What did LSD do to BW?

[The Heartical Don]

The majority of drugs work on the so-called reward system of the brain. The VTA (ventral tegmental area) is stimulated, and then this area sends the neurotransmitter dopamine out to the Nucleus Accumbens (NA or NAcc), the amygdala, and the prefrontal cortex. There is a rush, an intense sense of well-being, and perhaps this is the condition where a sensitive artist loses his or her fears temporarily and creates.

Incidentally, sex and good food work on the same principle. Just so that you know.

[SG7]

It became the gateway to other things that almost killed him. Nothing to glorify in that.

[Jonas]

Im curious to the people that claim LSD was infact the path (or the actual reason) that led Brian's decline have actually tried LSD and understand what it does to you...

I mean, I'm not going to 'glorify' drugs or anything, but man...what a trip!

[variable2]

Im curious to the people that claim LSD was infact the path (or the actual reason) that led Brian's decline have actually tried LSD and understand what it does to you...

I mean, I'm not going to 'glorify' drugs or anything, but man...what a trip!

LSD = a glimpse at moksha (for some people) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moksha

I'm sure Brian had trouble dealing with it..

[Mr. Cohen]

so I don't really understand when people say LSD and other drugs made it possible for Brian to compose his best music. Don't you think he was probably more influenced by what his contemporaries were doing and his own musical taste?

There's only one way to understand it: take drugs and play around with a musical instrument. There's just a magic about it that can't really be defined precisely. Mainly, I would say that something like marijuana can allow for greater concentration towards one's playing and makes conceptualizing new musical ideas easier. Brian was growing artistically before he took drugs (by All Summer Long he was really starting to find himself as a producer/songwriter), but by Summer Days/Summer Nights and Pet Sounds he seems almost possessed. He must have spent over 10 hours a day on the piano honing his craft to get that far that fast.

[Ed Roach]

"Incidentally, sex and good food work on the same principle. Just so that you know".

Listen, I hate to say it, but do you have any idea what a good high can do for sex & good food???

Not to make light of the topic, however, & speaking as one who indulged his fair share with all 3 Wilson's...:
Yeah, acid probably did more harm than good in both Brian & Dennis' case.  Brian by his own choice,
Dennis because he was dosed - two times!  And yet I think they both did themselves a lot more harm
with their own 'substances of choice';  in Dennis case, booze & coke, in Brian's, speed & coke & booze...
They both 'numbed the pain' far too much with what worked for them...  Still, though, would either of
their artistry's ever have had the chance to 'come out' without the substances?  Maybe it's just the
passing of time, (and Dennis not being here), but I think not...

[MBE]

I don't know She Knows Me Too Well was before drugs and that is pretty far out. I think drugs sped up things that were already there in a lot of ways. don't think they did heavy damage to him until 72 or 73, because that's when I think he got out of control. Let's go back to 1963 Brian is putting on weight, he is obsessively listening to Spector, he is begging off tours. In 1964 he has major panic attacks and public drunken displays on the 1964 Euro tour. He had mental issues before drugs. Again I think drugs just sped up a thing that was already there. That said I don't think Brian and Dennis would have fell apart in the same way after Murry died had they not been taking drugs. I feel their mental states would have been more grounded.

The 1970 story doesn't speak to his continuous state of mind at the time. There was a relative normalcy about him that Desper, Sandler, and even Reiley describes. Not that he was happy all the time, but the slurred voiced, stare into space, uncommunicative person you see today was not there then. In the late sixties and early 70's he didn't need a caretaker. Again all you need to do is look at photos listen to interviews, and also the music. Compare 1968-71 to Brian any time later and despite some bad paths he was starting on, there was here a lot more of the old Brian about him. Again the mental issues went way back before all this. Remember Gaines revealed he had to take a pill to be calm enough for his drivers test. It went way back

[pixletwin]

Drugs affect different people in different ways. John Lennon took loads of acid and it never really affected him in the long term. Whereas someone like Syd Barrett lost his mind in a short period of time.

Who knows?

I think the correlation between drugs and creativity is overrated.

[MBE]

Drugs affect different people in different ways. John Lennon took loads of acid and it never really affected him in the long term. Whereas someone like Syd Barrett lost his mind in a short period of time.

Who knows?

I think the correlation between drugs and creativity is overrated.

Well I think Lennon changed. Before LSD he would have laughed himself silly at Yoko and the type of antics they pulled in the late sixties. Also he lost a degree of confidence and became more angry. I cannot say this is all down to acid, but I think the Lennon from 40-66 was quite different then the one from 67-80. I also agree that drugs are given too much credit.

[mikeyj]

I think the correlation between drugs and creativity is overrated.

Put me down for that line of thinking as well... I had a friend who thought that cause he would take drugs somehow he would become a really great songwriter. Well you have to actually have talent first!! I mean as MBE rightly points out, Brian was progressing so fast... I mean he had gone from Surfin' to things like The Warmth of the Sun & She Knows Me Too Well in around 3 years... that's a pretty big step and clearly he was heading towards Pet Sounds with or without drugs! It might not have been the same but I'm sure it would've been just as good.

[The Heartical Don]

I think the correlation between drugs and creativity is overrated.

Put me down for that line of thinking as well... I had a friend who thought that cause he would take drugs somehow he would become a really great songwriter. Well you have to actually have talent first!! I mean as MBE rightly points out, Brian was progressing so fast... I mean he had gone from Surfin' to things like The Warmth of the Sun & She Knows Me Too Well in around 3 years... that's a pretty big step and clearly he was heading towards Pet Sounds with or without drugs! It might not have been the same but I'm sure it would've been just as good.

I would agree, but I admire Ed Roach's post a lot too. I would say that indeed the first use of drugs whilst having sex might increase the experience a lot. But, the thing is: this added effect will wean off pretty quickly, and there is a good chance that a person never has the same sexual pleasure again that he or she had before the drugs. It is all a matter of associations of experiences (in the NAcc and VTA I described above).

I used to practice guitar on my own. Oftentimes I drank beer to go with it, and after three or four bottles I thought: Gosh, I have TALENT, don't I sound like JOHN FAHEY himself? I must record it before it's lost forever... and so I did, on a Compact Cassette. Then I went to bed a happy man.

Next day, I would replay the recording with great expectations. And guess what? I thought: this is crap. Not simple, brown, stinking crap, but crap of a higher order.

[pixletwin]

One of Beatles (I can't remember which) that when they recorded high the sessions always came out sounding like crap and they would have to redo all the work sober.

[Bicyclerider]

Drugs (LSD) opened his mind and stimulated his creativity to reach new heights - and turned him towards the new spiritual direction of Smile.  There's a recent (in the past couple of years) quote from Brian to that effect, and quotes from 66 concerning his new spiritual direction.  What damage was done specifically by LSD is open to debate, vs. his underlying mental illness.  I suspect he became more paranoid and delusional after the LSD (Spector mind gangsteres et al) but how much of that was due to amphetamines and marijuana?

[Chris Brown]

I think the correlation between drugs and creativity is overrated.

Put me down for that line of thinking as well... I had a friend who thought that cause he would take drugs somehow he would become a really great songwriter. Well you have to actually have talent first!! I mean as MBE rightly points out, Brian was progressing so fast... I mean he had gone from Surfin' to things like The Warmth of the Sun & She Knows Me Too Well in around 3 years... that's a pretty big step and clearly he was heading towards Pet Sounds with or without drugs! It might not have been the same but I'm sure it would've been just as good.

Of course you need to have talent first, but anyone who has taken drugs will tell you that they do seem to unlock things in your mind that are maybe more far out than you would have come up with otherwise.  Like I've said before, I don't think that Pet Sounds was necessarily drug influenced, but without drugs there would almost certainly be no Good Vibrations or Smile, at least in their present forms.

I wouldn't know from experience, but many songwriters I've talked to have said that even a drug as innocuous as pot makes ideas come faster and (sometimes, at least) better.  Not that being under the influence is good for recording; I'm not trying to suggest that.  But strictly from a creative standpoint, in certain people I think it does open up new creative possibilities.

[Uncomfortable Seat]

LSD doesn't just make one want to do things in a more psychedelic way.  As Ed alluded to, it can show you that your fears and hangups aren't that big a deal, and you can do whatever you'd like to

[LostArt]

This is a difficult question to answer.  No one knows what long term effects Brian’s three LSD trips had on his psyche.  I’ve pasted a few interesting passages from Wikipedia regarding LSD and what effects it may or may not have had on Brian (bolded italics are mine):   

“LSD's psychological effects (colloquially called a "trip") vary greatly from person to person, depending on factors such as previous experiences, state of mind and environment, as well as dose strength. They also vary from one trip to another, and even as time passes during a single trip. An LSD trip can have long-term psycho-emotional effects; some users cite the LSD experience as causing significant changes in their personality and life perspective.”

And this regarding the spiritual effects that some users experience:

“Some psychological effects may include an experience of radiant colors, objects and surfaces appearing to ripple or "breathe," colored patterns behind the eyes, a sense of time distorting (time seems to be stretching, repeating itself, changing speed or stopping), crawling geometric patterns overlaying walls and other objects, morphing objects, a sense that one's thoughts are spiraling into themselves, loss of a sense of identity or the ego (known as "ego death"), and powerful, and sometimes brutal, psycho-physical reactions interpreted by some users as reliving their own birth. Many users experience a dissolution between themselves and the "outside world". This unitive quality may play a role in the spiritual and religious aspects of LSD. The drug sometimes leads to disintegration or restructuring of the user's historical personality and creates a mental state that some users report allows them to have more choice regarding the nature of their own personality.”
“LSD is considered an entheogen because it can catalyze intense spiritual experiences, during which users may feel they have come into contact with a greater spiritual or cosmic order. Some users report insights into the way the mind works, and some experience long-lasting changes in their life perspective. Some users consider LSD a religious sacrament, or a powerful tool for access to the divine. Dr. Stanislav Grof has written that religious and mystical experiences observed during LSD sessions appear to be phenomenologically indistinguishable from similar descriptions in the sacred scriptures of the great religions of the world and the secret mystical texts of ancient civilizations.”

And finally this, regarding the possible long term effects:

There are some cases of LSD inducing a psychosis in people who appeared to be healthy prior to taking LSD. This issue was reviewed extensively in a 1984 publication by Rick Strassman.  In most cases, the psychosis-like reaction is of short duration, but in other cases it may be chronic. It is difficult to determine whether LSD itself induces these reactions or if it triggers latent conditions that would have manifested themselves otherwise. The similarities of time course and outcomes between putatively LSD-precipitated and other psychoses suggests that the two types of syndromes are not different and that LSD may have been a nonspecific trigger. Several studies have tried to estimate the prevalence of LSD-induced prolonged psychosis arriving at numbers of around 4 in 1,000 individuals (0.8 in 1,000 volunteers and 1.8 in 1,000 psychotherapy patients in Cohen 1960; 9 per 1,000 psychotherapy patients in Melleson 1971).

It became the gateway to other things that almost killed him. Nothing to glorify in that.

Yeah, I never did buy that ‘gateway’ argument.  Did Brian get into cocaine, booze, speed, overeating because he took LSD first?  Doubtful.
 

Drugs affect different people in different ways.

This I can buy, although it should read ‘Different drugs affect different people in different ways’.  LSD is not pot is not cocaine is not whiskey is not aspirin.
   

I think the correlation between drugs and creativity is overrated.

One can argue that the late ‘60s was one of the most creative periods in pop music history, and that is, IMHO, at least partly because of the prevalent drug use during the era.  I have a good friend who was a member of a very popular L.A. based band in the late ‘60s-early ‘70s.  I won’t mention his or the band’s name, but everyone here has heard their songs on the radio.  He was rubbing shoulders with everybody who was anybody in the music business at the time.  He says that nearly everybody in the L.A. music scene (rock, bubblegum, jazz, soul, blues) did some kind of drugs during that era.  Was all of that great music made in spite of this fact, or because of it?  There’s a reason why jazz players have been smoking pot since jazz was invented.
 

I wouldn't know from experience, but many songwriters I've talked to have said that even a drug as innocuous as pot makes ideas come faster and (sometimes, at least) better.  Not that being under the influence is good for recording; I'm not trying to suggest that.  But strictly from a creative standpoint, in certain people I think it does open up new creative possibilities.

I had another good friend who was a singer/songwriter/acoustic guitarist.  This guy would drink some during his shows, but he never did any other drugs.  Whenever we did a show together in the ‘80s and ‘90s (I played lead guitar for him fairly regularly), he would make sure that I smoked some pot before every show.  If I didn’t have any, he would find some for me.  Why?  He said that I played much more creatively when I was stoned.

[Thunderfingers75]

I'd be hesitant to say that any drug will make someone more creative. It will however show you another perpective on life and I think people that were already creative can use this perspective to their advantage.

[Ed Roach]

Listen, I hate to say it, but do you have any idea what a good high can do for sex & good food???......

Hmmm....  This is exactly why I always had so much resistance to ever start posting here.
And I didn't even have sense enough to use a nom de blume!  Now I have to see my own name
attached to that statement above.  When I read this, though, I regretted posting a lot less:

I would agree, but I admire Ed Roach's post a lot too. I would say that indeed the first use of drugs whilst having sex might increase the experience a lot. But, the thing is: this added effect will wean off pretty quickly, and there is a good chance that a person never has the same sexual pleasure again that he or she had before the drugs.

I actually wanted to delete that last sentence, 'cause I don't necessarily agree, but it's not right for me to change his slant.  Especially when he makes me less uneasy about my honesty here!  It also leads me to agree with something else that he said, and others had expounded upon similar things:

I used to practice guitar on my own. Oftentimes I drank beer to go with it, and after three or four bottles I thought: Gosh, I have TALENT, don't I sound like JOHN FAHEY himself? I must record it before it's lost forever... and so I did, on a Compact Cassette. Then I went to bed a happy man.

Next day, I would replay the recording with great expectations. And guess what? I thought: this is crap. Not simple, brown, stinking crap, but crap of a higher order.

Drugs affect different people in different ways.

This I can buy, although it should read ‘Different drugs affect different people in different ways’.  LSD is not pot is not cocaine is not whiskey is not aspirin.

I think the correlation between drugs and creativity is overrated.

Was all of that great music made in spite of this fact, or because of it?  There's a reason why jazz players have been smoking pot since jazz was invented.


Well, I screwed up copying some of those quotes, but you can go back and see who said what.  My point here was my experience of that damn beast cocaine on some of not only music's, but some of the literary & films worlds, greatest minds of our times. 
Back in those halcyon days, there was no greater excuse to overindulge than being an "artiste".  Those who possessed enough brains or willpower, or a suitable combination of the two, quickly realized that what came of these times was better left unheard.  Sleep would have been a wiser choice.  And believe me, plenty of examples of these nites & days exist on tape, but in all likelyhood will never be heard; most of it for good reason...
Unfortunately for some of these guys, and  Dennis is included here, there was a world of pain attached to the expanded experience of Self.  Lo-&-behold, they quickly discovered that there were other substances, ones that could mask a helluva' lot of pain...  Dennis at his best, and most definitely Brian at his best, were able to transfer incredibly raw emotions and feelings onto tape - it's why we're still here, after all these years, still looking for nuggets & answers...  And let's thank God that people can finally hear where he was headed with Bambu...  And Brian, facing SmiLe after all of those years???

Look, I'm gonna read this in the morning, (or early afternoon), and probably regret having posted it.  Hell, I started regrettingeting ever entering this thread, or ever find finding my password after all this time.  You guys are for the most part real hardcore - some, to the point of being fanatical...  But man, where would we be without some of your research?  And we definitely extend to the extremes in our lifestyles & viewpoints.  Me, I'm happy to be able to say that both Brian & I are survivors...  And I'm certain I'm a better person for the life that I've lead.  Absolutely no regrets on my part, save for those I wish hadn't checked out too soon...  Yet I also take solace in the fact that I know there are still surprises to come from the canon of Dennis Wilson.  And I still harbor hope that Brian will one day reach for the sky again... 
G-night now...

[The Heartical Don]

Hi Ed -

you may be embarrassed about yourself, but in my eyes you have no reason to be at all. Because man, I adore your writings and sheer candour in this thread. Re-reading your comments made me laugh out loud again about my self-perception as a 'talent' when drunk... 

[LostArt]

Well let me start by saying that I, for one, am glad that you post here, Ed.  It is great to read the stories from a guy who was living in the world of Wilson for all those years, and I really enjoy the occasional photo or two that you post.  I really hope you keep posting. 

I don’t post here often, myself, but I visit quite regularly.  In my post above, it sounds as if I am condoning drug use, and I didn’t mean for it to come off that way.  I sampled my share of substances back in the ‘70s.  I was fortunate to have had a strong enough will to avoid getting hooked on anything stronger than weed.  I have seen cocaine destroy people’s lives, and we have all heard the stories about LSD and heroin casualties.  The musician from L.A. that I mentioned in my post did get caught up in the scene, and blew a hell of a lot of money on the white powder, which was considered to be relatively harmless at the time.  He was also lucky enough to kick it, but he had to leave L.A. for the midwest to get away from it. 

Look, we’ll never know for sure if it was the acid, or the mental issues, or the speed, or just the wrong combination of chemicals hitting Brian’s brain at a given moment that caused him to change so rapidly.  Here is what I believe: I believe that the beautiful music that he created for Dumb Angel/Smile in 1966 and 1967 was inspired by or fueled by his LSD experiences.  I also believe that the drug changed him forever.  It didn’t necessarily ruin him, but it changed him enough that he no longer felt the urge to compete with Spector or The Beatles.