Overview of Hallucinogens

Hallucinogens are drugs that cause hallucinations. An hallucination is a sensory experience of something that does not exist outside the mind. It may involve hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting or feeling something that isn’t really there. Or it may involve distorted sensory perceptions, so that things look, smell, sound, taste or feel differently from the way they actually are.

Hallucinogenic drugs usually produce so called pseudo-hallucinations. This means that a user typically knows that what he or see is seeing, hearing, smelling, etc, is not real, but a product of the drug.

One common type of hallucination produced by these drugs is called synesthesia, a transposing of sensory modes. For example, seeing a particular sight may cause the user to perceive a sound. Hearing a sound may cause the user to perceive an odor. Thus, a person may hear a phone ring and “see” a flash of brilliant light, etc.

Sometimes hallucinations can be very frightening to the user. The user may be panic stricken by what he or she is seeing of hearing and may become uncontrollably excited, or even try to flee from their terror. Hallucinogen users call these kind of experiences “bad trips”. Users of Hallucinogens have been known to be driven into permanent insanity by these experiences. A terrifying “bad trip” sometimes may be re-experienced as a Flashback. Hallucinogen flashbacks apparently do not occur because a residual quantity of the drug in the user’s body. Rather, flashbacks are vivid recollections of a portion of a previous hallucinogenic experience. Essentially, flashbacks are very intense, and very frightening day dreams.

Possible Effects of Hallucinogens

In general, Hallucinogens intensify whatever mood the user is in when the drug is taken. If the user is depressed the drug will deepen the depression. If the user is feeling pleasant, the drug usually will heighten that feeling. If the user expects that the drug will help him of her achieve new insights or an expanded consciousness, the drug will seem to have that effect. However, the use of Hallucinogens often uncover mental or emotional flaws of which the user was unaware. Such flaws can result in the panic and terror of a “bad trip” even though the user was expecting a pleasurable experience.

The most common effect of an Hallucinogen is hallucination. The user’s perception of reality is severely distorted, often to the point of synesthesia. This makes it virtually impossible for the Hallucinogen-influenced person to function in the real world.

Some users experience delusions which are false beliefs (I am Superman!), others experience illusions (“I see Superman!”), while others may experience both.

General indicators:

• Dazed appearance
• Body tremors
• Perspiring
• Uncoordinated movements
• Rigid muscle tone
• Difficulty with speech
• Statement suggesting hallucinations
• Distorted sensory perceptions
• Uncontrollable laughter
• Dilated pupils
• Pulse rate up
• Body temperature up
• Blood pressure up

Signs and Symptoms of Hallucinogen Overdose

It is unlikely that Hallucinogens directly are life threatening. However, overdoses have often indirectly resulted in death. For example, one LSD user was killed when he tried to stop a train barehanded. The extreme panic of a “bad trip” has been known to lead to suicide, or to accidental death as users try to flee from their hallucinations. The most common danger of an Hallucinogen overdose is an intense “bad trip”, which can result in severe and sometimes permanent psychosis. There is some evidence that prolonged use of LSD may produce organic brain damage, leading to impaired memory, reduced attention span, mental confusion, and impaired ability to deal with abstract concepts.

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