Talk:Psychedelic drug

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Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 07:24, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Picture text modified

Replaced with a more proper one: "A fractal pattern, similar in some respects to what may some people stereotipically associates with a psychedelic experience".

See discussion above for support on the modification. --Δ Mr. Nighttime Δ (talk) 14:36, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Picture

Is the picture...relevant? The caption reads 'A fractal pattern, similar in some respects to what may be seen during a psychedelic experience' but without being an expert in psychiatry, it strikes me that pretty much anything 'may be seen during a psychedelic experience' 163.1.209.71 (talk) 15:23, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you, this picture seems to be totally useless. Why don't put a picture of a pink elephant instead? Some folks see pink elephants when high on drugs. Bah! Remove the picture. --Δ Mr. Nighttime Δ (talk) 14:33, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

My name is JP. I apologize beforehand if I do not follow the accepted protocol for expressing my opinion about this page. I think that talkheader has a valid point: if we want to put a picture with the caption "A fractal pattern, similar in some respects to what may be seen during a psychedelic experience" we should probably probably be able to cite a source which backs up our claims... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.111.239.250 (talk) 09:02, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I would agree that both kaleidoscopic and fractal patterns are a stereotypical visual effect of "psychedelic" drugs. While not everyone experiences this, and those who do may not always (or even often) experience them, there is scientific evidence to support that this patterning is innate to how both the optical nerve system and visual cortex function. Whether or not this system becomes over-stimulated, the brain itself becomes flooded with visual information, or a little of both is uncertain. --Thoric (talk) 21:55, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

stereotypical: yes! --Δ Mr. Nighttime Δ (talk) 14:33, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I think the word hallucinogen misleads many people who have never taken a psychedelic drug. As Albert Hofmann said "a hallucination is when you see something that does not exist, but when you take LSD everything that does exist becomes transformed. It is an alternative experience of our existence." I personally have never had any hallucinations in the true sense of the word during any of my trips.2605:A000:1200:4020:BDC2:282A:6C52:766B (talk) 16:54, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Salvia

Salvia is a dissociative as mentioned in its own page and in the main psychedelics, dissociatives and deliriants page. It should not really be on the psychedelics page as this just adds to the popular misconception that it is a psychedelic as opposed to a dissociative. Maybe it could be replaced with a section on how high dose dissociatives often produce similar effects to psychedelics and so can be confused, an interesting example being Salvia whose active ingredient Salvinorin A is so potent that these effects are often noticed even with a small dose. Any thoughts? -Matt

Agreed. I didn't notice that someone added salvia here when it is already on the dissociative drug page. --Thoric (talk) 21:44, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

A mention of high doses of dissociatives producing psychedelic effects may be worthwhile, but as a psychedelic user & enthusiast (as opposed to a psychopharmacologist, though I aspire to become one) I'd consider Salvia divinorum to be a psychedelic, myself (& one of the few exceptions to the tryptamine/phenethylamine rule I mentioned in one of the sections below).

(Psychonaut25 - 13355p34k / C0n7r1b5 12:21 AM EST, 21 May 2013 (UTC))

Definition of "psychedlic" according to pharmacologists

Someone wrote: "Many pharmacologists define psychedelic drugs solely as chemicals that have an LSD- or mescaline-like action, working on the serotonin 5-HT_2A receptor in the brain."

I'm quite sure that's not true. I'm sure enough that instead of putting a citation needed tag, I'm cutting it out and replacing it with something accurate.AlkaloidMan (talk) 08:05, 31 October 2010 (UTC)AlkaloidMan

The paper that has been linked doesn't define psychedelics at all. It merely mentions tryptamines and phenethylamines as "two major classes" of psychedelics, sharing the main action over the 5-ht2a receptor. Psychedelics is a broad term and like the article says, it can also be used to describe non-serotonergic drugs, such as salviorin a. The way it stands now, the definition isn't just wrong, the article is also contradicting itself by mentioning atypical psychedelics.--87.155.249.53 (talk) 16:07, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Salvinorin A is most definitely not a psychedelic, and should not be described as such. Thoric (talk) 18:27, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Edits to the First Paragraph (Tryptamines & Phenethylamines)

I added the following sentence to the end of the first paragraph:

"With a few exceptions, most psychedelic drugs fall into one of the two following families of chemical compounds; tryptamines [more specifically: alkylated tryptamines], and phenethylamines [more specifically: alkoxylated phenethylamines]."

I find this statement to be true; Cannabis & its psychoactive compounds (namely Δ⁹-THC, CBD, & CBN), as well as Salvia divinorum, are among the few exceptions... but almost all of the 200+ psychedelic compounds fall into one of those two categories. Even LSD, despite technically being an ergoline compound, contains a tryptamine backbone (hence its 5-HT receptor agonist effects).

I also edited the following sentence within the first paragraph:

"The psychedelic experience is often compared to non-ordinary forms of consciousness such as trance, meditation, yoga, religious fervor, dreaming and even near-death experiences."

to...

"The psychedelic experience is often compared to non-ordinary forms of consciousness such as trance, meditation, yoga, religious ecstasy, dreaming and even near-death experiences."

...as the page religious fervor does not exist. If anyone wishes to dispute this, please let me know. I am aware that not all psychedelic-induced religious experiences are ecstatic, but I could not find an existing page which was a sufficient synonym for religious fervor, so I went with religious ecstasy. If others insist, we can change it back, despite the page religious fervor being nonexistent... perhaps somebody could create one for it.

(Psychonaut25 - 13355p34k / C0n7r1b5 12:35 AM EST, 21 May 2013 (UTC))

Why define drugs according to their chemical structure? That is rather old fashion. Today we usually define drugs according to which receptors they interact with. 5-HT 2A receptor agonists, NMDA receptor antagonists, κ-Opioid receptor agonists, and so on.Zanthius (talk) 13:38, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Vs. Psychoactive??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoactive_drug Should that article and this one be merged? Aren't they about the same thing? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.158.72.234 (talk) 05:14, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

A psychoactive drug is a drug which as an effect on the mind, while a psychedelic drug is a drug that has a psychedelic effect on the mind. All psychedelics are psychoactive drugs, but not all psychoactive drugs are psychedelic.Zanthius (talk) 13:35, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Abuse potential vs toxicity for psychedelics

I just made this illustration in latex. Maybe something like this should be on this webpage?

Abuse potential vs toxicity for psychedelics

Zanthius (talk) 13:27, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

This webpage is very badly organized, and should be expanded or merged with the hallucinogens page.

The general psychological effects section should be removed (or reduced), because from having experience with different types of psychedelics (5HT2A receptor agonists, NMDA receptor antagonists and κ-Opioid receptor agonists) I think the experiences are very different. Maybe you should have a very small section describing the general criterias for defining a drug as a psychedelic (for example hallucinatory effects), but much more empathesis should be put on the psychological effects of different receptor interactions. I also think you could devide the general effects section into sections like "psychedelics and spirituality", "psychedelic act", "chemistry of psychedelics", "psychedelics and drug abuse", "possible adverse effects of psychedelics", and so on. And why hasn't this page been merged with the hallucinogens page? Zanthius (talk) 14:07, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

This page focuses on one section of the Hallucinogens page, which is broken down into psychedelic drug, dissociative drug and deliriant. It may need expansion, but should not be merged. Also, as dissociative drug has its own article, the dissociative drug section does not belong in the psychedelic drug article. --Thoric (talk) 23:37, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Really? Because it is written about dissociative drugs on this webpage, but I think it is inaccurate to put κ-opioid receptor agonists and NMDA receptor antagonists into the same group (dissociatives). Rather you should use a 4 group system. 5H2A receptor agonists as psychedelics, NMDA receptor antagonists as dissociatives, anticholinergics as deleriants, and κ-Opioid receptor agonists as dysphoriants. 84.210.54.80 (talk) 16:32, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Salvia D. is considered to be more dissociative than a dysphoriant. A substance does not have to be an NMDA antagonist to be a dissociative. --Thoric (talk) 18:34, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

But the endogenous ligand for k-opioid receptors Dynorphin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynorphin), is considered to be mainly dysphoric.84.210.54.80 (talk) 21:25, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

I think any entheogen could potentially be either euphoric or dysphoric depending on set and setting. Like cannabis, I personally have always thought of salvia divinorum to be in its own category due to its unique mechanism of action.2605:A000:1200:4020:BDC2:282A:6C52:766B (talk) 06:37, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

> Salvia D. is considered to be more dissociative than a dysphoriant. A substance does not have to be an NMDA antagonist to be a dissociative. −

By whom? Some people online do that, probably based on subjective effects. Dr Rick Strassman for example objected to lumping up salviorin A with dissociatives as it is very clearly not a NMDA-antagonist. Psychedelics on the other hand is a broader term and usually defined over subjective effects. Thus "atypical psychedelic" might very well make more sense than calling it a dissociative.--87.155.249.53 (talk) 16:14, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

The effects of salvinorin A are clearly described as dissociative, and plenty of other non-NMDA antagonists also have strong dissociative effects. Classical psychedelics are not primarily dissociative. Psychedelics and Dissociatives are at two opposite ends of a spectrum of effect, and while they do meet in the middle, we should not use the terms interchangeably. Psychedelics are "consciousness expanding", and dissociatives are "consciousness focusing". This is why dissociatives are useful for anesthesia, and psychedelics are not, and can interfere with anesthesia. Salvinorin A has actually had research in use (in combination with other substances) in General Anesthesia. Please see: https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2019197594 Thoric (talk) 18:24, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Experience section

I don't see why we need to have this massive, ultra-detailed description of what it's like to go on a trip. For starters, there is already a whole article just about the experience of being on hallucinogens. Thus, THIS page ought to be about the DRUGS, not the experience of being on them (which is subjective and varies between people and drugs used, amount used, etc). It also appears to be one massive quote taken directly from someone elses work. Large amounts of quoted text are frowned upon on wikipedia, and it's not even clear that it IS a quote (no quotation marks even), or what it's from (I presume from the text referenced in the paragraph above, but it's not 100% clear). As far as the quoted text goes, it doesn't strike me as particularly neutral. It may be perfectly factual, but some people may dislike its seeming positive spin on the experience, and the tone doesn't fit well in an "encyclopedic" article anyway. I mean, "Each drug experience is a unique journey of exploration into the mind." That is the opinion of the person who wrote it, and other people would call it utter bullshit. Thus I don't think that it belongs on this page. A quick summary of what it says, written in your own words, and with a clinical, neutral tone to it is what should be here..45Colt 01:14, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

I think it makes sense to have a link to the Psychedelic experience article with an introductory paragraph, but I do agree that this section is way too long. I recommend we replace it with a single paragraph summarizing the psychedelic experience article, maybe something along the lines of:

The psychedelic experience is a temporary altered state of consciousness induced by the consumption of psychedelic drugs (the best known of which are LSD and psilocybin 'magic' mushrooms). The psychedelic altered state of consciousness is commonly characterised as a higher (elevated or transcendent) state relative to ordinary (sober) experience. --Thoric (talk) 22:17, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

The vast majority of people who would call it "utter bullshit" have most likely never tried a psychedelic drug.2605:A000:1200:4020:BDC2:282A:6C52:766B (talk) 06:40, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

MonikaWanis (talk) 14:26, 21 November 2017 (UTC) My planned contributions are the following: - Provide a definition of what drugs are and how psychedelic drugs are a subset. - Define what specifically psychedelic drugs are and how they differ from other classes of drugs. - Provide information about the prevalence of psychedelic drug use and information about who uses these substances, in which settings they are most frequently used in and why. - Expand upon the history section to include information about the discovery of psychedelic drugs, the history of psychedelic drug use over time, and what known psychedelic drugs are out there. - I would include the medical uses of psychedelic drugs, what current research has to say about them, and what their legality status is. - Include the positive reported effects of psychedelic drugs as well as their negative side effects.

MonikaWanis (talk) 15:03, 21 November 2017 (UTC) A list of potential journal articles that I will be using: Baker, John R. (1994). Consciousness Alteration as a Problem-Solving Device: The Psychadelic Pathway. Yearbook for Ethnomedicine and the Study of Consciousness, 3, 51-89.

Brecher, E. M. (1972). Licit and illicit drugs (p. 359). Boston: Little, Brown.

BRUHN, B. P., PSYCH, C., & MAAGE, N. (1975). Intellectual and Neuropsychological Functions in Young Men with Heavy and. Am J Psychiatry, 132(4).

Charvat, J. L. (1998). Barriers to effective drug abuse prevention: The role of authoritarian ideology. Journal of psychoactive drugs, 30(1), 69-79.

Fisher, G. (1963). Some Comments Concerning Dosage Levels of Psychedelic Compounds for Psycho-therapeutic Experiences. Psychedelic Review, 1, 208-218.

Gouzoulis-Mayfrank, E., Habermeyer, E., Hermle, L., Steinmeyer, A. M., Kunert, H. J., & Sass, H. (1998). Hallucinogenic drug induced states resemble acute endogenous psychoses: results of an empirical study. European psychiatry, 13(8), 399-406.

Halpern, J. H., & Pope,Harrison G.,,Jr. (2001). Hallucinogens on the internet: A vast new source of underground drug information. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 158(3), 481-3. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/220458998?accountid=14472

Halpern, J. H., & Pope, H. G. (1999). Do hallucinogens cause residual neuropsychological toxicity?. Drug and alcohol dependence, 53(3), 247-256.

Jacob, P. I. I. I., & Shulgin, A. T. (1994). Structure-activity relationships of classic hallucinogens and their analogs. NIDA research monograph, 146, 74-91.

McKenna, D. J. (1995). Plant hallucinogens: springboards for psychotherapeutic drug discovery. Behavioural brain research, 73(1), 109-116.

Micke, M. M. (1996). The case of hallucinogenic plants and the internet. The Journal of School Health, 66(8), 277-280. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/215682451?accountid=14472 Rosenthal, S. H. (1964). Persistent hallucinosis following repeated administration of hallucinogenic drugs. American Journal of Psychiatry, 121(3), 238-244.

Mogar, R. E., & Aldrich, R. W. (1969). The use of psychedelic agents with autistic schizophrenic children. Psychedelic Review, 10, 5-13.

Salzman, C., KOCHANSKY, G. E., SHADER, R. I., & LIEFF, J. (1972). The psychology of hallucinogenic drug discontinuers. American Journal of Psychiatry, 129(6), 755-761.

Schultes, R. E. (1970). The botanical and chemical distribution of hallucinogens. Annual Review of Plant Physiology, 21(1), 571-598.

Schultes, R. E. (1979). Hallucinogenic plants: their earliest botanical descriptions. Journal of psychedelic drugs, 11(1-2), 13-24.

Shulgin, A. T. (1976). DMT & TMA-2. Journal of Psychedelic Drugs, 8(2), 167-169.

Spruce, R. (1975). t Indole Alkaloids In Plant Hallucinogens. Journal of Psychedelic Drugs.

Szara, S. (1967). The Hallucinogenic Drugs—Curse or Blessing?. American Journal of Psychiatry, 123(12), 1513-1518.

5-hydroxytryptamine receptor antagonism

This article seems to be quite off-date and a bit misleading. Tryptamines like LSD, psilocybin and DMT bind at many different receptors at different strength. I've read of activity at D1, A2A, A2B, A2C, and tryptamines tend to also bind to many different serotonin receptors. For example psilocin and mescaline bind strongly to 5ht2b, but psilocin is only moderately active at 5ht2a and mescaline not at all. Or so my notes say, but I don't have a reliable source available. Just a heads up if anyone is paying attention. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.222.148.189 (talk) 21:10, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

• Pink Elephants on Parade Blotter LSD Dumbo.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 22:22, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Proper scope for this page

There was a thread a few years ago on the proper scope of this page, which reached no definitive conclusion, but I think the matter needs to be settled. Basically the question comes down to this: should the page have a broad scope as it does now, covering (classic) psychedelics, empathogens, dissociatives, deliriants, and cannabinergics, or should it have a narrower scope, covering only classic psychedelics? Unfortunately, pages already exist corresponding to both those possible scopes: Hallucinogen and Serotonergic psychedelic respectively. Therefore, regardless of which names should be used for the pages for the two concepts, there is a problem because there are three pages.

This is what I think should be done. This page should then be reduced in scope to only cover classic psychedelics. This seems preferable to the topic being covered on the page "Serotonergic psychedelic," since that is a more technical term and in any case not the term used in most of the literature based on my sampling; that page's content can be merged into this one's, and it can become a redirect. Then, I think this page should have a longer section on nomenclature similar to the one on the "Hallucinogen" page to clear up confusion among readers. At the top of the article it could say "Psychedelics, serotonergic psychedelics, classic psychedelics, or classic hallucinogens are ...", to make immediately clear that several names are used for the same thing.

I wanted to check with other editors before making big changes, but if my plan sounds good, I will go ahead and start moving content on the other hallucinogens to the "Hallucinogen" page. Then I could propose a merger and the material from "Serotonergic psychedelic" could be moved here. Gazelle55 (talk) 01:25, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Merger proposal

Based on my post just above, I'd like to formally propose merging Serotonergic psychedelic into this page. This page has only covered serotonergic/classic psychedelics for some time now and there is no reason to have two pages for the same concept (see above). There isn't much material on the other page anyway so it could easily be integrated here. Furthermore, the less common, broader definition of psychedelic drug is already covered at the article Hallucinogen. Following the merger, I would bring together some sources to clarify the confusing and sometimes overlapping uses of the terminology for readers. Gazelle55 (talk) 16:28, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

I agree with the proposed merger, although the resulting page should make it clear that there is some controversy of definition and naming convention. Expect potential resistance. There are many who feel that "psychedelic" should be a very broad term, others who feel it should be very narrow, and some who feel there are some edge cases. The term 'psychedelic' was originally coined to refer to mescaline and very similar substances. It was later determined that a great number of substances and experiences "could" cause one to have a "psychedelic experience", thus muddying the definition, but I believe it important to reserve the term "psychedelic drug" for those substances which consistently facilitate a typical "psychedelic experience". Thoric (talk) 00:55, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

I completely agree. I don't anticipate much resistance among the watchers of this page, since the current version of the article is restricted to serotonergic hallucinogens. Maybe more from the watchers of the serotonergic psychedelic page, but maybe not, since they are presumably most interested in serotonergic hallucinogens. Since the serotonergic psychedelic page is the one that would go away, I would argue that's where you should really make this merger proposal visible. Jbening (talk) 17:56, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. Thoric, yes I agree that it needs to be clear to readers about the inconsistent terminology. I would add some synonyms to the lead sentence and also have a sentence in the lead section explaining this a bit. Then there could be a more in-depth explanation under "Nomenclature" than there is now. For precision, we could even move the article to "Classical psychedelic," though I think this might confuse readers even more. Jbening, fair point. I added a note at Talk:Serotonergic psychedelic directing people here, and plus there is the merge template at the top of the article there, so hopefully anyone who objects will notice in time. Gazelle55 (talk) 23:17, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

Not to open a can of worms, but I see that the list of psychedelic drugs article includes a number of substances that wouldn't fit in the scope of this article, and there's a rather weak, unsourced claim at the top of that list to the effect that "serotonergic psychedelics are usually considered the classic psychedelics" with a wikilink to the article we're considering merging into this one. My own argument for limiting the term "psychedelic" to serotonergics would be that the term was invented to describe the actions of LSD-like hallucinogens, and it has only casually and sporadically been used in reference to other hallucinogenics. Do any of the books listed as refs 4,8-10 in this article (Leary; McKenna; Davis; Pollan) make such a claim, and/or is there another good source for the decision to limit psychedelics to serotonergics? If such statements are made in one or more of those books, could someone with access to them include a quote and page in the reference, so it's available to people who haven't read the books? I see the author of ref 34 in this article (Carhart-Harris, Robin; Guy, Goodwin; 2017)) limits "psychedelic" to the LSD-like hallucinogens, but says merely that, "When using the term ‘psychedelics’ I refer to those compounds with appreciable serotonin 2A receptor agonist properties that can alter consciousness in a marked and novel way," without claiming that that's a mainstream approach. Reference 2 (Aghajanian and Marek, 1999) implies that same usage. Reference 3 (Milliere et al, 2018) also implies it, if one reads "classical hallucinogens" as being equivalent to "psychedelics". None of the references I've looked at so far makes it a slam dunk. Jbening (talk) 23:21, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Looking over the list of psychedelic drugs article, I would say that a great number of those do not really qualify. Meaning drift is an age old problem, typically dependent on people borrowing a word, and using it incorrectly while deeply integrating it into their vocabulary without maintaining a connection to the originating people. While that has happened to some degree with the word, "psychedelic", in this information age, we as an encyclopedia do not need to fall prey to accepting a loosey goosey definition, and can uphold the original meaning and intent. The fact is that "psychedelic" was chosen to differentiate the properties of certain substances from being merely psychoactive, as well as from simply inducing hallucinations. We also have words like "dissociative" and "deliriant" to describe other sorts of substances which may or many not induce hallucinations, and as such we should really reserve the word, "psychedelic" for those substances which reliably induce "mind manifesting" or "soul manifesting" experiences, and are not better described by "dissociative" or "deliriant". It may be prudent for this article to mention common substances which are sometimes described as "psychedelic", and make it clear that they actually have a more correct classification, and link to those articles. --Thoric (talk) 16:14, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Apologies that I've been so slow to follow up on this and thanks for giving more comments... yes, it is good that we look more closely at reliable sources and see how they define "psychedelic". I agree with Thoric that we shouldn't follow popular usage and instead stay encyclopedic. That said, I don't think that necessarily means sticking to the word's original definition – if the usage in reliable sources has changed we should follow suit. Jbening, thanks for looking into some sources. I think some of those like Pollan and McKenna are popular press sources that won't hold as much weight as academic sources anyways, and I agree that none of the research papers you mentioned have a slam dunk. I've collected some up-to-date references and their definitions to try to get more clarity:

1. Nichols, 2016: "This review will focus exclusively on the so-called classic serotonergic hallucinogens (psychedelics), which are substances that exert their effects primarily by an agonist (or partial agonist) action on brain serotonin 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) 2A receptors, as discussed later."

2. Nichols, 2018: "Before they had been pharmacologically classified as 5-HT2A receptor agonists or partial agonists, psychedelic drugs like mescaline , psilocybin , and LSD , were recognized for their powerful effects on the human psyche."

3. Reiff et al., 2020: "The psychedelics can be divided into four classes based on their pharmacological profiles and chemical structures: classic psychedelics (serotonin 2A [5-HT2A] receptor agonists), empathogens or entactogens (mixed serotonin and dopamine reuptake inhibitors and releasers), dissociative anesthetic agents (N-methyl-d-aspartate [NMDA] antagonists), and atypical hallucinogens, which affect multiple neurotransmitter systems (6)."

4. DiVito & Leger, 2020: "Classically, the unifying property of psychedelic drugs is their agonism of the serotonergic system, particularly the serotonin-2A receptor (5-hydroxytryptamine-2A receptor; 5-HT2A receptor), which is known to induce the alterations in sensorium and hallucinations that are characteristic of these agents [1, 15]."

5. Marks & Cohen, 2021: "Psychedelics are a class of natural and synthetic compounds that includes psilocybin, MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine), ibogaine and DMT (dimethyltryptamine)."

6. Siegel et al., 2021: "Psychedelics, also known as serotonergic hallucinogens, are among the hallucinogenic class of drugs and can exert profound effects on the brain and behavior via serotonin receptor mechanisms (Kyzar et al., 2017; Nichols, 2016)." And yet it also says in the next paragraph: "Psychedelics is a broad category with mechanistically dissimilar agents. Based on pharmacological profiles and chemical structures, psychedelics can be divided into four classes: classic psychedelics (serotonin 2A [5-HT2A] receptor agonists), empathogens or entactogens (mixed serotonin and dopamine reuptake inhibitors and releasers), dissociative anesthetic agents (N-methyl-D-aspartate [NMDA] antagonists) and atypical hallucinogens, which affect multiple neurotransmitter systems (Reiff et al., 2020)."

7. Nutt, 2019: "Though MDMA isn’t a psychedelic in the true sense of the word ..."

So based on the above it seems pretty clear to me that there is no consensus definition – both narrow and broad definitions are used. So here is what I'm thinking. 1. We rename this page "Classical psychedelic". 2. We then merge Serotonergic psychedelic into this page. 3. We could make a "Psychedelic drug (disambiguation)" page, which could link both to Hallucinogen (the broad definition) and a page called "Classical psychedelic". Does that make sense? Gazelle55 (talk) 23:48, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the great survey of sources, Gazelle55. I have no objections to what you propose. But personally I would still be in favor of leaving the current article titled as is, and merging serotonergic psychedelic into it, as you originally proposed. While I grant that the term "psychedelic" hasn't been used 100% of the time to refer to 5-HT2A agonists, the vast majority of uses are in reference to 5-HT2A agonists, as well as the original uses. We could acknowledge that fact with a brief statement in the lede to the effect that (1) the term "psychedelic" has been been used for decades without a systematic definition, (2) most uses refer to serotonergic hallucinogens, but (3) other classes of drugs such as X, Y, and Z have also occasionally been described as psychedelics. The wikilinks to those other classes of drugs in that brief statement would IMO be enough mention of anything other than serotonergic hallucinogens, since interested readers could click through to those articles to learn more. Jbening (talk) 02:16, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

You're right, Jbening, I think it will be better to stick with the original proposal and then clarify in the lead like you suggest. I think we have consensus on the merger but I'm just stuck on a procedural conundrum now. We haven't really found any source that explains "The term psychedelic normally means 5-HT2A agonists but is sometimes used to include other types of hallucinogens such as X, Y, and Z." I can show the sources using different definitions but if I then put them together to make the point it seems like a clear violation of WP:SYNTH... any thoughts on how we can move forward on a case like this? If not I can post at the Help Desk. Gazelle55 (talk) 18:59, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

(Sorry for the slow reply.) I don't see a problem. Of your modern sources, 1-4 support what we're proposing, 6 does in its first mention, and 7 does by implication. Plus we could cite The varieties of psychedelic experience and maybe one other classic source for the fact that the original meaning was restricted to what we now know are 5-HT2 agonists. Your refs 5 and 6 would support the occasional unsystematic broadening of the meaning to other hallucinogens. I don't see any undue synthesis. Jbening (talk) 16:27, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

(Also sorry for the slow reply), just to note, the opening description of Hallucinogen is as follows: Hallucinogens are a large and diverse class of psychoactive drugs that can produce altered states of consciousness characterized by major alterations in thought, mood, and perception, among other changes. Most hallucinogens can be categorized as psychedelics, dissociatives, or deliriants. -- so it would seem weird for "Psychedelic (drug)" to disambiguate to "Hallucinogen" when the Hallucinogen article already declares itself as the broad term, and psychedelic as a more specific term. As I've said before, there is an overall tendency for meaning drift to bloat the meaning of originally specific terms, and as an encyclopedia, we should strive to keep the primary meaning clear, and distinguish that primary meaning from the bloated, drifted meaning. Just because many people (including published academics) have used a specific term incorrectly, doesn't mean that we should also be incorrect. The word, "psychedelic" was purposely coined to more accurately describe what were (at that time) described as "hallucinogens". If we allow "psychedelic drug" to be bloated, then it loses its true meaning. We already have other specific terms for other non-psychedelic, hallucinogenic substances (dissociative, deliriant), as well as a broad inclusive term -- hallucinogen. I provide my psychoactive Venn diagram for reference: Psychoactive Drug Chart --Thoric (talk) 14:56, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the input and apologies for taking so long to do this. I've now merged the article into this one and added a clarifying sentence in the lead. I also added a few sentences of clarification in the "Etymology and nomenclature" section. If you see any problems, let me know or else be WP:BOLD. Gazelle55 ^{Let's talk!} 16:12, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

The potential psychological dangers of psychedelic experiences.

A conversation about this article took place here. OP is concerned that the risks of psychedelics are under-emphasized in the article. Most of the responses are invocations of WP:FALSEBALANCE, WP:FRINGE, WP:OR, and so on. I think these all miss the point. You can see my comment there for more background. However, here is the final paragraph of my comment, which will hopefully start a collaborative discussion about how to improve the article pursuant to OP's concerns:

"I think a concrete improvement that can be made to the article to address OP's well-founded concerns is to include a mention of the "Potential adverse effects" section in the lede, rather than only presenting positive information in the lede. These adverse effects would ideally be mentioned directly after the passage that states "psychedelics are physiologically safe." Pecopteris (talk) 19:39, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

The article already has a section entitled Psychedelic_drug#Potential_adverse_effects, which is slightly longer than the section entitled Psychedelic_drug#Potential_therapeutic_effects. Of course there should be a disclaimer in the introduction to the potential for negative experiences, if that is what is of concern here, then it can be easily remedied. Thoric (talk) 01:59, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, I think the concern here is that the lede is misleading, because it says things like "they're physiologically safe", but doesn't mention anything about the potential psychological dangers of these substances. I think the remedy is to incorporate something from the "potential adverse effects" section into the lede.

Any specific suggestions about how to word that/where, specifically, to include it? I'm happy to take a stab at it if nobody else wants to. Pecopteris (talk) 02:07, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Research Process and Methodology - SP24 - Sect 201 - Thu

This article is currently the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 4 March 2024 and 4 May 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Kph7917 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Kph7917 (talk) 17:44, 1 April 2024 (UTC)