Psychedelics induce altered consciousness via the 5-HT2A receptor. Online searches in Poland for twenty psychedelics from 2017 to 2022 were analyzed using Google Trends data. Holt–Winters exponential smoothing revealed that twelve (60%) of the substances had significant seasonal patterns: psilocybin and ayahuasca showed annual seasonality, four substances (LSD, AL-LAD, DXM, DOB) had half-yearly seasonality, and six (cannabis, dronabinol, ergine, NBOMe, phencyclidine, salvinorin A) followed a quarterly pattern. The pandemic led to a significant positive change in search trends for psilocybin, ergine, and DXM. These spatiotemporal patterns may aid health authorities in monitoring and preventing addictions.
Natural language processing of 2188 user reports from the Erowid forum reveals distinct emotional and thematic patterns in experiences with psilocybin mushrooms versus LSD. The BERT model classified most experiences as negative, especially for psilocybin mushrooms, while VADER indicated more positive experiences for mushroom users. RoBERTa, which achieved the highest accuracy, predominantly classified experiences as negative or neutral. Lexicon analysis showed psilocybin reports emphasize introspection and time dilation, whereas LSD reports highlight memory issues and cognitive disorientation. These analyses can inform harm reduction and policy-making.