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Medicine Science

LSD Changes Something About the Way People Perceive Time, Even At Microdoses (vice.com) 157

Posted by BeauHD from the space-time-continuum dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tonic: The perception of time is a fundamental process of the brain, linked tightly to attention, emotions, memory, psychiatric and neurological disorders, and even consciousness -- but while scientists have been anecdotally noting how drugs can change time perception for decades, very few have been able to address the question rigorously with tightly designed studies. Cognitive neuroscientist Devin Terhune says he's been interested in understanding the neurochemical mechanisms involved in the distortions in the perception of time, and these drugs are one way to do that. Psychedelics act on specific pathways and chemicals in the brain, and if they also change the perception of time, we could learn exactly how it happens. At the end of November, Terhune and his co-authors published a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study in Psychopharmacology on the effects of microdoses of LSD on people's perception of time. They found that even at small doses, LSD seems to change the way people interpret time, though the specifics of how and when are still to be determined.

In the new work, 48 healthy people were split up into four groups. One group got a placebo, and the other three received different small doses of LSD: 5, 10, or 20 micrograms. Then, they did what's called a temporal reproduction task. In this task, you see something on a screen for a certain amount of time -- in the study it was a blue circle -- and are asked to remember and recreate how long you saw it. The participants were shown a blue circle for periods of time from 800 milliseconds all the way up to 4,000 milliseconds, in increments of 400 milliseconds. Terhune and his colleagues looked to see how accurate the different groups of people were in reproducing those intervals, and found that the people in the LSD groups tended to hold down the space bar for significantly longer periods of time than the placebo condition. The researchers call this "over-reproduction." "Terhune says that they saw these changes in time perception without any major conscious effects from the drug," the report adds. "They asked people to report if they felt anything from taking the LSD, like perceptual distortions, unusual thoughts, if they felt high, or if it affected their concentration. There were a couple of weak effects, but statistically, the change in time perception happened independent of any subjective influence of the drug."
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LSD Changes Something About the Way People Perceive Time, Even At Microdoses More

LSD Changes Something About the Way People Perceive Time, Even At Microdoses

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  • I wonder how the effects compare to... (Score:3)

    by dpilot ( 134227 ) on Sunday January 27, 2019 @08:11PM (#58031640) Homepage Journal

    I wonder how the effects compare to Heptapod B, for changing time perception.

    • Or for that matter, plain old fashioned autism. I rely on my computer and cell phone to keep me on time. And I note that by age 25, I was able to shift my time perception consciously, well, with a cost. That cost being massive migraines.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dpilot ( 134227 )

      Several comments, much snark, some serious, but none relevant. I figured the nerd reference to "Arrival" / "The Story of Your Life" would be picked up readily. It's considerably less obscure than, "The Philosopher's Stone", by Colin Wilson.

  • Tracers (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    It's because they tested using their eyes as the sensor. It's common knowledge that LSD has a side effect of having longer lasting optical impressions, aka "tracers". That doesnt mean their sense of time was actually affected. They really did "see" it that long.

    • I was thinking something similar. But Tfs stated that they asked if the participants noticed any effects like this.

      Perhaps they should have had a 3 x3 foot panel with a hundred or so LEDs on it and asked the participants to shake their head back and forth to check for trails.

    • TFA: Terhune says that it could be that people saw the blue circle on the screen, they perceived it to last longer than it did, and that’s why they held the space bar down longer. Or was time perception affected at a different point—for instance, when they were holding down the space bar?

      • Also a useful caveat: “These things are a bit difficult to tease apart,” Terhune agrees. “In this study, we certainly were not able to do that, so we definitely want to be kind of cautious.”

      • Or was it the blue circle? How about a yellow square or a picture of an hourglass or the letter "Z".

      • Here's a question: if 1 second seems like 5 seconds, wouldn't you perceive the image to exist for 5 seconds, then perceive yourself to be holding the button for 5 seconds, even though both were only 1 second?

  • Way to tell anyone who has ever done LSD what they already know.

    It's a drug, it fucks with your brain. How profound is it that effects your sense of time perception? Not at all.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      But we needed it to write systemd.

    • Re: LSD effects Time Perception? (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      U missed the whole point. Its not about what LSD does. Its about how humans precieve and process time. LSD is just the tool to study that.

    • Yes of course. We can fire all the scientists everywhere and just have everyone head to Slashdot when they want to know what's what in the world of science. It's cheaper and faster since no one ever bothers to research or experiment or any of that unnecessary science stuff.

    • More interesting is the "microdoses" part.
      LSD has effects in so low doses it is close to homeopathic doses. And we know that since ... ever.

      • LSD was synthesized at Santos in an effort to find a better aspirin / pain reliever in 19838 and sat on a shelf until it's creator Dr. Albert Hoffman, tried it on himself circa 1943 So when you say "since ever?" it seems your perception of time might be off by a factor of infinity. LSD is a helluca drug!

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Way to tell anyone who has ever done LSD what they already know.

      It's a drug, it fucks with your brain. How profound is it that effects your sense of time perception? Not at all.

      It's profound because they did it with objective, repeatable, measurable criteria. It's profound because not only is it an instance of 'rigorous science', it also happens to be 'elegant rigorous science' insofar as the slashdot summary, usually a domain of crap, clearly described how anyone (who happens to possess measurable 5ug doses of LSD) can recreate and verify the results. It's profound because that kind of a scientific foundation can be rationally estimated as leading to further scientific knowledg

    • Way to tell anyone who has ever done LSD what they already know.

      It's a drug, it fucks with your brain. How profound is it that effects your sense of time perception? Not at all.

      They say in their first sentence that the effects on time perception are known. I admit I don't know what the hell they mean by their second sentence but, for me, the point of this work is that the effects are still present when micro-dosing. As far as I know, micro-dosing has not so far been studied in blind controlled studies. This one is double-blind.

      In general there are a lot of shitty studies in this field, but we need the field to grow and produce better papers as it's one of the few avenues for dr

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      Yes, but it does tell us something about microdosing (e.g. it's not just placebo), and exactly where on the dosage curve various effects kick in.

      This not only tells us something about *LSD*, it also tells us stuff about the brain. So once again no, scientists are not actually stupid.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Megol ( 3135005 )

      So it's a drug that fucks with your brain - fine. That's not science, that's bullshit.
      How does the fucking affect your perception of reality, at what level does some sub-fuck effect set in, can we use the fucking to expand our knowledge of how the brain works and perhaps let us make targeted drugs that fuck with what we want while not fucking with the aspects we see as negative? That's science.

      Fuck.

  • lot's of ways to warp time perception (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    It's not just LSD. Music can have this effect too. For that matter, almost anything. . . ever been to a boring presentation that seemed to drag on for days ?

    • I generally agree that other, focused activities can alter the experience of time. I often work in private IT data centers -- most are shitty, windowless rooms with droning fans and air conditioning, no other people and I'm continually surprised when I look at my watch and realize 4 hours has gone by.

      My sense is that time perception is a function of time awareness and environmental focus. The less focused you are, the slower time passes, the more focused you are the faster it passes relative to perception

  • Are you kidding me? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Petersko ( 564140 ) on Sunday January 27, 2019 @08:50PM (#58031766)

    How is this news? In 2000 I took 6 tabs and we somehow stumbled across the South Park movie on TV. It lasted for eight hours and our chests hurt from laughing.

    Acid makes 5 minutes feel like an hour. Did that need studying?

    • Re:Are you kidding me? (Score:5, Informative)

      by sysrammer ( 446839 ) on Sunday January 27, 2019 @08:56PM (#58031788) Homepage

      How is this news? ... Did that need studying?

      It's the difference between an anecdote and a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study in Psychopharmacology.

      Science works.

    • Yes. In part because people like me are subject to randomized drug tests. People like you are more likely to be able to join this sort of experiment. We need to understand how this affects you and me, and if there is a difference. Without me losing my lucrative career. This is a step in that direction.

  • Driving (Score:3)

    by godel_56 ( 1287256 ) on Sunday January 27, 2019 @08:59PM (#58031800)

    Since various Yuppie types have advocated taking microdosed LSD to increase their creativity at work, I wonder what affect this has on their ability to drive?

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by angel'o'sphere ( 80593 )

      It greatly increases the ability to drive on the "wrong side" ... and drive slalom through the traffic ...
      You should try it!

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Having driven in a blizzard on LSD, not once, but twice, I cannot recommend this. It's too hard to figure out where the lane is with all the visual noise it generates.

        Not that it was a good idea anyway, but that's my 0.2 from an experienced tripper who's done all the good ideas, most of the bad, and everything in between.

      • It does no such thing ... but good to see you keep posting ridiculous drivel on subjects you know nothing about. A+ for consistency!

      • Microdosing uses regimes like 5ug every third day.

        To put that in perspective, 100ug is your basic single dose of LSD. It's enough to get a basic recreational user high enough to see movement, bright colors, "funhouse" effects, achieve some self-realization and lowering of the ego, it's not enough to see people look monsters, but enough for faces to be weird.

        It's 1:20th of an "normal" intoxicating dose, and well below the threshold dose of 10-20ug which is needed to even feel the effects.

        At 5ug, personally,

    • Don't drive on the dark side, man, call a cab.

    • LSD is a stimulant and at microcode levels the effect would be comparable to a few cups of coffee. IOW you would be more alert and your driving prowess in times where quick responses were needed, it would provide a measurable benefit, not an impediment as you seem to be assuming.

    • Don't drive while intoxicated.

      The impacts of KORNs is well-known, and so powerful that e.g. salvinorin-A (about 5 minute activity time) can cause changes in thought patterns for days, including what folks describe as "increased insight". I'll pass on LSD, thanks; that just looks like bad juju.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by yarbo ( 626329 )
        LSD is not a KORN, its effects are largely mediated by the serotonin 5HT2A receptor (blocking that receptor with ketanserin stops effects). I'm not sure why 'increased insight' is your example of a negative side effect anyway.

        • That's Mescaline and Psilocybin. I thought LSD is a kappa opioid receptor agonist (KORA not KORN), but a second look turns up a lot of literature comparing Salvinorin-A to LSD in terms of its active dose (200mcg vs LSD at 20mcg). Looks like it may have some impacts at mu, but not kappa.

          LSD makes you hallucinate for like 12-18 hours. No thanks. Besides, I have pretty bad reactions to drugs that increase SER.

  • So does electric shock. It isn't magic. You mess up the brain you get all kinds of weird effects.

  • First Post! (Score:5, Funny)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Sunday January 27, 2019 @09:40PM (#58031896)
    or it could just be the LSD....

  • The researchers call this "over-reproduction." (Score:3)

    by sandbagger ( 654585 ) on Sunday January 27, 2019 @09:49PM (#58031918)

    In laymen's terms, stoned.

  • It's called "the don't give a fuck" effect which is brought on when tripping on LSD.
    Time, what's time man, wow.

  • You'll remember them.... the more time you remember the longer it seems.

  • LDS is even worse (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 27, 2019 @10:18PM (#58032012)

    Two years of my youth simply vanished, compared to my peers. Then three hours every Sunday.

    Don’t get me started on the temple sessions where time moved so slowly that the only way to escape was by dozing.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Don’t get me started on the temple sessions where time moved so slowly that the only way to escape was by dozing.

      There's your problem. Based on the testing, you should have been micro-dozing.

      I'll see myself out.

  • Would be interesting if this is the majority effect from micro dosing. That you're basically taking these sub threshold experiences/ideas, and making them act for longer in our consciousness. Long enough to actually notice them perhaps.

    Or if this is just that our minds take longer to settle into "yep, noticed that" and this test is simply measuring all of that process.

  • Safe, too (Score:2, Offtopic)

    by PopeRatzo ( 965947 )

    I did a lot of acid as a kid, and it didn't have any long term negative effects, despite what the voice that comes out of my bathroom sink says.

    • There was this one time, when I was an undergraduate in a college in a Northern latitude, when I was tripping balls on some blotter with some people in my dorm, and somebody came in and said "The lights are out!" and it meant that the Northern Lights were on display, so we climbed up to the roof of the dorm on a night that it was like 2 degrees Fahrenheit and I grew up in the city and had never seen them before and it was profound as fuck. A little while later, we decided to sled down a bluff on cafeteria

      • In case you aren't familiar with it, here's the King Crimson song I'm talking about, from a brilliant live version they did.

        https://youtu.be/FhKJgqxNDD8 [youtu.be]

        I have it playing in another tab right now and I'm about ready to turn off the lights and lie down on the floor.

    • You have been one long term negative side effect since before you first discovered Slashdot.

  • Post (Score:2)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 )
    Well time is weird stuff. How do you know you're perceiving it "correctly"? You're soaking in it.

  • Thank you, Captain Obvious! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I just want to extend my thanks to Captain Obvious and his study team! Clearly mind bending revelation...not.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • ... your brain is slower when on drugs.

    I don't need a research paper to see that. I just have to watch people trippin'.

  • So. (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    No one has made a comment about Bandersnatch

  • Speeds up your brain's refresh rate (Score:3)

    by mveloso ( 325617 ) on Monday January 28, 2019 @03:34AM (#58032716)

    LDS speeds up the refresh rate of your brain. You might "see" the object every 50ms normally. With LSD you "see" the object every 5ms; you're paying more attention more often, and we measure time by attention. 10x more views = 10x more time, give or take.

    • LDS speeds up the refresh rate of your brain. You might "see" the object every 50ms normally. With LSD you "see" the object every 5ms; you're paying more attention more often, and we measure time by attention....

      Damned LPBs.

  • LSD isn't the only thing that has this property (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Monday January 28, 2019 @05:53AM (#58032952)

    Sit in a bar and you'll see time fly by, sit in a meeting and you can watch seconds turn to hours.

  • Time is the measure of change in our environment.
    Therefore its perception is entirely subject to our sensory input.
    The life cycle of our cells modulates our sensory input.
    Our cells experience their environment individually.
    Therefore our cells each perceive time uniquely.
    Our consciousness is an averaging of all our cells' experience.
    Socially, because we are all composed of similar components we have a similar experience of time.

  • Every page, and every word, in a 226 page novel exists at once on the shelf. If our brains were much larger, we could read not just a letter, or word instantaneously. If our minds were bigger, we could read pages, chapters, the entire novel at one time. Time is something we project in order to be able to digest our existence. So a mind-expanding drug could change this. Kurt Vonnegut explained this in Slaughterhouse Five - and was accused of dropping LSD. I discovered it 20 years before I read Vonnegut .....
  • I think anyone who's ever tried it could have told you immediately that it changes your perception of time. I vividly remember dosing on a Friday and being worried that I would be late for work when I didn't have to work until Monday. I knew how many days it was, and I could calculate the hours with no issue, but perceiving how long it would actually take for me to get to Monday and be sober was impossible.

  • Ken Kesey described his experiences on LSD when he volunteered from the CIA's MKULTRA experiments. He pranked the researchers through the whole thing. Of course, one of the evaluations was to check the subjects' perception of time. Of course his sense of time was wasted (they used pretty high doses), but Kesey noted that the idiot checking wore his wrist watch into the room. So Kesey just checked the second hand on the guy's watch, and was able to tell him how much time had passed to the second.

    Funny how re

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