On April 19, 1943, Albert Hofmann, a chemist working at the Swiss pharmaceutical company Sandoz, swallowed 240 micrograms of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and had the first intentional acid trip in history.
Hofmann had first synthesized the compound five years earlier while exploring whether ergot—a fungus that grows on rye—could yield new respiratory and circulatory medicines. LSD had been shelved after showing little promise in early animal tests, but Hofmann had what he later called a "peculiar presentiment" about it. Peculiar indeed. When he revisited the compound, he accidentally absorbed a tiny amount through his skin and experienced some strange, dreamlike sensations. Driven by curiosity, he took a measured dose a few days later to study its effects more closely.
After an hour, Hofmann wrote in his journal: "Beginning dizziness, feeling of anxiety, visual distortions, symptoms of paralysis, desire to laugh." As he rode his bicycle home through the streets of Basel, the effects intensified. Eventually, though, the fear gave way to wonder.
"Little by little I could begin to enjoy the unprecedented colors and plays of shapes that persisted behind my closed eyes," Hofmann wrote. "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…"
Tomorrow, April 19, is now celebrated as Bicycle Day, commemorating the first intentional acid trip—a hallucinogenic revelation that had a profound impact on art, music, culture, and consciousness. Below is Lorenzo Veracini, Nandini Nambiar, and Marco Avoletta's wonderful animated take on Hofmann's historic psychedelic journey that changed culture forever.
Previously:
• Albert Hofmann, LSD inventor, RIP
