{"id":7923,"date":"2020-07-23T01:20:13","date_gmt":"2020-07-22T23:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mapsofthemind.com\/?p=7923"},"modified":"2020-12-16T15:23:09","modified_gmt":"2020-12-16T14:23:09","slug":"lsd-experience-like-effects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mapsofthemind.com\/2020\/07\/23\/lsd-experience-like-effects\/","title":{"rendered":"What is an LSD Experience Like?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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What is an LSD experience like? This is a question I often get asked by people who are curious about the psychedelic experience and who just want to know: what is it actually like?<\/p>\n

One word that is often used when trying to describe the experience is ineffable. Which means that it cannot be put into words. However this kind of relegates language and is also, dare I say it, a little lazy. That said, I do understand that it is an extremely difficult experience to describe.<\/p>\n

\"subjective

Psychedelic researcher Katrin Preller<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Last year I went to a series of talks put on by the MIND foundation at their Betahaus hub in Berlin. One of these talks was by Katrin Preller on the topic of social cognition and self experience. As part of her presentation Katrin presented the subjective effects of LSD as reported by study participants. This is an excellent summary and I think answers the question very well, with a nice succinct list of aspects of the experience.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Subjective effects of LSD<\/h2>\n
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  • Audio-visual synesthesia<\/span><\/li>\n
  • Elemental imagery<\/span><\/li>\n
  • Changed meaning of percepts<\/span><\/li>\n
  • Blissful state<\/li>\n
  • Complex imagery<\/span><\/li>\n
  • Experience of unity<\/li>\n
  • Insightfulness<\/li>\n
  • Disembodiment<\/span><\/li>\n
  • Impaired control and cognition<\/span><\/li>\n
  • Spiritual experience<\/li>\n
  • Anxiety<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    The diagram below shows us how strongly each of the effects were felt. As you can see, audio-visual synesthesia scored highest, and anxiety lowest.
    \n\"subjective

    Subjective effects of LSD. Schmidt et al. 2015<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
    \n

    You can see Katrin\u2019s whole talk here:<\/p>\n