--- title: Virtual Reality: The LSD Trip Behind the Whole Earth Catalog description: TIME recreates Stewart Brand's 1966 LSD trip that inspired the Whole Earth Catalog canonical: https://time.com/5286135/virtual-reality-lsd-trip-whole-earth-catalog/ author: TIME Staff article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-05-22T10:39:32.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:45:50.633Z article:section: Health og:title: Watch the Virtual Reality Recreation of the LSD Trip That Inspired the Whole Earth Catalog og:description: In 1966, Stewart Brand did 100 micrograms of LSD and saw the entire world og:url: https://time.com/5286135/virtual-reality-lsd-trip-whole-earth-catalog/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Watch the Virtual Reality Recreation of the LSD Trip That Inspired the Whole Earth Catalog twitter:description: In 1966, Stewart Brand did 100 micrograms of LSD and saw the entire world twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Watch the Virtual Reality Recreation of the LSD Trip That Inspired the Whole Earth Catalog > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's weekday health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free weekday newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=253a8a2b-1083-4e8a-9a7e-9880d19f056a&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Michael Pollan on the Healing Power of Psychedelics [Watch (HLS stream): Michael Pollan on the Healing Power of Psychedelics](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Z7yskoOT.m3u8) (4:20)  _Published 2018-05-16. Author Michael Pollan explored the therapeutic properties of psychedelics for his latest book, "How to Change Your Mind." His research includes firsthand experiences with the drugs._ by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff May 22, 2018 10:39 AM UTC by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff May 22, 2018 10:39 AM UTC In the spring of 1966, Stewart Brand did 100 micrograms of LSD and sat on top of a roof in San Francisco. Perched there, he looked toward a curved horizon and imagined the spherical Earth and just how limited resources on our planet are. Out of that psychedelic drug-induced vision, he developed the Whole Earth theory. He campaigned for NASA to release satellite images of the Earth, and created the influential and generation-defining Whole Earth Catalog. Author Michael Pollan explored the mysterious effects that psychedelic drugs like LSD have on the human mind in his latest book [_How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence_](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B076GPJXWZ/ref=as%5Fli%5Fqf%5Fasin%5Fil%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=time037-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B076GPJXWZ&linkId=42767f7f62259f1af216c2fd6fb0b535)_._ In [a recent interview with TIME](http://time.com/5278036/michael-pollan-psychedelic-drugs/), he explained how these drugs can “break” patterns of repetitive thought and essentially “reboot the brain.” “The biggest misconception people have about psychedelics is that these are drugs that make you crazy,” Pollan [said](http://time.com/5278036/michael-pollan-psychedelic-drugs/). “We now have evidence that that does happen sometimes — but in many more cases, these are drugs that can make you sane.” To accompany Pollan’s book, virtual reality Director Elijah Allan Blitz reimagined Brand’s trip in a virtual reality experience exclusively for TIME. Take a look below to see it in 360 or visit [LIFE VR’s Samsung VR channel](https://samsungvr.com/channel/57d81408434696001ba63b16) to see it in virtual reality. ## Transcript I guess the biggest misconception people have about psychedelics is that these are drugs that make you crazy. And we now have evidence that that does happen sometimes, but in many more cases, these are drugs that can make you sane, or more sane. [ MUSIC ] If you ask people about what psychedelics, or LSD, they're gonna think about the Timothy Leary, this flamboyant psychology professor. Studying psilocybin and LSD and then telling everybody they should take it. I'm very glad to be discredited, I don't want credibility. I want incredibility. [ LAUGH ] The drugs kind of escape laboratory and were embraced by the counter culture and proved to be very disruptive to society [ MUSIC ] So you had this full scale moral panic that eventually doomed the research but what people don't know is that that's 60s episode was really one small chapter in a much longer story. Psycho drugs are one kind of another have been used by different societies for thousands of years. If you compare mental health care with any other branch of medicine infectious disease, cardiology, oncology there have been very few achievements. Mental health treatment has not lengthened the human life span. So we need some new thinking, we need some new ideas and psychedelics may well be that new idea. There's a really exciting field of research underway, right now, looking at psychedelics. Especially psilocybin, the ingredient in magic mushrooms, to help people deal with mental illness of various kinds. Addiction, depression, obsession, and the fear and anxiety that surrounds a terminal diagnosis. And the feeling among the scientist is that these chemicals allow us to essentially reboot the brain. All those kind of deep grooves that lock us into patterns of both thought and behavior are dissolved and temporarily suspended in a way that allows us to break those patterns. We're now in a different world. The adults now, many of them have experience of psychedelics, they're not gonna react in such a panicky way, I don't think. Many of the people in charge of our institutions, probably regulators at the FDA, people at the American Psychiatric Association, they have personal experience of psychedelics. And they're, I think, gonna bring a more rational, Attitude toward them. I learned that there is a thriving underground of psychedelic therapists. These are serious professionals but they're doing something illegal. And I was able to find my way into this. Community and after interviewing several of them I found a couple people I felt comfortable enough to entrust my mind to. This isn't doctors giving you a pill and sending you out into the world. You are, for a period of four or five hours, in a room that's decorated like a kind of cozy den or study, you're lying down on a couch, you have eye shades on. And headphones, which are playing a very carefully curated playlist, to make you go inside, to have an internal experience. And you're with two guides at all times. Some people are put in touch with childhood trauma. Some people have encounters with death and I mean, it can be very dark. But with the help of the guides, you use that material and try to understand it. So after the session, you always come back the next day and have what's called a period of integration. Where the guides, who are trained therapists, help you interpret what happened and figure out ways to put it to good use in changing your life. My best journey was this fairly high dose [ INAUDIBLE ] journey. I had with a guide. What was stunning about it was I did have an experience of ego disillusion. I reached a point where myself kind of fell apart into these paper post its. That just got scattered into the wind. I saw myself. And I know that sounds weird. Who's the I that saw myself, but there is this split in consciousness that happens. But I saw myself scattered to the wind, but I was all right with it and I learned a really important lesson in that moment, which is that I'm not identical to my ego. 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