The users and contributors to this site form a passionate and diverse community who value the exploration of consciousness, and who wish to do so reflectively and safely. The Psychonaut hopes to act as a locus of trusted information in this area, principally by maintaining an accurate and accessible information archive (entheopedia), but also by cataloguing the experiences of our audience (trip reports). Though our information strives to be comprehensive, we do not encourage taking substances that are illegal in your country or region, and cannot be held responsible for any errors in content that there may be, or for any accidents or otherwise harmful consequences that may occur as a result of an individual’s reconstructing any of the methods noted here for purposes of harm reduction or intellectual research. (Please see our legal disclaimer for more here.)
What is a psychonaut?
In broad brushstrokes, a psychonaut is an explorer of altered states of consciousness. The methodology of psychonautics involves a subject intentionally inducing an atypical mental state, from the perspective of which a clearer understanding of the self, the bounds of experience, and perhaps even the wider reality in which one finds oneself can ultimately be reaped. Here is an exemplary list of other common psychonautic methods:
- Meditation
- Sensory deprivation
- Lucid dreaming
- Fasting
- Ingestion of known psychoactive substances
Crudely put, psychonauts differ from recreational users of psychoactive substances insofar as their principal goal is understanding. There is a vaguely-bounded group of substances that are classically used as psychonautic aids, since not all drugs are perhaps suitable for achieving the states pursued. In the literature, this class is often referred to as the ‘psychedelics’ or ‘entheogens’. The following set of human pharmacological characteristics seem to provide necessary and sufficient conditions for a substance’s falling into this class:
- Modifications in thought process, perception, and mood predominate over other alterations.
- Intellectual capacity and memory is minimally altered.
- Stupor, narcosis, or excessive stimulation are not the predominant effects.
- Autonomic side effects are moderate.
- Addictive craving is minimal.
- A tendency to bind at the 5-HT2 serotonin receptors"
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