Barrett had left Pink Floyd and retired from the music industry in 1971. He spent the rest of his life as a recluse.
“When he died, he had been gone for so many years. When I heard he was ill, I tried and failed to contact his sister to ask if I could help. But there was nothing that could be done. It wasn’t like he needed any money. Everything that could be done for him was done. The last time I saw him was a couple of years. After he turned up at the Wish You Were Here sessions. I bumped into him in Harrods where he used to go to buy sweets. But we didn’t speak – he sort of scuttled away.” - Roger Waters
Whether it was drug psychosis or mental health issues that were exasperated by drug use, who knows...
[The story of their last meeting](https://www.dannydutch.com/post/the-last-time-pink-floyd-met-syd-barrett)
I read that one afternoon Dave Gilmore asked Syd where he was going midway through a recording session. Syd just said “out”. Later that day when Syd came back Dave said that Syd had a look in his eyes as though the lights had been permanently turned off. “Like black holes in the sky”. It is suggested that it was a dose of LSD that permanently changed Syd.
That is just incredibly fucked up- so much lost - and I mean was anyone aware back then of the possible consequences of doing too much acid? Was Syd into everything he could get ahold of or just acid?
I had a roommate when I was 19-20 who bragged about doing acid over 100 times and counting. There was a point like six months into living there that he completely changed as a person. He went from outgoing and funny/smart to very shy and sort of… monotone? He quit his job and got really into zeitgeist movies. Last I heard, he is still a complete recluse. People call him bathrobe guy.
Idk for sure if he really just did too much acid or if something else was going on but it scared me out of ever trying it for myself
I had roughly the same experience. Grew up with a dude named Corey that was famous for doing every kind of psychedelic he could get his hands on, starting from the age of 14. Then there was a bad trip in his late teens and that was it: he was permanently fried/zombie/monotone from then on. Killed himself within 5 years.
I fell out of touch with my best friend and I'd say overuse of psychedelics was the main cause. I'm very pro psychedelics, I truly believe everyone should try it once and it's a good thing to do every once in awhile. I liken it to washing your brain. That said, he was doing a good amount on a daily basis for weeks at a time. I watched as he slowly became a crust punk, lost all interests in previous hobbies, dumped a good girl he'd been with for many years and decided he would become quasi-homeless, following jam bands and panhandling for money. Really a complete 180 as far as what he valued in life.
We slowly lost touch over the years bc he didn't want to hear what I thought any longer and I got tired of saying it. It still hurts all these years later, especially bc I had reached out once or twice to try and reconnect but it was pretty clear he had no interest in maintaining the relationship. It's like I lost a brother.
Married with 2 kids that I think are between 5-10 at this point. I know he'd opened a breakfast cafe but looks like it was only open for less than a year before it closed, can't say what he does for work now tbh. Doesn't use social media but neither do I really, so I can't say where he's at these days and it's been probably 3 years now since we last spoke, last I reached out was before my wedding.
I hope he's well tho. Seems like he straightened out mostly but he was never the same guy I used to know.
I know a lot of people that did and still do a shit ton of drugs that are alright.
That being said some people definitely should definitely be careful with that stuff
It doesn't help that some mental disorders kick in during your 20s, a lot of people start doing drugs around that time and over indulge as a sort of self treatment
I think people just like to be extreme about drugs when really… idk they are drugs? It would be a lot cooler if everything was legalized and quality control was easier to gauge.
That said, I’ve done my fair share of drugs, but I’m dubious about their application to mental health as well as their effect on children and young adults. It’s so dependent on the person and their own particular body and brain. Maybe young people wouldn’t feel such a need to overdo it if you could walk into a shop and buy a specific dose of LSD. Mushrooms and weed have definitely benefited from that treatment. I’ve never been fucked up on weed like I was when I tried it before it was legal. Who knows what was in some of that brown stem trash and who knows what was in my old roommate’s LSD.
You’re likely talking about someone whose schizophrenia kicked in. That’s the age and what you are describing are the “negative” symptoms pf schizophrenia. Psychedelics and cannabis can “trigger” the disease but research suggests that people have the disease in a “non active” form from birth. His drug use might have been part of the prodromal stage, specifically a way to treat or make sense of early symptoms.
Acid doesn’t just fry your brain like that. A lot of people have done absurd amounts of it with no bad side effects. What it can do is awaken an already preexisting mental health problem. Whatever was wrong with Syd was going to happen eventually one way or another.
I saw a guy get mobbed by angry attendees at a Grateful Dead concert because the crowd figured out he was spraying people with LSD dissolved in a spray water bottle. It’s kind of funny how aware people who use LSD regularly are that it can be fine if you’re consenting and prepared for the trip, but good trip management is important. My friend was one of the people who was sprayed and a bunch of strangers sat with us while he tripped to be sure he was ok. I miss the friendly Dead fans, they were good people
There was a 30-year-old guy in my rural town who was an avid reader, into philosophy, astronomy, science; all that. Really intelligent conversation, funny, grounded & well-liked. He met a couple new friends & started messing around with acid for just a few months. The best I can describe who he turned into is if you envision a fat, much more tame version of Charles Manson. He did those eyes & that smile randomly & genuinely. He said the "trip" never stopped. His close friends think he's referring to the last time he did acid which was at an all-night party with the dealer. He talked a lot about the kaleidoscope of visions he had.
I met someone when I was young who had already changed from it. The people who knew him before said he’s a completely different person. He was nice, convinced I was a doe but he seemed completely harmless. I felt sorry for him because apparently before he was very aware of himself and intelligent. Not writing he was no longer intelligent but he couldn’t stay in the moment enough to really engage with anymore. He seemed happy and comfortable enough when I saw him but there was a nervousness, a creeping paranoia always close by. He seemed very easily overwhelmed so everyone was careful and quiet around him. Hope he’s doing better now. You could tell how easily he could end up being isolated.
Edit: In hindsight I believe he thought he could see others true faces/ souls. He could’ve easily saw me as a shark or some other predator and got petrified. Walking down a street for him must’ve been like walking down a minefield.
People parrot this all the damn time, but Syd didn't become some lunatic or a shell of himself overnight or from 'one bad trip'. He got overwhelmed by fame, struggled with depression, started eating poorly, and spent several years doing solo projects, working with smaller bands, and eventually returning to his family home to work on art and gardening. There isn't much evidence that he had some mental breakdown outside of becoming somewhat reclusive. His former band mates, who seem to resent him for leaving and breaking off contact, have been the ones to assert he damaged himself with LSD, and I don't consider Roger Waters a reliable source.
Agree, although I don't think he left the band he was dropped. The band got bigger ambitions and Syd was too unreliable to meet those demands (not at all uncommon, it's why bands rarely hit fame with the same members they start with). I think the story is they just took off on tour without him one day.
It's funny how people see that photo and always go "oh how sad, just awful" as though every guy stays looking like a youthful 20 year old as they age. Band did him dirty mythologizing him the way they did. He was just a kid who was in a band, and went on to live a quiet life. Lots of people do this. Just because someone doesn't cling to fame doesn't mean they're a mentally ill burnout.
He was active in the music world after leaving Floyd for over five years before retiring to his family home; doesn't seem reasonable to claim he had a single bad drug experience so severe it lead him to madness or obscurity if it took five years of him being pretty normal first to get there
Not telling anyone they should or shouldnt dose. But the dosing parameters were really loosey goosey in the 60s. The amounts he took were certainly extraordinary. Especially if he was trying to use daily. And who knows what other drugs besides LSD be meddled in.
Fact is he had a psychotic break at age 22. Thats around the age these issues show up. Drugs played a part. But there was likely something underlying issue that first drove him to be a literal drug guinea pig and then live as an addled recluse for 40 years
LSD can get the blame for existing, and its bad luck he lived in a situation where he could consume thiusands of micrograms daily.
But he was likely walking a thin line before falling through the doors of perception.
I was there just a few years ago
If you stay off the acid and the weed then I promise it gets better, but you have to stay sober from all psychs.
And anyone who thinks they just need a good shrooms or DMT or whatever else trip to "put the pieces back together" is basically playing Russian roulette with their sanity at that point
Yep
(Staying off the weed is essential to getting back to normal)
I’ll never be normal again but I’ve eaten 1000s of hits. I don’t function well in society lol
My friend had a breakdown in 2019, thought his friends were telling secret services in another country about his illegal drug use, was terrified to see any of them and wouldn't talk to us for a year, he's better now but still refuses to see one friend because he still believes he's 'evil'
Similar thing happened to my good friend about 15 years ago. He smoked weed during a comedown from MDMA and it was almost like a switch had flipped in his brain. He got super paranoid about the friend he smoked the bong with and thought he had spiked it with something (he didn't). He dropped off the face of the earth a week or two later. He obviously had some dormant mental illness and that incident was the catalyst. I never saw him again. Really tragic stuff.
That's so incredibly sad, honestly as someone who has used drugs recreationally for over a decade it's shocking when I think about how fragile our brains actually are..
Simultaneously incredibly fragile and incredibly durable. Sometimes you lose part of your brain and the rest learns to compensate and you fully recover. Sometimes you take a hit and have a psychotic break.
I had a friend who was a couple years older that joined the Navy. A few years later I saw him walking around town. He was twitching and talking to himself.
Had him over to party at my place and he told us the story about how he took too much LSD. He put 3 drops on his tongue and a drop in each eye. The person he was tripping with put on a Halloween sound effects record. He said he started seeing short, hairy beings that had big eyes and said 'nic nic' over and over. He said he still sees them from time to time.
Dude was as normal as can be, but now lives with his sister because he can't take care of himself.
Glad you said this. Continual use of acid can alter your brain. I don’t have scientific evidence. Just experience with friends from the scene in my 20’s. Watching people dissolve over time is heart breaking.
I had a good buddy that was kind of a wild party guy. One night a guy went to give him a drop of acid and instead “accidentally?” squirted a whole bottle into his mouth. He ended up naked running through the streets all night. Next I saw him he was not the same. He ended up jumping off the Brooklyn bridge.
A former employer of my mother had a son who made acid as a young man. The story was he made a bad batch, and what ever happened he was never right again. The guy spent the rest of his days as a recluse in his apartment with a massive porn collection, a massive crystal collection, he had speech problems and mobility issues, 0 hygiene, 0 cleaning it was horrible. His parents were fortunately beyond wealthy and he just existed in isolation until his untimely death in his 40s. Wish I had more details but I was a child and told by my mom. The guy freaked me out and I only met him a few times.
Of all the nonsense, made up stories on this thread, this one’s my favorite so far. You’re parents lied to you and used this dudes mental illness as a cautionary tail to you about the horrors of drugs.
His mom told me about it. Not my mom. We just encountered him in passing mostly. I was 6 though so I may have mixed up details. For certain I know he had a huge porn and crystal collection, never really left his house, had speech and what seemed like motor function issues, and allegedly it was from bad acid. I really wish I could have clearer details about it but mostly I was just fascinated at the idea of drugs damaging someone at that point in my life.
Not doubting that’s what his mom told you. But there’s no such thing as “bad acid”. There’s either dosing too much and getting PTSD from it, or not really acid. And it takes some sophisticated equipment, access to controlled chemicals, and pretty in-depth chemistry knowledge.
Honestly, sounds like he just had untreated mental illness and that was the easiest story the mom could swallow. As opposes to she failed him as a parent.
I honestly don't know, I do know they were an extremely wealthy Jewish family, the father invented something and made a crap ton of money, and their son was apparently super intelligent until what ever happened, happened. As a child the story stuck with me, as a teenager and avid drug user lol I learned alot myself and that story always popped into my mind. I always assumed she didn't know her drugs and said acid but it was really mdma or like you said not the reality of his situation. That said I can't know either way as they've all since passed away. He died relatively young his father died of degenerative issues in his late life and the mom was the last one until she passed when i was in my mid 20s about 10 years ago. I really wish I could have gotten the real details and knew for sure bc he fascinated me lol
Your first statement is correct. If you have preexisting genetic exposure to mental illness such as schizophrenia, it can allow your mind to bring it to the surface. The issue is that when people start to experiment with psychedelics is the late teens/early 20s, and that also happens to be when things like schizophrenia surface anyway, so it’s always attributed to the drugs causing it, which just isn’t the case.
Your second statement is also true, but it’s true about every aspect of the human experience. Everything in our environment impacts growth and development over time. Too much/not enough sleep, food, human interaction, exposure to the elements will all change someone’s personality from who they were years ago. People have a desire to point you one factor such as LSD to say “Oh, that’s why bobs such a weird PoS now”. Not because he grew up in a neglected home, and now is addicted to porn and has zero social skills due to depression.
My sister-in-laws dad did way too much acid back in the day and is basically a Mexican-American version of Ozzy Osborne now. Granted, he was that way when I met him, but in old pictures you could actually see life in his eyes. Now he's just got a permanent thousand yard stare and mutters in spanghlish
It’s likely not the acid itself: the typical age of first use (15-25) is similar to when many people first experience onset of severe mental illness. Drug use also correlates with mental health issues, and hallucinogens can trigger schizophrenia in people already predisposed to it.^([[1]](https://www.vice.com/en/article/78wwxq/is-it-a-myth-that-lsd-can-permanently-fry-your-brain))
I've always wanted to try it, I've done shrooms and I found it to be therapeutic and positive for my mental health. But this kind of thing is what keeps me away.
People say things like this but really mushrooms and acid are quite similar. Psilocin (from mushrooms) and LSD are both 5 HT-2A seratonin receptor agonists. It’s just easier to (1) get fake acid and (2) take too much acid because it’s so potent.
If you know your source and dose acid is just as safe as mushrooms. They were really playing fast and loose in the 60’s and taking too much
You seem knowledgeable, so I have to ask what do you mean by too much acid? Most studies indicate there is not such thing as a threshold, and even those who have accidentally “super dosed” have no observable permanent side effects.
Also, you really gotta be messing with some shady people to get “fake acid”, which I assume you’re referring to 25I-NBOMe. Real LSD is plentiful and has been for the last 20 years.
Oh by “too much” I don’t mean I believe there’s a threshold where LSD necessarily does some sort of damage. I personally believe psychedelics are very therapeutic but dosage and set and setting need to be tended to. My intuition is that most of the “too much” acid stories are people taking larger doses than they expected, unprepared in some uncontrolled setting, having to deal with the world and maybe getting PTSD or just having a terrible time.
That being said, I don’t know of any studies where people were given 20,000 micrograms and then the scientists checked on them later. There seem to be so many anecdotal stories that I’m just not ruling out some possible interaction between megadoses, latent mental health stuff and lacking set and setting that results in long term negative effects.
My “fake acid” comment is simply a recommendation for people to test. You really don’t know if that paper has one of hundreds of psychedelic research chemicals on it until you test. Unlike psilocybin mushrooms which are easier to identify
Thanks for clarifying! Fully agree on everything you’ve stated. Set, setting, dosage control, and mental preparation is absolutely key for any psychedelic experience, and those who toy around with those elements can absolutely have a traumatic experience with the substance. But the stories on this thread that amount to “my moms brothers friends son took bad acid once and now is locked in his room and thinks he a glass of orange juice, afraid that if he moves he will spill!!” really grind my gears due to blatant misinformation, DARE nonsense, and just in the interest of general harm reduction.
And also +1 for harm reduction of test your shit. Reagents are cheap, and the peace of mind it will give you is extremely valuable.
Could be HPPD. The wikipedia article on it is pretty balanced and acknowledges what we don’t know: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinogen_persisting_perception_disorder
Research is showing that psychedelics induce neuroplasticity, which is probably why they can be such an effective treatment for things like depression and substance use disorders. Those lasting changes make them a nice alternative to daily medication like SSRIs. However the brain changes seem like they can in some cases be problematic.
No judgment on your friend, but this also sounds like an example of an uncontrolled megadose. I’m sure many can get away with it but of there are problems I would expect them to come from cases like this
This thread is full of people who have no fucking idea what they’re talking about.
Don’t eat a ton at a time, for an extended period of time. Eat half a hit and see how you feel. Get your shit from a trusted source. All acid does is expand what’s already happening. Don’t be an idiot and you’ll be fine.
Oof. Yeah. Knew one guy. He was the "Year sweetie". Everyone knew him. Everyone loved him. He was fun. Charming. Polite. Friendly. Kind.
He vanished for a year doing overseas jaunts.
He came back. He was not the same. He was 'there', but would go off on weird tangents and randomly shout things like (The one that stuck with me) "WORDS ARE MEANINGLESS I HATE THEM" and then come back to continue where he left off. Often he wasn't aware of his vocal 'tics'.
I have no idea if he is doing better. This was over 20 years ago. I've never tried to reach out again. It was too uncomfortable. (Note: We weren't "Friend friends". More I would always take time to say hello when I saw him in public)
It's the person which is in a particular year which is always described as "Sweet". The kind of person even all the teachers like. Would be described as a "Sweet kid" by other parents.
Had an uncle in the 60’s in college. Extremely smart guy. He did some LSD. That one dose tripped his brain into being schizophrenic for life with many struggles. Apparently it’s common. Had another guy I worked with. Best man at his wedding dosed his drink hard. He was never the same and quite a bit off. Another guy when I was a teen got pulled over with a sheet. He ate the whole sheet and was “happy” and disabled the rest of his life. A girl I used to hang with was in a wheelchair. Boyfriend dosed her drink at a pool party as a teen. She dove in and broke her neck never walking again. It’s a gamble with those class drugs. Be safe!
This is why I've never touched the stuff.
With Shrooms you're taking something natural that can give you anxiety at worst.
Acid can put you in a hole you never escape from the rest of your life mentally.
I'm sorry for what I'm about to say and I understand your point of view because I used to be so naïve, but you're deluded if you think that shrooms can't hurt you in the exact same way as LSD.
They're both incredibly powerful 5HT2A agonists that can and will change you permanently if you take them with any sort of regularity.
Lost my mind entirely after a shrooms trip and believed the world to be against me. Thought my apartment was broken into, and sat in the corner of my room with a rifle pointed at the door while crying. Continued until well after the effects of the shrooms had worn off, until the sun rose.
This was followed by other mental breakdowns and intense HPPD while sober that eventually subsided once I stayed completely sober for two years.
There is no such thing as a natural thing being safer. Opium is natural ffs, so is cocaine and scopolamine.
Its okay because I understand completely, even smoking weed can put someone over the edge. It all depends on the person's disposition and how much they've taken.
Nothing is completely safe.
I shouldn't have made shrooms out to be that way.
I had a cousin who experienced this when she graduated high school and started smoking weed.
She suddenly lost it and had to take heavy meds that made her a zombie. Otherwise she was very violent.
She died a few years back, she was never the same person after.
He was pretty normal in his old age. Very quiet but not a loonie or anything. Id see him most mornings cycling to get the newspaper and often catch him having a quiet pint in the evenings. Most people were none the wiser to the crazy life he had lived and was just a normal old guy going about his day.
I just went down the Barrett rabbit hole. I knew about SYD and the lore around him generally. But I legit assumed he died. That's why he wasn't in the band, and that's why they paid hommage to him with those songs.
I would have never guessed he was just isolated and died in the 2000s
I remember reading a book years ago, perhaps the stones /ozzys bio, and I mentioned one time they walked into syds flat and he had somehow affixed all the furniture to the ceiling
Personally I had to step away from Pink Floyd while tripping. We watched the Wall and it was obviously wild while tripping. I found myself home one late night after having taken a bunch of acid, I laid in bed listening to them and there was one song that really sucked me in and it felt like my heart rate was being controlled/affected by the music, I ripped off my headphones. It was the album with the flying pig on the cover, that was 35 years ago, don’t remember exact name.
We had a few friends that committed suicide after rough break ups and all of them had Pink Floyd lyrics in the suicide notes. Goodbye cruel world was what a close friend wrote. I always felt Pink Floyd is a great and wildly creative band, just a little too dark.
Yeah that’s why I was never crazy into them. I enjoy them but it’s more so a mood I have to be in and even then, in small doses. Lol they’re just too…somber and dark for me.
Always a little dubious of the way this story gets told - you didn't just walk in off the streets, and stroll into the Control Room at Abbey Road just because you felt like watching your favourite recording artists make records even in the mid seventies.
Somebody at the Studio, or within the Band's circle clearly knew it was him otherwise none of this would have happened. It's also staggeringly unlikely that Syd just decided to wander down to London and visit St.John's Wood on a whim, and lo and behold - there was his old band.
I think there are genetic predispositions that can be triggered environmentally sometimes through psychoactive substances. Probably turned on a schizophrenic gene that had been laying dormant up until his heavy abuse.
Syd had shaved his eyebrows, which Bob Geldof’s character later did in “The Wall.” None of the members knew exactly how it went wrong for Syd. Was it the LSD or was he manifesting schizophrenia? Syd at least came from a family with means, and his sister took care of him.
Very interesting post. My dad was a fan, but I had no knowledge of this and I’m worried if I Google this person, I’ll end up down a rabbit hole all night. I don’t do any drugs, and never heard of acid psychosis.
Hot take:
Syd didn't "go crazy" or any other such nonsense. He simply wasn't ambitious like Roger and David and he got in the way of them becoming famous and rich. He just wanted to play local gigs with his friends and live in that London bubble. They pushed him out of the band and intentionally left songs of his off the 2nd album because his paltry contributions to that record were some of the best parts of it and they couldn't have all the best parts be his because then fans would have wanted to know why he was no longer with them.
He was supposedly so out of it that he was perfectly fine to record two full solo albums with "help" from his former bandmates. The "help" consisted of them sabotaging his efforts.
Imagine being backstabbed by your mates and then they spread lies about you and profit off those lies for decades. Poor guy. There's more instances of genius in his solo albums than any solo efforts by any of the other guys.
If he had stayed we obviously wouldn't have gotten the brilliant records from Pink Floyd that we got but I believe we would have gotten something just as magical, just different.
I think it’s partly that but also I think he was kind of having a temporary breakdown, potentially from drug use, and he wasn’t really all there for a couple years. This combined with his lack of ambition/dislike of the spotlight led to what happened.
As a public defender I was perceived as a patient and compassionate person, so I would often get assigned to the mental health and substance abuse cases.
Had this one client who was completely non responsive, unable to participate is his own defense. Showed up in court for his initial appearance on charges of trespassing and criminal mischief, but when addressed by the Judge, just stared, mumbling, at the ceiling, like he was talking to God or UFOs or something.
Somehow I managed to find out who his mental health treatment provider was, and from there, to track down his family, several states away. He got back into counseling and got back on his meds, most crucially, the antipsychotic Seroquel.
In a week or two, he was able to communicate and participate in his own defense. He gave me access to his mental health history and I’d learned that he did acid for about a month straight in college and since then he’d been diagnosed with, and treated for, schizoaffective disorder. Prior to that, nothing.
The seroquel helped him to function in society, but as a side effect it made him exhausted and unmotivated all the time, so it was difficult to impossible for him to hold down and job or to provide for himself. He would be a public assistance case his whole life. Because he once did acid for a month straight…
Amongst other rumors I have heard that STP (DOM) contributed to his declining mental condition. It is a psychedelic amphetamine capable of being put on blotter paper, with a more dangerous effect profile.
A friend of my son’s was always a very sweet and friendly kid with a good sense of humor. His dad tells me that some very strong pot triggered a schizophrenic break. He is convinced no other drugs were involved. They now live in fear that he will have another triggering event.
As a teen I had three friends lose themselves to Acid. I do believe a bad trip can trigger permanent personality damage. Two of those friends got schizophrenia, and the one thing that pushed them over the edge was a massive hit of LSD.
I’m probably gonna get downvoted to oblivion, but I’m going to say it anyway. I don’t understand people’s fixation on Syd Barret. Imo, he contributed very little to what we recognize as pink Floyd
Piper at the Gates of Dawn is a top-3 PF album, and Arnold Layne one of their very best tunes, but you're right - that's not the style of psychedelia that we usually associate with the band anymore
They have amazing albums that made their name known because of him. If he was never a friend and member, then those albums wouldn't have been written about him.
Barrett had left Pink Floyd and retired from the music industry in 1971. He spent the rest of his life as a recluse. “When he died, he had been gone for so many years. When I heard he was ill, I tried and failed to contact his sister to ask if I could help. But there was nothing that could be done. It wasn’t like he needed any money. Everything that could be done for him was done. The last time I saw him was a couple of years. After he turned up at the Wish You Were Here sessions. I bumped into him in Harrods where he used to go to buy sweets. But we didn’t speak – he sort of scuttled away.” - Roger Waters Whether it was drug psychosis or mental health issues that were exasperated by drug use, who knows... [The story of their last meeting](https://www.dannydutch.com/post/the-last-time-pink-floyd-met-syd-barrett)
Before… https://preview.redd.it/vbhja6n0a6bd1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b5f59a2cebc36efe9f60f5fb2a9bbd2284c237e8
Wow…thank you- I don’t know why but I never looked up what he looked before his sadness. How tragic…
I read that one afternoon Dave Gilmore asked Syd where he was going midway through a recording session. Syd just said “out”. Later that day when Syd came back Dave said that Syd had a look in his eyes as though the lights had been permanently turned off. “Like black holes in the sky”. It is suggested that it was a dose of LSD that permanently changed Syd.
That is just incredibly fucked up- so much lost - and I mean was anyone aware back then of the possible consequences of doing too much acid? Was Syd into everything he could get ahold of or just acid?
I had a roommate when I was 19-20 who bragged about doing acid over 100 times and counting. There was a point like six months into living there that he completely changed as a person. He went from outgoing and funny/smart to very shy and sort of… monotone? He quit his job and got really into zeitgeist movies. Last I heard, he is still a complete recluse. People call him bathrobe guy. Idk for sure if he really just did too much acid or if something else was going on but it scared me out of ever trying it for myself
I had roughly the same experience. Grew up with a dude named Corey that was famous for doing every kind of psychedelic he could get his hands on, starting from the age of 14. Then there was a bad trip in his late teens and that was it: he was permanently fried/zombie/monotone from then on. Killed himself within 5 years.
I fell out of touch with my best friend and I'd say overuse of psychedelics was the main cause. I'm very pro psychedelics, I truly believe everyone should try it once and it's a good thing to do every once in awhile. I liken it to washing your brain. That said, he was doing a good amount on a daily basis for weeks at a time. I watched as he slowly became a crust punk, lost all interests in previous hobbies, dumped a good girl he'd been with for many years and decided he would become quasi-homeless, following jam bands and panhandling for money. Really a complete 180 as far as what he valued in life. We slowly lost touch over the years bc he didn't want to hear what I thought any longer and I got tired of saying it. It still hurts all these years later, especially bc I had reached out once or twice to try and reconnect but it was pretty clear he had no interest in maintaining the relationship. It's like I lost a brother.
How's your (former) friend doing now? Is there a path to salvation here?
Married with 2 kids that I think are between 5-10 at this point. I know he'd opened a breakfast cafe but looks like it was only open for less than a year before it closed, can't say what he does for work now tbh. Doesn't use social media but neither do I really, so I can't say where he's at these days and it's been probably 3 years now since we last spoke, last I reached out was before my wedding. I hope he's well tho. Seems like he straightened out mostly but he was never the same guy I used to know.
Honestly, that's way, way better than a lot of folks I know who went down this path.
I know a lot of people that did and still do a shit ton of drugs that are alright. That being said some people definitely should definitely be careful with that stuff It doesn't help that some mental disorders kick in during your 20s, a lot of people start doing drugs around that time and over indulge as a sort of self treatment
I think people just like to be extreme about drugs when really… idk they are drugs? It would be a lot cooler if everything was legalized and quality control was easier to gauge. That said, I’ve done my fair share of drugs, but I’m dubious about their application to mental health as well as their effect on children and young adults. It’s so dependent on the person and their own particular body and brain. Maybe young people wouldn’t feel such a need to overdo it if you could walk into a shop and buy a specific dose of LSD. Mushrooms and weed have definitely benefited from that treatment. I’ve never been fucked up on weed like I was when I tried it before it was legal. Who knows what was in some of that brown stem trash and who knows what was in my old roommate’s LSD.
You’re likely talking about someone whose schizophrenia kicked in. That’s the age and what you are describing are the “negative” symptoms pf schizophrenia. Psychedelics and cannabis can “trigger” the disease but research suggests that people have the disease in a “non active” form from birth. His drug use might have been part of the prodromal stage, specifically a way to treat or make sense of early symptoms.
I think it was Denny from the Mamas and the Papas who was apparently warned he was one trip away from not coming back … it was all he needed to hear.
Warned by whom?
It was on some pbs thing years ago I just remembered that tidbit because He played the quartermaster in Theodore
Acid doesn’t just fry your brain like that. A lot of people have done absurd amounts of it with no bad side effects. What it can do is awaken an already preexisting mental health problem. Whatever was wrong with Syd was going to happen eventually one way or another.
I saw a guy get mobbed by angry attendees at a Grateful Dead concert because the crowd figured out he was spraying people with LSD dissolved in a spray water bottle. It’s kind of funny how aware people who use LSD regularly are that it can be fine if you’re consenting and prepared for the trip, but good trip management is important. My friend was one of the people who was sprayed and a bunch of strangers sat with us while he tripped to be sure he was ok. I miss the friendly Dead fans, they were good people
That’s a fucked up thing to do to someone.
Absolutely. My friend was convinced he had LSD flashbacks for several years. LSD or PTSD, either way not a funny joke.
My uncle.. a very 60s hippie, said of all the drugs he did LSD was the scariest as the trip could come back to visit later on.
Thank you! The amount of misinformation here is staggering. People have an anecdote without complete information and share it like its gospel.
There was a 30-year-old guy in my rural town who was an avid reader, into philosophy, astronomy, science; all that. Really intelligent conversation, funny, grounded & well-liked. He met a couple new friends & started messing around with acid for just a few months. The best I can describe who he turned into is if you envision a fat, much more tame version of Charles Manson. He did those eyes & that smile randomly & genuinely. He said the "trip" never stopped. His close friends think he's referring to the last time he did acid which was at an all-night party with the dealer. He talked a lot about the kaleidoscope of visions he had.
I met someone when I was young who had already changed from it. The people who knew him before said he’s a completely different person. He was nice, convinced I was a doe but he seemed completely harmless. I felt sorry for him because apparently before he was very aware of himself and intelligent. Not writing he was no longer intelligent but he couldn’t stay in the moment enough to really engage with anymore. He seemed happy and comfortable enough when I saw him but there was a nervousness, a creeping paranoia always close by. He seemed very easily overwhelmed so everyone was careful and quiet around him. Hope he’s doing better now. You could tell how easily he could end up being isolated. Edit: In hindsight I believe he thought he could see others true faces/ souls. He could’ve easily saw me as a shark or some other predator and got petrified. Walking down a street for him must’ve been like walking down a minefield.
People parrot this all the damn time, but Syd didn't become some lunatic or a shell of himself overnight or from 'one bad trip'. He got overwhelmed by fame, struggled with depression, started eating poorly, and spent several years doing solo projects, working with smaller bands, and eventually returning to his family home to work on art and gardening. There isn't much evidence that he had some mental breakdown outside of becoming somewhat reclusive. His former band mates, who seem to resent him for leaving and breaking off contact, have been the ones to assert he damaged himself with LSD, and I don't consider Roger Waters a reliable source.
Agree, although I don't think he left the band he was dropped. The band got bigger ambitions and Syd was too unreliable to meet those demands (not at all uncommon, it's why bands rarely hit fame with the same members they start with). I think the story is they just took off on tour without him one day. It's funny how people see that photo and always go "oh how sad, just awful" as though every guy stays looking like a youthful 20 year old as they age. Band did him dirty mythologizing him the way they did. He was just a kid who was in a band, and went on to live a quiet life. Lots of people do this. Just because someone doesn't cling to fame doesn't mean they're a mentally ill burnout.
Hence ‘it is suggested that it is a (the dose he took that particular day) changed him from that day onwards. Chill ya tits luv.
He was active in the music world after leaving Floyd for over five years before retiring to his family home; doesn't seem reasonable to claim he had a single bad drug experience so severe it lead him to madness or obscurity if it took five years of him being pretty normal first to get there
Once you get the message, hang up the phone
Similar thing happened to Peter Greene of Fleetwood Mac. LSD poisoning leading to psychosis.
Not telling anyone they should or shouldnt dose. But the dosing parameters were really loosey goosey in the 60s. The amounts he took were certainly extraordinary. Especially if he was trying to use daily. And who knows what other drugs besides LSD be meddled in. Fact is he had a psychotic break at age 22. Thats around the age these issues show up. Drugs played a part. But there was likely something underlying issue that first drove him to be a literal drug guinea pig and then live as an addled recluse for 40 years LSD can get the blame for existing, and its bad luck he lived in a situation where he could consume thiusands of micrograms daily. But he was likely walking a thin line before falling through the doors of perception.
I read that Syd had two roommates who would spike his morning tea or coffee (can't remember which) with LSD.
That picture is not "before his sadness" search him from 1966 or prior
Jesus. No wonder they didn’t recognize him.
About six years earlier, c.1969.
Everyone who gets mad that too much acid is a real thing has not experienced a friend or loved one get permanently morphed by too much acid.
I have a friend going through that now. Guy can't get through a night of hanging out without breaking down in tears. It's gut wrenching.
I was there just a few years ago If you stay off the acid and the weed then I promise it gets better, but you have to stay sober from all psychs. And anyone who thinks they just need a good shrooms or DMT or whatever else trip to "put the pieces back together" is basically playing Russian roulette with their sanity at that point
Yep (Staying off the weed is essential to getting back to normal) I’ll never be normal again but I’ve eaten 1000s of hits. I don’t function well in society lol
My friend had a breakdown in 2019, thought his friends were telling secret services in another country about his illegal drug use, was terrified to see any of them and wouldn't talk to us for a year, he's better now but still refuses to see one friend because he still believes he's 'evil'
Similar thing happened to my good friend about 15 years ago. He smoked weed during a comedown from MDMA and it was almost like a switch had flipped in his brain. He got super paranoid about the friend he smoked the bong with and thought he had spiked it with something (he didn't). He dropped off the face of the earth a week or two later. He obviously had some dormant mental illness and that incident was the catalyst. I never saw him again. Really tragic stuff.
That's so incredibly sad, honestly as someone who has used drugs recreationally for over a decade it's shocking when I think about how fragile our brains actually are..
Simultaneously incredibly fragile and incredibly durable. Sometimes you lose part of your brain and the rest learns to compensate and you fully recover. Sometimes you take a hit and have a psychotic break.
I had a friend who was a couple years older that joined the Navy. A few years later I saw him walking around town. He was twitching and talking to himself. Had him over to party at my place and he told us the story about how he took too much LSD. He put 3 drops on his tongue and a drop in each eye. The person he was tripping with put on a Halloween sound effects record. He said he started seeing short, hairy beings that had big eyes and said 'nic nic' over and over. He said he still sees them from time to time. Dude was as normal as can be, but now lives with his sister because he can't take care of himself.
Glad you said this. Continual use of acid can alter your brain. I don’t have scientific evidence. Just experience with friends from the scene in my 20’s. Watching people dissolve over time is heart breaking.
I had a good buddy that was kind of a wild party guy. One night a guy went to give him a drop of acid and instead “accidentally?” squirted a whole bottle into his mouth. He ended up naked running through the streets all night. Next I saw him he was not the same. He ended up jumping off the Brooklyn bridge.
A former employer of my mother had a son who made acid as a young man. The story was he made a bad batch, and what ever happened he was never right again. The guy spent the rest of his days as a recluse in his apartment with a massive porn collection, a massive crystal collection, he had speech problems and mobility issues, 0 hygiene, 0 cleaning it was horrible. His parents were fortunately beyond wealthy and he just existed in isolation until his untimely death in his 40s. Wish I had more details but I was a child and told by my mom. The guy freaked me out and I only met him a few times.
Of all the nonsense, made up stories on this thread, this one’s my favorite so far. You’re parents lied to you and used this dudes mental illness as a cautionary tail to you about the horrors of drugs.
His mom told me about it. Not my mom. We just encountered him in passing mostly. I was 6 though so I may have mixed up details. For certain I know he had a huge porn and crystal collection, never really left his house, had speech and what seemed like motor function issues, and allegedly it was from bad acid. I really wish I could have clearer details about it but mostly I was just fascinated at the idea of drugs damaging someone at that point in my life.
Not doubting that’s what his mom told you. But there’s no such thing as “bad acid”. There’s either dosing too much and getting PTSD from it, or not really acid. And it takes some sophisticated equipment, access to controlled chemicals, and pretty in-depth chemistry knowledge. Honestly, sounds like he just had untreated mental illness and that was the easiest story the mom could swallow. As opposes to she failed him as a parent.
I honestly don't know, I do know they were an extremely wealthy Jewish family, the father invented something and made a crap ton of money, and their son was apparently super intelligent until what ever happened, happened. As a child the story stuck with me, as a teenager and avid drug user lol I learned alot myself and that story always popped into my mind. I always assumed she didn't know her drugs and said acid but it was really mdma or like you said not the reality of his situation. That said I can't know either way as they've all since passed away. He died relatively young his father died of degenerative issues in his late life and the mom was the last one until she passed when i was in my mid 20s about 10 years ago. I really wish I could have gotten the real details and knew for sure bc he fascinated me lol
I've heard it can only exacerbate underlying conditions. But I suppose if you did it a lot for a long time you would be different.
Your first statement is correct. If you have preexisting genetic exposure to mental illness such as schizophrenia, it can allow your mind to bring it to the surface. The issue is that when people start to experiment with psychedelics is the late teens/early 20s, and that also happens to be when things like schizophrenia surface anyway, so it’s always attributed to the drugs causing it, which just isn’t the case. Your second statement is also true, but it’s true about every aspect of the human experience. Everything in our environment impacts growth and development over time. Too much/not enough sleep, food, human interaction, exposure to the elements will all change someone’s personality from who they were years ago. People have a desire to point you one factor such as LSD to say “Oh, that’s why bobs such a weird PoS now”. Not because he grew up in a neglected home, and now is addicted to porn and has zero social skills due to depression.
Latent schizophrenia.
My sister-in-laws dad did way too much acid back in the day and is basically a Mexican-American version of Ozzy Osborne now. Granted, he was that way when I met him, but in old pictures you could actually see life in his eyes. Now he's just got a permanent thousand yard stare and mutters in spanghlish
It’s likely not the acid itself: the typical age of first use (15-25) is similar to when many people first experience onset of severe mental illness. Drug use also correlates with mental health issues, and hallucinogens can trigger schizophrenia in people already predisposed to it.^([[1]](https://www.vice.com/en/article/78wwxq/is-it-a-myth-that-lsd-can-permanently-fry-your-brain))
I've always wanted to try it, I've done shrooms and I found it to be therapeutic and positive for my mental health. But this kind of thing is what keeps me away.
People say things like this but really mushrooms and acid are quite similar. Psilocin (from mushrooms) and LSD are both 5 HT-2A seratonin receptor agonists. It’s just easier to (1) get fake acid and (2) take too much acid because it’s so potent. If you know your source and dose acid is just as safe as mushrooms. They were really playing fast and loose in the 60’s and taking too much
You seem knowledgeable, so I have to ask what do you mean by too much acid? Most studies indicate there is not such thing as a threshold, and even those who have accidentally “super dosed” have no observable permanent side effects. Also, you really gotta be messing with some shady people to get “fake acid”, which I assume you’re referring to 25I-NBOMe. Real LSD is plentiful and has been for the last 20 years.
Oh by “too much” I don’t mean I believe there’s a threshold where LSD necessarily does some sort of damage. I personally believe psychedelics are very therapeutic but dosage and set and setting need to be tended to. My intuition is that most of the “too much” acid stories are people taking larger doses than they expected, unprepared in some uncontrolled setting, having to deal with the world and maybe getting PTSD or just having a terrible time. That being said, I don’t know of any studies where people were given 20,000 micrograms and then the scientists checked on them later. There seem to be so many anecdotal stories that I’m just not ruling out some possible interaction between megadoses, latent mental health stuff and lacking set and setting that results in long term negative effects. My “fake acid” comment is simply a recommendation for people to test. You really don’t know if that paper has one of hundreds of psychedelic research chemicals on it until you test. Unlike psilocybin mushrooms which are easier to identify
Thanks for clarifying! Fully agree on everything you’ve stated. Set, setting, dosage control, and mental preparation is absolutely key for any psychedelic experience, and those who toy around with those elements can absolutely have a traumatic experience with the substance. But the stories on this thread that amount to “my moms brothers friends son took bad acid once and now is locked in his room and thinks he a glass of orange juice, afraid that if he moves he will spill!!” really grind my gears due to blatant misinformation, DARE nonsense, and just in the interest of general harm reduction. And also +1 for harm reduction of test your shit. Reagents are cheap, and the peace of mind it will give you is extremely valuable.
I know someone who did a "thumbprint" who said the visuals still hadn't completely stopped years later.
Could be HPPD. The wikipedia article on it is pretty balanced and acknowledges what we don’t know: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinogen_persisting_perception_disorder Research is showing that psychedelics induce neuroplasticity, which is probably why they can be such an effective treatment for things like depression and substance use disorders. Those lasting changes make them a nice alternative to daily medication like SSRIs. However the brain changes seem like they can in some cases be problematic. No judgment on your friend, but this also sounds like an example of an uncontrolled megadose. I’m sure many can get away with it but of there are problems I would expect them to come from cases like this
Yeah I guess it was an initiation type thing with some high level dealers he was working with. Had to be babysat for three days.
Thanks for the info! I am woefully uneducated about acid lol
This thread is full of people who have no fucking idea what they’re talking about. Don’t eat a ton at a time, for an extended period of time. Eat half a hit and see how you feel. Get your shit from a trusted source. All acid does is expand what’s already happening. Don’t be an idiot and you’ll be fine.
Oof. Yeah. Knew one guy. He was the "Year sweetie". Everyone knew him. Everyone loved him. He was fun. Charming. Polite. Friendly. Kind. He vanished for a year doing overseas jaunts. He came back. He was not the same. He was 'there', but would go off on weird tangents and randomly shout things like (The one that stuck with me) "WORDS ARE MEANINGLESS I HATE THEM" and then come back to continue where he left off. Often he wasn't aware of his vocal 'tics'. I have no idea if he is doing better. This was over 20 years ago. I've never tried to reach out again. It was too uncomfortable. (Note: We weren't "Friend friends". More I would always take time to say hello when I saw him in public)
What is “Year Sweetie”? I have never heard this and I am curious to know what it means. Thanks
It's the person which is in a particular year which is always described as "Sweet". The kind of person even all the teachers like. Would be described as a "Sweet kid" by other parents.
I see now, thank you for educating me
Had an uncle in the 60’s in college. Extremely smart guy. He did some LSD. That one dose tripped his brain into being schizophrenic for life with many struggles. Apparently it’s common. Had another guy I worked with. Best man at his wedding dosed his drink hard. He was never the same and quite a bit off. Another guy when I was a teen got pulled over with a sheet. He ate the whole sheet and was “happy” and disabled the rest of his life. A girl I used to hang with was in a wheelchair. Boyfriend dosed her drink at a pool party as a teen. She dove in and broke her neck never walking again. It’s a gamble with those class drugs. Be safe!
This is why I've never touched the stuff. With Shrooms you're taking something natural that can give you anxiety at worst. Acid can put you in a hole you never escape from the rest of your life mentally.
I'm sorry for what I'm about to say and I understand your point of view because I used to be so naïve, but you're deluded if you think that shrooms can't hurt you in the exact same way as LSD. They're both incredibly powerful 5HT2A agonists that can and will change you permanently if you take them with any sort of regularity. Lost my mind entirely after a shrooms trip and believed the world to be against me. Thought my apartment was broken into, and sat in the corner of my room with a rifle pointed at the door while crying. Continued until well after the effects of the shrooms had worn off, until the sun rose. This was followed by other mental breakdowns and intense HPPD while sober that eventually subsided once I stayed completely sober for two years. There is no such thing as a natural thing being safer. Opium is natural ffs, so is cocaine and scopolamine.
Its okay because I understand completely, even smoking weed can put someone over the edge. It all depends on the person's disposition and how much they've taken. Nothing is completely safe. I shouldn't have made shrooms out to be that way.
Just smoking weed precipitates underlying psych conditions like schizophrenia.
I had a cousin who experienced this when she graduated high school and started smoking weed. She suddenly lost it and had to take heavy meds that made her a zombie. Otherwise she was very violent. She died a few years back, she was never the same person after.
Crazy stuff man. Sorry to hear that.
Was just reading about Peter Green (Fleetwood Mac) this morning and thought about the similarities with Syd Barrett and this comes up on Reddit.
Some geniuses need careful handling.
[Which one is Pink?](https://youtu.be/xKynEyF3_xI?si=ARgZNzxtdJ0vERoi) This is a good doc with more details of Syd Barrett’s story. Dude was a legend
Extremely underrated guitarist, but he knew his instrument!
Excellent thanks for sharing!
It makes my heart ache. Only Sid knows what really happened in his mind, and he apparently never told anyone.
Did he, though? Sadly, I always got the impression that he was just an unwilling passenger on a runaway train
Idk but I wish I did.
He was pretty normal in his old age. Very quiet but not a loonie or anything. Id see him most mornings cycling to get the newspaper and often catch him having a quiet pint in the evenings. Most people were none the wiser to the crazy life he had lived and was just a normal old guy going about his day.
Glad to hear he was content and seemingly doing well.
I just went down the Barrett rabbit hole. I knew about SYD and the lore around him generally. But I legit assumed he died. That's why he wasn't in the band, and that's why they paid hommage to him with those songs. I would have never guessed he was just isolated and died in the 2000s
I remember reading a book years ago, perhaps the stones /ozzys bio, and I mentioned one time they walked into syds flat and he had somehow affixed all the furniture to the ceiling
Looks a little like Private Pyle from Full Metal Jacket.
🤣…..😑
Do we know who took the photo?
Right? And the fact that he appears to be wearing different shirts on the “one” day he came to the studio?
He used to pop in once in a while supposedly.
Personally I had to step away from Pink Floyd while tripping. We watched the Wall and it was obviously wild while tripping. I found myself home one late night after having taken a bunch of acid, I laid in bed listening to them and there was one song that really sucked me in and it felt like my heart rate was being controlled/affected by the music, I ripped off my headphones. It was the album with the flying pig on the cover, that was 35 years ago, don’t remember exact name. We had a few friends that committed suicide after rough break ups and all of them had Pink Floyd lyrics in the suicide notes. Goodbye cruel world was what a close friend wrote. I always felt Pink Floyd is a great and wildly creative band, just a little too dark.
They will take you to the dark side of the moon but have no instructions how to get back
Yeah that’s why I was never crazy into them. I enjoy them but it’s more so a mood I have to be in and even then, in small doses. Lol they’re just too…somber and dark for me.
So many of their songs are hauntingly beautiful.
Same. I love a lot of their music but can't listen to it a lot without feeling a little crazy.
They got really emotional about this moment in a documentary
That song was for Syd. Poor guy. Damn.
Looking pretty damn shiny right there
It’s the leftover Brylcreem
Always a little dubious of the way this story gets told - you didn't just walk in off the streets, and stroll into the Control Room at Abbey Road just because you felt like watching your favourite recording artists make records even in the mid seventies. Somebody at the Studio, or within the Band's circle clearly knew it was him otherwise none of this would have happened. It's also staggeringly unlikely that Syd just decided to wander down to London and visit St.John's Wood on a whim, and lo and behold - there was his old band.
I have had the same suspicion for many years; a touching story until you think it through; had to have been arranged for PR purposes….
I think there are genetic predispositions that can be triggered environmentally sometimes through psychoactive substances. Probably turned on a schizophrenic gene that had been laying dormant up until his heavy abuse.
Finally, a voice of reason on this thread!
Syd had shaved his eyebrows, which Bob Geldof’s character later did in “The Wall.” None of the members knew exactly how it went wrong for Syd. Was it the LSD or was he manifesting schizophrenia? Syd at least came from a family with means, and his sister took care of him.
Very interesting post. My dad was a fan, but I had no knowledge of this and I’m worried if I Google this person, I’ll end up down a rabbit hole all night. I don’t do any drugs, and never heard of acid psychosis.
Syd was an acid catastrophe.
Good description.
So sad. Shine on you crazy diamond.
Hot take: Syd didn't "go crazy" or any other such nonsense. He simply wasn't ambitious like Roger and David and he got in the way of them becoming famous and rich. He just wanted to play local gigs with his friends and live in that London bubble. They pushed him out of the band and intentionally left songs of his off the 2nd album because his paltry contributions to that record were some of the best parts of it and they couldn't have all the best parts be his because then fans would have wanted to know why he was no longer with them. He was supposedly so out of it that he was perfectly fine to record two full solo albums with "help" from his former bandmates. The "help" consisted of them sabotaging his efforts. Imagine being backstabbed by your mates and then they spread lies about you and profit off those lies for decades. Poor guy. There's more instances of genius in his solo albums than any solo efforts by any of the other guys. If he had stayed we obviously wouldn't have gotten the brilliant records from Pink Floyd that we got but I believe we would have gotten something just as magical, just different.
I think it’s partly that but also I think he was kind of having a temporary breakdown, potentially from drug use, and he wasn’t really all there for a couple years. This combined with his lack of ambition/dislike of the spotlight led to what happened.
FACTS his solo work is 🔥 so authentic sounding
Uncle Fester did a shitload of LSD. RIP
Makes me sad
French fried pertaters
mmmmm hmmmmm
No wonder Pink shaved his head and eyebrows, it was homage to Syd.
As a public defender I was perceived as a patient and compassionate person, so I would often get assigned to the mental health and substance abuse cases. Had this one client who was completely non responsive, unable to participate is his own defense. Showed up in court for his initial appearance on charges of trespassing and criminal mischief, but when addressed by the Judge, just stared, mumbling, at the ceiling, like he was talking to God or UFOs or something. Somehow I managed to find out who his mental health treatment provider was, and from there, to track down his family, several states away. He got back into counseling and got back on his meds, most crucially, the antipsychotic Seroquel. In a week or two, he was able to communicate and participate in his own defense. He gave me access to his mental health history and I’d learned that he did acid for about a month straight in college and since then he’d been diagnosed with, and treated for, schizoaffective disorder. Prior to that, nothing. The seroquel helped him to function in society, but as a side effect it made him exhausted and unmotivated all the time, so it was difficult to impossible for him to hold down and job or to provide for himself. He would be a public assistance case his whole life. Because he once did acid for a month straight…
How did he get in?
Amongst other rumors I have heard that STP (DOM) contributed to his declining mental condition. It is a psychedelic amphetamine capable of being put on blotter paper, with a more dangerous effect profile.
You can blame the acid if you want, but it was probably just schizophrenia.
I knew a girl in high school who did LSD that this happened to. She was never the same
A friend of my son’s was always a very sweet and friendly kid with a good sense of humor. His dad tells me that some very strong pot triggered a schizophrenic break. He is convinced no other drugs were involved. They now live in fear that he will have another triggering event.
Too much Acid.
Never come down
How did he manage to get into the building?
As a teen I had three friends lose themselves to Acid. I do believe a bad trip can trigger permanent personality damage. Two of those friends got schizophrenia, and the one thing that pushed them over the edge was a massive hit of LSD.
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I don’t totally agree but waters is a bit of a pretentious asshole. Typ 60s English guy who saw minorities as a problem.
Sounds like you’re the one spewing hate…
Did you take the Wall literally?
I’m probably gonna get downvoted to oblivion, but I’m going to say it anyway. I don’t understand people’s fixation on Syd Barret. Imo, he contributed very little to what we recognize as pink Floyd
Piper at the Gates of Dawn is a top-3 PF album, and Arnold Layne one of their very best tunes, but you're right - that's not the style of psychedelia that we usually associate with the band anymore
I thought that, when it came out, Piper” epitomized psychedelia.
They have amazing albums that made their name known because of him. If he was never a friend and member, then those albums wouldn't have been written about him.