In this article we shall answer the question: Is psychedelic music dangerous? Listening to psychedelic music only becomes dangerous if the person listens to is under the influence of psychedelic drugs.
Psychedelic drugs are also known as hallucinogens, a substance which are “usually used recreationally to change and enhance sensory perceptions, thought processes, and energy levels, and to facilitate spiritual experiences.”((What Are Psychedelic Drugs?))
These kinds of substances are usually eaten, or brewed to a tea or simply smoke. The usage of this drug in psychotherapies were discontinued in the 1960s but was however revived in psychologic and psychiatric treatment for depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder or “PTSD.”
So, if one person, who is under the high influence of psychedelic drugs, listens to psychedelic music, it will enhance the effect of the said drug into his body thereby aggravating the hallucinations, altered sensory perceptions and cognitive skills.
It is scientifically proven that when a person is overdosed to hallucinogens, his brain activities are disrupted, and the affected brain regions affect the regulation of mood, sleep, hunger, sexual behavior, sensory perception and intestinal muscle control. It also causes extreme panic, paranoia, psychosis and some other bizarre behaviors.
Is psychedelic music dangerous?
As the author has previously discussed, it may only be dangerous to persons listening to it while under the heavy influence of psychedelic drugs. While the use of psychedelic drugs is being utilized in treatment of psychological and psychiatric procedures, it should be under the direct control and prescription of a licensed doctor, if only needed.
As many of us listen to music to release emotion or express our feelings, it is really dangerous to those who have distorted sensory perception because they are under the influence of psychedelic drugs which primarily affects one’s cognitive skills.
Why is it dangerous for some and not others?
This is so because not all listeners use psychedelic drugs. Music is subjective and its harmony may be good to one person, but not as good to another. Just as the author weighs, psychedelic music can be dangerous for some people.
This is especially true to those who are under high influence as it enhances the hallucinations whether it be auditory or visual or some other altered state of consciousness. Drugs, when overdosed, primarily affect one’s cognition.
Some people do listen to music simply to release emotions, to relax, to concentrate, to be motivated or just listen. People who are not under the influence of psychedelic drugs are not susceptible to hallucinating effects of psychedelic music.
They are of stable consciousness. The only circumstance when danger is foreseen in psychedelic music is when such listener has taken psychedelic drugs or hallucinogens.
What is psychedelic music?
Psychedelic music or on some occasion is referred to as psychedelia, is one musical genre ranged to popular music and is influenced by the 1960’s psychedelia which is a culture of people who uses psychedelic drugs– such as marijuana, psilocybin mushrooms, mescaline, Lysergic acid diethylamide or LSD and Dimethyltryptamine or DMT.
These drugs were used by them to experience auditory and visual hallucinations, altered states of consciousness, and synesthesia. Listening to psychedelic music enhances them to experience the impact of these psychedelic drugs but as well it has a significant effect and influence on psychedelic therapy.
Psychedelic music surfaced the music floor during the 1960s among rock bands in the United Kingdom and United States and developed subgenres of psychedelic music such as psychedelic folk, and pop, acid rock until its decline during the 1970s.
It was revived and included stoner rock, psychedelic funk, neo-psychedelia, psychedelic electronic music, which was a subgenre that includes acid house, new rave, and trance music.
Psychedelic music as characterized by Michael Hicks, was often misused. He said, “To understand what makes music stylistically “psychedelic,” one should consider three fundamental effects of LSD: dechronicizations, depersonalization, and dynamization. Dechronicization permits the drug user to move outside of conventional perceptions of time. Depersonalization allows the user to lose the self and gain an ‘awareness of undifferentiated unit.’ Dynamization, as Timothy Leary wrote, makes everything from floors to lamps seem to bend, as ‘familiar forms dissolve into moving, dancing structures.’ Music that is truly ‘psychedelic’ mimics these three effects.”((Hicks, Michael (August 2000). Sixties Rock: Garage, Psychedelic, and Other Satisfactions. Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press. pp. 63–64. ISBN 0-252-06915-3))
-Michael Hicks
What is psychedelic sound?
We must first differentiate the terms sound and music, as the author previously discussed what psychedelic music is.
In its general sense, sound is produced when a thing vibrates. It is a form of energy which transmits acoustic waves and is audible within 20Hz and 20kHz. What we often hear as sound is the effect of to-and-fro motion of any particles and this is termed as the vibration which produces sounds that we often hear.
Music, as defined by Oxford Dictionary, is the vocal or instrumental sounds or both, which is combined in such a way as to produce beauty or form, harmony, and expression of emotion.
We hear sounds everywhere, from the whirl of the wind to the chugging of a train and when we hear music, but music is limited only to sounds that are produced by vocals or instrumental or both.
Going back to our discussion, when we speak of psychedelic sounds, everything a person hears is psychedelic once he is under the influence of psychedelic drugs. Some describe it as weird, different and strange.
Some people describe it as the sound effect of an electric guitar with feedback. Some describe it as having a reverberated and distorted and reversed sound. The author had the occasion to listen to psychedelic sounds and it is most likely having a distorted rhythm and listening to it feels like the author is being hypnotized and bothered.
What is psychedelic rock?
Psychedelic rock is a music which is inspired and influenced by the psychedelic culture. It emerged in the United Kingdom and United States during the 1960s. As earlier discussed, the three effects of LCD which are depersonalization, dechronicization, and dynamization, all of which has the effect of detaching the psychedelic drug user from reality.
Musically speaking, the characteristics of psychedelic rock are characterized as having effect of enhancing the hallucination of the user. Common features of psychedelic rock include electric guitars, extreme reverbs, elements of Indian music such as tambura and tabla, strong presence of keyboard such as hapsichords and electric organs and mostly disjunctive and distorted song structures.
In the year 1966, the psychedelic rock has grown and has become fully explicit and very much widely distributed and as described by music journalists, the peak of psychedelic rock and pop music was between 1966 and 1969.
British popular band, The Beatles has released in February 1967, a double A-side single “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Penny Lane” and the mellotron parts of the Strawberry Fields Forever remain the most acclaimed piece of the instrument in a psychedelic rock music. These two songs publicized the Beatles’ brand of romanticism as the core of psychedelic rock, according to Simonelli.((Simonelli, David (2013). Working Class Heroes: Rock Music and British Society in the 1960s and 1970s. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. ISBN 978-0739170519))
How does psychedelic music affect the brain?
As previously discussed by the author, psychedelic music, when listened to by a psychedelic drug user, enhances the effects of said drug to his mental faculties such as auditory and visual hallucinations.
Scientific studies show that when these psychedelic drugs are active in one person’s body, it disrupts brain networks that usually support the cognitive control of the brain. These drugs affect the claustrum region of the brain which controls consciousness.
Moreover, psychedelic drugs affect and facilitate the activities in brain regions which are primary responsible for the support of emotions and memories, brain regions that are most affected with the help of psychedelic music.
Moreover, research shows that psychedelic drugs also affect a brain region which is termed as prefrontal cortex, the region that is involved in mood, cognition, and perception of one person. It also affects the brain region which is responsible for arousal and physiological responses to panic and stress.
All told, psychedelic music when listened to by a psychedelic user under its influence may experience alterations in the brain region which primarily affects his or her cognitive skills.
Did the Beatles make psychedelic music?
An image that captured and became internationally famous in popular music – The Beatles walking across the Abbey Road. Since 1960s up until now, their music is influential.
An English rock band that was formed in Liverpool, England, the Beatles is composed of 4 amazing voices- John Lennon, Sir Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison.
Being the pioneers in songwriting and recording, the Beatles incorporated in their music some elements of classical music and traditional pop and later on explored some other music styles such as Indian music and psychedelic music.
So, yes, the Beatles made psychedelic music. As the Beatles embraced in their music the 1950s rock and roll music, they did not limit it and they expanded it into broad variety of music.
We all know that they also employ classical and Victorian ballad in their music, in 1966 they expanded to psychedelic records and “Martin Strong” was the” first overtly psychedelic Beatles record.”((Strong, Martin (2004). The Great Rock Discography. Edinburgh and New York: Canongate. ISBN 978-1- 84195-615-2. Retrieved 31 March 2014))
An internet website called “Ultimately Classic Rock & Culture” has enlisted the top 10 psychedelic music popularized by the Beatles.((Top 10 Beatles Psychedelic Songs))
On tenth is “She Said, She Said,” from the album “Revolver” released in 1966. Ninth is “Its All Too Much,” from the album “Yellow Submarine” released in 1969; followed on the eighth spot is “A Day In The Life” from the album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” which was released in 1967. Top 7 is “Within You, Within You,” also from the album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” on the sixth is “I’m Only Sleeping,” from the album “Revolver” released in 1966; placing fifth is “Strawberry Fields Forever,” from the album “Magical Mystery Tour,” which was released in 1967; “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” is the fourth in the list, from the album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” Top Three goes to “Only A Northern Song,” from “Yellow Submarine” 1969 Album; Second is “I am a Walrus,” from “Magical Mystery Tour” 1967 album, and topping the list is “Tomorrow Never Knows,” from 1966 Revolver Album, and was described by the website as “one of the most mesmerizing slices of rock and roll ever recorded.”((Ibid.))
-Psychedelic Song, Beatles
Conclusion
Generally, listening to music releases our stress, makes us feel relaxed, focused, motivated, happy and uplifted. But we must remember that there are in our populace who uses drugs.
Some are responsible drug-users who are taking only what is prescribed to them- medically speaking. But there are these who abuses the use of drugs and some other mind-altering substances, such as this psychedelic substance or so called “Hallucinogens.”
As earlier discussed, psychedelic drugs primarily affect one’s sensory perception as it targets the region of the brain responsible for cognitive skills and once under influence of these drugs, listening to psychedelic music enhances its side effects such as hallucinations.
However, not all psychedelic music can bring danger to every listener. Psychedelic music, as a musical genre is one which has a good harmony and beat that could entice people to listen to it. Some psychedelic music bears a light combination of instrument which tends to be relaxing, but there is psychedelic rock which is obviously hypes the rock and roll swag in one’s body.
Music is in the ear of the beholder as is beauty in the eyes of the beholder. One may appreciate psychedelic music, some other may not. But it is obvious, psychedelic music brought an impact to rock music which until now is being listened to by new generations of music enthusiasts.