Hallucinogens

Overview
How Hallucinogens Affect Your Senses
Where Do Hallucinogens Come From?
LSD
PCP

Overview

Hallucinogens cause people to experience hallucinations, imagined experiences that seem real. The word "hallucinate" comes from Latin words meaning, "to wander in the mind." Some people refer to hallucinating as tripping.

The "trips" caused by hallucinogens can last for hours. Parts of these trips can feel really good, and other parts can feel really terrible.

Hallucinogens powerfully affect the brain, distorting the way our five senses work and changing our impressions of time and space. People who use these drugs a lot may have a hard time concentrating, communicating, or telling the difference between reality and illusion.

How Hallucinogens Affect Your Senses

Your brain controls all of your perceptions -- the way you see, hear, smell, taste, and feel. How does your brain communicate with the rest of your body? Chemical messengers transmit information from nerve cell to nerve cell in the body and the brain. Messages are constantly being sent back and forth with amazing speed.

Your nerve cells are called neurons, and their chemical messengers are called neurotransmitters. When neurotransmitters attach to special places on nerve cells (called receptors), they cause changes in the nerve cells.

This communication system can be disrupted by chemicals like hallucinogens, and the results are changes in the way you sense the world around you.

Where Do Hallucinogens Come From?

Some hallucinogens can be found in plants. Mescaline comes from a cactus called peyote. And certain mushrooms, also known as magic mushrooms, are hallucinogens.

But many hallucinogens are chemicals that don't occur in nature. Some examples are:

LSD, also called acid;
MDA, an amphetamine, a type of drug
MDMA, an amphetamine, called ecstasy;
PCP (phencyclidine), often called angel dust.

source: National Institute on Drug Abuse

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