Don’t knock paranoia. It may be terrifying — but it could save your life

This did not come entirely as a surprise. As a graduate student at Yale I experimented with LSD. Why anyone ever thought this drug would sweep the world and reduce the youth of the West to a state of gibbering addiction I cannot imagine because it was no fun at all, just weird. Among a number of temporary alterations to my perception there were two of a paranoid nature: walking the streets of New Haven, Connecticut, I kept hearing, in the indistinct conversations of strangers, my own name. Realising this was probably the result of eating two little pieces of blotting paper, I kept my nerve, told myself the perception was unreal, and waited for it to fade.

The second mind alteration, though, never entirely did fade. On closing my eyes, the shapes and patches that often swim across our darkened vision seemed to resolve themselves (as clouds can) into faces and figures — grotesque, frightening images.