Admitting the Holocaust

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LSD, ECSTASY, and MUSHROOMS

Negative Effects


Hallucinogens are drugs that cause hallucinations. Scientists explain a hallucination as

“a sensory experience of something that does not exist outside the mind. It may involve

hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting or feeling something that isn’t really there. Or, it may

involve distorted sensory perceptions, so that things look, sound, smell, taste or feel

differently from the way that they are.”

LSD, Ecstasy and “Magic Mushrooms” are all hallucinogenic in effect. The effects

vary in type and strength depending on the amount of the drug taken, how often it is

taken, the mood of the user, the environment, and the physical condition of the individual

taking the drug. Effects may be pleasurable for some users and violent in nature for

others.

Hallucinogens produce varying types of hallucinations. One type of hallucination

produced by these drugs is called “synesthesia”, a transposing of sensory modes or

sensory crossover. This is better explained by an example of seeing a particular sight that

may cause the user to perceive a sound. Hearing a sound, may cause him/her to perceive

an odor.

A “bad trip” may sometimes be re-experienced as a flashback. Hallucinogen

flashbacks do not occur because of a residual amount of the drug in an individual’s body,

but are vivid recollections of a portion of a previous hallucinogenic experience.

Flashbacks are very intense, and are often referred to as “day dreams”. According to

Reed 2


the American Medical Association, there are three types of flashbacks that can occur:

emotional, somatic and perceptual. “The emotional flashback is the most dangerous in

that it brings back feelings of...