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Define "Psychedelic"

I guess not everyone sees visions on Salvia, but I certainly do. I suppose the difference is that with Salvia you get blasted into another world, while with acid it is this world that is warping.

I think we need a better description for drugs which produce visions in the mind that are NOT manifest in the sensori of the outside world, but overwhelming and lucid in the waking state. Mescaline has some minor effects on sensory perception in the waking state, but it produces visions that are separate from your experience of your environment but can supersede those experiences. Salvia can have a similar effect in producing these visionary experiences in your mind, even if they are not superimposed on the world around us. Something like Ayuhuasca can produce visions in the mind and outside superimposed on the environment at the same time.

Seriously though? It sounds to me like you think "psychedelics" is an honourary term that must be applied only for the creme de la creme of drugs. When you get into this kind of elitism (and all this stuff about plant-derived drugs superiority), I really lose interest in discussing the matter any further.
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What you are describing is really just the flip side of what you were doing in not wanting to call these visionary plants hallucinogens. You dont like the term because of its association, so you choose not to call it what others are already calling it. I happen to be fine with the association, but think we need better categorization of these medicines in general.

And btw, LSD is far from being a "typical" psychedelic because it affects a wider range of transmitters than other psychedelics
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No drug is going to be 100% typical, because almost every drug has chemistry which is unlikely to be only one thing and not another. Also, the effects will not be uniform from person to person.

I prefer a purely subjective criteria for terms like psychedelics. Objective criteria was never implied in the original dictionary definition of the term. While attempts to create one are admirable, you cannot unilaterally redefine words just because you think its a better definition.
 
^ Actually, most psychedelics ARE typical in that they are pretty specific for the 5ht receptor affinities. That has been my argument all along, and that is why I think it is 100% possible to make a concrete category for what is and what isn't psychedelics. LSD and other psychedelic ergolines differ in that they also affect dopamine, norepinephrine, and several other systems. However, they still DO affect serotonin receptors in a manner similar to more typical phenethylamine or tryptamine psychedelics.

p.s. For the record, I happen to think that Ketamine trumps all psychedelics combined and can do even more. However, I do not think that, say, AMT (a wonderful medicine) should be classed as dissociative, just because it has some similarities to the ketamine experience, and because I happen to like dissociatives more than psychedelics.

Purely subjective criteria is redundant. There really is nothing to discuss if you're going to go for absolute relativism, because that way no one can agree on anything. As a matter of fact, it is an unwritten mod law in P&S to discourage absolute-relativism in discussion. Let me guess, you were the guy who circled "all of the above" on all their exam questions? ;)
 
I still have a problem with you unilaterally attempting to redefine words on behalf of the whole English language, regardless of your good intentions and rational basis for your claim.

While it would be convenient to have neat rigid categories that classify drugs based on affinity for a handful of receptors, I think a looser and more subjective/less organized definition that leaves wiggle room for variation in personal chemistry is actually more accurate, because the difference in effects really do vary from person to person and are not so easily predictable.

I have had some batches of LSD which produced NO 'mind manifesting' whatsoever. I did feel pretty great though and become very creative. I just didnt see any visuals or significant changes in perception.....other times I really did see things move and warp with colors and see mandalas transmutation circles glowing below my feet and saw visions of crazy stuff I cant even describe.

Ayahuasca and Shroomhuasca has produced visions for me 100% of the time, unlike LSD.

I think a better method of categorization would be to list all the properties of the drug recognizing that drugs fit into multiple categories. That is how I learned to categorize them in public health and pharmacology.

I subjectively see some similarities with the types of visions that are produced by some* dissociatives and some psychedelics.

I think we should also further define the differences between the type of visionary experience which happens in the mind or in a space separate from your sensori of the world around you (DMT at high doses, Salvia, Peyote), and the 'mind manifesting' which happens 'outside' in your perception of the world around you (shrooms, LSD, 2C family), further recognizing that most are not just one or the other for all people.
 
^ Actually I am not trying to redefine my the English language to fit my opinion - in fact, I base my opinion on something tangible - ie. the serotonergic activity, which is backed by scientific facts. You need this tangibility to discuss anything legitimately while sober, whether or not this applies to your world while you're high on a psychedelic.

Again, just because something is no longer eligible to be labeled "psychedelic", doesn't mean that it becomes useless, even for entheogenic use (again I bring up the example of Ketamine, which for me is the most entheogenic/spiritual drug, yet I would never classify it as "psychedelic").
 
LSD does not always produce psychedelic experiences in all users all the time, and it is a 5HT2 agonist. This leads me to hypothesize that there is more to whether a drug will produce the experiences that fits the dictionary definition of 'psychedelic' or the root words of 'mind manifesting' than stimulation of that single receptor. There is likely more to it and other receptors and chemicals involved.

And what exactly is the difference between seeing visions in your mind (DMT and Salvia) vs seeing trails and spatial distortions in the world around you (Shrooms and marijuana)? Notice I am not saying which ones are psychedelic, only commenting on their ability to produce visionary experiences and spatial distortions. Do you see a significant difference between having an overpowering visionary experience as a lucid daydream/vision vs seeing things manifest in your sensori of the world around you?
 
OMG, ok... Sentience, I predict that you currently take psychedelics on a regular basis.

Please take a break from them (by which I mean several weeks) and come back for this discussion, because otherwise I simply cannot carry on because we obviously aren't on the same page.

Sorry if I misjudged your drug use, but honestly, this is going nowhere.
 
There might be endogenous chemicals which inhibit 5HT2 receptors. Inhibiting the inhibitors might produce an experience similar to directing stimulating those receptors.

What happens when you antagonize 5HT1?
 
^My guess would be elevated heart rate, increased blood pressure, vasoconstriction.

As far as I'm aware, agonizing 5HT2A probably causes a release of glutamate in another part of the brain which is responsible for causing the changes in perception typical to psychedelics. Agonizing (or antagonizing) other 5HT receptor subtypes doesn't cause psychedelic effects.
 
That is a very interesting hypothesis.


And Jamshyd....you seem like a pretty cool guy. I hope we dont butt heads too much. We both like to debate it seems, but I dont dislike you. Just want to point that out again.
 
^ And I totally understand that.

I just don't think it is possible for an active psychedelics-user to discuss sober matters because psychedelics' effects persist for a while, for better or worse, especially with chronic use. I was there, but that was a couple of years ago. Since then, I had not taken any psychedelics, and therefore I think I would not be able to have a productive discussion on these matters with an active user of psychedelics.*

I do hope we discuss spirituality at some point, perhaps we can reach an agreement somewhere there. I invite you to post in P&S sometime :)

* That being said, I may be venturing into terra incognita with a couple of novel psychedelics soon, if all goes well and my mood cooperates :)
 
^ If it is of any interest to you, I found that 5-MeO-DMT by itself, even when IVed, to be almost totally peripheral in its action, and therefore without any notable effect on the mind (besides perhaps anxiety brought on by tachycardia).

I found that 5-MeO-DMT only becomes active when used with MDMA, as mentioned before.
 
My experiences with it have been that it is partially psychedelic in the classical way (more vivid colors, enhanced visual sensitivity to motion, but not geometric patterns) but also far more dissociative than other 5-HT psychedelics. The preponderance of qualitative reports indicate substantial central effects, mostly in terms of ego dissolution. Could these effects be mediated predominately by its 5-HT1a agonism? What do we call 5-MeO-DMT and any similar chemicals that get developed?
 
^ I call them shitty psychedelics! ;).

The 5-MeO ring accessory has a bad record with me. All of 5-MeO-DMT, 5-MeO-DiPT, and 5-MeO-MiPT sucked for me. I was offered free 5-MeO-AMT and I simply refused to try it based on what I read. That is not to say that all 5-MeO is bad, but I guess one can't help but be swayed by chemical-suggestion.

But that is only me experience, of course :).
 
The fact that 5-MeO-DMT is such a powerful ego dissolver is what's fascinating about its relationship with 5-HT1a in my mind. Do other powerful ego dissolvers like DMT and DPT have disproportionately high affinities for 5-HT1a in comparison to psychedelics with lesser ego dissolving properties (as measured by preponderance in report)? Does 5-HT1a have a special relationship to our sense of ourselves? I'm sure parts of this can be answered with data already out there, but I don't know it.

Jamshyd: sorry you haven't had good luck with it, hah. But I'm sure if we coded reports of 5-MeO-DMT we'd find it is widely regarded as psychedelic. Subjective effects can be useful to definitions when they are highly consistent across users.
 
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^ This is getting into yet another tangent that I discussed in the ADD forum a while ago.

I personally don't believe in "micro-pharmacology", that is, I simply refuse to accept the notion that so and so receptor does this and that. I think the effects of any drug are an emergent phenomenon of a combination of all its effects in all parts of the brain, some inhibitory, some excitatory...etc. But they cannot be attributed to certain things when taken alone.

I know this may sound contradictory to what I've been arguing above. But keep in mind the axiom, "correlation does not imply causation". What I mean is that all psychedelics have a common pattern with 5-ht action, but one cannot pin down a single receptor as being responsible for any given state of mind.

Edit: Btw, you may also be interested to know that Salvia is also 100% peripheral for me. My friend smoked much less than I did from the same batch and got zonked out of his head.

I tried several batches of salvia at insane doses. Nothing ever happened. As Hugo notes, I have a very weird brain chemistry :).

Jamshyd: sorry you haven't had good luck with it, hah. But I'm sure if we coded reports of 5-MeO-DMT we'd find it is widely regarded as psychedelic. Subjective effects can be useful to definitions when they are highly consistent across users.
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Oh I totally agree.

However, with this particular drug, I think you will find a significant percentage that find it utterly useless, like me. I'd be interested if such survey was conducted.
 
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I'm sympathetic to that view, too. I think everyone is to some degree. But it's hard to use it to produce testable predictions.
 
While objective criteria is useful from a scientific or medical perspective, I dont think we truly understand enough about the biochemistry of the brain and the psychedelic experience to categorize such drugs based on a single receptor. I think that purely subjective criteria is more accurate considering our limited understanding of the mechanism behind these experiences. I dont think that a combination of objective and subjective criteria is ideal either if we are even slightly fuzzy on the role of the objective portion. We dont know that only 1 mechanism of action can produce mind manifesting experiences.

I think we need to examine a few different types of visionary experiences.

1. A mental melding of conscious and subconscious, with or without hallucination.
2. Visuals in the outside environment, with spatial distortions, colors and external visualizations produced subconsciously.
3. Daydream like visions with intense realism and lucidity, with or without disassociation.
4. Disassociation with the ego or surroundings with or without dreamlike visions.

I think that if we break down these subjective criteria and combine them like jelly bellies, we can help micro-type the various types of psychedelic and dissociative hallucinogens or whatever you want to call them.
 
Introspective reports of mind states alone don't get far (see: history of psychology). I'm certain an analysis of experience reports would reveal that there is far less variance in user's descriptions of effects within 5-HT psychedelics than between those reports and reports of drugs belonging to the accepted dissociative and deliriant classes as they're described today. It doesn't help us to ignore that. We don't have to know about mind-brain interactions to see that there are these high correlations and to use them as practical guides until a fuller understanding is reached. Our understanding will likely shift dramatically over time, but right now we need to recognize the correlations between objective and subjective phenomena to get the greatest utility out of our use of terms and help reign in speculation.

Parsing the different subjective psychedelic effects, mapping them onto user reports, then analyzing those reports for statistically significant correlations of description between different drugs is a good first step toward a more systematic qualitative understanding, though. If a drug such as salvia, which has a different pharmacological mechanism of action than the traditional psychedelics, was found to have statistically significant descriptive overlap with the traditional psychedelics in qualitative reports, it could be called psychedelic in my view, so long as the label was accompanied by a description of salvia's effects that corresponded to effects characteristic of 5-HT psychedelics (e.g. tendency to revisit forgotten childhood memories).

5-MeO-DMT is especially interesting on this interpretation. That's why the researchers in the article I cited call it a "paradox."
 
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