Back when I was in health class, the kindly old fellow talking to us about drugs assured us that it was entirely possible and in fact common for a person to take a single hit of Acid (he said “lysergic acid dyblahdeblah”) and have their personality permanently and immediately altered by it.
At the time I believed it, then slowly sort of forgot it. In the interim I have taken a few trips and I sort of wonder if what he said was true.
Can anyone prove/disprove this? Anyone hear something similar? Seen it firsthand? Let me know.
Hmm, well I’ll give you my $.02 but I am no scientific authority on the subject.
That particular wording is a bit strong, and I believe, inaccurate. Look, your personality is largely a composite of the many experiences in life you’ve had (interacting with your genetic make up). With that in mind, of course a powerful experience like an acid trip is going to contribute to your personality. But will you suddenly after one trip be immediately transformed into some new person? Doubtful.
I’ve taken about 30-35 acid trips, haven’t tripped in over 3 years, and I believe I’m more or less the same person I’ve always been. It’s just another experience. Do with it what you will.
This is purely informational, not confrontational - use the search engine in the upper right corner. Questions about LSD come up a lot here, and there have been many threads about it. Here are two of the most recent:
I also suggest you look at http://www.snopes.com There, many urban legends, including about acid, are debunked.
Anywho, in answer to your question, it is almost a complete untruth. The exception is that there is some evidence that LSD can bring on full-blown schizophrenia in those who have the condition but are dormant. An unanswered (and perhaps unanswerable) question is whether in such cases the schizophrenia would have been activated at some point anyway.
FWIW, I have personal knowledge of a person who had a schizophrenic episode triggered by LSD. It was not his first time (or second or third, for that matter), and he had been treated for schizophrenia in the past, as had his mother, father and sister. So, did the acid cause him to go crazy? No. Was it a factor in an episode that got him put away for a while? Yes.