COMMUNITY PROJECT - Creating an "effects profile" for psychedelics

[swilow]

^This mapping- what are you really talking about? Whats a morpho-space? S_s, have you been smoking the spice again- your getting weird once more

 

[swilow]

^sorry, weirder

 

[Jabberwocky]

As simply as possible, a morpho-space is a 3-dimensional (or however many dimensions, 3-d is just easy for us to imagine) 'space' that maps out all possibilities for a given state, object, event, etc in accordance to its 3 axes.

Imagine a 2-d morpho-space for vision using brightness and color (very simplistic). You would have one axis plotting brightness from 0 to say 100 (0 being dark 100 being very bright). The other axis would plot the color spectrum (from red to violet). Now, pick a point in the space, you have just chosen a color with a concomittant brightness. Pick another, thats a different color (perhaps the point landed on the same level as the brightness level, then that color would be of the same brightness as your first choice).

Now, lets add 'saturation' to the picture as a 3rd dimension. Now envision this as a cube, an X axis (color), Y axis (brightness), and a Z axis (saturation). Now choose a point IN the cube, you have chosen a particular color, of a particular brightness, with a particular saturation. Move a little down the saturation axis (with the same points for the color and brightness axes) and you have the same color with the same brightness with a bit less saturation. So, you have a way to represent all possibile permutations of color, brightness, and saturation.

Things get a LOT more confusing when you start adding dimensions (I've seen 9-dimension morpho-spaces).

Now, imagine this idea applied to the psychedelic space. Let's start with arousal (level of stimulation) and valence (level of pleasure). So your axis for arousal may run -100 to 100 (from very depressing to neutral to very stimulating). And your valence may run from -100 to 100 (from very unpleasurable to very pleasurable). Now, pick a point along your 2-d morphospace and you have a coordinated point of arousal and valence.

Now, imagine adding about 10 dimensions to this picture (until you have a very weird and complex geometric figure rotating in 'morpho-space') and you may have an accurate way to visually represent the possibilities in the psychedelic space (depending on if you get the axes correct and on point).

 

[swilow]

^Interesting concept; I realise I have worked with those sort of techniques in working out frequency response of certain audio devices etc. But it still can't negate subjectivity. One mans trash is anothers treasure. I see dipenhydramine as worthless- books have been written about how worthwile the experiences are. To me, its frightening, sickeing and uncomfortable- to others its illuminating, real, and enjoyable. I dunno if its possible to create such a profile....

When I mentioned the mushroom key, does anyone know what I'm talking about? Basically using a table to eliminate characteristics of a mushroom until you hit upon something that is roughly what you have (obviously, further testing is needed). But by elimination, the 'correct' answer is revealed.

edit: there would be probably 10,000,000,000 axes though- how would you arte levels of entity contact; which entity; which drug; what disposition was said entity in (they seem to be pretty random)....

 

[Solipsis]

These suggestions all sound very interesting!
I agree with some of the more pessimistic opinions that it is prudent not to attach too much value to these hypothetical profiles. It's quite understandable
no one should tell someone who reports certain effects from an unidentified sample what he or she most likely imbibed - apart from maybe timeline indications.
However I believe there is a fine line between this and a body of generalisations that indicate some kind of ballpark. Take for example 2C-B: there is an often found description I'd paraphrase "Like something in between MDMA and LSD but unlike a combination of the two". Although I have to say this always sounded a bit enigmatic to me, I don't see a problem with some type of database that lists things like stimulation or valence scores for a certain substance. Put a disclaimer above it if you will, but to me someone who uses it to ID an unidentified sample is as foolish as someone who digs through piles of topics and experience reports, and at the same time I can't blame the person for searching for a ballpark.
Everyone still has to do their homework and know for starters that experiences are highly subjective and an infinite number of things could happen if you ingest even the best studied psychedelic.
But still, whatever. I'd be happy to see a set of parameters like stimulation, dissociation, synaesthasia, empathy, visual augmentation, auditive augmentation, visual distortion, auditive distortion, patterning, etc.
Then it would be clear that you are more likely to get a body-stonedness from mushrooms and a stimulated buzz from acid. It could incorporate even how bad the effects are tolerated as opposed to how much they are treasured.
Maybe it's best to not display the results instantly because low statistics are quite unreliable, though.
Maybe I'm missing some elementary flaws here, but it sounds just like one of those polls I see passing by sometimes, only much more valuable and integrated! :D

 

[Jabberwocky]

it would be hard but not impossible-

will think about it next time I'm stoned-

peace and love

 

[Xorkoth]

Very valid and worrysome concerns. Well, I'm going to continue thinking about it. If we at least understand that it would not be designed to provide any definitive ID capabilities, but instead would just provide a much more detailed and statistically generalized group of potential effects, then I do believe it is possible. Right now, what people have to determine effects of a substance isn't really much. The best one can do is to study for countless hours and participate in discussion for years, and sample many substances. This will not ever change, of course. But apart from that, the best I can think of is a short list of general effects for each substance on Erowid, and those are really nearly useless for determining what a substance is.

Hell, this could even be useful not as a means for IDing a substance, but as a much more detailed and accurate way of creating lists of possible effects for a substance. Perhaps it would be better to think of it that way. One could look up a substanjce they're curious about and see that, out of 1000 respondents, for example, their substance has a list of, say, 20 different specific types of effects that at least 50% of respondents selected, and a list of 20 others that hardly anyone chose. That could provide some useful information for a person that is based off of a large number of peoples' experiences, rather than off of a single writer's subjective experience with it.

So anyway, I'm not prepared to give this up, but keep the discussion coming.

 

[Jabberwocky]

I have been behind the idea as an exercise in creativity that may produce something very useful for the community.

 

[EntheoDjinn]

................Hell, this could even be useful not as a means for IDing a substance, but as a much more detailed and accurate way of creating lists of possible effects for a substance. Perhaps it would be better to think of it that way. One could look up a substanjce they're curious about and see that, out of 1000 respondents, for example, their substance has a list of, say, 20 different specific types of effects that at least 50% of respondents selected, and a list of 20 others that hardly anyone chose. That could provide some useful information for a person that is based off of a large number of peoples' experiences, rather than off of a single writer's subjective experience with it.

This is more like what I really had in mind when I opened this thread. Not so much for IDing, but more a thematic analysis of subjective effects which might lead to an effects profile of some form.

I realise the the difficulties involved in this, as do many of the other posters, but as samadhi_smiles says, at the very least it would be a very useful exercise in creativity. And such research sometimes throws up unanticipated results, so who knows if something unique and beneficial might be discovered.

Another, as yet unmentioned fly-in-the-ointment, is the problem of mixtures, which would confound any analysis right from the start - who knows if their contributing reports are based on pure substances or blends? I suspect this will become more of a problem if chemists produce different mixes of RC's.

Glad to see so many positive comments. It would be nice to think that at some point, the dreaded "unpredictability" of psychedelics that Government health authorities ram down people's throats as the best reason for not indulging might, at least to some extent, be mitigated by such an analysis.

E

 

[Recept]

Hell, this could even be useful not as a means for IDing a substance, but as a much more detailed and accurate way of creating lists of possible effects for a substance. Perhaps it would be better to think of it that way. One could look up a substanjce they're curious about and see that, out of 1000 respondents, for example, their substance has a list of, say, 20 different specific types of effects that at least 50% of respondents selected, and a list of 20 others that hardly anyone chose. That could provide some useful information for a person that is based off of a large number of peoples' experiences, rather than off of a single writer's subjective experience with it.

That sounds somewhat similar to what IB did with his surveys, but a bit more complex, and could indeed yield some interesting results.

Another, as yet unmentioned fly-in-the-ointment, is the problem of mixtures, which would confound any analysis right from the start - who knows if their contributing reports are based on pure substances or blends? I suspect this will become more of a problem if chemists produce different mixes of RC's.

The issue with combinations is definately a good point. Not only for mixes of RC's, but mixes in general. For instance, based on my personal observations, I have noticed that more often than not, people don't even mention smoking marijuana in their trip reports, although it is obvious that lots of people do. They just don't think it's worth mentioning, but the fact is that marijuana can significantly alter the effects of any substance it is used in concert with. How to take all this into consideration when building this survey, I don't know.

But overall, a nice idea. Hopefully something will come out of it.

 

[Xorkoth]

What I'm thinking is something like the following:

Each substance will have its own survey. The first question would probably be a general rating scale for several general qualities, like a -5 to +5 scale or something. Then the bulk of the surveys will be a long list of different effects, whatever we can think of that is not too subjective but still specific. Really, the more effects, the better. People would then select each effect they have experienced. Then the next series of questions would be to rate each on how strong that effect was on a 1 to N scale or something like that. That way we would have the results show not only the percentage of people reporting an effect, but also a mean "intensity" value experienced for each.

Then perhaps there would be a similar setup for side effects - first select them all from a list, then rate each on how noticeable they were. And maybe there could even be another series for aftereffects that linger after the drug is done, and how bad and how long each lingered.

So it would be a rather long, yet thorough and straightforward format. Survey-takers would need to be serious about it and understand it might take 10 minutes for each substance. But think about the results... I'm not aware of anything this detailed having ever been done.

So now we need to build the lists. I'd say that the primary effects list is the most important, but so are side effects (during the trip) and aftereffects (after the trip is over). Any help brainstorming would be much appreciated.

As for mixtures and impure compounds, I'm not sure there's any feasible way to eliminate that uncertainty. Maybe there could be a question in there about where you obtained the substance, and those getting it from the street would not be included in the final aggregated data. Still, that uncertainty might just be an inevitability.

EDIT: I just created a short and simple example of the kind of thing I'm talking about. You can look at it here. Please post or PM me ideas you have, as this will be better if we get a lot of input from everyone. The current list of effects on there is a combination of primary effects and side effects and I just created it on the fly. So anything you have, share please!

 

[Xorkoth]

Man, this survey could be so much better with good software... like what we use at my company. But a license for that is thousands of dollars, and this one's either free for $9.99 (which I may have to upgrade to to be able to get an actual output of the data instead of just a simple automatic report).

 

[Solipsis]

Excellent ideas! %)
If this episode were to air I have some additional suggestions.

There should probably be a built in dose-normalizer. If a person ingests 300 mg of MDMA it wouldn't be weird if he would report a lot of jaw clenching and eye-wiggling and basically many of the (side)effects exaggerated. So there should be an algorithm to play down or play up the reported intensities. The prevalence of effects however should not be changed by it... To make it even more complicated but accurate, there could be a same algorithm for tolerance. One may indicate one a scale of 1 to N (I think all N's should be 10 by the way, except for the intensities which have negatives and therefore +/- 5 indeed) the level of tolerance definitely experienced - say a person takes twice the dosage he took without tolerance to get the same effects earlier this rating would be 5, thrice would be around 7 and tenfold is a 10? These are - of course - just ideas, I don't know how well this would work and if it is neccessary enough.

Personally, I think the rule for filling in the survey should be that the only period one may report is when there are no other substances added to the mix yet. From the moment one smokes a joint any information is rendered useless for the profile.
Purity and certainty of identity of a specific compound could be implemented in another scale of 1 to 10. 10 would mean lab analysis yielded high grade results, 1 would mean it's from the street and the effects hardly even matched other reports. I'm exaggerating this a little because if you're that uncertain you shouldn't complete a survey. However this gives people the chance to rate the validity of their own report. Of course one is not naturally inclined to undermine their own report, but it's better than anything getting full credit because someone is too arrogant to leave it as potentially invalid! This rating would be combined with an algorithm that normalizes not the intensity but prevalence ratings. The profile is not altered it only weighs a little less if people are more unsure of their samples.

So now I suggest everyone brainstorms on effects in the categories [main effects], [side effects], [after effects]. We can all comment on them and dismiss some with good arguments. People are then expected to edit their post as a first round of elimination. If everyone seems to be happy with the lists, we can all throw them together and eliminate or merge effects that are too similar, this will be the hard and arbitrary part because we will want to cover everything but nothing double as it would split up the prevalence of effects and confuse the surveyed. Hmm but now that I think of it, that's not true is it? We just need basically as many as possible just without getting it confusing because it is a matter of checking boxes, not choosing between them per se.

OK I will rearrange my categories to fit Xorkoths, his are better shaded. And I appreciate you guys efforts as well, personally I would like to contribute to the world of psychedelics and if we together come up with something useful, we all can.

Can we decide what we mean by the term side-effect by the way? Officially it is used for "unintended or adverse effects". Something like a feeling of terror can hardly be called intended, however I wouldn't call it a side-effect. Shall we call effects that are not worthwhile or functional at all for all indended purposes of psychedelic use? All of a sudden, paranoia doesn't seem like a side-effect anymore seeing as it definitely is an inherent effect of tripping itself. Paranoia and megalomania seem more like a symptom of something deeper you have to work through like issues of self-trust or trust in others...

And maybe the predominance of colors can have a special box listing some primary and secondary colors plus something like pastel or neon all next to each other to mark the character of a substance. I wonder which substances stimulate colors at random or are dependent on the subject and which tend to stimulate a typical set!

[1.0 Main Effects]

[1.1 Sensory Effects]

- synaesthesia
- increase in tactile sensation
- decrease in tactile sensation, numbness
- paresthesia (i.e. tingling pricking skin or even feeling of being touched)
- increase in sense of taste
- decrease in sense of taste
- hallucinated smells or flavors
- visual augmentation
- auditive augmentation
- micropsia (lilliputian hallucination, alice in wonderland syndrome, altered perception of proportion and size)
- macropsia (objects appear larger instead of smaller)

OEV

- flanging (i.e. seemingly decrease in frames per second, flashing, choppy vision)
- activity in peripheral vision
- visual distortion
- visual breathing
- visual crawling
- visual morphing
- visual warping
- visual melting
- visual shimmering
- visual rippling
- visual flowing
- visual movement (e.g. sliding objects)
- visual geometric patterning
- visual fractal patterning
- visual blurring
- unrelated hallucinations of e.g. energy orbs, absurd scenes
- complete environmental metamorphosis
- shifting or altered perception of colors


CEV

- hypnogogic patterning (i.e. flowing of colors)
- intertwining patterns (e.g. celtic knots)
- intricate combined creative bursts
- neon splashes
- exploration of fantasy vistas
- dream-like experienced events
- hallucination of witnessing actual bodily functions
- hallucinations of the impossible (e.g. round squares)

[1.2 Psychological Effects]

- increase in associative & creative thinking
- increase in philosophical thinking
- increase in introspection
- reliving memories
- epiphanies
- increased appreciation of vision
- increased appreciation of music
- increased appreciation for the mundane and trivial
- dissociation
- ego-dissolution
- spontaneous mystical / spiritual states
- self-induced mystical / spiritual states
- unusual or seemingly crazy thoughts
- unusual speech
- glossolalia (speaking in tongues)
- slurring of speech
- change in perception of time
- change in perception of space
- cartooning or caricaturesque hallucinations
- entity contact
- megalomania
- humbling
- paranoia
- loss of inhibition
- diverted concentration
- general increase of mental control
- mental clarity

[1.3 Emotional Effects]

- emotional imbalance
- increased empathy
- mood lift
- euphoria
- feelings of wonder / magic
- mood drop
- dysphoria, depressed thoughts
- feelings of fear / terror
- paradoxical simultaneous feelings or emotions
- feeling of nonduality
- inappropriate behaviour

[1.4 Physical Effects]

- increase in energy (stimulation)
- decrease in energy (stoning)
- giggling, giddiness
- smirky smiles or grimaces
- fits of (hysterical) laughter
- sensation of energy
- sensation of buzzing / vibrations
- chills / shivers
- goosebumps
- sexual arousal
- sexual sensitivity / erotic enhancement

[2.0 Side Effects]

[2.1 Psychological Side Effects]

- anxiety
- confusion
- short-term memory scramble
- intensified perception of bodily functions
- acute psychological addictive thoughts (wanting to use more)
- desire to use other substances

[2.2 Physical Side Effects]

- headache
- lightheadedness
- fainting
- bruxism (teeth grinding)
- trisma (jaw clenching)
- nystagmus (eye wiggling)
- mydriasis (pupil dilation)
- increased salivation and mucus production (causes coughing in some people)
- tension
- increased perspiration
- nausea
- vomiting
- dizziness
- increase in body temperature
- increase in blood pressure
- confirmed increase in heart rate
- gastrointestinal discomfort
- loss of appetite (anorexia)
- increase in appetite
- brain zaps
- erectile disfunction and difficulty reaching orgasm

[3.0 After Effects]

{STILL EDITING}

 

[Xorkoth]

I added some questions tyo reflect Solipsys' very good points, about dose. This wway the dose can be recorded and some responses can be modified or removed from the survey if they would throw the results.

EDIT: And Solipsys, thanks for the input... much appreciated that you're taking some initiative.

Hmm, this is will end up costing a $9.99 membership to be able to host the survey for more than 10 days or record more than 50 respondents. But I have no problems paying that, and fortunately I still have a working university email address so I get the discount (normal cost is $19.99)

 

[Xorkoth]

Okay, so here is my post in which I will record my ideas and edit them as necessary. I am starting to think it might be a good idea to split up the primary effects into several categories, with one question for each. it would direct the flow of thought better for the respondents by allowed them to think about each area of effects one at a time.

[primary effects - split into several questions:]
[sensory effects]

• Red/orange colored visual distortions
• Green/blue colored visual distortions
• Yellow/orange colored visual distortions
• Yellow/green colored visual distortions
• Open-eye visual distortions\
• Crawling, "persian-rug" style OEVs
• Fractal-style OEVs
• Large-scale bending/morphing/melting OEVs
• Choppy movement OEVs
• Closed-eye visual distortions
• Fractal-style CEVs
• "Brain movies"-style CEVs
• Audio hallucinations (hearing things that aren't there) - voices
• Audio hallucinations - buzzing/crackling/humming
• Audio distortions - modification of existing sounds
• Increase in sense of taste
• Decrease in sense of taste
• Increased sensitivity to touch
• Decreased sensitivity to touch

[psychological effects]

• Perceived communication with an external entity
• Perceived extra-sensory communication with humans
• Perceived extra-sensory communication with animals
• Perceived ability to sense the energy fields of others
• Increase in speed of thought
• Increase in cognitive branching/free association
• Time distortion
• Increase in perceived mathematical skills or understanding
• Depersonalization/ego-loss
• Ego boost
• Manifestation of the subconscious mind
• Perceived connection to an external higher power (e.g., "God")
• Perceived awakening into a higher state of consciousness
• Perceived "enlightenment"

[emotional effects]

• Euphoria
• Dysphoria
• Fear of death
• Fear of permanent insanity/permanent psychedelic state
• Generalized anxiety

[physical effects]

• Jitters
• Physical anxiety
• Non-stimulation uncomfortable body feel (these may be better in side effects actually)
• Perceived change in location of body parts
• Perceived forces acting on your physical self
• Perceived change in body position
• Perceived decrease in weight
• Perceived increase in weight

[side effects]

• Mental confusion
• Anxiety
• Jitters/unpleasant physical stimulation
• Body soreness
• Mentally scattered

[aftereffects]

• Lingering visual distortions
• Lingering mental state
• Anxiety developed
• Schizophrenia developed
• Depression developed
• Other mental condition developed
• Lingering physical hangover

NOTE: This is a work in progress and some of it is just notes. I don't necessarily want to include everything listed here at any given time.

 

[5-HT2]

These ideas are interesting, but can you give me some time to dig up the psychiatric rating scales that I mentioned before you start making the survey itself?

Also, I'm not sure it's wise to put questions about color perception in there. I don't think they will be very informative, because this aspect of the experience seems to be extremely dependent on set and setting, and the natural variation in color perception between different people introduces a significant confound.

 

[Xorkoth]

Yeah, definitely. The survey I made is totally just an example and will be scrapped entirely at some point. I'll keep using it to test the format and stuff though.

Can we decide what we mean by the term side-effect by the way? Officially it is used for "unintended or adverse effects". Something like a feeling of terror can hardly be called intended, however I wouldn't call it a side-effect. Shall we call effects that are not worthwhile or functional at all for all indended purposes of psychedelic use? All of a sudden, paranoia doesn't seem like a side-effect anymore seeing as it definitely is an inherent effect of tripping itself. Paranoia and megalomania seem more like a symptom of something deeper you have to work through like issues of self-trust or trust in others...

I think you've got a good point here, and we for sure need a standardized definition. Perhaps we should define it as undesired and non-psychological/physical effects. That would include things like vasoconstriction, nystagmus, etc, etc, but would not include things like paranoia, megalomania, and so forth, because those things are much better classified as psychological/psychedelic in effect, IMO.

Purity and certainty of identity of a specific compound could be implemented in another scale of 1 to 10. 10 would mean lab analysis yielded high grade results, 1 would mean it's from the street and the effects hardly even matched other reports. I'm exaggerating this a little because if you're that uncertain you shouldn't complete a survey. However this gives people the chance to rate the validity of their own report. Of course one is not naturally inclined to undermine their own report, but it's better than anything getting full credit because someone is too arrogant to leave it as potentially invalid! This rating would be combined with an algorithm that normalizes not the intensity but prevalence ratings. The profile is not altered it only weighs a little less if people are more unsure of their samples.

This is a good idea, or start of one. Then a weight value could be applied to each person in their data, and reports could be produced with each person's scores being weighted as has been set. That's all done on the back-end though... all we need to do for the survey design is to determine what kind of ratings to ask about for this weighting.

 

[egor]

it will be interesting to see where this goes.
A few (2c-t-4, 4-ho-dipt) for example may be identifyable from a mere description due to the unique nature of its effects, but others in these familys can be hard to distinguish from each other, even when you know which youve taken (i.e. 4-ho-mipt vs. 4-ho-dmt)

 

[Xorkoth]

It will be most interesting indeed.

Even if it doesn't prove incredibly useful, I think the results will be well worth it since to my knowledge, nothing this in-depth has been done. And also exciting is that these surveys can be left open indefinitely in order to eventually give real, solid statistical data with a very large base size.

 

[Solipsis]

^^ I agree, this could be the start of something unfit to provide any basic knowledge to beginning experimenters but awesome to distill some subjectively experienced intricate nuances from. For someone who has acquired an understanding of reported psychedelic effects, preferably through personal experiments, it may become possible to compare qualitive functions of different compounds. Conjecture or no, it may be a platform for examining different psychological mechanisms and activated brain areas or receptors by comparing tiny chemical differences in a family of substances with the experienced differences they yield.
The biggest problem with fundamental psychology and the effects of psychedelics is human subjectivity and the relativity within our unique minds. I feel it can be quite helpful to gather as many survey results as possible to approximate something like a generic response. Alright, every psychedelic effect may be tailor made in principle - but there are patterns nevertheless, and generalisations to be made. Anything that has a fundamental mechanism behind it may help us map out different strings different psychedelics pull. We are probably beyond the fringes of empirical science, but if there are any common factors to be discovered that unresearched psychedelics possess, I'm dying to find it even if it is by means of statistical anomalies!

As for color perception, that's like an innocent bonus question to me.
I agree that quite often predominantly perceived colors are (extremely) dependent on set and setting, but it could very well be that certain compounds
are more likely to intensify perception of primary colors or have a metallic pastel neon/fluorescent or iridescent tone to them. It certainly seems to me it doesn't work randomly for that matter. And maybe there's a pattern here too.
Maybe there isn't and you might quite possibly be right it is a worthless inquiry, but I don't see it doing any harm either. Apart from people being attracted to some psychedelic because it is reported to produce pastelly colors.

One more thing: I think it would be wise to announce some basic rules at the headers of our hypothetical surveys. And one of them should exclaim that people are expected to try not to read and memorize survey results before they participate in selfexperimenting. With psychedelics, there is always trouble with expectations based on stories and results like these. There is no definite avoiding, but we'll have to try to minimize this selfreinforcing power somehow. We need to explain this to make light of our results, to help people not to get hung up on other peoples experiences. Moderate your expectations, we claim no objectivity! we say.
Everyone can use the survey results for their own research purposes and everyone can add their own results to compound it. But we warn that these matters should be kept as seperate as possible. Do not read a result and then try it yourself, you may very well receive exactly what you read. And it will be even more impossible to determine if that's because of the generic response or because of expecting patterns. This is our biggest issue IMHO.