Deliriants are a subclass of hallucinogen. 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 and less disturbed states produced by other types of hallucinogens, where rational thought is better preserved (including the ability to distinguish hallucinations from reality).Duncan, D. F., and Gold, R. S. (1982). Drugs and the Whole Person. New York: John Wiley & Sons The term generally refers to anticholinergic drugs, which are substances that inhibit the function of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine.
Common examples of deliriants include plants of the genera Datura and Brugmansia, both containing scopolamine, as well as higher than recommended dosages of diphenhydramine (Benadryl). A number of plant deliriants such as that of the Solanaceae family, particularly in the Americas, have been used by some Indigenous cultures to reach delirious and altered states of consciousness for traditions or rituals, such as rites of passage, divination or communicating with the ancestors. Despite their long history of use, deliriants are the least-studied class of hallucinogens in terms of their behavioral and neurological effects.
Etymology The term was introduced by David F. Duncan and Robert S. Gold due to a characteristic delirium-like effect which is known to manifest as a reoccurring symptom for anticholinergic hallucinogens. The term deliriant originates from delirium (dēlīrĭum) which comes from the Latin verb delirare, which means 'to go off the furrow', 'to derail'. liria (furrow) - The earth thrown up between two furrows, a ridge. ex, e - out of, from. delirio - frenzy, madness, deranged. It is said to be a figurative reference to going off or out of the furrow when ploughing (agricultural) so as to be analogous to the mental aberration that is being in delirium.
Mechanism of action The altered state of consciousness produced by common or 'classical' deliriant substances such as scopolamine, atropine and diphenhydramine is mediated through the drug compounds' competitive antagonism of the peripheral and central muscarinic acetylcholine receptors, especially the M1 muscarinic receptor. M1 receptors are located primarily in the central nervous system and are involved in perception, attention, and cognitive functioning.
Delirium is primarily associated with antagonism of postsynaptic M1 receptors. However, antagonism of both the M1 receptor and the M2 receptor have been implicated as having negative effects on memory and cognition, and the selective M2 receptor antagonist hyoscyamine has been reported to produce deliriant effects similarly to M1 receptor antagonists. Conversely, the M3 receptor has not been implicated in cognition.
The central nervous system actions of deliriants are complex, and other muscarinic acetylcholine receptors, including the M3, M4, and M5 receptors, may also be involved in the effects of the drugs. As an example, the M1, M2, M4 and M5 receptors have all been implicated in regulating dopamine release, with the M1, M2, and M4 receptors having inhibitory effects on dopamine release and the M5 receptor having stimulatory effects.
Peripheral muscarinic receptors are part of the autonomic nervous system. M2 receptors are located in the brain and heart, M3 receptors are in salivary glands and M4 receptors are in the brain and lungs. Scopolamine is a nonspecific muscarinic antagonist at all four (M1, M2, M3, and M4) receptor sites. Due to these compounds' inhibition of various signal transduction pathways, the decrease in acetylcholine signaling is what leads to many of the cognitive deficits and mental impairments.
It has also been said that common anticholinergic agents/hallucinogens should be more accurately referred to as antimuscarinics, as for instance these agents do not generally block nicotinic receptors.
Effects
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. 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. This is a notable departure from the effects of serotonergic psychedelics.Sinclair, Raisa (2019). A Field Guide To Deliriants
Scopolamine has been shown to exert a greater impairment on episodic memory, event-related potentials, memory retention and free recall compared to diphenylhydramine (an anticholinergic and antihistamine). Some antihistamines may also act as deliriants in high doses. Due to scopolamine's prominent amnesiac and impairing effects, it has been used in Colombia for criminal purposes such as 'drugging' individuals, usually perceived as wealthy, and robbing them due to scopolamine's discombobulating effects and enhanced suggestibility. 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.
In Colombia, isolated (powdered) scopolamine has become infamous and is referred to there by several monikers such as Burundanga and "Devil's Breath". It is usually extracted by criminals from the Borrachero Tree and may even occasionally be encountered as a street drug there.
The antimuscarinic plant-based alkaloids scopolamine and atropine are also notorious for their characteristic hyperactive effects and ability to cause stark and dream-like hallucinations. The hallucinations themselves are often described by users as disturbing, unpleasant or dark in nature.Grinspoon, Lester and Bakalar, James B. (1997). Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered. The Lindesmith Center 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. Deliriants in particular appear to be noted for their powerful effects on users' behavior.
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." Hedge claimed that even among Native Americans, "terrifying visions" were often the result for "those who submitted themselves to the plant's power." Anthropological assessment of the sacred Chumash Datura cult in Southern California ascertained that within the tribe, frequent or repeat users of datura tended to gradually become more and more antisocial, often adopting behavior patterns that the rest of the tribe viewed as "capricious malevolence".
During one of his workshops in Hawaii, psychonaut Terence McKenna discussed the effects of the hallucinogenic Solanaceae plants compared to psychedelics, stating:
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. 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.
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. A thousand such simple tricks they played, and after eleven days returned (to) themselves again, not remembering anything that had passed."
Deliriant substances
Naturally-occurring anticholinergic deliriants are found in the plant species Atropa belladonna (deadly nightshade), various Brugmansia species (Angel's Trumpets), Datura stramonium (Jimson weed), Hyoscyamus niger (henbane), and Mandragora officinarum (mandrake) in the form of the tropane alkaloids scopolamine, atropine, and hyoscyamine. Other, lesser known plant sources of scopolamine and related tropanes include Scopolia carniolica endemic to Europe, Latua endemic to southern Chile, Solandra endemic to Mexico and Duboisia myoporoides, which is endemic to Australia and contains both scopolamine and nicotine.Armando T. Hunziker: The Genera of Solanaceae. A.R.G. Gantner Verlag K.G., Ruggell, Liechtenstein 2001. Rätsch, Christian, The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants: Ethnopharmacology and Its Applications pub. Park Street Press 2005 Scopolamine has often been considered, pharmacologically and psychonautically the premier and paradigmatic deliriant substance, to which all other deliriants and/or antimuscarinic hallucinogens are usually compared.
Synthetic compounds such as diphenhydramine (Benadryl), dimenhydrinate (Dramamine), and tropine benzilate are deliriants. 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 effects caused by myristicin and elemicin found in nutmeg's essential oil can last up to several days, similarly to the tropane alkaloids found in datura. The mushroom referred to as fly agaric with its active agents ibotenic acid and muscimol may also be considered an 'atypical' deliriant, although fly agaric is probably more accurately described as a hypnotic.