Frank Dudley Beane, a New York physician (1851–94), documented his self-administered intoxication with cannabis and ergot tinctures in an 1884 medical journal article that has become a canonical first-person account of altered consciousness. Seeking relief from neurasthenia without resorting to opium, Beane ingested pharmaceutical samples from Parke Davis and experienced a progression of sensations: initial dizziness and dread, muscular paralysis, a tunnel-like void, out-of-body dissociation, and culminating visions of phosphorescent light transforming into a soft lilac hue. His account parallels Davy’s nitrous oxide experiments and Hofmann’s LSD experience, combining physiological observation with surreal phenomenology—disembodiment, temporal distortion, and the wood-like calcification of his body—rendering his testimony a proto-psychonautic document bridging Victorian medicine and visionary experience literature.
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