If You Don’t Celebrate Bicycle Day, You Will Now!
Bicycle day is approaching fast, and you wouldn’t want to miss the important date of 19th April, now would you? As you may have guessed (or known already), this day has something to do with bicycles as well as psychedelics, and also, science.
Mankind's First LSD Trip
The original event takes us back to 1943 when a scientist named Albert Hofmann became the first man ever known to ingest LSD, also known as Lysergic Acid Diethylamide-25 or Acid. Although commonly celebrated on April 19th, this wasn’t actually the first date Hofmann experienced LSD.
3 days earlier, on April 16th, he was handling the substance in his lab while synthesizing a new batch and began to feel strange. He put his work aside for the day, went home, kicked back on the couch and “sank into a not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination.” In Hofmann’s own words, he said: “I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors.” He was convinced this phenomenon had something to do with the substance LSD, so he did what any mad scientist would do: experiment with this substance in its full dosage on himself.
3 days later, on April 19th, Albert Hofmann intentionally took 250 micrograms of LSD and then rode back home on his bicycle accompanied by his lab assistant. During their ride home, his trip began with experiencing full-on paranoid thoughts and anxiety, wrapped in a belief that his next-door neighbour was a wicked witch.
On top of that, he felt scared of the possibility that he might have poisoned himself (as after all, ergot, the fungi LSD comes from, is deadly poisonous in its natural state), and a doctor was called to his home to check up on his state. After a careful check-up found no lethal signs and no physical abnormalities (aside from rather dilated pupils), Hofmann relaxed and felt a shift in his LSD experience. “The horror softened and gave way to a feeling of good fortune and gratitude,” he said of his account. “Now, little by little, I could begin to enjoy the unprecedented colours and plays of shapes that persisted behind my closed eyes. Kaleidoscopic, fantastic images surged in on me.”
The Morning After
To Hofmann’s surprise, he woke up the next day feeling better than ever. “A sensation of well-being and renewed life flowed through me,” he recalled in his book. “Breakfast tasted delicious and gave me extraordinary pleasure. When I later walked out into the garden, where the sun shone now after a spring rain, everything glistened and sparkled in a fresh light. The world was as if newly created. All my senses vibrated in a condition of highest sensitivity, which persisted the entire day.”
Between his first dose in 1943 and his death in 2008 at the very old age of 102, Hofmann took dozens of trips on acid, which he came to regard as a “medicine for the soul.”
Everything Else Is History
Initially, LSD was intended to be a potential analeptic medicine and was synthesized to become a respiratory and circulatory stimulant. Little did Albert Hofmann know that LSD would become a widely used and recognized recreational substance all over the world. Although illegal now, LSD used to be a widely researched substance between the 1950s and 1970s. There are many opinions and theories about why all the research was shut down, but it seems to be traced down to unwanted results of the ‘hippie movement’ that began in the 1960s. LSD was unregulated, easy to get, and possibly due to it being a very new thing - it was also abused without any consideration of the right set and setting. Chaos erupted, and that is possibly one of the reasons it became to be labelled as a dangerous substance. Another theory is that LSD seemed to turn people against the war and that was not in the interests of the government. The hippie movement of the 1960s, fueled in part by LSD use, contributed to a broader cultural movement for peace that sought to challenge mainstream values and promote a more compassionate and connected world.
Either way, in Albert Hofmann’s words, “LSD was used very successfully for 10 years in psychoanalysis,” he told the New York Times in 2006. “It should be a controlled substance with the same status as morphine.” And indeed, LSD has brought promising results for the treatment of depression, PTSD, anxiety, psychosomatic diseases, and addiction when used in clinical settings.
Even though LSD is currently illegal and most of the research has been shut down, recent studies on its therapeutic potential have prompted renewed interest in the substance as a tool for treating mental health. And who knows, perhaps in the future it will be one of the many ways to find healing, obtain personal growth, and explore the depths of the human mind.
People Celebrate All Over the World
Whether Albert Hofmann is a hero to some, and perhaps a villain to others, we can surely say that the world would not be the same today without his grand discovery of LSD. If psychedelics play an important role in your life now or have done so in the past, the day of 19th April, Bicycle Day, may get a special place in your heart.
