Short-Term Effects of Hallucinogens

Ingesting hallucinogenic drugs can cause users to see images, hear sounds, and feel sensations that seem real but do not exist. Their effects typically begin within 20 to 90 minutes of ingestion and can last as long as 12 hours.

Experiences are often unpredictable and may vary with the amount ingested and the user’s personality, mood, expectations, and surroundings. The effects of hallucinogens like LSD can be described as drug-induced psychosis—distortion or disorganization of a person’s capacity to recognize reality, think rationally, or communicate with others.

Users refer to LSD and other hallucinogenic experiences as “trips” and to acute adverse or unpleasant experiences as “bad trips.” On some trips, users experience sensations that are enjoyable and mentally stimulating and that produce a sense of heightened understanding. Bad trips, however, include terrifying thoughts and nightmarish feelings of anxiety and despair that include fears of losing control, insanity, or death.

General Short-Term Effects of Hallucinogens

• Hallucinations (seeing, hearing, touching, or smelling things in a distorted way or perceiving things that do not exist)
• Intensified feelings and sensory experiences (brighter colors, sharper sounds)
• Mixed senses (“seeing” sounds or “hearing” colors)
• Changes in sense or perception of time (time goes by slowly)
• Increased energy and heart rate
• Nausea

Short-Term Effects of LSD:

• Increased blood pressure, heart rate, and body temperature
• Dizziness and sleeplessness
• Loss of appetite, dry mouth, and sweating
• Numbness, weakness, and tremors
• Impulsiveness and rapid emotional shifts that can range from fear to euphoria, with transitions so rapid that the user may seem to experience several emotions simultaneously

Short-Term Effects of Psilocybin:

• Feelings of relaxation (similar to effects of low doses of marijuana)
• Nervousness, paranoia, and panic reactions
• Introspective/spiritual experiences
• Misidentification of poisonous mushrooms resembling psilocybin could lead to unintentional, potentially fatal poisoning

Short-Term Effects of DMT:

• Increased heart rate
• Agitation
• Hallucinations frequently involving radically altered environments as well as body and spatial distortions