The Psychotomimetic Drugs

Several pharmacologically similar drugs—LSD-25, psilocybin, and mescaline—produce intense and unusual psychic effects in volunteer subjects. These include visual phenomena from heightened brightness and beauty to true hallucinations of colors, shapes, or complex scenes. Accompanying emotional experiences range from mild apprehension to panic, severe depression, or mystical elation, and can include concurrent emotions not normally experienced together. Subjects also report changes in body image, such as body parts appearing larger or smaller, and intense feelings of depersonalization where the subject believes they are detached from themselves.

Study at a glance

Abstract

FOR MANY YEARS several pharmacologically similar drugs—lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD-25), psilocybin, and mescaline, among others—have been of special scientific interest. In volunteer subjects, they have been known to produce a variety of intense and unusual psychic effects. These include bizarre visual phenomena, ranging from a heightening of the apparent brightness or beauty of colored objects in the environment, through distortions in the perceived nature or meaning of real objects (illusions) to true visual hallucinations of colors, shapes, or even of complex scenes or events. These visual phenomena are usually accompanied by intense and often rapidly shifting emotional experiences (ranging from mild apprehension to panic, severe depression or mystical elation) or by concurrent emotions (such as depression and joy) which are not experienced simultaneously under ordinary conditions. Subjects describe changes in body image, the body or its parts appearing larger or smaller, intense feelings of depersonalization, including states in which the subject believes he is