PSYCHEDELICS - Sciencemadness.org

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____________________________________________________ Psychedelics
of the primary and secondary social spaces was designed to
try to minimize any feeling of overconcentration or overcrowding.
The "module" used to avoid overconcentration and overcrowding
of people was based on "psychic" boundaries rather
than the prevalent square-feet-per-person ratio, which is typical
of most building and other design standards. There is an increasing
awareness of the need to understand the relationship
of psychic boundaries to social behavior and environmental
design. Dr. Edward T. Hall, in his book The Hidden Dimension
(1966), discusses personal space and the varieties of
physical relationships stemming from cultural, psychological,
and social differences. Dr. Robert Sommer has written numerous
papers in which he discusses the ecology of privacy,
the distance for comfortable conversation, and other matters
that have a direct bearing on architectural design (Sommer,
1960,1962, 1966a, 1966b).
The above discussion indicates both the complexity of the
design problem for a psychiatric center and the common-
sense approach to the architectural solution. It is evident
that, with few exceptions, existing facilities for the care and
treatment of the mentally ill have been designed without at-
tention to significant and relevant details of this kind. This
is understandable, as one of the most difficult tasks is for
the architect, along with his colleagues from other profes-
sions, including psychiatry, psychology, social work, and ad-
ministration, to appreciate fully the significance of what may
appear to the well person to be minute and inconsequential.
There is no way of establishing to what extent LSD con-
tributed to the architectural solution, but it is my firm con-
viction that, without my LSD experiences, many of these in-
sights might not have been possible. Certainly they would not
have been possible within the relatively short period allowed
for design. Perhaps, given the time and the opportunities for
more-intensive discussion, a similar sort of understanding
might have been achieved. However, I doubt whether any
form of discussion would have had an impact equivalent to
my firsthand experiences under LSD.
One of the most difficult problems is for one person to
grasp the experience of another through his description of
it. How do you convey to a child that if he touches a red-