• Psychedelic Drugs Welcome Guest
    View threads about
    Posting RulesBluelight Rules
    PD's Best Threads Index
    Social ThreadSupport Bluelight
    Psychedelic Beginner's FAQ
  • PD Moderators: Esperighanto | JackARoe |

What IS a psychedelic?

psood0nym said:
a psychedelic loosening of conceptual boundaries would increase the incidence of the proper conjoining and subsumption of thoughts into higher order abstractions as well as the incidence of “misconjoinments” due to leeching of reasonably disconnected networks into otherwise coherent networks via liberal application of our favorite psychedelic solvents. Additionally, its possible that the presence of a psychedelic could even amplify the experience of mendacious insight, thereby overpowering our inhibitions and second guesses with an all-consuming feeling of certainty.
Click to expand...

So you think many psychedelia facilitated revelations/insights are just hogwash caused by random associations and reinforced by supernormal certainty?
- I think I would agree with this somewhat - on the day after some trips I've contemplated the previous day's revelations and just said "wtf was I thinking?" or
"that's certainly possible but why was I so fascinated with the possibility?"

On the other hand this is the very process of creativity and insight - making associations not previously recognized. Then, of course, you need the scientific method to test their validity.

During one acid trip I became convinced that our reality is merely a simulation created by a higher (more inclusive) reality, and that things such as video games (Skate, specifically) were simulations created by our reality, and that these simulations would reflect the laws of our reality - and thus the people/characters in video games must be conscious (altho to a lesser degree than us). The behaviors of these characters are based on algorithms, and, after all, aren't our own behaviors? How to test this?...;)
 
But the word itself doesn't necessarily divide between "light and dark", or things of those natures. It just means to manifest the mind. The fact that he said you could go to either to Heaven or hell is just a condition of the experience- those things are possible. But trying to say that you have to have both aspects to qualify is trying to make too literal a definition for something that is a subjective experience.
 
nikol said:
........... a large peeve of mine is when people allow the connotation or the culture of a word or term replace the literal meaning as the definition.....
Click to expand...
Well, attempts have been made to wrest the term psychedelic away from substances such as LSD & etc.

What might be termed the "pathological discourse" has in the past attempted to appropriate our favourite drugs by labelling them:

hallucinogen (meaning a substance which causes hallucinations)
psychotomimetic (meaning mimicking psychosis)
psychotogen (meaning producing psychosis)
psychodysleptic (meaning mind-disturbing)
psychotoxin (a poison causing psychosis)
schizotoxin (a poison causing schizophrenia)

According to Strassman (in DMT: The Spirit Molecule, 2001, p30) these terms reflect the deep-seated and ongoing debate about psychedelic drugs and their effects whilst supporting the dominant pathological discourse.

In other words, they impair, derange, or interfere with the body and brain’s normal functioning, altering consciousness to produce visions and hallucinations, which whilst appearing to be real (a state indistinguishable from psychosis) have no actual ontological substance. The assumption is that the phenomenological experience is of no worth, other than in generating a false empathy with the permanently psychotic patient.

But we know better, don't we ;)
 
Well, I hope we do.
I think the reason that we eventually just keep settling on the term psychedelic to describe the experience/drug/mindset is because the others become too specific to certain aspects of the e/d/m (well, and they cast it in a negative light). Psychedelic is neutral as a description of the action (it speaks only to what is caused, and not the attributes of it) as good and bad can happen, and they do, but because there is no way to predict the rate at which certain attributes will reveal themselves, it's incorrect to pin anything other than a neutral term to the description.
(Sorry if this last one comes off mean or catty- or if I start making less and less sense as this goes on. I've been sitting in hospital waiting room for the last 5 hours, and have been up for 24 hours with only 2 hours of sleep :( )
 
Last edited:
Cthulhu said:
So you think many psychedelia facilitated revelations/insights are just hogwash caused by random associations and reinforced by supernormal certainty?
Click to expand...
I think psychedelics increase both plausible insights and mendacious insights while decreasing our ability to discern between the two at the time due to an amplified sense of certainty and drug-mangled critical thinking skills. The situation is clouded further when we wobblingly try to string together a set of "insights" into some grand conclusion without knowing which, if any, of them are plausible.
 
nikol said:
But the word itself doesn't necessarily divide between "light and dark", or things of those natures. It just means to manifest the mind. The fact that he said you could go to either to Heaven or hell is just a condition of the experience- those things are possible. But trying to say that you have to have both aspects to qualify is trying to make too literal a definition for something that is a subjective experience.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying that you have to experience both extremes to call it a real psychedelic experience (although I've never had a trip that was pure happiness, there's always been some oscillation). But the possibility has to be there, and yes that is too strict a definition, but I think it has to be included - I see this thread as an attempt by us Bluelighters to build a definition that might never be perfect, but should be sufficient and testable operationally - something beyond "mind manifesting."

For example, psood0nym's thoughts on holistic thinking are particularly interesting because that can be tested - brain scans can show whether out of the ordinary parallel brain activity occurs under the influence of psychedelics, and association tasks can test the subjective aspect of that occurrence. (this kind of thing has been tested, btw, and studies corroborate psood0nym's views).
 
nikol said:
(Sorry if this last one comes off mean or catty- or if I start making less and less sense as this goes on. I've been sitting in hospital waiting room for the last 5 hours, and have been up for 24 hours with only 2 hours of sleep :( )
Click to expand...

That sucks. Hope whatever's going on there turns out ok <3
 
Cthulhu said:
This is a good reason for why drugs such as ecstasy and opiates are not psychedelic - they don't manifest both light and dark (heaven and hell ) aspects of Mind, the way psychedelic do.
Click to expand...

Obviously you've never experienced the hell of a negative MDMA (well actually MDEA) experience. Like everybody has a copy of the script except you...

If that's not a dark side, you must be very easily pleased =D


hallucinogen (meaning a substance which causes hallucinations)
psychotomimetic (meaning mimicking psychosis)
psychotogen (meaning producing psychosis)
psychodysleptic (meaning mind-disturbing)
psychotoxin (a poison causing psychosis)
schizotoxin (a poison causing schizophrenia)
Click to expand...

Why is it that some scientists have succh a preoccupation with the dark side of everything. My personal experience indicates that the above only describe the minority of experiences. Imagine the upraor among those people is someone tried to push entheogen in sais cold scientific circles
 
root word analysis

Literally (according to dictionary speak), a psychedelic is a mind or soul manifester.
A manifester is something that makes another thing visible or recognizable.
 
The situation is clouded further when we wobblingly try to string together a set of "insights" into some grand conclusion without knowing which, if any, of them are plausible.
Click to expand...

I agree, but that's why you come back down eventually- once you are back in the hands of reality you can rethink and test and see what holds up in the mind of the individual that is sober and rational once again- although, those two qualities do not always HAVE to go together. I'm pretty sure we've all had moments while tripping that were more lucid and clear than anything else in life.

I see this thread as an attempt by us Bluelighters to build a definition that might never be perfect, but should be sufficient and testable operationally - something beyond "mind manifesting."
Click to expand...

And I agree here as well. The problem is currently we have no language that can convey the essence of the whole/all psychedelic experience(s), other than the word psychedelic itself- everything else is simply too limiting- as f&b pointed out. In order to move the language forward, we have to identify another common vein in all psychedelic experiences, and give life to the word, in the exact same way as when "psychedelic" was first coined. But until that essence can have some type of language applied to it that is a neutral example of a theme in all experiences, we are stuck.

That sucks. Hope whatever's going on there turns out ok.
Click to expand...

Thanks <3
I was actually waiting for my boyfriend (he's a BLer as well- PeyoteVisions). He had jaw surgery yesterday morning.
 
The problem is currently we have no language that can convey the essence of the whole/all psychedelic experience(s), other than the word psychedelic itself- everything else is simply too limiting- as f&b pointed out.
Click to expand...

I did? Have I become subconciously decisive? =D =D =D

Actually, reading it back, I forget sometimes that occasionally people sometimes totally get the concept you're trying to convey - when you've tweaked the perfect recollection both conceptually and emotionally...

I must be less cynical (repeat until you belive =D)
 
I was referring to the other terms that the science community has tried to use to replace psychedelic- although my problems isn't so much that they only focus on the negative aspects (for the most part), but that even those terms can't apply to all things that can fall under the blanket of "psychedelic".

[on an unrelated note- wheeeee! 200 posts!]
 
I will concur that MDx substance CAN produce horrific experienced - I believe this what happened the last time I took an E pill...3, 4 years ago?

That being said, it was not a "bad trip"... it was more like "I feel poisoned and I want this to stop!".
 
re: thread title

Fucking mushrooms.





/thread/life/everything/nothing
 
Last edited:
i think a psychedelic drug is a drug that opens your mind to new ideas that you might not have thought of otherwise. visuals and melty feelings are almost like side effects in my mind
 
Just want to bump this thread, will have to read further about the exact intention of this discussion but it may warrant an entry in our beginners FAQ wouldnt you say?

I invite you to work together towards a nice answer!
 
I don't really get why people tend to call every mind-altering substance "psychedelic". Weed is a psychedelic, MDMA is a psychedelic, Ketamine is a psychedelic, Amanita musrooms are psychedelic, Datura is a psychedelic. Pff, there is already term "hallucinogen" for all these substances(apart weed maybe). There are already specific terms for distinguishing separate classes of similar compounds: emphathogens/entactogens for MDMA-like compounds, dissociatives for Ketamine-like, deliriants for datura-like, and muscimol(active component of Amanitas) is...well, GABA-A receptor agonist:)

Interestingly, not every 5HT2a agonist is a psychedelic, but I would reserve word "psychedelic" for some subset of 5HT2a agonists.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top