Deliriant
The term was coined in the early 1980s to distinguish these drugs from psychedelics such as LSD and dissociatives such as ketamine, due to their primary effect of causing delirium, as opposed to the more lucid (i.e. rational thought is preserved better, including the skepticism about the hallucinations) and less disturbed states produced by other types of hallucinogens.
[7] The hallucinogenic experience and delirium produced, particularly by (M1 inhibiting) anticholinergics is characterized by stupor, agitation, confusion, confabulation, emotional bluntness, dysphoria, memory deficits, incoherency of thoughts, hypoactivity or hyperactivity (mixed delirium), lucid intervals, akathisia, realistic visual hallucinations or illusions (as opposed to the pseudohallucinations experienced on other classes of hallucinogens) and regression to "phantom" behaviors such as disrobing, plucking or interacting with imaginary objects or scenes.
[13][7] The effects of these kinds of anticholinergic compounds have also been likened to delirious fevers, sleepwalking, fugue states or psychotic episodes in that the subject has minimal control over their actions and may have little or no recollection of the experience afterwards.
[16] It is usually done by putting the extracted and isolated powder form of the alkaloid in a victim's (alcoholic) drink, oftentimes directly by or with the help of attractive women to act as criminal accomplices to the robbers.
[22][2][23] Other commonly reported behaviors and experiences include holding conversations with imagined persons or entities, smoking nonexistent cigarettes (even with nonsmokers), visual hallucinations of spiders or shadow figures or being unable to recognize one's own reflection in a mirror.
[5] Ken Hedges, who was curator of archaeology at the San Diego Museum of Man, and also studied hallucinogen-based Kumeyaay rock art recalled how when he was a student at San Diego's Mount Miguel High School in 1960, two teenage boys in Ojai who sampled datura were found on that town's main street at night; "in a state of mind that could only be called extremely deranged, they were walking from streetlight to streetlight, banging their heads on each pole until they were covered with blood."
It doesn't teach you about higher consciousness, it sort of leads you into a world of twilight confusion and magical and somewhat demonic forces… A lot of sorcery goes on around datura, especially in Latin America.
"During an on-camera interview, author of The God Molecule: 5-MeO-DMT and the Spiritual Path to the Divine Light, Gerardo Ruben Sandoval Isaac explained that in the Oaxaca "mushroom village" of San José del Pacifico, the psilocybin mushrooms are regarded as being "related to light" and that (Brugmansia) is "related to the darkness" and that they (the tribes) "are aware of the polarity of this flower", further crediting the idea that the hallucinogenic experience produced by deliriants is typically of a "dark" and disturbing nature.
[citation needed] When datura was first formally discovered in colonial Jamestown, Virginia in 1676 by English soldiers during Bacon's Rebellion, they spent 11 days in altered mental states after using the leaves of the plant, which they did not know were psychoactive and poisonous, as part of a salad.
[26] Historian Robert Beverley Jr. wrote of the observable effects seen during their intoxicated state; "They (the soldiers) turned natural fools upon it for several days: one would blow up a feather in the air; another would dart straws at it with much fury; and another, stark naked, was sitting up in a corner like a monkey, grinning and making mows (grimaces) at them; a fourth would fondly kiss and paw his companions, and sneer in their faces with a countenance more antic than any in a Dutch droll… They were not very cleanly; for they would have wallowed in their own excrements if they had not been prevented.
Nutmeg, although purportedly not as strong or as unpleasant as diphenhydramine or scopolamine, is considered a deliriant, due to its propensity to cause anticholinergic-like symptoms when taken in large doses.
The anticholinergic syndrome may be accompanied by sedation, coma, seizures and/or cardiovascular toxicity not necessarily mediated by muscarinic antagonism but rather secondary to other drug effects on other receptors or ion channels.
[38] In addition to potentially dangerous mental/behavioral effects (accidents during deliriant experiences are common)[39] some tropane alkaloids, such as those found in plants of the Datura genus, are exceptionally toxic and can cause death due to tachycardia-induced heart failure, hypoventilation and hyperthermia even in small doses.
[43] Despite these overtly negative effects both on the physical and mental health of the user, usage of deliriants for recreational purposes has still gone on for centuries and was said to be introduced in Europe and surrounding areas by the Romani people, who would smoke or ingest plants such as datura to experience hallucinations.
[48][49][50][47] In ancient Greek myth, wreaths of henbane leaves were used to crown the newly deceased to make them forget their former lives as they crossed or wandered near the River Styx in the underworld.
[50] In early medieval times, Mandrake was believed to have commonly grown under gallows where bodily fluids dripped from the bodies of deceased murderers, with some sources stating blood and others claiming semen or urine.
[48] During this time period, the New World plant datura stramonium (jimsonweed) was discovered in North America by colonialists and eventually lumped in with the other classic 'witches weeds' of the nightshade family that were endemic to Europe.
[59][60] In certain South American countries, members of the Brugmansia genus have been known to be occasionally added to ayahuasca brews by malevolent sorcerers (brujos) or bad shamans who wish to take advantage of unsuspecting tourists.
[21] Despite being a highly poisonous and often deadly plant to work with, it was still often included in recipes for flying ointments and magical salves, likely as a way to help counteract both the cardiac and hyperthermic side effects of the scopolamine.
