Seventy years ago - on April 16, 1943 - Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann accidentally discovered the hallucinogenic effects of LSD-25. Its psychedelic effects came on during his bike ride home.
Albert Hofmann was 37 years old and a research chemist at the pharmaceutical company Sandoz when he discovered LSD-25. He had been working on the substance since 1938 when he first synthesized the naturally occurring lysergic acid, found in the fungus ergot. His aim had been to research the medicinal properties in plants and develop drugs to help reduce blood pressure in pregnant women. And Hofmann did indeed develop a number of blood pressure medicines in his working life. But on April 16, 1943, he temporarily stepped into another world.
His son, Andreas Hofmann, spoke to DW about his father's story.
DW: How did your father discover LSD?
Andreas Hofmann: He was working on a substance, which had been known for a few years, but which was not showing any useful results. But he was convinced the substance had potential, so he continued his research. And while he was working on this substance, the smallest amount of it must have entered his body somehow through the skin - it's possible that he touched his skin with the end of a pipette - and it gave rise to these symptoms that are now well known. And they first emerged as he rode home on his bicycle. He always took his bicycle to work back then - it was eight kilometers to the office - and on his ride home he started to feel strange…
He started to have a psychedelic experience…
Yes, but it wasn't known as such back then. He simply didn't feel well. He went home and lay down, and that's when he started to have these psychedelic hallucinations. He saw strange images. His sense of sight had changed… his sense of sound, all his senses had been altered, and it started to get quite scary. So, my mother rang the family doctor, but he didn't know what was happening, so all he could was treat my father as best as possible using conventional methods. After a while, the hallucinations stopped. Later, they would come back and then go again, and the intervals between these experiences got greater and greater. And so my father started to wonder whether it could have had something to do with the substance he was working on.

April 19, 1943, Hofmann performed a self-experiment to determine the true effects of LSD, intentionally ingesting 0.25 milligrams (250 micrograms) of the substance, an amount he predicted to be a threshold dose (an actual threshold dose is 20 micrograms).[7]

Slowly I came back from a weird, unfamiliar world to reassuring everyday reality. The horror softened and gave way to a feeling of good fortune and gratitude, the more normal perceptions and thoughts returned, and I became more confident that the danger of insanity was conclusively past.
Now, little by little I could begin to enjoy the unprecedented colors and plays of shapes that persisted behind my closed eyes. 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. It was particularly remarkable how every acoustic perception, such as the sound of a door handle or a passing automobile, became transformed into optical perceptions. Every sound generated a vividly changing image, with its own consistent form and color.

It was set aside for five years, until April 16, 1943, when Hofmann decided to take a second look at it. While re-synthesizing LSD, he accidentally absorbed a small amount of the drug through his fingertips and serendipitously discovered its powerful effects.[5] He described what he felt as being:

... affected by a remarkable restlessness, combined with a slight dizziness. At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination. In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed (I found the daylight to be unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. After some two hours this condition faded away.[6]

rbp: Den beskrivelse er fra den 19. april, dagen hvor han lavede sit første deciderede eksperiment. Den 19. april er derfor også dagen hvor den psykedeliske effekt af LSD blev opdaget med sikkerhed. Ganske vist havde Hofmann jo haft en oplevelse fredagen inden, men der vidste han jo ikke hvorfor han havde haft den.

Det skal sgu fejres.

Gad vide om man hallucinerer anderledes i dag, end for 70 år siden? I dag er vi vel delvist præget af vores forventninger til trippet, men det kan Hofmann ikke have været.