Surely it would be more likely to be the experience itself, rather than the substance? There is also a phrase "Travel broadens the mind" which may be relevant...having to deal with whole new situations pushes our thinking processes to the limits, thus 'expanding' the mind...
The LSD experience is such a radical departure from what we expect 'everyday life' to be, it would require some rapid 'expansion' indeed! - Perhaps it just reveals options we hadn't yet dreamed of, exposes our 'everyday' limitations?
g.
Yes I would think so. I hardly expect L to actually physically create more neuron connections; it is our own forays into anything that builds onto the network, and our own use of 'what we've got' that strengthens it. And, yes, like Mike Pinder said, "Thinking is the best way to travel"!
QUOTE
And the other path: I have gone free-climbing, alone, and done some things that would kill me if I tried now. 200mcg and a granite mountain, blue sky and 6 hours later, another climber made his way to me and asked if I was the one he'd seen ropeless, doing a grade IV climb in a 150' chimney! He said I had made the ascent at 5.8, and it was listed at 5.6
Omygod hertz says as he bows to you!

I've been shot at by the farmers with those shotguns, been chased by wild boar, gators, and bear, pulled myself up to a cliff ledge to come face to face with a timber rattler, free-climbed waterfalls, was swept OVER waterfalls twice (not too badly hurt), you get the picture, but I would NEVER be caught on a granite chimney without a rope!!! I haven't the courage...
Sapo
7th May 2008 - 12:37 AM
It wasn't courage at that point, it was complete and timeless detachment. Crystalline and pure.
I was climbing in West Virginia once and had a mouse or somebody run across my higher hand after I released the other from a jam to make the next pitch. I screamed like a girl!
DancingDays
10th December 2008 - 10:05 AM
Whoa there boys and girls!!!Just stumbled onto this site and my spellcheck is ON!!!You will soon learn how much smarter you all are than I.....
Talking LSD??? I did that a bunch!!!I liked it.!.!.and a low level recount of a drug induced,surge of IQ could look like this......
As a member of the United States Army in Germany, 1969, i engaged in the the process of "Earning Your GED"!!!I had graduated High School but never passed on a chance to"Get Over"...Who's going to check a phony dropout????Easy,good times for a month!!!!
This process took four weeks,three days a week for four subjects...English was the subject studied and tested the last week(my WORST all though school)...A test would follow two days of study on Fridays that consisted of 100 question!!!!That morning,due to anxiety,I took a grand little hit of Yellow Sunshine,the only time I ever did that the morning of a work day, had my breakfast and went to school and then started to get off!!!!
When the test started I was "Zipadedoda" and ready to go!!!!
The test was but a way to slip right back to ever moment I sat in a English Class paying the attention of a totally,distracted,Dolt....A Dolt that astoundingly was unknowingly aware and retained every bit of information that was presented class after class in my Public School career????Each and every question was answered correctly????All One Hundred was presented to as me a question on paper with the concrete, correct answer stored and available!!!!To Have it was just to be asked!!!!
When I learned of the results I wasn't surprised because at the completion I knew it was aced!!!!!What distressed me is why I had always struggled when now I had seen how damn simple it was???
I hope this recount can be mean something to anyone who tries to "get it"....
Thanks for Reading!!!
NEU-FONZE
10th December 2008 - 01:56 PM
I wrote this letter to Bruce Eisner a while ago, ......... thought it was relevant to the topic of discussion:
Back in the halcyon days of the 1960s I experimented with LSD. I took windowpane acid 40 times or more and marveled at the ecstatic visions it presented to me. I read Huxley, Leary, Burroughs, Ginsberg et al. and delved into Eastern mysticism through Watts, Hesse and the I’Ching. Everything was fine and wonderful and I started to believe that psychedelics could solve all the world’s problems, and that these marvelous chemicals were, in fact, the keys to the kingdom.
Then, in 1974, my whole world turned upside down: my wife abandoned me for another man and left me alone to look after our two year-old daughter. I had just moved to Ottawa to start a new high-powered job. I had no friends or family in town – I was devastated. Night after night, while my daughter slept in the adjacent bedroom, I sat alone in my apartment wondering what to do. Many nights I cried. I even considered suicide- but who would take care of my daughter…..
Out of desperation I turned to my psychedelic bag of tricks for inspiration and enlightenment. With my daughter safely at a baby-sitter's house, I swallowed a whole tab of windowpane and waited for the show to start. Yes, I saw the usual dance of light, the synesthesia of sounds and colors but, powerful as the drug was, it could not ease my sorrow. Instead, for 12 hours, I wrestled with doubt and fear. Even as the drug propelled me across a kaleidoscopic ocean of inner space and time, it could do nothing to dispel my anguish and my pain. There was no enlightenment, only darkness and doubt. There was no gratuitous grace, only suffering and despair….
That was the last time I took LSD, and in all my subsequent readings on the subject, I have never heard any one discuss LSD as a means to end emotional suffering. But perhaps this should not be seen as an indictment of LSD. I believe there is no drug that can free someone from La Condition Humaine. Nor should there be. For man’s condition is to be aware of the reality of his existence. If that reality is poverty: no drug can make that go away. If that reality is abuse: no drug can make that go away either. If that reality is loneliness, fear, humiliation, sorrow, depression: no drug can make these things go away. There are, of course, the drugs that temporarily shut down reality like opium and its derivatives. These may ease emotional suffering, but they do not end it. This is not to say that these drugs have their uses. Certainly, I do endorse drugs that relieve physical pain or sooth shattered nerves. But I am looking for something more permanent, more profound: something to end emotional suffering.
However, as long as we live in a world of corporate greed, some of us will go hungry. As long as we live in a world of brutality and oppression, some of us will live in fear. So let us not create an elitist haven for those who are fortunate enough to be sheltered from the harsh realities of life. Let us not support elitist groups who fill their heads with high-tech brain foods, while others lack the very staples of existence. Let us support the production of simple low-tech stomach foods to fill distended bellies. As long as the supply of even natural foods and drugs is in the hands of an elitist, dare I say fascist, governmental/military/industrial mafia, we cannot expect high-tech foods and drugs to be freely available to the masses. Yes, we would all love a little soma, whether it be ASB, 2C-B, BZ or XYZ! But first we must find a way to end emotional suffering, not just on an island – for no man is an island – but everywhere.