John Lennon Was ‘Selfish’ and ‘Self-Centered’ Before He Took LSD, According to a Friend

In the 1960s, John Lennon and the rest of The Beatles tried LSD. While Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr didn’t love the drug, Lennon and George Harrison used it frequently. Lennon once said that their use of the drug made him and Harrison more “cracked” than McCartney and Starr. A friend of Lennon’s believed it had a more positive impact on the musician. He said that Lennon became more empathetic after he started taking LSD.

John Lennon tried LSD for the first time with bandmate George Harrison

Lennon and Harrison were at a dinner party at their dentist’s home when they unknowingly consumed LSD. After a great deal of urging from their host, the two Beatles and their wives had coffee after dinner. The sugar cubes in the drink were laced with LSD. When they found out, Lennon was furious, and they left the house to go to the Ad Lib Club.

“When we went to the club we thought it was on fire and then we thought it was a premiere, and it was just an ordinary light outside,” Lennon told Rolling Stone in 1971. “We thought, ‘S***, what’s going on here?’ We were cackling in the streets, and people were shouting ‘Let’s break a window,’ you know, it was just insane. We were just out of our heads.”

Lennon said the night was both “terrifying” and “fantastic.” He would continue to use LSD over the years.

A friend said the drug made the Beatle more compassionate 

Lennon liked taking acid with someone else, and for a while, he recruited John Dunbar, the owner and director of The Indica Gallery. 

“We did a lot down at his place in Weybridge as well,” Dunbar said, per the book John Lennon: The Life by Philip Norman. “Cynthia would usually be there, but in another part of the house. You got the sense that their life together was over in any meaningful way … John just didn’t happen to have moved on yet.”

While Cynthia Lennon didn’t appreciate her husband’s drug use, Dunbar believed it positively affected him. He felt that it made the musician capable of sensitivity. 

“To start with, they took him off the drink, which meant a lot of that old chippy aggression seemed to disappear,” Dunbar said. “They also gave him a concern for other people that he’d never had to have as a selfish, self-centered pop star. I remember once, in the middle of a trip, he must have noticed me looking scared or worried. ‘It’s all right, man, don’t worry,’ he said to me. ‘We’re all the same, we’re all scared….’ I don’t think he’d have been capable of sensitivity like that before he took acid.”

John Lennon said LSD made him less ‘stable’ than his other bandmates

Lennon said that acid had a significant influence on his music. He also believed that it impacted his and Harrison’s mental stability. 

“I think George was pretty heavy on it; we are probably the most cracked,” he said. “Paul is a bit more stable than George and I.”

He felt that McCartney and Starr were shocked by the effects of LSD.

“I think LSD profoundly shocked him, and Ringo,” he said. “I think maybe they regret it.”