Talk:Psychedelic drug/Archive 1

Salvia?

I don't mean to seem asinine but Salvia Divinorum (salvinorin a.) is not a "novel" psychedelic. If anyone else agrees I will change it please. somewilliepete 5:00, 13 Sep 2006

I'm not sure exactly what you mean. --Thoric 03:21, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

It's not novel simply in that it has a long if obscure history of traditional use.Sjeng 01:57, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

It's novel because there isn't anything to compare it to. --Thoric (talk) 22:23, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Moreover, it shouldn't really be on this page at all, should it? I though it didn't affect the 5-HT2A receptor, as the Wiki article on salvinorin-A states. In fact I think it acts on opioid receptors. Any experts got input on this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by OliverHarris (talk • contribs) 20:58, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Mescaline?

Mescaline is missing, but being no chemist, I am not sure where to include it. Haiduc 10:56, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It's there, under the phenethylamines --Thoric 12:30, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Cannabis

Why was this section removed? Was there a discussion about this on another page that I'm unaware of? Please post reasons for section removal on the talk page of the page being modified (i.e. this one). --Thoric 20:11, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Cannabis is generally not considered a psychedelic, same as with dissociatives etc. Seems best to let them have their own pages (which they already do) and link to them with a note that some people consider them psychedelics, which is the way its set up now. --Murple

The psychedelic drug page is the "own page" off from the Psychedelics, dissociatives and deliriants page, of which the psychedelic drug pages extends the information. Your removal of the quasi-psychedelics breaks that scheme somewhat. Of the three categories (psychedelics, dissociatives and deliriants), cannabis best fits in as a psychedelic. As I mentioned on your talk page, cannabis belongs with the psychedelics as much as MDMA does. --Thoric 21:47, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

I disagree, strongly. MDMA shares a serotonergic based activity with the classic psychedelics, and in spite of the lack of stront visual effects isnt really all that different in its activity. Other psychedelics, such as 5-MeO-DMT, also are not particularly visual. Dissociatives act on NDMA receptors. Deliriants act on acetylcholine receptors. Cannabis acts on cannabinoid (anandamide) receptors. That puts it in its own class of drug, although there are synthetic cannabinoids as well such as levonantradol or nabilone. Your position seems to be "well we don't know what else to call it" - and I think thats a very weak basis for lumping it in with psychedelics. Sure, there's some superficial similarities, but its a real stretch. Marijuana and the synthetic cannabinoids belong in their own pharmacological classification since they don't work like any other drugs. It therefore follows that it deserves its own separate and distinct page in Wikipedia, with only a mention here that some people group it with psychedelics even though that's not the usual scientific classification. --Murple

MDMA may have some similarities in action to mescaline, but I'd hardly call the experience similar. For psychedelics, the subjective experience is far more important than the method of action. Some users of cannabis (particularly high oral doses) most definitely have what would be classified as a psychedelic experience. This is the primary qualifier. There are many serotonin agonists which do not produce a psychedelic experience regardless of how similar in action they are to classic psychedelics. I agree that cannabis is in a category of its own, but it does have a close affinity with the psychedelics, including synergistic interaction. Do note that deliriants are also dissociative in effect -- should we maybe rename the Psychedelics, dissociatives and deliriants page to Psychedelics, dissociatives and cannabinoids? To rename the category Psychedelics, dissociatives, deliriants and cannabinoids is getting a wee bit verbose --Thoric 05:44, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Replaced quasi-psychedelics until we have a better place to put them. --Thoric 07:40, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

yeah, i also think that they should go here for now. --Heah (talk) 08:24, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Psychedelic Drugs

Anyone noticed there is a psychedelic drugs article different from this one? Should probably merge.

No, it was an incorrect redirction. I fixed it to redirect to this page. The other page in question is psychedelic which refers to the meaning beyond that of just the drugs. --Thoric 05:28, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

merger

i've put up merger tags here and on Serotonergic psychedelics. I don't know enough to be able to say whether these should be combined or not, but from my reading i'm not sure that Serotonergic psychedelics warrants it's own article, in addition to this one. They seem to be on the same class of chemicals, except cannabis is also briefly covered here. thoughts? --Heah ^talk 23:15, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I suppose that they are significant enough to have their own page... they are the same as what are referred to as classic psychedelics on this page, though I don't know for certain which term is preferred (although Google returns nearly twice as many results for "classic psychedelics" as compared to "serotonergic psychedelics" -- many being mirrors of the wikipedia article). In any case, it would be good to at least have more synchronization between the pages, especially with respect to standardizing the terminology (classic versus serotonergic). The classic (or serotonergic) psychedelics do not include MDMA, cannabis nor a good number of the phenethylamines.

What is most unfortunate is the lack of connection between the two pages. I find it strange that the serotonergic psychedelics page exists without any reference to the psychedelic drug page. --Thoric 23:35, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

It seems that Overand put it up on his/her second day of editing, which is probably why there is a lack of synchronization between the two. But otherwise it's very well written. It might make sense to keep it as an article as per your remarks above; in addition, it's a much more technical explanation of their actions and whatnot, where as this article seems to focus more on cultural concepts and uses. again, i don't really know, but i figured it was worth bringing up and discussing; at the very least we can work on the connections/differences between the two articles. --Heah ^talk 23:52, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

It's surprising he missed it when his article had links to psychedelic, (which links to psychedelic drug). I guess it may have been oversight. I made some minor cross reference adjustments, and added a "See also" section to the other article. --Thoric 00:13, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

The reason I created the Article was because I felt that there should have been a distinction between these various categories of psychoactive/psychedelic drugs; the Dissociatives (NMDA antagonists), while they can easily be classified as Psychedelic drugs, clearly have a method of action (and effects) quite different from the the drugs with serotonin-mediated activity. Unfortunately, I'm simply not knowledgable enough to go into the details of the different sub-types of receptors (5-HTa1, et al) that are related to the already not-incredibly-well-understood mechanics of these drugs. A merger makes a certain amount of sense, but given that Serotonergic drugs (and psychedelics) are a different category, simply adding them to this page seems somewhat inappropriate. It *would* seem OK to duplicate some content, and clearly the Serotonergic psychedelics page needs to be made to fit the template that these other pages have. I think it shouldn't be merged, so much as improved, and more properly integrated and interconnected. Perhaps it should point to templates like these, etc:{{Hallucinogenic tryptamines}}{{Triptans}}{{Tryptamines}} My time these days is somewhat limited, and unfortunately, I'm somewhat lacking when it comes to grand-and-sweeping edits of pages... so, I've offered up my somewhat scattered opinion here, and I'll keep my eyes on this, and hopefully will manage to have time to get my hands back into this. We'll see. --Overand 22:58, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

List of psychedelic drugs/merger

I've taken the liberty of removing the lists of psychedelic drugs out of this article and putting them in their own breakout article, List of psychedelic drugs. List articles should be separate from general articles – mixing the two does not help with the readability of an article.

Turning to the issue of merger, I think there's a bigger pattern of disorganization going on – looking at Psychedelics, dissociatives and deliriants, Psychedelic drug, and Serotonergic psychedelics, these articles are organized in such a way that there's no rhyme nor reason as to what material goes where. Between all of these topics, there may very well be enough material for several articles, but I really think that somebody needs to sit down and outline this material, note which sections are long, arrange the master articles so they provide a good overview of the subject and create breakout articles as necessary. Peter G Werner 02:35, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

These are relatively young articles representing information that currently has little documentation elsewhere. Once these articles are cleaned up and better organized as you mention, Wikipedia will likely become by far the most clear and concise source of information on this subject. I am a little confused by your overly broad criticism of their organization, and would invite you to be more specific, and also to make some suggestions of how to improve it. --Thoric 16:04, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't think my criticism is overly broad. I'd be sitting here writing all day if I were to point out every little thing that's wrong with the organization of these articles. Does the history of psychedelic drug use really belong under "Psychedelics, dissociatives and deliriants" rather than psychedelic drugs? If it does belong in the former, why is so much of the introduction of the latter article taken up with that topic? If the pharmacology of serotonergic psychedelics should be in the breakout article on the topic, why is there nothing similar for empathogens? And why are the articles so poorly integrated? They barely even link to each other. Obviously, three or more different articles on overlapping topics have been written without any attention paid to the need to integrate these topics and place subtopics appropriately. As I said, one person actually sitting down and writing out an outline of the topic and determining what subtopics should go where would do wonders for the clarity and conciseness of these articles. I could do this, but if its left to me, don't count on it being done soon, because I'm busy with other articles. Peter G Werner 17:21, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Ahh, well, these articles are poorly integrated because they originated as a collection of separately written, non-integrated articles, and are in the (albiet slow) process of being integrated and will hopefully someday follow the same general layout for all of the drug related articles. Up until recently, the serotonergic psychedelic article wasn't connected in any way with any other of these articles. It is all a work in progress. Personally I feel that all of the specific substance drug articles should follow a similar format to the LSD article which is a featured article, and the drug group articles should all follow a similar (but improved) format to the Stimulant article. It should be noted that to bring about mass change to a large number of articles is difficult work. Not only is it a large volume of work, but it may meet resistance along the way as various maintainers of different articles could disagree with the changes. --Thoric 18:09, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

psychonaut

psychonaut

thoric seems to believe some of the materials i have put up at the Psychonaut discussion might have a better home here. I'm not necessarilly opposed to that, but i think that there should be sufficient schema adressed in psychonaut that it holds its own weight.

I also like to avoid being shunted off into closets.

If anybody else can find information which would be more appropriate here than there, maybe they could go over and do what Thoric has yet to do, which is actually tell us which particular pieces of information he (or they) thinks those are.

Prometheuspan 02:19, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Entactogens

The article seems to imply that entactogens are serotonin releasers, which may be true, but has not been demonstrated to be relevant to their (unknown) mechanism of action.

--MattBagg 08:06, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

The First Sentence

"Psychedelic drugs are psychoactive drugs whose primary action is to enhance or amplify the thought processes of the brain."

—This unsigned comment was added by Across.The.Synapse (talk • contribs) .

How do you think Plato got so smart? And what about Crick and DNA?[1] Or Apple Computers? Or William James? Or the Beatles? or a book like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest? Joe Stoner might not have done much, but plenty of other people have with the aid of hallucinogens, people like Francis Crick and Steven Jobs.

Psychedelics are neurotransmitters, and epistemologically speaking, i'm not sure how you can assert that our tryptamine consciousness is more accurate than, say, a dimethyltryptamine consciousness, or a 4-Phosphoryloxy-N,N- dimethyl-tryptamine concsiousness, and etc.

Anyways . . . I've read plenty of Plato and Leibniz. (and a very limited amount of Reimann . . .) If you want to talk philosophy i'd highly recomend reading up on the pragmatists and radical empiricism, particularly James' Varieties of Religious Experience or, say, the Subjective Effects of Nitrous Oxide. I also think Plato would be very upset that one of his readers believes that the proper method of expanding consciousness is through reading, rather than exploring your own psyche, thought processes, beliefs, and etc. Which can of course be cited if you're interested. There's a reason Socrates told Meno that he would understand better if he could only stick around for the mysteries next week and be initiated.

As for the sentence itself . . . "amplify" is more key here than "enhance". psychedelics do expose you to your thoughts in a way that few things can; whether this is enlightening or not is of little import as far as wikipedia goes. perhaps the sentence should be reworded- but not because reading is the proper way to expand consciousness . . .

--He:ah? 09:47, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Before reading the rest of this contribution, please know that I am completely open to the fact that I might be totally wrong: Although I tend to agree more with Heah than the unsigned user above, I also think that the words enhace and amplify might be representative of a smaller set of psychedelic experiences than to justify calling these the "primary" actions of the drugs. The word enhance has the connotation of "improving" rather than altering. However, people acquainted with the effects of drugs like LSD will tell you (if you don't already know) that the drug frequently inhibits their cognitive capacity in certain areas of thought. So while particular thought processes may be enhanced, others are significantly diminished in their degree and scope. Maybe, and this is just a suggestions, it would be more accurate to say that the primary action of the psychedelics is a drastic alteration of sensory perception and cognition. Or something along those lines. Any thoughts? Povins 15:12, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I beg to differ. The paragraph about psychedelics is to distinguish the effects from that of the dissociatives. Comparatively psychedelics would be considered to be more on the enhancing side of things, while dissociatives would be more on the diminishing side of things. In low dosages, psychedelics have been shown to heighten mental acuity, improve vision and also heighten awareness. At higher dosages, one can become quite overwhelmed, but often surprisingly able to function, and able to focus concentration and congnition to levels superior to sobriety such that technological "eureka" moments and breakthroughs have been achieved. --Thoric 15:49, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

it would be ideal to find a word that didn't connote "improving", but i'm not sure what word that would be. As an aside to my brief tirade above, my reading of the sentence suggests not an improvement of thought process--in effect, that your thought process is amplified and enhanced which improves it--but rather that the process of thought itself is amplified and enhanced, making that process itself much clearer and more evident. Your thought process is exposed and becomes more open for investigation and analysis. It is more present, hence the words enhance and amplify. While low doses of psychedelics have been shown to heigten mental acuity etc., i'm not sure that we have the studies available to suggest that this happens at high doses as well. But again, I don't read the sentence to be saying or trying to say that you think better with psychedelics, only that the thinking process itself has been amplified, ie is more present and you have more thoughts . . . thoughts? heah (at some unkown time between 28 july and 30 july)

I honestly don't know much about the effects of psychedelics at low doses. Most of my experience comes from being around and knowing friends of mine that have done relatively larger doses and entered into less functional states of mind (for instance, sitting in the back of Burger King and trying to remember how to act like a person). This is not to say that I'm disagreeing with you, but just that I'm unfamiliar with this aspect of psychedelic drugs. I'm actually interested in what your saying about the heightening of mental acuity at low dosages. I've heard about artists and such using psychedelics in order to be able to look at something from a new perspective, but nothing about eureka moments in technological areas. I'd be interested in reading up. Do you have sources?

Povins 18:41, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

yeah that low-dose stuff all comes from published experiments. although i cant' cite anything off the top of my head. but there's the parallel lines test, for instance--if two lines are made paralel and then are slowly moved, the subject that took a small dose of psylocibin will notice the lines getting out of sync before the control subject. visual accuity, or perhaps just one's interpretation of visual clues, is heightened. (which is why it actually makes sense that many peoples have used hallucinogens as aids in hunting.) i'll look for some sources over the next few days, right now i have to go paint a shed.--heah 18:54, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

There is no consensus "main mechanism of action". Shamans will give you a different story than scientists, or Buddhists etc. Why not present multiple perspectives on what psychedelics do? A pharmacological perspective, a Santo Diame perspective, a Shaman perspective, etc... Brandon1001 (talk) 21:57, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Remove non-psychedelic content

I will (re)move the non-psychedelics content from this page, a few links under See also should do it. I will also merge in the content from Serotonergic psychedelic. The widely accepted definition of psychedelic drug is pretty clear and relates exclusively to compounds with a pharmacological action similar to LSD, psilocin, or mescaline. Cannabinoids, entactogens, and other classes are often subsumed under the term hallucinogen, together with psychedelic drugs, but they are definitely not psychedelic drugs. Cacycle 21:04, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

"Hallucinogen" re-categorization should likely be first discussed at the project page before making structural modifications here, no? --Thoric 23:41, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

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Request to hold and discuss. The serotonergic psychedelic article currently fulfills the the above mentioned concern of a having a page dedicated to classic psychedelics. These other drugs (namely the entactogens and cannabis) are certainly not any more of a "hallucinogen" than classic psychedelics, in fact based on subjective effects, LSD would be considered far more "hallucinogenic" than MDMA or cannabis. Experts working within this field (i.e. Alexander Shulgin) would most certainly consider MDMA to be a "psychedelic". Cannabis is a little further removed due to a different method of action, but has very strong associations with LSD and psychedelics in general, including very strong synergistic effects. --Thoric 21:33, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

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Sorry, but it is not the place to speculate about vague similarities of self-experienced drug effects. As an encyclopedia we only have to follow the currently accepted common use and scientific definition of terms. Sure, all psychoactive drugs are similar - in that they are psychoactive. But that does not make all of them psychedelic. This is also stated in this article and all the other mentioned categories have their own article. Therefore, content not belonging to this page must go.

BTW, I certainly know the difference between psychoactive and psychedelic, please see the drug chart I put several years of work into organizing. --Thoric 23:17, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

MDMA (and more so MDA) are special cases in that they have a psychedelic component of action in addition to their entactogenic effects. But again, there is a special page on entactogens, so there is no place for entactogen information on this page. Cacycle 22:08, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Many articles on Wikipedia contain a brief overview of a related article, along with a "See also" link to that article. There is no reason why the psychedelic drug article cannot be of similar fashion. --Thoric 23:20, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

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I am not speculating, I am referring to the current opinions of scientists who specialize in this area. The term "psychedelic drug" encompasses a wide range of substances, and while some even include such dissociative substances as PCP, Ketamine and DXM within this definition, care has been taken to firm up the dividing lines.

While I agree that a "true psychedelic" drug is limited to the classic serotonergic psychedelics, and this article currently makes that distinction, to restrict this article to that class exclusively will only serve to add confusion and invite contestation.

As I've mentioned, experts in the field already classify MDMA (among other non-psychedelics) as a psychedelic (check out MAPS).

A "psychedelic drug" has long been cloudy in as to what it encompasses, and unfortunately its meaning has drifted, and must be considered to be a loaded term. The current state of the psychedelic drug page is about as good a balance as we are to get for lack of better terminology.

Ideally what we need is a new term to refer specifically to substances such as LSD, mescaline and psilocybin, and I believe for the moment, serotonergic psychedelic is as close as we can get (or perhaps classic psychedelic). --Thoric 23:13, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

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Actually I consider myself an expert in this field and I tell you that the term psychedelic drug is pretty well defined. MAPS sponsors psychedelic research and therefore it is not surprising that the projects all carry the word psychedelic in their title. But I can tell you that the researchers know the difference pretty well. It simply does not prove your point if you pick out random web pages that use looser definitions for one or the other reason.

I really appreciate your enthusiasm, but why we have to invent new and never used terms and crappy article names like serotonergic hallucinogens instead of the widely accepted term psychedelic drug and, even worse, psychedelics, dissociatives and deliriants instead of the widely and scientifically used and accepted term hallucinogenic drug is beyond my understanding. Again: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. We do not invent or try to improve existing (scientific) terminology.

Cacycle 02:15, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

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I seriously encourage you to join into the Wikipedia:WikiProject Psychedelics, Dissociatives and Deliriants project to discuss this matter further, as a whole set of templates and articles have been organized around this classification system.

Unfortunately this area of research (hallucinogens) has little in the way of well defined terminology as compared to other drugs. This is not to say that other psychoactives have not had their own share of evolution in terminology (i.e. major tranquilizer vs. typical antipsychotic, minor tranquilizer vs. benzodiazepine, or naming based on method of action -- SSRI).

Legally the term hallucinogen includes LSD, PCP, THC, MDMA as well as the anticholinergics, but it can certainly be argued that THC and MDMA do not typically produce anything that can be considered a "hallucination" (whereas delirium tremens from alcohol abuse can), and most experts consider the anticholinergics to be the only true "hallucinogens". Thus hallucinogen is not a scientifically adequate blanket term for all these substances, and hence the formation of three primary groups -- Psychedelics, Dissociatives and Deliriants.

While it is agreed that technically there should be five (or maybe more) groups (enactogens, psychedelics, cannabinoids, dissociatives and deliriants), and really the deliriants are a subgroup of dissociatives (but their effects are distinct [and dangerous] enough to merit their own group), this particular grouping (psychedelics, dissociatives and deliriants) is not a unique product of the Wikipedia project of the same name, but has been used by experts in this field.

Again, I fully agree that LSD, psilocybin and mescaline (and similar substances) are the true psychedelic drugs. This point is not in question. The murky area is due to the fact that this term has been subject to meaning drift, and even those who coined the term did not defend it completely from being applied to dissociatives such as PCP and ketamine. That, combined with the very strong embracement of MDMA within psychedelic research, as well as the even stronger association of cannabis with everything "psychedelic" justifies this article in dedicating at least honorable mention to those substances.

I do believe a compromise can be reached, and I would not be opposed to the merging, and focusing this article primarily upon classic psychedelics, and reducing MDMA and cannabis to a small section of the article entitled something like "Other drugs sometimes referred to as psychedelic" (or hopefully a shorter heading that means the same thing), which contains a brief paragraph about each prefixed with a "Main article: Empathogen-entactogen", and "Main article: Cannabis (drug)" line. --Thoric 17:24, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

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I'm not particularly opposed to the merger with seratonergic pyschedelics--i have, in fact, brought this up in the past--but i'm not so sure about removing cannabinoids and feel strongly that empathogen/entactogens should remain here in its current, truncated form.

Within the sciences, there is little agreement as to exactly how all of these drugs should be categorized; from a sociological view, these drugs are considered to be similar in effect and uses among users. psychiatrists have used entactogens and psychedelics in similar ways; a way they would not use, say, opium. entactogens deserve a breif mention and examination in this article, being very similar to and often conflated with true psychedelics. the basis for their seperation isn't chemical--eg mescaline is a psychedelic while mda is an entactogen and neither are simply considered stimulants, as one would expect from a phenthylamine . . .

The paragraphs on entactogens etc are very brief as well. i see no need for an extended exposition, but what's there now seems to be proper . . .

--heah 00:24, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

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I see that thoric says he will remove non-psychedelic content, but does not. Canabis should be removed. MDA and all other amphetamines should be critically removed...i think that including these in this article is totally irresponsible misinformation that could risk the health and safety of naive readers —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.67.204.241 (talk) 22:10, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Great page but...

I think this article is great, but on the deaths related to psychedelic drugs, shouldn't there be some sources?

I agree... I'm removing that section of the article. I've never heard of anyone dying from peyote. If anyone puts that section back, please add citations to credible sources.

"Mental instability" and "psychoemotional problems"

I just read (and partly changed) the following sentence on psilocybin:

However, as with all psychedelic chemicals, not all experiences are positive. This is especially true when they are taken with other drugs, during times of mental instability, or by people with psychoemotional problems. In such situations, "bad trips" are much more likely to occur.

Does anybody have a serious reference that "mental instability" and "psychoemotional problems" can result in a bad trip. The terms are quite nebulous and I would question that. Cacycle 02:20, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

The first sentence, again

Copied from user:24.86.201.218's talk page by user:edhubbard:

The enhance vs distort vs alter has already been discussed on the talk page in the past, and while it may be controversial, there are published studies which document reproducible examples of enhancement from low doses of psychedelics. There are also numerous cases of enhanced thought processes from high doses to the point of eureka breakthroughs as in the cases of nobel-prize winning researchers attributing some of their insight and inspiration to their use of psychedelics. While a wide spectrum of drugs and substances have been attributed for creative inspiration of many a great artist, it is pretty much only the psychedelics which have received praise from the great thinkers. I invite you to read over Talk:Psychedelic_drug#The_First_Sentence. --Thoric 16:34, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi Thoric, perhaps we could get 24.86.201.218 to join the conversation on the talk page? I'll copy to there, too. Edhubbard 16:48, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok, moving from the user page to the article page... I have read over what's on the talk page, and I see the point that ehance is strictly speaking correct, and so on. Indeed, anyone who has read, for example, The Doors of Perception would have a hard time finding fault with this term. However, for those who haven't read about (or better yet, had) first hand psychedeleic experiences I can see that the choice of words might be objectionable. This does not mean that I condone 24.86.201.218's edit warring. I have reverted his changes several times myself. But, perhaps we need to think about this fresh. One way to avoid this is to, as is done in the definition, quote something specific, or at least provide the citations that you talked about in the previous round of discussions. Remember, our goal on wikipedia is to create an encyclopedia, which means we get to educate people. We can either pick a neutral word, like "alter" which no one will object to, and no one will learn from, or we can shake people up, but then we have to provide some documentation for doing so... Edhubbard 17:00, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I'll have to dig up specific detailed references, but they would include the studies done in the 60s by Roland Fisher where he gave very low doses of psilocybin to test subjects and then subjected them to visual acuity tests which showed improvements beyond normal vision, Nobel Prize winning researcher Francis Crick's discovery of the double-helix nature of DNA while under the influence of LSD, and Nobel Prize winning researcher Karry Mullis' creation of the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) technique of replicating DNA, who attributes it to his use of LSD -- "Would I have invented PCR if I hadn't taken LSD? I seriously doubt it,"- Karry B. Mullis. Also of interesting note is how very common it is for people who normally wear glasses to remove them when taking psilocybin. --Thoric 15:50, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Thujone?

Thujone has not been shown to exhibit any sort of halluncinogenic effect, so I would question its addition to this page. --Thoric 05:31, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Merge tag

It is customary to start a discussion when adding a merge tag. Anyways, the page it was suggested to merge this into would be far too large if all three articles (psychedelic drug, dissociative drug, deliriant) were merged into a single massive article, and then a request would be made to split them up into sub-articles, as we have here. The psychedelics, dissociatives and deliriants article contains summarizations which the subarticles expand upon. So I say no to the merger. --Thoric 04:43, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

• Don't merge per Thoric; the hallucinogen article would be enormous. ~ Danelo 01:26, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

• Not Inappropriate and a misnomer. Am removing tag. Haiduc 17:08, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Fractal?

What is the suddenly appearing Julia set fractal doing here? 83.249.243.17 23:43, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree, it is stupid and irrelevant. Could also do without the weird "blotter" picture. If we need to look at pictures, molecules would do nicely. jason 2Apr/08

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bad info

on the psychedelic drug page there is a headline mentioning a suggestion to merge the page with the "hallucinogens" page also, at the top of this discussion page it mentions that wikipedias "Psychedelics, dissociatives, and deliriants" project is meant to improve wikipedias coverage of hallucinogens. both of these things contain misinformation.

hallucinogen is not the correct word for a psychedelic drug. hallucinations are when a person cannot tell what they are hearing or seeing from reality. one experiencing a hallucination believes that people around him see the same reality he/she does. for example, they may truly believe there is a pink pony in the room, and that all others surrounding them are aware of this pony. what is more commonly experienced with psychedelics is visual distortion, where ones reality is altered but one is aware of the change. these happen only with a high dose of a psychedelic, and are in fact more common with dissociatives. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.202.125.115 (talk) 00:26, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Reasoning behind dissociative drugs and deliriants not being considered psychedelic drugs?

I noticed the following two statements in the introduction:

"Many people have applied the term psychedelic to other drugs including dissociative NMDA receptor antagonists such as PCP and ketamine, tropane deliriants such as atropine, other psychoactives such as Amanita muscaria and Salvia divinorum. However, these should be considered as separate groups."

Although it is stated that dissociative drugs and deliriants should not be considered psychedelic, no reason is given for this assertion. I can see why deliriants may not be considered psychedelic, but I am having a harder time with dissociatives given that they can facilitate introspection and insight into the external world. Although the biochemical route may differ, it is the end result of the substance use (greater understanding) that merits the use of the term "psychedelic."

I think a reason for excluding dissociatives from the list of psychedelics should be added, or perhaps the above-mentioned statements should be tempered as to not sound so absolute.

68.63.209.192 (talk) 16:21, 30 December 2008 (UTC)PsychedelicSeer

The reasoning is not so much to exclude dissociatives (which loosely include deliriants, btw), but to allow "classic psychedelics" to have a term of their own differentiating them from the dissociatives. We need a term to collectively refer to those substances which facilitate insight without their principal effect being dissociating one from the external world. Dissociatives already have their own term, and thus do not need to also claim "psychedelic". --Thoric (talk) 17:12, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Dissociatives have their own term? But that does not have to mean that dissociatives and psychedelics are mutually exclusive categories. I have seen the "should dissociatives be considered psychedelic drugs?" debate in a number of places over a number of years. It strikes me that the first questions people ask about dissociatives are along the lines of "Do you see fractal patterns while on a dissociative?" or "Do dissociatives make you introspective?" While I think these two questions do point to characteristics of many psychedelics, I think there is a pretty simple way of determining whether a drug is a psychedelic drug or not. A psychedelic drug is one which causes numerous changes to central mental processes. Some say that this is to broad and can be used to include such drugs as ethyl alcohol, but I say that the most important word is "numerous." Psychedelic drugs cause a range of effects on different perceptual and cognitive processes (and not just a few effects like many psychoactive drugs do). While I agree that the 5HT drugs have their own unique character, if you actually list the perceptual and cognitive processes affected by "classical" psychedelics and dissociative drugs side by side, you will find that dissociatives and classical psychedelics both change a broad spectrum of perceptual and mental processes. THAT is what psychedelic drugs are about. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.71.139.84 (talk) 03:31, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, dissociatives have their own term -- dissociatives. A drug which causes changes to mental processes is a psychoactive drug. Even if you're trying to use "numerous" as a qualifier, "psychedelic" drugs tend to produce more numerous effects than dissociatives do. While some people may consider dissociatives to be psychedelic, many others do not. Again I stress the argument here is that by making the term psychedelic drug inclusive of dissociative drugs leaves us without a term to describe non-dissociative psychedelic drugs. --Thoric (talk) 20:09, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I disagree that what you refer to as "psychedelics" cause more numerous effects than dissociatives. List them side by side and number them. Show me that "traditional psychedelics" cause more changes in perceptual and cognitive processes than dissociatives, instead of just claiming it. (If you can't tell, I disagree and think that it's nonsense - both drugs affect just as many processes). DXM is a cough suppressant and a psychedelic. Ketamine is an anesthetic and a psychedelic. Including dissociatives as psychedelics does not mean there is no term to describe drugs like LSD or mescaline. It just means that LSD, mescaline, psilocin, etc. are psychedelics. People also refer to them as serotonergic, tryptamines, ergolines, phenethylamines, etc. How are we left without a term to describe LSD, mescaline and psilocin just because dissociatives are also referred to psychedelics? They are also called psychedelics. The issue is clarifying that the character of their experiences is different. AlkaloidMechanic (talk) 02:18, 30 January 2009 (UTC) AlakaloidMechanic

I fully agree with Thoric. We have to follow the historic conventions. We cannot just make up our own definitions at will or follow the sloppy use that is sometimes found on the net. Cacycle (talk) 01:04, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Who is making up definitions? Do you want me to find you references in scientific literature referring to dissociatives a psychedelic drugs? I found at least one paper titled "Ketamine psychedelic therapy" and there are other papers referring to DXM and PCP's psychedelic effects. Nobody is making up terminology. Definitions depend on how words are used. Both scientists and nonscientist have referred to ketamine, PCP and DXM as psychedelic drugs. You can probably find just as many references calling DXM a "dissociative" as you can calling it a "psychedelic." The only reason DXM is known as a dissociative anesthetic is because of the DXM FAQ. AlkaloidMechanic (talk) 02:23, 30 January 2009 (UTC) AlkaloidMechanic

What's wrong with saying, "DXM is a cough suppressant and a dissociative", or "Ketamine is an anesthetic and a dissociative"? Again, these drugs -- DXM, PCP and Ketamine already have a term to describe them -- they are dissociatives.

Just as there is nothing wrong with calling DXM a cough suppressant, dissociative and NMDA antagonist, there is nothing wrong with also calling it a dissociative. A drug can fall into more than two categories at once.

Unless you have a list of dissociatives that you would not consider to be "psychedelic", what is your point in forcing them to be called psychedelics rather than dissociatives beyond making is such that there is no distinction between "psychedelic" and "hallucinogen"?

There is nothing wrong with calling them both dissociatives and psychedelics. Why do I need to list "dissociatives that are not psychedelics" in an article about psychedelics? Isn't that like coming up with a list of 5HT2A agonists that are not psychedelics? There is not any reason to do so. The issue is whether or not a drug is psychedelic or not. Whether or not it is ALSO a dissociative or not is not at all relevant.

Why must the average person be forced to use chemistry terms because you are hell-bent on usurping already established terminology to make your cough syrup more palatable?

Excuse me? Please don't try an use the genetic fallacy to motivate the opinions of others. Whether or not I am a fan of DXM or ketamine is irrelevant. Please do not make this argument more difficult by using logical fallacies. In this case, you are implying that my motive is to make DXM more appealing by "usurping" terminology. You have no right to do this. Please stick to the issue, not your perception of my personal agenda. Even if you knew what my "personal agenda" is, that does not have anything to do with whether or not my arguments are correct. Stick to the issue at hand. I am not "hell-bent on usurping" already established terminology. DXM, ketamine and PCP are already referred to in scientific literature as psychedelic drugs.

While DXM, PCP and Ketamine may have "psychedelic effects", that does not make them "psychedelic drugs". If a tree branch fell on your head, and it caused you to have hallucinations, altered perception and resulted in you being in a dream-like state for an hour, would you also add "tree branches" to your list of psychedelics? --Thoric (talk) 20:26, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Can you try to argue seriously instead of coming up with ridiculous examples? Why don't you explain to me why these drugs are not psychedelic drugs? I can find references to these drugs as being psychedelic drugs in scientific literature, but for some reason you want to selectively exclude those papers as accurate? And to answer your silly question, no of course I would not list a tree branch as a drug. We are talking about psychedelic drugs. A whack to the head does not meet the definition of a drug. I would really like you to take this more seriously, because I really think you are being childish about this. I believe that the dissociatives DXM, ketamine and PCP meet the definition of being psychedelic drugs. I have given my reasons and you have responded by using the genetic fallacy (the fallacy that the motive behind an argument - or what you think the motive is - determines the merits of that argument) and have asked a silly question. Can you try explaining why you object to these drugs also being called psychedelic drugs? AlkaloidMechanic (talk) 04:28, 3 February 2009 (UTC) AlkaloidMechanic

I have been trying to argue seriously, but you are failing to acknowledge what I am saying. Plain and simple, drugs such as DXM, PCP and Ketamine already have terminology that adequately describes their psychoactive effects, and that term is that they are dissociative drugs. When I asked you for a list of dissociative drugs that do not produce effects that anyone would possibly describe as "psychedelic", this was a very serious request, as it would show that perhaps your argument is valid that there is a need to differentiate drugs which you would consider to be "psychedelic dissociatives" from those you would consider to be "non-psychedelic dissociatives". My objection (again) which I have stated several times, is that by including the dissociatives under the psychedelic umbrella would cloud the distinction of which drugs are true psychedelics (i.e. psilocybin, mescaline, lsd). Keep in mind that Dr. Humphry Osmond coined the term to describe the effects of mescaline regardless of what future substances were dubbed "psychedelic" by others. --Thoric (talk) 21:51, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

'Meta-universe'?

There's a link at the bottom labelled 'Meta-universe' which redirects to 'Multiverse'. This is a well-established concept in cosmology and theoretical physics, philosophy and (apparently) the theologies attached to certain religions - which is not to say it's in any literal sense a true hypothesis, of course. BUT - what does it have to do with psychedelic drugs? Especially as there's no mention of it in the article. Unless anyone objects I'm going to remove it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by OliverHarris (talk • contribs) 20:17, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Crystal Methelyn

Where do the drug crystal meth come From 102.223.106.38 (talk) 07:21, 12 July 2022 (UTC)