 is derived from ergotamine, which is in turn derived from 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:21.720 a parasitic fungus called arrogate that grows on a rye. Now, 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:25.439 he first synthesized lesergic acid diethyl IMiD or l s 0:10:25.520 --> 0:10:28.640 D back in night and he was looking into it 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:31.079 because he thought it might stimulate breathing and circulation, and 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:33.920 he thought it would have very you know, important but 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:38.560 but not crazy clinical purpose potential. But the test didn't 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:40.880 show anything special, so he just, uh, he just set 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:42.920 it aside and the company was looking for working for 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:46.680 sandas they abandoned further study as well. Five years later, 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:49.360 he's he's thinking about it again. He's like, oh, I'm 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:51.560 gonna look at that that compound again and see if 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:53.840 there's you know, see if there's something there, because you know, 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:56.400 I feel like there's some potential. So he goes back 0:10:56.440 --> 0:10:58.679 and he's brewing up a new batch of last e 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:01.680 uh for to look at some more, and he starts 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:05.040 to begin strained, to begin to feel strange, all right, uh. 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:09.760 He he described it as a remarkable restlessness combined with 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:12.680 a slight dizziness. And while at home he was in 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:16.360 a quote dream like state and perceived an uninterrupted stream 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:21.679 of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense kaleidoscopic play of colors. 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:25.200 So uh, having a scientific mind, he decided, well, I'm 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:27.600 gonna look at this a little closer, you know, you know, 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:30.800 getting closer for a closer look at the at what's 0:11:30.800 --> 0:11:33.640 happening to me. So he took two hundred and fifty 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:38.000 micrograms that's ten times more than the typical minimum dose 0:11:38.080 --> 0:11:42.120 of elity today and became delirious, couldn't speak, And so 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:45.520 initially he's panicking and he's he's asking his laboratory assistant 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:47.840 to call it doctor. The doctor can't find anything wrong 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:50.000 with him, other than the fact that his pupils are dilated. 0:11:50.200 --> 0:11:53.800 He had normal blood pressure, heart rate, respiration. But soon 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:56.160 this panic goes away and he starts feeling the sense 0:11:56.200 --> 0:11:59.800 of euphoria and again he's seemed beautiful shapes and colors, 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:02.720 and so ls DO was born. It made its rounds 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:06.400 through through you know, clinical explorations, but then eventually bleeds 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:11.000 out into recreational use in the decades to follow. Yeah, 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:14.440 we really see timke Larry picking this up right. He's 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:17.760 taking it essentially at first in a medical setting and 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:20.480 then taking it outside and saying, hey, let's blow open 0:12:20.480 --> 0:12:24.000 the doors of perception with this, and uh, let's I'll 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:26.600 try to get into an altered state and access different 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:30.560 experiences of life. So real quickly, let's run down physical 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:33.600 effects and physiological effects. We're talking about increased heart rate, 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:37.520 increased blood pressure, dilated pupils, sweating, loss of appetite, sleeplessness, 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:42.560 dry mouth, drommer's speech difficulties, and pilo erection. That is, 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:45.319 by the way, goose bumps, Okay, head out of the 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:50.559 get their physiological effects. Hallucinations of course, increased color perception, 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:54.000 which I think is interesting because Oliver Sex has talked 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:58.000 about this time that he was hallucinating. Yes, this is 0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:01.040 this color indigo. I think he was had a classical 0:13:01.120 --> 0:13:05.320 music concert and he had um used LSD and he 0:13:05.559 --> 0:13:08.440 was forever searching for that color. He never found it again. 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:10.360 I remember him talking about he had a whole cocktail 0:13:10.400 --> 0:13:12.600 of things he took to try and sort of gauge 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:18.360 his his experience just right to experience and togo. Yeah, yeah, 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:20.680 But is this elusive color that he never found again 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:27.000 in this reality that was not colored by hallucinens altered 0:13:27.080 --> 0:13:31.640 mental state, thought disorders, temporary psychosis, delusions, body change or 0:13:31.640 --> 0:13:36.080 excusing body image changes, and impaired depth, time and space perceptions. 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:39.959 UH users might feel several different emotions at once or 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:43.440 swing rapidly from one emotion to another. Bad trips may 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:47.760 consist of severe, terrifying thoughts and feelings, fear of losing 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:50.800 control and despair. Now it's some of the A lot 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:54.200 of this sounds like being a toddler. It's like, I 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:57.320 see these these symptoms my son all the time. What 0:13:57.480 --> 0:14:00.640 is he on? Um? Well, I mean a way he's 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:04.600 getting hit with all this sensory data for the first time. 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:06.920 Gotta make sense of it. Maybe that is what it 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:09.240 feels like, you know, to be a toddler or a 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:13.200 baby taking and information um Now that the dose is 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:16.720 metabolized by the body within a day and excrete it 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:19.000 in the unit and by the way, LSD the effects 0:14:19.000 --> 0:14:22.520 actually begin about thirty minutes after you take it um 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:26.400 but the actual effects of the chemical will sort to 0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:30.160 taper off as the hours passed, and so they didn't 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:32.120 tend to be some long hours towards the end. I 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:35.600 understand where you where one may wish to go to 0:14:35.640 --> 0:14:37.560 sleep and then think they're sleeping, but you're not really 0:14:37.600 --> 0:14:40.680 sleeping because you can't sleep because of the LSD. Right, 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:42.720 And again, of course it depends on how much you take. 0:14:43.000 --> 0:14:45.720 But because it is so quickly metabolized, there's no trace 0:14:45.800 --> 0:14:47.840 molecules to hang around in the body and eventually be 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:50.280 stored in fat or in this spine that we know 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:52.360 for certain. Yeah, it's all gone from the system in 0:14:52.600 --> 0:14:54.560 the twenty four hours, which which of course gets into 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:58.200 that interesting situation where you can't really test for things 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:02.000 like LSD in a person's system. You're really only contest 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:05.000 for things like marijuana. Yeah. So then that brings up 0:15:05.040 --> 0:15:08.160 this idea of flashbacks, which previously had been thought to again, 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:10.720 as you it said before, been stored in the body 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:13.800 and like that was the chemical switch that was being 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:17.400 flipped when people have flashbacks. That is not the case. 0:15:17.400 --> 0:15:19.880 So you have to start to look more towards someone's 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:24.680 memory of the event or what they perceived and and 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:27.280 and begin to look at it in that light. Yes, 0:15:27.760 --> 0:15:29.200 now I do want to add one more note here 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:34.520 about hallucinations. Um, I feel like Hollywood often excuse our 0:15:34.640 --> 0:15:38.440 idea of what an acid trip is because if you're 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:40.560 like me, if someone you think movie acid trip, you 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:42.760 probably think if you're in Loathing in Las Vegas, even 0:15:42.760 --> 0:15:46.680 though the various substances are involved in Hunter S. Thompson's 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:50.200 experience there, but you see like people turning into dinosaurs 0:15:50.240 --> 0:15:53.320 and floors melting, and uh in this idea that you're 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:56.880 just kind of falling into another world. And generally speaking, 0:15:56.880 --> 0:16:01.680 the hallucinations experienced by individuals on on ls, the they 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:05.160 know that it's not real. There's not this, there's not this, 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:07.600 this idea that you're just slipping completely into a dream world. 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:09.800 I mean, that's part of it, because for most of us, 0:16:10.000 --> 0:16:12.200 the dream world is the only thing we can really 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:14.280 think of to compare to it. So we think of 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:16.840 a dream, we think of being lost in the experience 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:19.840 of the dream, and we kind of lay that over 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:23.600 the possibility for psychedelic experience. I remember a friend of 0:16:23.600 --> 0:16:27.560 mine in school, she experienced LSD quite a bit and 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:30.720 and was interested in looking more into it, and so 0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:34.480 it was not uncommon for her to attend school tripping. 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:38.160 And I remember one time her being perfectly normal but saying, 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:41.280 you know, the walls are really moving today. By the way, 0:16:41.280 --> 0:16:44.200 she was an a student all through well because to 0:16:44.600 --> 0:16:46.680 her to your point, but also kind of to her point, 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:50.320 most of the primary effects here are visual. So it's 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:53.880 going to be geometric patterns, uh in the walls, it's 0:16:53.880 --> 0:16:56.840 gonna be halos around things. Uh. You look at a 0:16:56.920 --> 0:16:59.600 light and then there's like the light streams this way, 0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:01.640 or you look up at the night sky and everything 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:04.720 that's black is suddenly red, that sort of thing. So, yeah, 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:07.840 to your point is primarily visual. People aren't really out 0:17:07.880 --> 0:17:09.800 of their minds. They are in their minds. It's just 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:12.720 an entirely different experience in their mind. Yeah, and you 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:16.320 know you have adjust your perception of time. That certainly 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:18.639 plays into it as well. But but yeah, for the 0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:21.879 most part, we're talking about visual cues. And so when 0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:25.800 we start start talking about flashbacks and the idea of 0:17:25.800 --> 0:17:28.800 an acid flashback, most of what we're talking about is 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:32.399 going to be kind of visual in nature, but also 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:37.120 there at times a little emotional. Um. If anyone out 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:41.320 there has been watching the television show True Detective on HBO, 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:45.679 there's a character on that who experiences flashbacks. Based on 0:17:45.680 --> 0:17:48.440 the information we've been reviewing here, it seems like those 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:51.399 flashbacks as they're presented in the show match up pretty 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:54.560 well with what is often reported. So it's not like 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:57.400 demons bounding out of the walls or anything, but it's 0:17:57.440 --> 0:17:59.880 things like like the light seeming to sort of sne 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:03.560 are around you, or or a geometric pattern emerging, that 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:06.480 sort of thing. You're not just stuck in a spiral 0:18:07.200 --> 0:18:10.040 that's of psychedelic colors or Yeah. And it's certainly not 0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:16.080 like the exploitation film of Blue Sunshine where individuals who 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:20.320 took acid a decade earlier or suddenly turned into bald, 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:24.200 raving psychotics and started like running all over the place. Um, 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:26.000 which again that that was a movie that very much 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:29.560 was exploiting all these scare stories from the previous decade. 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:31.679 So let's start talking about some of the numbers here 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:34.560 when we're actually talking about acid flashbacks, because again we're 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:38.720 getting into that area of of urban folklore, into that 0:18:38.800 --> 0:18:41.760 area of ghost story. Everyone is going to have some 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:44.560 sort of story about people experiencing flashbacks, but how many 0:18:44.560 --> 0:18:48.760 people really self report having them? How many people actually 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:53.240 have something that we can clinically call a flashback event? 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:56.199 So studies carried out in nineteen seventy to claim that 0:18:56.320 --> 0:19:00.919 one in four psychedelic users experienced flashbacks, with fifty seven 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:06.320 percent experiencing pleasant flashbacks and only eleven percent experiencing very 0:19:06.320 --> 0:19:11.720 frightening flashbacks. Meanwhile, modern psychiatrist Henry David Abraham claims that 0:19:11.800 --> 0:19:15.240 while only five percent of all city users are actually 0:19:15.280 --> 0:19:19.160 experiencing hallucogenic episodes, as many as six of frequent users 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:22.760 may report some sort of flashback. So we we have 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:25.359 to end up separating two different things here. One is 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:28.160 the feeling that you had a flashback or a self 0:19:28.200 --> 0:19:31.280 report of a flashback. Uh that may or may not 0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:35.399 have anything to do with your actual um neural architecture. Again, 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:38.800 the psychedelic experience is going to be very subjective. Memory 0:19:38.880 --> 0:19:43.479 is very subjective, So you're gonna have somebody who claims, well, like, 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:46.359 you know, an hour after I tripped, I had to 0:19:46.720 --> 0:19:48.480 I saw something kind of weird or I felt something 0:19:48.520 --> 0:19:50.919 kind of weird or a day after I tripped, And indeed, 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:54.159 most of the flashbacks that are reported are falling in 0:19:54.200 --> 0:19:56.840 that window of time, like the first couple of days 0:19:57.119 --> 0:20:00.119 following the use of the substance, not ten years on 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:03.520 the line. And psychiatrist John Halpern said that most studies 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:06.920 don't make clear if other drugs were involved or if 0:20:06.960 --> 0:20:10.920 participants had other psychiatric conditions at the time, So we 0:20:11.000 --> 0:20:13.399 may have some data on it, but it's not clear, 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:17.640 you know, if if some of this stuff was moving 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:20.440 the needle a couple of degrees. And there's also the 0:20:20.520 --> 0:20:23.920 question about if it really is a flashback or just 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:27.879 a provocative memory, because memory is fallible, as we know, 0:20:28.560 --> 0:20:33.160 and you know, you can get an intense sensation sometimes, 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:36.400 do you call that a flashback? Um? You know, part 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:38.800 of it is our inability to really define what a 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:42.600 flashback is. Yeah, because we just if we experienced suddenly 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:45.320 we're setting on our desk and we remember like a painfully, 0:20:45.800 --> 0:20:49.480 um embarrassing moment from our past and we're kind of like, uh, 0:20:49.640 --> 0:20:52.119 you know, we actually feel the embarrassment in our bodies 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:53.840 in the you know, in a sense, that's kind of 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:56.520 a flashback. But there's nothing magical about that there's nothing 0:20:56.560 --> 0:20:59.639 psychedelic about that. But what if you're suddenly remembering the 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:04.240 time the night sky became dark red? You know, suddenly 0:21:04.280 --> 0:21:08.480 you're adding in that level of of the psychedelic. You're 0:21:08.480 --> 0:21:12.639 adding in that that's script and you have a reason 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:14.920 for it. You're like, oh, maybe that was an asset flashback. 0:21:15.280 --> 0:21:18.240 Maybe that's that's what that was. And also, again, memory 0:21:18.280 --> 0:21:20.200 is foul will. Every time you take that memory out, 0:21:20.480 --> 0:21:24.480 you're changing it. So over time, you're you're you're you're 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:28.160 making that even more of a concrete flashback memory. Uh, 0:21:28.280 --> 0:21:32.440 as far as your own experience goes. And uh, it's 0:21:32.440 --> 0:21:36.800 also worth noting that you don't need a psychedelic substance 0:21:36.840 --> 0:21:40.480 to have a flashback. Traumatic or intensely emotional memories have 0:21:40.520 --> 0:21:42.399 a tendency to stick with us in ways that normal 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:46.119 memories do not. And uh and and uh and certainly 0:21:46.160 --> 0:21:50.320 one can experience an intense traumatic flashback. Uh. You know 0:21:50.440 --> 0:21:54.360 this is part and partial to PTSD. So so these 0:21:54.359 --> 0:21:56.359