PSYCHEDELICS - Sciencemadness.org

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____________________________________________________ Psychedelics
techniques. To reinforce the matching of fingers and type-
writer keys, he took LSD, began to type, and continued for
several hours.
This subject's claims regarding a facilitation in motor func-
tion are provocative and need to be explored under controlled
conditions. Peter Laurie (1967) has suggested that the act of
writing may be feasible under light doses of psychedelic sub-
stances but, for most people, impossible under heavy doses.
In the case of writing, therefore, one is struck by the same
variety of reports as one encounters with other forms of lan-
guage; certain people under certain conditions claim that
their writing functions are enhanced, others assert writing is
impaired, and still others report no discernible difference.
Conclusion
The emergence of professional and public interest in psy-
chedelic substances coincides with the shift in human com-
munication from the chirographic-typographic to the elec-
tronic stage. Just as electronic devices have begun to
"re-tribalize" the world and convey a sense of simultaneity to
human experience, so the LSD user often engages in mythic
episodes, senses a "unity of all peoples," and has an impres-
sion that everything is happening "all at once"—in a non-
linear manner.
Psychedelic substances, when they affect language proc-
esses, sometimes appear to assist an individual to observe the
difference between the word and the object it represents. In
this way, the drugs may serve as catalysts in a non-verbal
training program, helping the subject translate verbal abstrac-
tions in terms of direct experience.
Psychedelic substances can produce the opposite result as
well. The subject may revert to primitive thinking, his ability
to conceptualize may decrease, and he may effect a union
between the word and its object. This is exemplified by the
concretization of letters into pictures and images, by the con-
crescence of verbalizations with the items they represent, and
by the use of words in magical ways on the part of several
LSD subjects.
In other words, any of the human race's communicative