As psychedelics become more popular, with more being spoken about their medical properties, the question of hallucinations arises. After all, psychedelics are widely known for causing them. So, what are these hallucinations, and what happens in your brain when you take these drugs that makes you hallucinate?
The brain is a vast and hard-to-understand organ, and what happens in it when we hallucinate is not well understood. But research is coming out everyday to help us understand better how the drugs we take, effect our brains. We’re dedicated to covering this emerging field of psychedelics! For more articles like this one, sign up for the Psychedelics Weekly Newsletter, your #1 internet source for everything important going on in this quickly growing space.
What are psychedelic drugs?
Psychedelic drugs are members of a group called hallucinogens, which fit under the category of psychoactive drugs. Psychedelics are associated with causing hallucinations, which are essentially the sensation of something that doesn’t actually exist. This can mean smelling something, seeing something, hearing something, feeling something, or tasting something that isn’t there.
Apart from hallucinations, psychedelics are known for causing users to have spiritual experiences, to feel more connected to those around and the universe as a whole, to bring on feelings of euphoria and wellbeing, to alter perception, cognition, and mood, and to promote what people refer to as ‘life-changing’ experiences.
While these occurrences are generally positive, psychedelics are also associated with ‘bad trips’; in which a user experiences negative hallucinations. Sometimes along with symptoms like erratic heartrate, chills, anxiety, paranoia, nausea, raised blood pressure, and dizziness. Bad trips are more often than not associated with taking too much of a drug, as well as being in bad surroundings or around the wrong people for the situation. Plenty can be done to avoid bad trips when taking these drugs.
Many different types of psychedelic drugs exist, and they can be found in nature or created in a lab. Nature-based psychedelics include peyote, psilocybin (magic mushrooms), and DMT, whereas lab made psychedelics include drugs like LSD, ketamine, and PCP. As of right now, according to the federal government, all psychedelic compounds are schedule I. This excludes ketamine, which is Schedule III, and able to be prescribed for off-label use as an antidepressant or pain medication, esketamine – a cousin to ketamine which enjoys FDA approval for depression, and DXM, which has been found in OTC cold medicines since 1958.