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Hallucinogenic substances are characterized by their ability to cause changes in a person's perception of reality. Persons using hallucinogenic drugs often report seeing images, hearing sounds, and feeling sensations that seem real, but do not exist. In the past, plants and fungi that contained hallucinogenic substances were abused. Currently, these hallucinogenic substances are produced synthetically to provide a higher potency.
One common type of hallucination produced by these drugs in called synesthesia, a transposing of sensory modes or sensory crossover. For example, seeing a particular sight may cause the user to perceive a sound. Hearing a sound may cause him or her to perceive an odor.
Sometimes, the hallucinations can be very frightening to the user. The user may be panic-stricken by what he or she is seeing or hearing, and may become uncontrollably excited, or even try to flee from the terror. Hallucinogen users call these kinds of experiences "bad trips". Users of hallucinogens have been known to be driven into permanent insanity by these experiences .
A "bad trip" sometimes may be re-experienced as a flashback. Hallucinogen flashbacks apparently do not occur because of a residual quantity of drug in a user's body. Rather, flashbacks apparently are vivid recollections of a portion of a previous hallucinogenic experience. Essentially, flashbacks are very intense, and very frightening day dreams.
There are three types of flashbacks; emotional, somatic, and perceptual. The emotional flashback is the most dangerous. It brings back strong feelings of panic, fear and loneliness, and creates an intense and very real recollection of the original "bad trip". A somatic flashback consists of altered body sensations, e.g., tremors, weakness, nausea, dizziness, etc. that were part of the original "trip". In a perceptual flashback, the user re-experiences some of the sensory distortions of the original "trip".
In general, hallucinations intensify whatever mood the user is in when the drug is taken. If the user is depressed, the drug will deepen the depression. If the user is feeling pleasant, the drug usually will heighten that feeling. If the user expects that the drug will help him or her achieve new insights or an expanded consciousness, the drug will seem to have that effect. However, use of hallucinogens often uncovers mental or emotional flaws of which the user was unaware. Such flaws can result in the panic and terror of a "bad trip" even though the user was expecting a pleasurable experience.
The most common effect of an hallucinogen is hallucinations. The user's perception of reality is severely distorted, often to the point of synesthesia. This makes it virtually impossible for the hallucinogen-influenced person to function in the real world.
It is unlikely that hallucinogens directly are life-threatening.