LSD  The Problem-Solving Psychedelic

P.G. Stafford and B.H. Golightly

Chapter III. Creative Problem Solving

It is a highly significant, though generally neglected fact that those creations of the human mind which have borne pre-eminently the stamp of originality and greatness, have not come from within the region of consciousness. They have come from beyond consciousness, knocking at its door for admittance: they have flowed into it, sometimes slowly as if by seepage, but often with a burst of overwhelming power.[1]

Inner Conditions:

External Conditions:

When I took the Rorschach there-was just nothing there. I tried very hard to find something to say, but there was just very little there to be said. Only Card VIII was definitely something. I wanted to say "Squirrels," and I tried a long time but I couldn't get the word out. Finally, I gave up and decided to try "Animals." Before I had worked on that word very long, I figured out vaguely that "Animals" wouldn't do because then the psychologist would ask me what kind, and I would have to say "Squirrels," and I just couldn't. So I said "Bears." They didn't look like bears but it was better to say "Bears" than not say "Squirrels."

One of our engineers, who was a subject, could get 100 per cent under LSD in certain of the tests we used, which he never did without LSD... There was another subject, a young woman, who was a technician working at Columbia, who was determined to get all her mathematics examples correct, and practiced at home. Although she was very disturbed [over other matters]... under 100 mcg. of LSD, she got 100 per cent on her mathematics test.

LSD

LSD low

LSD,

LSD

LSD

LSD

LSD

LSD

Looking at the same problem with (psychedelic) materials, I was able to consider it in a much more basic way, because I could form and keep in mind a much broader picture.

I had great visual (mental) perceptibility; I could imagine what was wanted, needed, or not possible with almost no effort.

Ideas came up with a speed that was breathtaking.

I dismissed the original idea entirely, and started to approach the graphic problem in a radically different way. That was when things began to happen. All kinds of different possibilities came to mind.

Diminished fear of making mistakes or being embarrassed.

I was impressed with the intensity of concentration, the forcefulness and exuberance with which I could proceed toward the problem.

In what seemed like 10 minutes, I had completed the problem, having what I considered (and still consider) a classic solution.

... brought about almost total recall of a course that I had had in thermodynamics; something that I had never given any thought about in years.

Technical Problems: For over five years one man engaged in Naval Research, worked with a team under his direction on the design of an anti-submarine detection device, without success. Hearing about a small research foundation investigating LSD, this man got in touch with its directors and mentioned that he had been told that the drug had been used successfully in problem solving Subsequently he was given the drug under their supervision. He had informed them in advance that he could not divulge the nature of the problem because it was classified information. Nevertheless, the LSD session bore fruit. After a few exercises to allow him to control the fluidity of the LSD statehow to stop it, how to start it, how to turn it aroundhe directed his attention to the problem, and within ten minutes he had the solution he had been searching for during all of those years. Since then, the device has been patented by the U.S. Navy and Naval personnel working in this area have been trained in its use.

Creative Design Problems: A furniture designer who was given the drug by the Institute for Psychedelic Research recounts the following:

I had two specific problems, both in furniture design. The primary problem was to find a method for making an integral drawer pull design which complemented an existing group of furniture that I had designed a few years ago. This group was successful both in design and in sales. I needed a solution that combined the same kind of good looks with economy in production.

Case goods, that is, cabinets and chests of drawers, are basically boxes distinguished primarily by surface and edge treatments. Case goods always seem to look best when the design seems to be a natural outgrowth of the materials used. I try to avoid "applied" design elements. I'd already designed a line or series of case goods that embodied these elements but it seemed to lack a certain spark which both I and the manufacturer felt was needed. I had gone over and over this problem trying new tacks but nothing seemed to come of it. I really didn't expect to be able to do anything new since my feeling was that all possibilities were exhausted. What actually happened was a complete surprise.

I found that as soon as I began to visualize the problem one possibility immediately occurred. A few problems with that concept occurred which seemed to solve themselves rather quickly. This was quickly followed by another idea based on this first thought but with a variation that gave it another look. Visualizing the required cross section was instantaneous.

I then decided to do something that always takes a lot of time. Doing a good dining chair that is both elegant and inexpensive is very difficult. Chairs are always seen as sculpture and seldom in pure profile. Chairs also require a discipline in shape and structure unnecessary in other furniture. Discipline in shape because of the human anatomy, and structure because of the hard usage it gets. I had not been able to do an original design for some time. I very rapidly ascertained what the basic structure should be and the basic details also quickly followed. I did no refining, because this kind of thing is best done in three dimensions though I could visualize the finished product. I decided that I had the chair and then went on to think of a type that I'd never done before. This one too seemed to present no difficulty. Even when I look at this today it all seems so obvious.

I looked at the paper I was to draw on. I was completely blank. I knew that I would work with a property 300' square. I drew the property lines (at a scale of 1" = 40') and I looked at the outlines. I was blank.

Suddenly I saw the finished project. I did some quick calculations ... it would fit on the property and not only that... it would meet the cost and income requirements. It was contemporary architecture with the richness of a cultural heritage... it used history and experience but did not copy it.

I began to draw... my senses could not keep up with my images ... my hand was not fast enough... I was impatient to record the picture (it had not faded one particle). I worked at a pace I would not have thought I was capable of.

I completed four sheets of fairly comprehensive sketches. I was not tired but I was satisfied that I had caught the essence of the image. I stopped working I ate fruit... I drank coffee ... it was a magnificent day.

"Dynamiting" Creative "Log Jams": At the Josiah Macy LSD Conference in 1959, which brought together twenty-six prominent psychiatrists and researchers who had worked with LSD, one of the most exciting matters to arise was the evidence that a number of patients in psychotherapy could begin to paint after having been given the drug. Most of them had not previously done any painting at all, and yet the quality of the work was far above average for the ordinary beginning art student.

One of the most singular cases of artistic achievement was that of a girl who had actually had art training but, in the words of her therapist, Dr. R. A. Sandison, "couldn't paint properly." After LSD her style changed entirely and she found meaning in things that previously had had none to her. She had never been able to express herself through painting, but after the drug, "she began to paint in the style she wanted to, which was imaginative, something like John Piper's work."

There are any number of such cases which have reached the LSD annals, some relating purely to unjamming the block and others to the acceleration of the artistic facility. As an instance of the latter, a teacher at the Massachusetts College of Art comments that, previous to taking LSD, he used to spend a great deal of time in his studio before he felt he was really working, and he had to spend five to eight hours before he felt he accomplished anything. "Now all I have to do is go into my studio and start working and I'm right up there.... It's a matter of having better control over your sensibilities.... Things that you knew before, you now understand." Asked whether he thought that LSD would become a commonly used adjunct to artistic performance among others, he said, "I suspect that anyone who's interested in seeing more, hearing more, thinking more is going to try it."

LSD has also proved to be a superior agent for ending the notorious "writer's block." The following account is from a well-known European writer whose major work, written after LSD therapy, has been translated into twelve languages and has a wide audience among Americans and the English. Prior to taking LSD, he had had a "burning desire" to write but had been unable to finish a manuscript. Initially in his LSD session, he felt he was able to turn away from "the turmoil of the world" and had "time to meander in my mind about things that were more important than the outer world." But before long, he felt he was dying:

I felt I could really die, not just as an illusion, not just in the drama of other people, but my own life would have a very normal end. I know now I never wanted to face this but realize there is such a thing as really living....

With this horror of death realized, I started to experience a most fantastic happiness with the realization that after all I do not have to die now. I felt I was no longer with my neck under the guillotine. This was the very feeling I have been living under all my life.

My mind was suddenly dragged into the situation and I think the cure, from someone who did not write successfully, to someone who does write successfully, came this very moment when I felt that this mind of mine was part of me. It has become harmonized with the rest of my feelings....

I am no longer afraid of putting one letter after the other to say what I want and this is linked with an enormous number of things, such as speechlessness and inarticulateness. The feeling of being dumb, not being able to express myself was probably one of my most unpleasant inner feelings....

I seem capable of expressing what many people would love to express but for which they cannot find the words. I did not find the words before because I tried to avoid saying the essential things.

The thing that was important was something that might be called a cosmological commitment. It was a powerful motive to create meaning and to leave a testament of the meaning which that individual found in the world, and in himself in relation to the world. This motive emerged in many ways, but we came across it over and over again when we compared highly creative individuals with those of equal intellectual ability as measured by the IQ tests but of less actual creative ability. The intense motivation having to do with this making of meaningor finding meaning and communicating it in one form or anotherwas the most important difference between our criterion and control groups...

I think that as a result of the psychedelic experience there's a heightened sense of the drama of life, including its brevity, and a realization both of the importance of one's individual life and of the fact that a sacred task has been given to the individual in the development of the self...

Footnotes