An Animated John Lennon Describes His First Acid Trip

Way back when, we featured an animation that documented the first acid trip of novelist Ken Kesey. In Kesey’s case, it all happened in a careful, calculated way in 1959, under the care and control of the U.S. government. Six years later and 5,000+ miles away, John Lennon’s maiden voyage went down in a very different way. A dentist–yes, a dentist of all people–slipped LSD into John and George’s coffee, unbeknownst to them. Next thing they knew buildings were bursting into fire, and rooms morphing into submarines. So began the Beatles’ experimentation with psychedelics and new musical sounds, which, together, shaped their 1965 masterpiece, Revolver (stream it free on Spotify).

John Lennon recounts that first acid trip in the animated video above. The link between psychedelics and Revolver gets covered in a new piece in Rolling Stone.

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Related Content:

Ken Kesey’s First LSD Trip Animated

Artist Draws Nine Portraits on LSD During 1950s Research Experiment

R. Crumb Describes How He Dropped LSD in the 60s & Instantly Discovered His Artistic Style

Watch The Bicycle Trip: An Animation of The World’s First LSD Trip in 1943


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