[Narrator: Here is part of an interview with
a subject just before LSD is to be administered.]
...ll my husband is an employee here at the VA and he told me
that they were looking for-- normal people and I uh, I volunteered.
I see uhm, do you feel you're normal?
Well, I hope I'm normal. I- I think so.
Well, uh, a little while back you took uh quite a series
of psychological tests and uh,
uh I can assure you that you're a very stable and uh,
well balanced person as a result of the tests.
And uh how do you feel about uh, uh coming here
and drinking this strange uh, uhh material?
I'm a little-- little nervous, perhaps.
Well I think that's normal.
Well I think it's time for you to have your lysergic acid.
Drink this down and we'll be back
after a little while and, see how you're doing.
[Narrator: This is a glass of water, colorless, tasteless.
It contains 100 gamma of LSD-25. One tenth of a milligram.
The equivalent of one six hundredth of a grain.
An ounce of this material will make 150,000 such doses.
Let us observe the effects some three hours later.]
{gasping} Well--
[Well tell me.]
Well I just couldn't! I couldn't possibly tell you. It's--
It's here! Can't you feel it?
This whole room. This, this-- everything is in color and,
and I can feel the air I can, I can see it, I can see all the molecules.
I-- I-- I'm part of it, I I'm--
Can't you see it?
[I'm trying.]
Oh it's just like, like you're released or you're free or...
I don't know how, I can tell you.
[How do you feel inside?]
Inside...
I don't have an inside.
[Is it all one?]
It it would be all one if... if...
if you weren't here, and if if if-- if nobody else--
Yes everything is one. I-- you have nothing to do with it.
I am one, with, what I am.
I can see everything in color.
Everything-- you have to see the air. You can't believe it!
And-- and the dimensions and all the- the prisms and the rays...
and everything coming down through you and-- and moving...
[What does this all mean to you?]
I've never seen such infinite beauty in my life.
It's like a-- a curtain or as spider web or...
Can you see it it's right here in front of me right now.
Watch. No.
Good heavens.
You know it went through me?
It passed right through me!
[Could you feel it?]
I wa-- it wa-- I wa I-- Me!? {inaudible} me.
[Is all this pleasant or unpleasant?
Or aren't these the right words?]
What seems pleasant or unpleasant?
There isn't anything pleasant or unpleasant.
It's too beautiful. It's-- it's--
how can you think it--
I mean it's can't you feel it? Everything
is so beautiful and lovely and...
...and alive. You shouldn't say anything about not being...
This is reality. This is...
If you look right over there...
Are you looking, can you--
[Yes what should I see?]
I wish I could talk in technicolor, or,
or let you see-- can you-- did you say you can see it?
[No I can't quite see it. Tell me about it.]
It's-- I can't tell you about it.
If you can't see it then you'll just never know it.
I feel sorry for you. Hmmhh...
[Now Gerald I know you have, great personal experience with,
lysergic acid. Uh-- what do you think of it?]
To do this in two minutes, eternity in an hour.
It's almost impossible of course as all the patients say to describe it.
You can only say "it isn't it isn't it isn't,"
trying to tell people what it is.
Well of course, I don't know any of our friends Sid
that have taken it but haven't said this one thing in common:
"Well, I never knew anything like that in the whole of my life."
And one or two people have said to me, I've said it to myself:
"That's what death is going to be like. And oh what fun it will be."
[How do you mean that?]
Well I mean that there are the colors and the beauties,
the designs, the beautiful wavy things appear.
People themselves, uh-- dull people that I thought dull
appear fascinating interesting mysterious wonderful.
But that's only the beginning.
Man was saying it this afternoon who was taking it.
Suddenly you notice, that there aren't these separations.
That we're not, on a separate island shouting across to somebody else
and trying to hear what they're saying and misunderstanding them.
You know.
You use the word yourself: empathy.
These things flowing underneath. We're parts of a single continent.
It meets underneath the water.
And with that goes such delight.
The sober certainty of waking bliss.
