There are a lot of people who experiment with hallucinogens. Many of those people will become psychologically addicted to them. In order to understand the psychological addiction you have to also understand why people use hallucinogens. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a hallucinogen is a drug that alters the way that you experience the world. There are many reasons why people start using hallucinogens and later become addicted.
To Escape their Problems
This is the number one reason why people use hallucinogens. It is an escape. The lack of reality during a trip on a hallucinogen, allows your mind and body to check out for a while.
Unfortunately, escaping from your problems can cause you to ignore them. The escape does not make your problems go away. It can actually make them worse. Once you get accustomed to escaping your problems, it becomes a habit. You start to crave that escape any time you have a problem that you do not feel you can immediately handle.
To Escape their Routines
Just like a vacation the escape provided by hallucinogens gives you a way to get out of your routine. Most people, who have difficulty maintaining a day to day routine, welcome the escape that the hallucinogen gives them.
Again this escape from your routine can cause you problems. You might decide you would rather escape than go to work, maintain your job, or continue with a daily routine you can’t handle. After a while you start to consider using at work to make it more interesting which leads to accidents and job loss.
To Enhance their Abilities
Some people believe that hallucinogens enhance their ability to do things, perform or otherwise function. This usually is not true. Most people who believe this think that it enhances their creativity. Unfortunately, the hallucinogens rarely bring true creativity. It is important to remember that everything that is there when you are on a hallucinogen is normally there just buried deep inside your mind.
To Enhance their Senses
One of the things hallucinogens are known to do is enhance the senses. Much like hallucinations, the enhanced senses are common when you take many of the different hallucinogens. Some people enjoy this hypersensitivity. The hypersensitivity is pleasurable to some and very painful to others.
There is a dark side to this enhancement. These feelings can put you in a different state of mind and some people engage in high risk behaviors such as having unprotected sex.
To Hallucinate
Of course some people use hallucinogens just to hallucinate. Most of these hallucinations are pleasant and fun, most but not all of them. There is a phenomenon called a “bad trip.” A bad trip is a nightmarish experience where you hallucinate your worst fears instead of pleasant things. Some descriptions of bad trips describe frightening images of everything from demons to murder.
Because they are Addictive
Hallucinogens are psychologically addictive. This means you get addicted to your mental state while you are on them. It is a very difficult addiction to break.