Happy Birthday to Albert Hofmann!

Albert Hofmann (January 11, 1906 – April 29, 2008) was a Swiss scientist best known for having been the first to synthesize, ingest and learn of the psychedelic effects of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD).

  Bicycle Day :
 April 19th, 1943, Hofmann performed a self-experiment to determine the true effects of LSD, intentionally ingesting 250 micrograms of the substance, an amount he predicted to be a threshold dose (an actual threshold dose is 20 micrograms).
Less than an hour later, Hofmann experienced sudden and intense changes in perception.
He asked his laboratory assistant to escort him home, and as use of vehicles was prohibited due to wartime restrictions, they had to make the journey on a bicycle. On the way, Hofmann’s condition rapidly deteriorated as he struggled with feelings of anxiety, alternatingly believing the next-door neighbor was a malevolent witch, that he was going insane, and the LSD had poisoned him.
When the house doctor arrived, however, he could detect no physical abnormalities, save for a pair of incredibly dilated pupils.
Hofmann was reassured, and soon his terror began to give way to a sense of good fortune and enjoyment, as he later wrote"...little by little I could begin to enjoy the unprecedented colors and plays of shapes that persisted behind my closed eyes. Kaleidoscopic, fantastic images surged in on me, alternating, variegated, opening and then closing themselves in circles and spirals, exploding in colored fountains, rearranging and hybridizing themselves in constant flux…"

 The events of the first LSD trip, now known as “Bicycle Day”, after the bicycle ride home, proved to Hoffman that he had indeed made a significant discovery. A psychoactive substance with extraordinary potency, capable of causing paradigm shifts of consciousness in incredibly low doses, Hofmann foresaw the drug as a powerful psychiatric tool; due to its intense and introspective nature, he couldn’t imagine anyone using it recreationally.

“ I think that in human evolution it has never been as necessary to have this substance LSD. It is just a tool to turn us into what we are supposed to be. ” -Albert Hofmann