Hallucinogens Affect Your Brain and All Five Senses
Clinical name: Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
Street names: LSD, Acid, Blotter
Clinical name: Psilocybin
Street names: Magic Mushrooms, Shrooms
Clinical name: Phencyclidine
Street names: PCP, Angel Dust, Boat, Ozone, Wack
Clinical name: MDMA – short for 304 methylenedioxymethamphetamine.
Street names: Ecstasy, E, X, XTC, hug, love drug, Adam, clarity, beans & lover’s speed.
Hallucinogens powerfully affect the brain, distorting the way all five of your senses work, changing the way your brain interprets time, reality, and the environment around you. They also alter the way you move, react to situations, hear, think and see. All of this may cause you to think that you are hearing voices, seeing images, and feeling things that don’t actually exist.
Hallucinogens can affect your overall well-being, changing the way you feel emotionally. They may also cause you to feel confused, paranoid, and disoriented. Many PCP users are brought into the emergency room due to overdose or due to its disturbing psychological effects.
People who use hallucinogens can have a hard time concentrating, communicating, in addition to experiencing great difficulties in telling the difference between reality and illusion. Hallucinogens can cause flashbacks and the effects of these drugs, including the hallucinations, can occur weeks, months, and even years after use.
The effect of hallucinogens varies from time to time and person to person, so there is no way to know how you will be affected or how much self-control you might maintain. These drugs may cause you to lose control of your muscles, mix up your speech, make meaningless movements, and to act in irrational, aggressive, or violent ways. Hallucinogens also affect your heart and could result in heart or lung failure, or even a coma. This is because the use of these types of drugs leads to increased heart rate and blood pressure.
The body can quickly develop a tolerance to a hallucinogen, resulting in a person needing to take more and more of the drug to get the same effect. This is extremely dangerous because taking higher doses of any drug may cause severe side effects, including overdose.
Know the Signs:
Different hallucinogens have different effects, depending on the dose and the user. It may be difficult to tell for sure if someone is using hallucinogens, but there are some common warning signs that you can look for that include:
- Distorted sense of sight, hearing, and touch
- Dilated Pupils
- Anxiety or Paranoia
- Faintness
- Irrational Behavior
Q & A
Q) Do hallucinogens have long-term effects?
A) Yes. In addition to flashbacks, long-term effects may include prolonged depression, decreased motivation, anxiety, increased delusions and panic, and psychosis.
Q) Can I predict if I will have a “bad trip”?
A) No. 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 drug also depend 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 911 immediately. While you are waiting for help to arrive, address the person by name, remind them who and where they are, talk to them calmly, make sure they are safe, and don’t leave them alone.
Q) Are hallucinogens illegal?
A) Yes, hallucinogens are illegal to buy, sell, or possess.
What can you do to help someone who is using hallucinogens?
Contact Narconon Suncoast right away for help with addiction to hallucinogens.
