Comment on Imagine going to the hospital for help… and the CIA secretly gives you LSD instead.

• HEXN3T@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Well, the point is that this project was an absolute disgrace to Albert Hofmann, and to the eventual culture which surrounded the substance.

  LSD isn’t the problem with MKUltra–it’s this wretched government that is.

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  • Laser@feddit.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Yeah. I think some people who haven’t experienced the substance think it’s a feel-good-pill where you just ignore the world and experience your own. Well, it can be pills, though that’s not common, and it being forced on your must be horrible.

    So yeah, what you write is correct. But at least it was unsuccessful in what the CIA sought out to achieve.

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    • HEXN3T@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Bit of a tangent, but…

      That’s what’s so damn interesting about it. It isn’t a feel good pill. Cannabis, on the other hand, is easygoing, comfortable, possible to use frequently…

      …and, behind the scenes, it significantly disrupts the dopamine system, souring the mood in the long term.

      Conversely, LSD offers a wildly different option. It can provide just as much terror as it can provide joy… but it’s also frequently introspective. It’s what I’d call an amplifier. Further, it boosts mood over time, renowned for frequently causing uplift lasting weeks or months–sometimes, even after a difficult experience.

      And that’s how it’s been for me for three years and counting. Not necessarily fun (though, I’ve never had a bad trip), but merely about seeing things from different perspectives. I will always prefer LSD over comfort–I want challenge. That’s why I also like salvia.

      It’s the opposite of ignorance–the CIA’s big miscalculation here. I can only imagine (I actually can’t, I have aphantasia) what those trips during MKUltra were like. I’ve witnessed at least one train wreck, so I have at least some perspective. All I can do is hope that such a thing never happens again… or work to.

      I just also hope people don’t point to MKUltra as a reason to keep psychedelics outlawed. I would probably be dead without them, and continued reference to LSD as a “psychotic” just hurts.

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