Subjective effect index

The Subjective Effect Index (SEI) is a collection of wiki articles designed to serve as a comprehensive reference work for the diverse range of subjective effects that may occur during an altered or non-ordinary state of consciousness. While primarily written to describe the effects of psychoactive substances, particularly hallucinogens, it may also be extended to other areas of psychonautics such as meditation, sensory deprivation, and lucid dreaming.

SEI entries are composed of four parts: 1) a systematic effect name 2) a phenomenological description and analysis of the effect 3) any other relevant information and 4) external references. SEI articles implement a formalized writing style that seeks to avoid reliance on flowery metaphors or analogies, preferring instead to use ordinary language.

This editorial decision has been adopted in the hope that these definitions will eventually come to serve as a universal terminology set that enables individuals to better analyze and share meaningful experiences that are ineffable or otherwise extremely difficult to communicate.

The SEI currently contains over 200 entries that are organized into categories based on which sense they affect and their overall behavior. Many of these effects are further broken down into leveling systems, sub-components, and style variations that are reported to occur across different substances, doses, and situations. Detailed replications, in the form of image and video examples, have been included wherever possible to supplement the text descriptions.

The contents of this index are principally derived from the collective experiences and analyses of our contributors, various anecdotal reports collected from the internet, and (whenever possible) the published scientific literature. A curated archive of some of these reports can be found in our experience index.