Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond

by Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain

Book Overview

Few events have had a more profound impact on the social and cultural upheavals of the Sixties than the psychedelic revolution spawned by the spread of LSD. This book for the first time tells the full and astounding story--part of it hidden till now in secret Government files--of the role the mind-altering drug played in our recent turbulent history and the continuing influence it has on our time. And what a story it is, beginning with LSD's discovery...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B001ENDNTC
• ISBN13: 9780802130624
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

We Are Experienced

You will count yourself experienced after reading this completely fascinating book. Lee and Shlain deliver the social history of LSD, along with the historical forces that shaped it and were shaped by it, with both investigative integrity and a refreshing amount of hip slang. You can't go wrong with a book that combines chemistry, political analysis, and sociology with witticisms like "listen to a digger rap it down" and "that great Dionysian rap dance." This book has it all: top secret government shenanigans, bizarre medical experiments, spooks and infiltrators, beats and hippies, radicals and revolutionaries, international drug cartels, outlandish conspiracy theories (with clarity and a grain of salt), rock n' roll and pop culture. It's all wrapped up in a stirring social history of the United States during the 1950's through 1970's, as the influence of LSD spread far beyond it's origins among chemists and CIA agents. In addition to Lee and Shlain's completely insightful social history, they also deliver some keen revelations about the US government's shifting attitudes toward drug control, which are rarely based on sound science or medical studies. You'll learn that LSD was once heavily supported by the CIA as a mind control drug, but they disowned it when it hit the black market and inspired a generation of activists and free thinkers. LSD was then outlawed supposedly for public health reasons, but Lee and Shlain give plenty of evidence that these new drug laws were merely a tool of social control to hose down restless young people and nonconformists. The same could probably be said about most other drug laws. This is just one of the many intriguing revelations in this outstanding book. Not unlike its root subject, this book can blow your mind, simply by the power and fascination of the writing and investigation by Lee and Shlain. Highly recommended.

Somebody was THERE

Let me jump on the hype-this-book bandwagon...Amazing! It's been said, "If you can remember the 60's you weren't there." Well, Lee and Shlain in _Acid Dreams_ not only take us back but provide an accurate, entertaining, and well-documented chronicle of government abuse of power and, once more, of the CIA's sinister involvement.In these post-9-11 times when the current administration wants to unleash bureaucratic watchdogs on its citizens in the name of the "war on terror" this history book should alert us to what can happen when government agencies are set upon us unrestrained by checks and balances. This history of "the CIA, LSD and the Sixites rebellion" is nothing less than a kaleidoscopic tour that not only names, but documents the outrageous actions of, the major players of the day from CIA Director Richard Helms to Timothy Leary to the messianic street alchemists who wished to bring instant enlightenment to the masses.Whereas the CIA wished to conduct mind-control experiments on unsuspecting human guinea pigs, the underground rebels simply wished to expand minds. Although many many infamous and not so infamous individuals are interwoven in this highly readable narrative from Dr. Albert Hoffman to Captain Alfred M. Hubbard to Abbie Hoffman to Charles Manson to Ken Kesey and Tim Scully the real characters are the CIA, LSD itself, and the Sixties! What a concept!According to this richly documented and indexed (wow-the other reviewers are right-on;a hell of a reading list in its own right!) book, nothing of significance in the 60's was untouched for better or for worse by acid:The Free Speech Movement, the Vietnam war, campus demonstrations, the Nixon presidency, Ginsberg, Dylan, and the Beatles. For instance, it's ghastly to read that Nixon seriously considered nuking North Vietnam but reconsidered due to the acid(?) energized youth that marched, protested, demonstrated, and risked violent police rioting to stop the war. Did LSD prevent another Hiroshima?It's disgusting to read the elitist condescension by the very influential Clare Booth Luce (yes, of Time-Life) a tripper who believed acid should remain 'in the ruling class' and explained, "we wouldn't want everyone doing too much of a good thing."It is, however, a pleasure and refreshing to read a book that debunks quite a few myths, distortions and outright lies about LSD spread by the government and other unscientific sources.Only one other history book has excited me as much as _Acid Dreams_, William H. McNeill's slender volume _The Shape of European History._Were it up to me I, too, would urge every single high school student to read _Acid Dreams_. It is a cautionary history that deserves to be not just read but preserved and remembered. I am 51, I think I was there, and the memory of some of the events still sends shivers down my spine.Somebody was THERE, Martin A Lee and Bruce Shlain tell all, and _Acid Dreams_ eliminates page by page any excuses for historical amnesia.

Great Flashback.

This one caught me by surprise. It's not the stuffy this-is-all-the-bad-stuff-that-happened textbook I expected, but rather a fascinating and thoroughly enjoyable study of LSD and the CIA's role in the cultural and political maelstrom of the 1960s. Over the past thirty years, from Watergate to Zippergate, Americans have learned that their government is capable of some pretty amazing shenanigans. That helps what we read in this book seem more plausible. What Lee and Shlain document in Acid Dreams, with an impressive volume of research, is the CIA's enormous effort to develop mind-control methods. These included various psychedelic drugs--with LSD topping the list--hypnosis, and more. The potential uses of such control range from military to civilian--and to downright bizarre. For example, they discuss the unresolved question--in some minds--of whether Sirhan Sirhan was actually a CIA-created murdering automaton, a drug-and-hypnosis-induced killer, programmed to kill Robert Kennedy.Some the things they reveal are far-fetched and may be impossible to ever prove one way or another, but there's plenty more that is incontrovertible. And everything in the book is interesting. Acid Dreams adds a fresh and wonderful perspective on this aspect of our recent history. A more recent book called "Hepcats, Narcs, and Pipe Dreams," provides a complimentary education on this topic, covering a broader history of illegal drugs throughout America's past. Readers who enjoy Acid Dreams may want to follow up with this one.--Christopher Bonn Jonnes, author of Wake Up Dead.

An interesting and informative read.

Whether you are an aging tripster, a Wall Street conservative, or a high school student, Acid Dreams will grab your interest from the first page. I found this book a very informative illumination of the 50s CIA research(scandalous and horrifying; this subject in itself could fill many books)the 1960s, and Hippie culture. Very well written, it never gets dry or boring. I couldn't put it down, and reccomend it to anyone looking for a fun, exciting, and enlightening read.

LSD: What a Long Strange Trip.......and it ain't over yet...

This is surprisingly one of the best books I have read. The authors give a colorfully accurate account of the events that occured decades ago, all of which still echo into our current era. It covers the origin of LSD, as a drug the CIA funded research on for use as a tool for mind control applications using civilians and military personnel as test subjects. At the very outset, it was obvious that the CIA was well aware of the potential power of this substance in its ability to wreak havoc on the collective psyche, to shatter current assumptions and threaten cherished ego boundaries. Yet, eventually it became available to the masses who would come to extol it's use religiously and otherwise.....giving rise to the groundswell of counterculture in the 60's. This book, more than any other source I have encountered, explores the underlying causes of the demise of the cultural/political/self re-evolution of that time and gives us pause to reflect on the politics of consciousness - to see who really won The War Of The Mind. Proof again that truth is stranger than fiction. Be informed.........read this book.