Psychiatrist Lectures on Value of Acid

Freud called dreams "the royal way to the subconscious," but LSD may be a better psychoanalytic tool for unlocking some of the mysteries of human mind, Dr. Stanislov Grof told an audience of 150 at the Medical School last night.

Grof. director of Psychological Resoarch at Spring Grove State Hospital, Maryland, said that "because there is a lack of specific chemical reactions" common to the LSD experience, the hallucinogenic drug can be invaluable for understanding individual personalities.

Deeper and Richer

Grof compared the therapeutic use of LSD to Freud's theory of dreams, saying that the drug provided deeper and richer material for the psychiatrist to work with.

He said that LSD "amplifies and emphasizes certain personality traits, but does not cause them." Because LSD acts as a catalyst, and because some individuals experience varied reactions to the drug, the setting in which the drug is taken becomes important to the individual reaction. Grof said that a laboratory environment tends to produce paranoiac reactions among patients treated with hallucinogenic drugs.

Experiments in 1956

Grof first began experimenting with hallucinogenic drugs in Prague in 1956. He found few substantial differences

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Common ? of the drug? had previonsly ? to conventional ?ere extreme physican discomfort, mcluding severe vom?ing and headaches, intense sexual feelings characterized by a sensation of "cosmic orgasin," mystical religions feelings, and delusions characterized by severe paranoia.