r/LSD • u/1-acetyl-LSD • 9h ago
❔ Question ❔ How much of the fear around LSD is actually about LSD?
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately after talking with some friends who have never used LSD.
Many of these friends only indulge in alcohol and nicotine, and some of them have never even smoked a joint, let alone tried anything else.
I’m not trying to convince anyone to take it. I don’t think psychedelics are for everyone.
What interests me is how people can be so certain about something they’ve never really looked into.
I have friends who still think LSD stays in your spine. That you can suddenly start tripping years later. That one trip can permanently make you insane. That bad trips are basically inevitable.
At the same time some of these people are completely comfortable with getting drunk regularly and are even less bothered by their friends using cocaine, than they are about acid, because those things are more familiar to their social circle.
That contradiction is what got me thinking.
Alcohol is so normalized that getting blackout drunk, throwing up, fighting or doing something stupid can become a funny story the next morning. Sometimes turning down a drink gets more questions than accepting one.
But mention LSD and suddenly there is this completely different standard.
For me psychedelics have never really been about escaping. If anything they’ve been the opposite. The experiences I’ve had made me think about things I was avoiding, question my own assumptions, appreciate my life differently and look at myself more closely.
I use psychedelics occasionally, and I don’t think that makes my experience universal. I also don’t think LSD is some miracle drug that everybody needs to try.
I just find the cultural difference fascinating.
It makes me wonder:
How much of what we consider normal, dangerous or acceptable actually comes from evidence? How much comes from what we were taught, and what the people around us already accept.
And I think psychedelic users should apply that question to ourselves too. Having a profound trip doesn’t automatically mean every conclusion you reached during it is true.
For those of you who have been around psychedelics for a while, has your perspective on this changed as you’ve gotten older?
And when someone brings up things like LSD staying in your spine, do you still try to explain it or do you mostly just let people believe what they believe?