Housewife on Acid: 1950's Video Shows LSD's Groovy Effects

(CBS) What's it like to drop LSD? Infinitely beautiful, if you believe the pretty young woman shown tripping on acid in newly uncovered footage of a 1950s experiment.

The black-and-white video - now a YouTube sensation - shows the woman before and after sipping a glass of water laced with LSD, which after its discovery in 1938 became the focus of intense research. When asked what she's experiencing, she hesitates before explaining, "I've never seen such infinite beauty in my life. It's like a curtain or a spider web. Can you see it? Everything is so beautiful and lovely and alive."

Don Lattin, the author who uncovered the nine-minute clip, said it was made for a 1956 television show on mental health issues, the New York Daily News reported. It was reportedly shot at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Los Angeles, where the woman's husband was employed.

If the woman seems overwhelmed by her acid trip, there's good reason. LSD (d-lysergic acid diethylamide) - a now-illicit drug derived from a fungus that grows on grains - is one of the most potent mood-changing chemicals ever discovered.

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