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PSYCHEDELIC DRUGS: SCIENCE AND SOCIETY + 39 hormone, and temperature regulation, as well as sleep, feeding, mood, perception, and motor control. Now that we've looked at what psychedelics "are" and "do" in the worlds of objective and measurable data, let's turn our attention how they/eeZ to us, for it is only in the mind that we notice their effects. It is important to remember that while we understand a great deal about the pharmacology of psychedelics, we know nearly nothing about how changes in brain chemistry directly relate to subjective, or inner, experience. This is as true for psychedelics as it is for Prozac. That is, we are far from comprehending how activating particular serotonin receptors translates into a new thought or emotion. We don't "feel" a serotonin re- ceptor blockade; rather, we feel ecstasy. We don't "see" frontal lobe activation; instead, we observe angels or demons. It is impossible to predict accurately what will happen after taking a psychedelic drug on any particular day. Nevertheless, we will generalize about their subjective effects because we must gain a sense ofa "typical" response. We can do this by averaging all of our own and others' experi- ences, all of the "trips" that have gone before us. (By "trip" I mean the full effects of a typical psychedelic drug like LSD, mescaline, psilocybin, or DMT. A trip is difficult to define, but we certainly know when we are having one!) The following descriptions do not apply to "mild" psychedelics such as MDMA or usual-strength marijuana, nor do they describe responses to low doses of psychedelics, for which effects are similar to those of other non-psychedelic drugs, like amphetamine. Psychedelics affect all of our mental functions: perception, emotion, thinking, body awareness, and our sense of self. Perceptual or sensory effects often, but not always, are primary. Ob- jects in our field of vision appear brighter or duller, larger or smaller, and seem to be shifting shape and melting. Eyes closed or open, we see things that have little to do with the outside world: swirling, colorful, geometric cloud patterns, or well-formed images of both animate and inanimate ob- jects, in various conditions of motion or activity.