Customer Reviews

Trips: How Hallucinagens Work in Your Brain

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Yes, the subtitle of Trips is "How Hallucinogens Work In Your Brian", but it didn't describe the process as much as I hoped it would. The suprising reason for the lack of complete explanation is that there is no complete explanation. We don't know exactly how these controversial chemicals work! The most important aspect of this book is that it explains why hallucinogen research lets us understand the mysteries of the brain. This book is not a guidebook for acid-heads, it is for anyone interested in our brains! It is a quick read, so don't expect a long rigorous exposition. My only complaint is that the Crumb illustrations have nothing to do with the text, and mainly just supply a textual scenery.

A often overlooked point of view that the war on drugs culture tends to ignore or neglect is the fact that "even the best theories are history if enough people produce the right number of contradictory findings". So, in my opinion this book does a great service in informing those whose opinions are not biased towards total allegiance to the status quo.
I have to laugh when i see headlines in the news about how the government is willing to ignore it's own findings on the medicinal uses of marijuana due to the ideological monetary inconvenience that information imposes on the financial structure of certain government agencies...even more so given that the money could be better spent on policing real issues such as terrorism, violence...etc,etc.
The desire to alter conciousness is as old as humans themselves and this book illustrates that clearly and precise. There is even an altered states graphic form for the prospective experimenter to fill out.
Overall the nice comic illustrations provide the needed comic relief to get through some light scientific reading...although very accurate it's too light for any serious scientific or chemistry buffs. But for the average user(reader) it's good to know all that is included before you take any risks.
The section in the back of the book filled with URL's is also a great place to further your understanding of all the issues and information regarding LSD or any other illegal substance. A good fast read and I highly recommend this book.

A simple and comprehensible book about psychedelics; the history, the way they work and how they work. It justly denonciates the lack of understanding and ignorance of federal institutes and the media directed paranoid public.

Looking for a little reality in the nonsense-clogged canon of drug texts? Yes? Then this is the book for you. The author has meticulously separated the wheat from the chaff, dispensing with the usual shock propaganda and instead using real science (imagine that!) to explain, in just the right amount of detail, how hallucinogens work. This is a remarkably honest and even-handed text that assembles the results of the most up-to-date research into a fascinating and relevant subject. Well-illustrated, factual and entertaining, I'd recommend this book to anyone with curious teenagers. In short, "Trips" is a ray of light in an otherwise benighted field of inquiry, and Ms. Pellerin should be applauded for this courageous and intelligent work.

My one-line summary pretty much says it all. LSD shouldn't be lumped with drugs such as cocaine and heroin. Its potential benefits are great. The previous customer reviewer, who said that the book is irresponsible, must not have read the book. They're probably a knee-jerk, "all drugs are bad", type (though they claim to be so familiar with this subject that they can say they've seen this information all before, which strikes me as very odd, given several of the comments). People like this reviewer are the main problem. They live with closed minds. Sharing information about this subject that is accurate can't be anything but responsible.

I really enjoyed this book. Trips is a very interesting source of information about the history, pharmacology & status of research of Hallucinogens in the U.S. TRIPS really debunks some of the long standing myths of hallucinogens and lays down some serious history as well as inteviewing modern pioneers in the field. The rest of the book was well researched and easy to follow. After reading Trips I wonder why there isn't more hallucinogen research being done. Its amazing how little we know about these amazing substances. At least now I know a lot more about what I've been doing all these years! While I found R. Crumb drawings interesting, I felt that they were smattered about in a very random way and often broke up my reading by distracting me while I tried to figure out the relevance of the image to what I was read. There usually was none. Thats about as negative a thing as I can say about the book. On the good side, this book is a great way to find out some good information about a very misunderstood & misrepresnted type of drugs. If you want to know whats you're getting into when you take that dose then check this book out.

Unless you are a neuropharmacologist the chances are very good that nearly everything you think you know about hallucinogenic drugs is wrong. None of the widely disseminated information published by anti-drug campaigns is accurate and nearly everything in the alternative press is at least biased if not illusory. Pellerin saw the famous TV ad, "This is drugs. This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?" She answered in the affirmative, "... a lot of questions." TRIPS is the result of a decade of research, interviews, web searches and insight. It is also wildly funny, opinionated, scientifically stringent, historically illuminating and illustrated by R. Crumb, the cartoonist of record for the 1960s. Do you know that LSD, mescaline and psilocibin do not cause hallucinations? They only mimic them. The difference is that true hallucinations appear real. A schizophrenic does not know he is hallucinating. Virtually without exception the LSD user understands clearly that the experience is drug induced and will pass. (The exceptions appear to be borderline psychotics who may be pushed over the edge by the experience. The few and widely reported suicides evidently occur in already suicidal individuals.) Nor are these drugs addictive, more the opposite since users often experience uncomfortable introspection and/or a sense of having gotten the point and tend to leave the experience behind. None of which information eliminates the fact that street drugs are by definition illegal and quite possibly of dangerous composition. The wide dissemination of LSD and other hallucinogens which blossomed as the Summer of Love in 1967 and either saved, wrecked or had no lasting impact on American culture (take your choice) began in Army and OSS/CIA research. In searching for better interrogation/mind control/chemical weapon-type drugs, U.S. government researchers administered a whole panoply of mind-bending substances to test subjects, themselves and each other. Then the government funded private research labs as well, letting the cat out of the top-secret bag. Because many of the psychotropic drugs have virtually no lasting physical effects they are difficult to evaluate in animal studies. How can you tell if a rat has changed it's attitude about authority or had an out-of-body experience? Therefore psychiatrists and psychologists who wanted to test such substances as possible therapeutic tools often experimented on themselves to get insight into what they were doing to patients. Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (Baba Ram Dass) are only the best known among hundreds of participating researchers and thousands of clinical test subjects. TRIPS fills you in on the strange contortions of regulatory policy as well. For example, in the late 1980s when an estimated 10-20% of American college students were using MDMA, known popularly as Ecstasy, FDA policy classified the drug as too dangerous to test and denied all research permits. (MDMA had been tested on rats with dire results. Today FDA policy has changed and a spokesperson admits that Ecstasy is one of many drugs which rats should avoid. In humans it can cause nerve damage only in very large doses, with undetermined residual effects.) Pellerin's intent is not to promote drug use, but simply to get accurate information to the public. Illegal hallucinogen use has remained at a relatively constant level since the 1960s. It is her belief that former users and potential users need to be fully informed about their choices, the very real dangers, and the best available explanation of what it is that these substances do. Perhaps surprisingly, even after three decades of brain chemistry research there are vast gaps in our understanding of how our heads work. She applauds the more open experimental policy of the last few years and foresees fairly rapid progress in untangling the mystery of thought and consciousness. An illuminating read.

First-rate survey of current scientific thinking on hallucinogenic drugs combined with terrific wit make Ms. Pellerin's book a real treat. I enjoyed every word of this book immensely.

I have not read the book yet but I have known this author for 11 years and know her work...she is truly gifted...a genius in my view...and this book should make a major contribution to an understanding of one of the most complex and controversial subjects in the field of mental health...meds...and the use of them...and abuse of them...