Anaïs Nin and the Vocabulary of the Psychedelic Experience

Zoë Dubus and Pierre Leger

Compared to other psychotropic drugs available in the 1950s, LSD induced “something phenomenal, … of unimaginable intensity,” according to its creator Albert Hofmann. Speaking in an interview in 2004, he continued, “There is a vast difference between the emotional experience of this sensation and its purely abstract, philosophical description. It would be like trying to describe colours to a blind person: words alone will never make it possible to see what they are.” How can the psychedelic experience be described when it eludes translation into language?.. continue reading.