Beyond Zero and One (Andrew Smart) / quote 165 of 171
Reality became a problem after LSD
Hofmann says: “Reality became for me a problem after my experience with LSD. Before, I had believed there was only one reality, the reality of everyday life. Just one true reality and the rest was imagination and was not real. But under the influence of LSD, I entered into realities which were as real and even more real than the one of everyday. And I thought about the nature of reality and I got some deeper insights.” This to me indicates that LSD has the ability to create awareness of different kinds of perceptions, in which we encounter the fact that our perception of everyday life is a creation of our minds. Hofmann continues: “I analyzed the mechanisms involved in the production of the normal world view that we call the ‘everyday reality.’ What are the factors that constitute it? What is inside about what is outside? What comes from the outside in and what is just inside?” If we adopt the hallucinogenic model of consciousness, the entire contents of your subjective awareness come from just inside. What comes in from outside is merely a constraint on what the inside reality can look and feel like.