Psychedelics have been credited with catalysing scientific insight in a number of domains, including computing, biochemistry, molecular biology, ecology, pharmacology, neurology, mathematics, and theoretical physics.
Development of PCR
Biochemist Kary Mullis considers his use of LSD to have played an important role in his discovery of a means to automate the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a way of amplifying small DNA segments. Notably, Mullis’s breakthrough came not while under the influence of LSD, but subsequent to its usage, suggesting a more enduring change in cognition or creativity.
This was a breakthrough for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1993. PCR has been described as “one of the most valuable techniques currently used in bioscience, diagnostics and forensic science”, and by allowing the rapid diagnosis of diseases, can facilitate timely treatment, which in turn has saved many lives. In his words:
PCR’s another place where I was down there with the molecules when I discovered it and I wasn’t stoned on LSD, but my mind by then had learned how to get down there. I could sit on a DNA molecule and watch the polymerase go by…I’ve learned that partially I would think, and this is again my opinion, through psychedelic drugs…if I had not taken LSD ever would I have still been in PCR? I don’t know, I doubt it, I seriously doubt it.
Psychedelic Computing
Psychedelics appear to have had a notable influence on computing, credited with enhancing creativity and contributing to computer programming and software development. LSD has been credited with contributing to the design of the first computer circuit chips by early Silicon Valley computer engineers, before they could be designed on computers, with these consisting of very complex three-dimensional structures that had to be held in the head of those designing them. LSD has also been credited with playing a role in the formation of quantum encryption, helping ignite the multi-billion-dollar research field of quantum information science.
Computer programmer Dennis Wier credits LSD with assisting him in the development of a compiler for an application language known as MARLAN. The system was made up of approximately eight hundred subroutines, which made it hard for him to hold the entirety of the system in his mind at the same time. While at cruising altitude under 75 micrograms of LSD, he felt he was able to achieve this, which allowed him to detect inconsistencies that he was able to amend. The system was a commercial success for his employer and was used for many years by them. He didn’t go public with his usage of LSD until over three decades later.
Others credit psychedelics with assisting in computer programming and software development. Kevin Herbert credited psychedelics with helping him overcome creative blocks and complex problems, and aiding him in finding technical solutions. Of his experience with LSD, he stated: “It must be changing something about the internal communication in my brain. Whatever my inner process is that lets me solve problems, it works differently, or maybe different parts of my brain are used”.
Adam Wiggins felt psychedelics aided him in the development of a cloud platform service supporting several programming languages. Bill Atkinson credits an LSD experience under a starlit sky with the desire to link things together, spurring his development of the software application HyperCard for Apple, it being among the first successful hypermedia systems, predating the World Wide Web.
Noteworthy computing pioneer Douglas Engelbart was administered LSD as part of a study conducted by the International Foundation of Advanced Study (IFAS) investigating how psychedelics might influence creativity. He went on to introduce a score of major technical innovations, including the computer mouse. Apple founder Steve Jobs felt that LSD had played a pivotal and transformative role in his life and work, describing taking LSD “as one of the two or three most important things he had done in his life”. It is possible that psychedelics have had more influence on the field of computing than is currently publicly known.
A Psychedelic Scientific Pix and Mix Bag
Psychedelics have been credited with eliciting insights or igniting inspiration across a broad swath of the sciences. Mathematician Ralph Abraham credits psychedelics with impacting domains of mathematics such as chaos theory and fractal geometry, while neurologist Andrew Lees credits ayahuasca with helping to break down rigid thinking that was blocking innovation in Parkinson’s disease research.
Self-experimentation with LSD by British pharmacologist Sir John Gaddum contributed to his postulation that serotonin might play a role in mood regulation, an important contribution to the emerging field of psychopharmacology at the time. The pharmacologist and chemist Alexander Shulgin credits his first psychedelic experience with “unquestionably confirming the entire direction” of his life.
Theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli credits his experiences with LSD as being personally and intellectually stimulating, seemingly dissolving the passage of time. This ignited his interest in physics, and the subject of time in particular, propelling him into a career in theoretical physics and his academic study of quantum gravity. LSD was also utilised as a creativity-enhancing tool by the Berkeley-based Fundamental Fysiks Group, who helped revive interest in Bell’s theorem, which was neglected by mainstream physics at the time.
Ecologist Monica Gagliano credits ayahuasca and other altered states with contributing to her research work on plant intelligence. Anthropologist Jeremy Narby accompanied three molecular biologists to the Amazon where they all participated in ayahuasca ceremonies supervised by an Indigenous shaman, with all three scientists reporting that they felt they had obtained visionary insight relating to their work perceived as being useful and relevant, and all felt further work exploring the potential of ayahuasca as an adjunct to research was warranted.
Psychedelics played an important role in the conception of the highly ambitious and influential, if controversial, Biosphere 2 in Arizona, comprising the largest closed ecological system ever created. It was intended to assess the viability of closed ecological systems to support and maintain human life in outer space as a substitute for Earth’s biosphere. John Allen credits psychedelics with helping him concoct the concept of Biosphere 2, while Mark Van Thilo’s experience with psychedelics inspired him to want to bridge ecology and technology, which led to his work on construction quality control, and then the maintenance and operation of all technical equipment of Biosphere 2.
Self-experimentation with psychedelics by researchers likely played an important and largely undocumented role in the first wave of mainstream psychiatric research from the 1950s to the early 1970s, and some modern researchers credit self-experimentation as being helpful for the development of research questions pertaining to the psychological effects of the substances. Other clinicians feel their experiences with psychedelics have enriched their self-awareness and understanding of those afflicted with mental health disorders. A life-changing experience with LSD would shift the career trajectory of psychologist Kenneth Ring, who would go on to become a pioneering researcher of near-death experiences.
LSD has been credited with playing a role in the discovery of the structure of DNA through self-experimentation by Francis Crick. While Crick was acquainted with LSD and appreciated its effects, it isn’t likely that he was acquainted with it prior to his groundbreaking work on DNA. Its role in the latter discovery was neither confirmed nor denied by him, with it taking place in 1953, at a time when LSD was only a decade old, and a rare and little-known substance outside of select psychiatric circles.
Although these anecdotes are not evidence that psychedelics systematically induce a state of heightened creativity conducive to scientific insight, they seem to indicate that, under certain circumstances, they can.
LSD-Inspired Redesign of a Psychiatric Hospital
Japanese Canadian architect Kiyo Izumi, in collaboration with Osmond and Canadian biochemist Abram Hoffer, used LSD to help him design a better psychiatric hospital. He hoped that the LSD would help him better understand and empathise with patients with illnesses such as schizophrenia who experienced reality differently. By placing himself in a more sensitive and vulnerable state under the LSD, his intent was to better understand how a patient’s struggles may be amplified or impacted by different elements of the psychiatric institute setting. He took multiple trips while exploring a psychiatric hospital setting under the influence, supplementing these experiences with interviews with both patients and staff.
Under the LSD, Izumo found the psychiatric hospital setting to be hostile and unwelcoming. There was no privacy, no sense of time due to a lack of clocks and calendars, cavernous utility closets yawned menacingly, beds were too high to place both feet firmly on the ground, and bars on the small windows engendered feelings of restrainment. The setting appeared to be acting to further isolate and negatively impact the patients.
His recommended design improvements included changes to the layout that would facilitate both more privacy and more capacity for social interaction, larger windows to let in more natural light and allow for better views of the surrounding nature, and obliquely angled bay windows in the patient rooms to avoid reflections at night. Controllable lighting and natural wood ceilings were recommended to contribute to a more inviting atmosphere. Non-ambiguous design elements were also emphasised, where it was made clear what the function of each object within a room was, and creating an environment that would engender feelings of safety, while allowing for the preservation of each patient’s own individuality and identity was highlighted as important.
Izumo’s ideas would influence the construction of Yorkton Psychiatric Centre, and a number of psychiatric institutions in Canada and the US. Yorkton Psychiatric Centre would be awarded the 2025 Prix du XXe Siècle by the RAIC (Royal Architectural Institute of Canada) and the National Trust of Canada, which celebrates excellence and quality of design in 20th-century Canadian architecture.
A Psychedelic Window into the Origins of Life?
Psychedelic usage by scientists is very likely underreported, due to valid concerns over potential repercussions to personal and professional lives if illicit usage is revealed. One figure to come out of the psychedelic closet in recent years is multi-disciplinary scientist Bruce Damer. Having his first introduction to psychedelics via the mushroom, gifted to him by his friend Terrence McKenna, Bruce would go on to have an experience with ayahuasca, which would change his life and radically shift the focus of his work.
His first experience with ayahuasca would catapult him on an evolutionary trip, running in reverse through time, to the origin of life. He shifted to himself as an unborn embryo, and then his mother’s egg and father’s sperm, shifting on a reverse course through his ancestry, the primitive primate line, early mammals, proto-mammals, and ground-crawling tetrapods which picked up tails and fins and slid back into the water from whence they came.
The experience shifted, and a volcanic planet with an alien, orange sky came into view, which Bruce took to be the Hadean Earth, 4 billion years ago. His awareness zoomed in on a series of steaming, interconnected pools, some being flushed by the jets of geysers. Engulfed by the waters of a steaming pool, his perspective zoomed into a molecular level. In his words:
I was in a new body composed of an undulating bag of bilayers of lipid membranes surrounding silvery molecular complexes. Zipper-lines of polymers conjoined in continuous movement made up my sinews and tissues. Before I could grok this at all, the sense of something ripping caused my vision to pivot. I came to focus on a fluid-filled sac tearing itself off from my undulating body. The connection to me pinched away and the sac floated into the distance, its interior black and seemingly dead. As the sac departed, my observer was drawn back to track a complex of polymers moving up and down like the keys of a piano played by an unseen hand. Somehow the tearing off of the sac and the player piano polymer were tied together by the scream. It was done, and I felt alive, or rather, my protocell body felt truly alive for the first time.
His experience led him to propose a scientific ‘hot spring’ hypothesis pertaining to the origin of life on this planet, developed in collaboration with his UC Santa Cruz colleague David Deamer, who helped him ground his visionary ideations into testable science in geochemical settings. This was featured on the covers of both Scientific American and Astrobiology. The hypothesis has provided a research frontier which is being actively explored by a dozen university teams worldwide.
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