“Turn on, tune in, drop out.” (Cite) Psychologist Timothy Leary made this hypnotic phrase popular during the 1960s. Having many ways of perceiving it, the majority of the people at the time viewed it as a creative slogan for taking psychedelics. These psychedelics were mind-altering drugs such as LSD, mescaline, or psilocybin mushrooms. The youth’s curiosity and desire for expanding your consciousness made the use of these drugs increasingly popular. The result was that this phrase was echoed among thousands emerging into the psychedelic rock era. An era bombarded with cold wars, racial discrimination, and social turbulence that tossed and turned eventually developing a new way of bringing people together through experimentation with drugs and music. In order to successfully expand on the rock music, one must understand the chemistry of the psychedelic drugs and their effects. Classic examples of psychedelics include LSD, Mescaline, psilocybin mushrooms, and peyote. These drugs are inscribed as hallucinogens that produce an altered sense of perception by affecting the neural circuits in the brain that use the neurotransmitter serotonin. Serotonin is found in the prefrontal cortex which is the area of our brain that affects cognition, mood, and perception. It …show more content…
Within 20 to 90 minutes the user can begin to see images, hear sounds, or feel sensations that seem true but aren’t occurring in real life. The effects upon ingestion varies on certain such as the amount ingested, and the mood that the user is experiencing before it is administered. The average time it affects the user from ingestion the substance can be as long as 12 hours. In the case of ingesting LSD, or lysergic acid diethylamide, the user will most likely experience drug-induced psychosis. This is a state of distortion for a person’s ability to think clearly, or communicate with