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What IS a psychedelic?

ebola?

ebola?

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I am having trouble thinking of a set of core properties.

Visuals?

At least for me, 5-meo-dmt doesn't have much of anything in the way of visuals, and yet I find myself tripping HARD.

Agonism at 5ht2a sites?

I would like to include things like dissociatives and salvia as psychedelics. Usually cannabis too.

Altered thought processes?

Most any recreational drug will change how you think and feel.

For me, the answer is that psychedelics affect abstract throught in a particular way:

Chains of thought develop that are linked by levels of abstraction, each thought subsuming those prior. This may be contrasted with linear thinking, whereby the thinker traces a chain of causation. At the same time, this very process of jumping levels of abstraction becomes subsumed. And so on.

Interestingly, I think that the tactile effects and visuals are another aspect of this same thing. There is a reason that geometric visuals are often self-similar (fractals). I think that this process is also related to a softening in the self-other border (or its entire disillusion if you get far out enough).

I find this "psychedelic signature" on things as disparate as LSD, nitrous oxide, and cannabis.



ebola
 
I just finished a mushroom trip, so my thoughts on this are recently informed. I would agree with Albert Hoffman that it's the higher level thought processes that are most affected, and the lower level processes respond to their sudden shifts and swings and swirls (literally, swirls, thoughts visually become spirals and fades and ladders). For example, abstract thinking would be a higher level process and emotions would be a lower level process that responds, secondarily.

Thoughts still go in chains, I would say - I don't think you can get outside of the chain of cause and effect. There is a difference from sobriety concerning each subsequent thought's relationship to the prior. One prime characteristic I've noticed is the "looping" effect that occurs with reasoning ( hence my stupid thread earlier about posting in PD about "posting in PD while tripping about tripping" while tripping... lol)

Another characteristic is just plain greater awareness of thoughts themselves, like an ability to objectify them visually and then these little insights happen (dammit I'm trying to remember my thoughts from earlier but theyre just out of my grasp - how do insights happen? I think I would have been able to give an answer before). this is a good topic for discussion but difficult to navigate. I'll try to post more later when I'm fully sober.

long live paradoxes
 
ebola? said:
Chains of thought develop that are linked by levels of abstraction, each thought subsuming those prior. This may be contrasted with linear thinking, whereby the thinker traces a chain of causation. At the same time, this very process of jumping levels of abstraction becomes subsumed. And so on.
Click to expand...

Oh ok I think I understand. So you're saying: when a sober person reflects on his thoughts, he traces them linearly, thought by thought, back to their cause, but when a psychedelicized person reflects on his thoughts, he transforms the prior thought into an abstraction of it.

?

I would say both of these occur (linear and abstract) when sober and tripping, but
the proportion definitely shifts between states of mind (more abstract when tripping, less linear and hence worse short term memory since its harder to trace thoughts backwards)
 
A psychedelic can't be absolutely defined, but we know one when we see it. A major difference between psychedelics and non psychedelics is that non psychedelics usually aggravate, mimic, or otherwise manipulate the body's regular processes. Cocaine, for example, increases dopamine and heroin mimics endorphins. But whereas non psychedelic drugs alter normal forms of consciousness, psychedelics create new forms of consciousness.

(That definition is entirely unscientific, by the way. Don't scrutinize it as a medical explanation, but as a description from the drug user's perspective.)
 
As the word implies, they are drugs that reveal deeper mechanisms at work in conciousness (psychedelic being from the Greek meant to reveal the mind)without being too disruptive (anaesthetics obviously can show a lot about the functioning of the mind, but are highly disruptive to normal functioning).

Looking at the origin of words themselves can be of enormous help with questions like these
 
fastandbulbous said:
Looking at the origin of words themselves can be of enormous help with questions like these
Click to expand...

Thank you thank you thank you- 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.

Mind-manifesting is how I interpret a psychedelic- whenever something that is an inherent part of me is allowed to be revealed and examined.
 
Its a convenient umbrella title to list many substances under. I posted my scpiel in the MDMA poll but no one seems to have read it. So, I'll just quote what I wrote here:
this idiot in another thread said:
To me, MDMA is most definitely not psychedelic, the same way Ketamine and C. indica are not psychedelic. I use the word "psychedelic" not for its literal meaning, but as a very strict classification of certain effect that some chemicals elicit (of which the measuring stick has been, traditionally, LSD (or DOI if you're a rat in certain labs). I think this is necessary, because taking drug classes for literal value and playing with that leads to disasters like "omgz! Ketamine are a horse tranquilizer".

On top of that, "empathogen" and "entactogen" to me are properties, not a class of drugs, because they tend to appear in several different classes. I don't think anyone can argue against the case that Heroin has entactogenic properties... but so does cocaine, and therefore you cannot really make that a class since both drugs already belong to well-established classes of their own (depressant and stimulant, respectively).

To clarify: let's take depressants for example. There are "classic" criteria for a drug to be called a "depressant", which generally conform to the qualities elicited by barbiturates. Now, I have personally experienced lethargia and "drowsiness" (and I know many of you know what I'm talking about) with meth. Does that mean that I can say that meth is a depressant? No. It may sometimes show depressant-like qualities, but it certainly isn't one. The same goes for drugs (like MDMA) that may "open your mind" (ie. mind-expanding) in certian sets and settings, but it cannot be classified as a psychedelic because it does not fit the criteria of which the precedent, as mentioned above, is LSD.

For me, MDMA (as well as Methylone (and analogues), and 4-FA) are simply stimulants that work on the emotions rather than on thought. I find that MDMA does to my feelings EXACTLY what amphetamines do to my intellect (and on a personal note, both end up with a feeling of being cheated, but thats another story).

On the other hand, AMT, MDA and (arguably) some of the 2Cs, although posessing empathogenic and entactogenic properties, are most definitely psychedelic.

So my answer is a solid ABSOLUTELY NOT.
Click to expand...
 
ebola? said:
For me, the answer is that psychedelics affect abstract throught in a particular way: Chains of thought develop that are linked by levels of abstraction, each thought subsuming those prior. This may be contrasted with linear thinking, whereby the thinker traces a chain of causation. At the same time, this very process of jumping levels of abstraction becomes subsumed. And so on.
Click to expand...
So by this do you mean that in the psychedelic state there is an increased tendency toward bottom to top thinking over left to right thinking i.e. moving from an example of a concrete criminal punishment to the concept of justice over moving from one example of concrete criminal punishment to a concrete example of reform? Maybe you could provide an example?

I think I agree with you, though on a more general level I think the idea can itself be subsumed within an understanding of the psychedelic state as a loosening of conceptual boundaries, including our self-concept. If we tend to think linearly, in a firm, successive, and stepwise fashion, then a loosening of our conceptual boundaries would entail the simultaneous activation of whole networks of thoughts and more holistic thinking. The thoughts within these holistic networks would tend to be reasonably associated with one another but not necessarily. Psychedelic’s activation both within networks coherently interassociated and between networks reasonably disconnected could explain both the tendency of the psychedelics user to discern plausible higher order connections between ideas (insights typically signified by by the eureka feeling) and their tendency to draw entirely nonsensical parallels between thoughts that no intelligent person can relate to. If the eureka feeling is merely the feeling of a network of thoughts fusing together—which usually occurs in a sensible and fairly reliable way when we’re sober—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. In dissociative use this loosening of conceptual boundaries might happen when certain brain systems are isolated from others that influence or inhibit (or inhibit the inhibition of) them or the activity of the normally antecedent or successive systems to the isolated system, thereby freeing up networks of thought to make unusual or higher order associations via a breakdown in the usual chain of neural systems that might underpin some forms of linear thought.

I don't think this idea helps us understand the visionary state that characterizes salvia (esp. salvia!) and peak experiences with 5HT hallucinogens and dissociatives very well though, which suggests the concept of a psychedelic is partially just pragmatic.
 
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There's a difference between sticking to literals such as "drug classification" and "the meaning of a word". True, drug classifications aren't set in stone, and there are lots of overlap. In the same sense, what exactly constitutes a "manifestation of the mind" can have overlaps and splits as well- for some, it is tapping into an unknown consciousness, settling subconscious personal issues, or even just the classic visions that psychedelic drugs help bring forth. Either way, they can all be interpreted as a manifestation. But without having that basis to identify the action or meaning, there is no collectivity from which to start a definition.
 
it's not a word, it's an experience. i think that's what ebola's trying to get at with his "psychedelic signature." Some essence that runs through all psychedelic experiences.

i think this essence is best described when you set up a dialogue between the psychedelicized mind and the non-psychedelicized mind - what are the differences? How does either mind view the other? How does either mind view itself?
 
Right- but what is language? A way to express the inner dialogue, to convey that experience. That's why you can still use the literal meaning- because it was chosen as a way to convey that essence existing in the mind.
I'm not trying to pin down a meaning as to what a manifestation of the mind can or can not be, I'm just saying that the feeling of a widening of the mind is what psychedelic means, and the reason that it is a preferred term is because that essence is true of all drugs affecting the mind in that way.
I know that sounds slightly circular- it's just kind of hard to explain. But language is already imperfect enough at conveying exactly what goes on up there, so I just find it makes the most sense to stick with as close a primary interpretation as possible.
 
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For me I think something that somewhat changes who you are you is a psychedelic. What I mean, is when I am tripping, I am not outwardly the same person I normally am. If you talk to me, I will seem odd, and may not carry a conversation well. Or maybe I'll really charge in personality (ergo, MDMA being a psychedelic...it makes me from being a a fairly self rightous jackass who perfers fighting to loving into someone who wants hugs and kisses and cuddles)

When I am doing Amphetamines, I am still me. I just seem like me with more get up and go.

When I do Benzo's I am still me, just a kind of relaxed me.

I think what I am trying to say is sort of coming across?
 
Because it helps when you are trying to explain something to someone who has never experienced it.
 
For those interested in the how the word psychedelic came about (I know lots of you in PD already know, but this is for the newcomers), the term "psychedelic" goes way back to 1953. The English psychiatrist Humphry Osmond (what a fab name eh?) gave some Mescaline to Aldous Huxley.

This is quoted from the obituary for Osmond in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), on 20th March 2004:

"Huxley suggested 'phanerothyme', from the Greek words for 'to show' and 'spirit', and sent a rhyme (to Osmond): "To make this mundane world sublime, Take half a gram of phanerothyme". Instead, Osmond chose 'psychedelic' from the Greek words 'psyche' (for mind or soul) and 'deloun' (for show), and suggested, "To fathom Hell or soar angelic/Just take a pinch of psychedelic".

Osmond announced this at the New York Academy of Sciences meeting in 1957 (of which I have an original copy, Yo!). Osmond went on to study LSD and was probably the seminal medical figure to research LSD in the 1950's. And the term psychedelic has stuck ever since :)

E
 
EntheoDjinn said:
Instead, Osmond chose 'psychedelic' from the Greek words 'psyche' (for mind or soul) and 'deloun' (for show), and suggested, "To fathom Hell or soar angelic/Just take a pinch of psychedelic".
Click to expand...

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.
 
I don't think it even necessarily has to be a drug... to me a psychedelic is anything that opens up your mind. It could be a book, a spontaneous peak experience (Maslow-style) or meditation.

But as far as drugs go, I think psychedelic drugs are the ones that loosen the ego. Drugs like cocaine for example are antithesis of a psychedelic. With opioids, I've often had psychedelic-esque nods but there wasn't a loosening of the ego... it's more like the cradling or nursing of the ego. I really do think the purpose behind psychedelics is to show us ourselves... which is infinite!
 
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