Deadheads are in mourning around the globe.
Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who discovered the hallucinogenic drug LSD, has died aged 102, the organisation that republished his book on the mind-altering substance revealed today.
Hofmann, who advocated the medicinal properties of the drug he termed his "problem child", died from a heart attack at his home in Basel, Switzerland yesterda.
Born January 11, 1906, Hofmann discovered LSD - lysergic acid diethylamide, which later became the favoured drug of the 1960s counter-culture - when a tiny quantity leaked on to his hand during a laboratory experiment in 1943.
He noted a "remarkable restlessness, combined with slight dizziness" that made him stop his work. "At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxication-like condition, characterised by an extremely stimulated imagination," Hofmann said of the experience.
"In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed (I found the daylight too unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colours," Hofmann wrote in his book LSD - My Problem Child.
"After some two hours this condition faded away."
A few days later Hofmann intentionally took a dose of LSD and experienced the world's first "bad trip" - slang for when the user suffers a disturbed reaction.
"On the way home, my condition began to assume threatening forms. Everything in my field of vision wavered and was distorted as if seen in a curved mirror," he said.
Once home, the LSD continued to warp Hofmann's mind: "My surroundings had now transformed themselves in more terrifying ways," he wrote.
"A demon had invaded me, had taken possession of my body, mind, and soul. I jumped up and screamed, trying to free myself from him, but then sank down again and lay helpless on the sofa. The substance, with which I had wanted to experiment, had vanquished me."
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