- [Driver] Ah, chemical.
Flashbacks.
Neural damage.
- That's a scene from HBO's True Detective
in which we get to witness one
of Detective Rustin Cohle's
psychedelic flashbacks.
- Ah, but is there any science
to the cinematic psychedelia?
- [Man] Let's start off
with a quick reminder
about what Lysergic acid
diethylamide actually is,
and what it isn't.
- [Woman] LSD, or acid,
is a semi-synthetic
psychedelic drug first created by
Swiss chemist, Albert
Hofmann back in 1938.
It went on to play a major role
in the counter culture
movement of the 1960s
due to its potent
perception-altering powers.
- [Man] Movies and TV rarely do
the psychedelic experience justice,
because LSD doesn't kickstart
a Hollywood dream sequence
or invoke a full blown hallucination.
- [Woman] When a person hallucinates,
they believe everything
they see and feel is real.
LSD changes the way people
perceive the world around them
as well as what they think and feel.
Tricky circumstances to relate
in the visual medium of film.
- [Man] Because people
on LSD don't hallucinate,
they don't see things that aren't there.
They see what's already
there in a different way.
And most of the time,
they're aware that the drug
is causing their altered perceptions.
- [Woman] Now, hallucinogens like LSD
have tremendous clinical
and research potential,
but scientists largely
distanced themselves
from psychedelic research
following the 1960s.
- [Man] This is changing today,
but you still have
decades left in the lurch.
Time enough for a million urban legends
and unfounded scared straight stories
to emerge about these powerful substances.
- [Woman] Which brings us
back to the acid flashback,
which quickly became a standard
of anti-drug messaging.
Days, months, or even years
after you take the drug,
psychedelic compounds stored
in your spine or fatty tissue
will suddenly kick in.
Maybe while you're driving
or changing a diaper,
and you'll try and force
yourself through a keyhole
or something like that.
- [Man] Now the bit
about stored spinal LSD
is complete hooey.
LSD is almost entirely
metabolized within 24 hours.
Only a very small amount of
LSD remains after an acid trip,
and this leaves the body in your urine.
- [Woman] But flashbacks do occur,
they just have nothing to
do with lingering traces
of acid in the user's body.
- [Man] The clinical term is
hallucinogen persisting
perception disorder,
or HPPD.
The symptoms range from
sudden flashes of memory
to persistent visual disturbances,
so we're not talking
about imaginary monsters
crawling out of the walls,
but rather a transitory
recurrence of emotions
and perceptions originally experienced
while under the influence
of a psychedelic drug.
- [Woman] The frequency and
intensity of the flashbacks
usually drops off rather quickly,
and rarely occur more than a few months
after the drug leaves the body.
- [Man] And why is that?
Well, following an intense LSD trip,
you may simply be hypersensitive
to the sort of small details
and visual perception
that normal folks overlook every day.
After all, our normal
perception of the real world
is a kind of hallucination.
This isn't the world as it is,
but rather the world as filtered through
our organic senses.
Processed and then filtered
again by our brain,
and then loaded into our limited
conscious experience of reality.
- [Woman] Combine that with paranoia
over breaking your brain
or uncertainty about an illicit
drug's laboratory origins
and just see what happens.
- [Man] So, Detective Cohle's symptoms
seem entirely possible,
especially for a former
undercover narcotics agent
forced to take ungodly amounts
of various psychedelic compounds.
- [Woman] Remember kids,
psychedelics aren't only illegal,
they're incredibly powerful.
For every story of acid-fueled revelations
about the nature of the cosmos,
there's one like Jean-Paul
Sartre's yearlong
Mescaline flashback in
which he was pursued
by monstrous lobsters.
- So, use caution and common sense,
and in the meantime,
do you have a flashback
experience you'd like
to share with everybody?
- Or do you just have
a favorite psychedelic
scene in a movie?
Mine's Winnie the Pooh.
What's yours?
Let us know in the comments below
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