Talk:Psychedelic experience

A psychedelic experience is an experience characterized by the perception of discovering previously unknown aspects of one's mind, or by the sense of creative exuberance of the mind when freed from its everyday conditioning and limitations.^{[citation needed]}

Psychedelic experiences are comprised of an array of states including changes of perception such as internal and external hallucinations, synesthesia, altered states of awareness or focused consciousness, variation in thought patterns, trance or hypnotic states, mystical states, and other cognitive alterations. These processes can lead some people to experience changes in mental operation defining their self-identity (whether in momentary acuity or chronic development) different enough from their previous normal state that it can produce feelings of newly formed understanding such as mystical revelation, spiritual awakening, and/or confusion, and psychosis.

Psychedelic states may be elicited by various techniques, such as meditation, sensory stimulation or deprivation, and most commonly by the use of psychedelic substances. When these psychoactive substances are used for religious, shamanic, or spiritual purposes, they are termed entheogens.^{[citation needed]}