Hallucinogens

Hallucinogens affect your brain. Hallucinogens alter how the brain perceives time, reality, and the environment around you. They also affect the way you move, react to situations, think, hear, and see. This may make you think that you're hearing voices, seeing images, and feeling things that don't exist.

Hallucinogens affect your heart. The use of hallucinogens leads to an increase in heart rate and blood pressure. Hallucinogens can put you in a coma. They can also cause heart and lung failure. Hallucinogens affect your well-being. The use of hallucinogens may change the way you feel emotionally. They may cause you to feel confused, suspicious and disoriented. Use of PCP may interfere with hormones related to normal growth as well as with the learning process.

Hallucinogens affect your self-control. The impact of hallucinogens varies from time to time, so there is no way to know how much self-control you might maintain. They can cause you to mix up your speech, lose control of your muscles, make meaningless movements, and do aggressive or violent things.

Psychedelics, Dissociatives and Deliriants

The general group of pharmacological agents commonly known as hallucinogens can be divided into three broad categories: psychedelics, dissociatives, and deliriants. These classes of psychoactive drugs have in common that they can cause subjective changes in perception, thought, emotion and consciousness. Unlike other psychoactive drugs, such as stimulants and opioids, the hallucinogens do not merely amplify familiar states of mind, but rather induce experiences that are qualitatively different from those of ordinary consciousness. These experiences are often compared to non-ordinary forms of consciousness such as trance, meditation, conversion experiences, and dreams.

One thing that most of these drugs do not do, despite the ingrained usage of the term hallucinogen, is to cause hallucination. Hallucinations, strictly speaking, are perceptions that have no basis in reality, but appearing entirely realistic. A typical "hallucination" induced by a psychedelic drug is more accurately described as a modification of regular perception, and the subject is usually quite aware of the illusory and personal nature of their perceptions. Deliriants, such as diphenhydramine and atropine, may cause hallucinations in the proper sense.

Psychedelics, dissociatives, and deliriants have a long history of use within medicinal and religious traditions around the world. They are used in shamanic forms of ritual healing and divination, in initiation rites, and in the religious rituals of syncretistic movements such as União do Vegetal, Santo Daime, and the Native American Church. When used in religious practice, psychedelic drugs, as well as other substances like tobacco, are referred to as entheogens.

Before You Risk It

  • Know the law. Hallucinogens are illegal to buy, sell, or possess.
  • Get the facts. Hallucinogenic drugs distort your perception of reality. Hallucinogens cause your sense of space and time to become distorted and cause you to see objects that aren't really there.
  • Stay informed. It's easy to quickly develop a tolerance to hallucinogens so that it takes more and more of the drug each time to get the same effect. This is dangerous because taking more and more of the same drug may lead to an overdose with severe effects.
  • Know the risks. Hallucinogens can cause flashbacks. Effects of the drugs, including hallucinations, can occur weeks, months, even years after use.

Know the Signs

How can you tell if a friend is using hallucinogens? Sometimes it's tough to tell. But there are signs you can look for. If your friend has one or more of the following warning signs, he or she may be using hallucinogens:

  • Depression
  • Weakness and lack of muscular coordination
  • Anxiety or paranoia
  • Trembling
  • Nausea
  • Dizziness
  • Facial flushing
  • Dilated pupils

What can you do to help someone who is using hallucinogens? Be a real friend. Encourage your friend to stop or seek professional help. For information and referrals, contact us today. If you think you — or a friend — may be addicted to hallucinogens, talk to Teen Challenge. We can help you get the help you need free of charge. It's especially important for someone who is going through withdrawal from these type of drugs to speak with a professional counselor. Withdrawal can be dangerous when it's not monitored; all our services are free for any type of drug withdrawal.

Some helpful question and answers

Q. Do hallucinogens have long-term effects?
A. Yes. In addition to flashbacks, long-term effects may include decreased motivation, prolonged depression, anxiety, increased delusions and panic, and psychosis.

Q. Can I predict if I will have a "bad trip"?
A. There is no way to predict a "bad trip." There is no consistency in hallucinogenic drugs, so each "trip" may differ depending on the drug's strength and purity. The psychological effects of the hallucinogen are also dependent on the user's frame of mind.

Q. How can I help someone through a bad trip?
A. Don't try to handle this situation on your own; call 999 and a trusted adult immediately. While waiting, address the person by name, remind them who and where they are, talk to them calmly, make sure they're safe, and don't leave them alone.

The bottom line: If you know someone who uses hallucinogens, urge him or her to get help. If you're using them-stop! The longer you ignore the real facts, the more chances you take with your life.

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