LSD structurally contains both a tryptamine and a phenethylamine backbone depending on how you look at it. In the images below the red shows LSD's phenethylamine structure and the green shows its tryptamine structure. It is clearly both.

Is LSD for you more like mescaline and other phenethylamine psychedelics, or is it more like mushrooms and other tryptamine psychedelics?

physiologically, yeah I'd agree.
the somatic side effects for mushrooms are much different, it's a somewhat hazy buzz. L feels more energetic, clear. so does mescaline.

Mescaline to me feels like tryptamine free LSD. Go figure

it fits it's character, to be 'androgenous'... I always see LSD as the Joker, the card that can play as all cards, but at the same time its nothing... All truths slip through your fingers just as you think you are grasping them


(nice thread ron, I like the outlining of the 'backbones' Lets see what others think

Of all psychedelics that are not lysergic's themselves, i find a moderate dose of p.cyanescens and p.semilanceata most reminiscent of LSD.

damn this is hard to answer...thinking back...the best way i could describe it is based on combinations...lsd with tryptamines is awesome SOMETIMES....lsd and mushrooms were never that fun for me...but lsd and mdma was great....while mescaline and mdma was very powerful too....but lsd and dmt was better than mdma and dmt....but mescaline and dmt is great too...its kinda a toss up....thus..i cant vote...its both!

The only truly psychedelic phen i know is mescalin (i do not consider the XTC's as truly psychedelic)
But i would say that LSD shares the freakyness of it with tryptamines. Mescaline is far less freaky.

Yeah. To me lsd is... Lsd

To me the definition of tryptamine and phenethylamine has to do with the biosynthetic pathway. lysergic acids are derived from trypophan so they are tryptamines.

Thanks so much for posting this Ron! I read that it was structurally similar to both forms, I think in one of Shulgin's books, but I never understood it visually. I have been experimenting with a number of phenethylamines lately, and I must say that they have a very similar visual aspect to LSD. However, the envelopment in tactile reality is different, feels somewhat deeper with lsd, but not necessarily in a way more pleasant than the wholly phens. The thought structure on LSD can at times get convoluted, but I have yet to experience this with phens to the degree that it gets uncomfortable. LSD is extremely synergistic with the phens I have been dabbling with, however LSD with MDMA does not seem, to me, to render the same synergism as with the more visual/psychedelic phens. Because of this, I really feel that the similarities between phens/trypts and LSD is a result of LSD harboring effects from both in equal amounts.

Quick questions, I believe I remember reading that tryptamines and phenethylamines bind to different receptors in the brain. Does the structure of lsd allow it to be able to bind to both of these receptors?

The truly psychedelic phen's do not bind to different receptors. MDMA and it's derivates do, but mescalin doesn't. Mescalin binds to 5-ht-2a receptors and receptors with a simmilar structure like the taar-receptor.

The main differences in effects of each substance are caused by preferences of each substance for one receptor above the other and the whole range of receptors it binds to. You could make a receptor profile of each substance and place it along a profile of it's psychedelic effects.

LSD shares some physical effects with mescaline. Especialy the vasoconstricting effects wich lead to a typical feeling in the muscles and joints.
Yet i'm surprised that most people find that it is more like a phen than a tryptamine.

LSD has the typical tryptamine mind-fuck that mescalin totally lacks. And a moderate dose of p.cyanescens is the closest thing to LSD, after other lysergics like LSH.
The visuals of LSD have the sharpness of tryptamine visuals and something electric about them that i also find, mescaline hasn't.

Another substance that has a lot in common with LSD is pure 5-MeO-DMT.
(When taken with harmala's 5-MeO becomes very peyote-like, though.)

mescalin has something hazy and mellow about it that i totally don't recognize in LSD and LSD has something electric, freaky, weird and cartoonish about it that i don't recognize in mescaline.

I've once taken 69ron's advice and combined sanpedro with datura seeds and then it becomes more LSD-like, but without that mescalin is something that realy stands apart from most psychedelics, including LSD, is my opinion.

I've never taken pure mescalin though, so maybe that's different than cactusses.

I'm going to say tryptamine.

Never looked at LSD as at phenethylamine. It always seemed to be tryptamine , but now you making me think about it twice.

Why is this important to you ?

SWIM has to agree that P. cyanescens is very much like LSD, but still find mescaline (pure, not mixed with the foggy headed cactus alkaloids) more like LSD.



This is a problem. I hope people don't judge the effects of mescaline from their cactus use. That’s not a fair comparison at all. Cactus contains a lot of alkaloids and the experience is very different from pure mescaline. SWIM doesn’t find cactus to be much like LSD at all, but he finds pure mescaline to be very similar. The other alkaloids really bring the mescaline trip down a notch and make it a foggy more relaxed experience that is unlike pure mescaline.


Still, it's interesting to see how most people so far think LSD is more like a phenethylamine. Until SWIM experienced pure mescaline, he didn’t think this was so. After experience with pure synthetic mescaline many years ago, he saw extreme similarities between the two. Pure psilocin is also quite LSD-like, but most mushrooms contain other active alkaloids in them, which make them less LSD-like.

Recently SWIM has been using purified natural mescaline in his morning coffee. Coffee makes it far more LSD like. He’ll often drink coffee a few times during the trip, especially near the peak to get a far closer LSD experience from it. It’s very effective. I wonder why caffeine would do this? 3-5 Datura stramonium seeds also make it more LSD-like. Does anyone understand why? What are caffeine and hyoscyamine doing to make the trip more like LSD?

i think caffine has this effect with alot of classical psychedelics..becasue of the mental simulation..I like to drink a bit of coffe or yerba mate when I take bufotenine becasue I like the added mental effects I experience that way.

I don't know how exactly xanthines like cafein interact with psychedelics. They're supposed to inhibit an enzyme that breaks down transmitters (c-AMP) of a natural 'echoing' system of the brain.
So theoretically, taking caffein would amplify the feedback-loops of the brain.

Hyosciamine and other tropanes do block not only signals within the brain, but also signals going to the brain.
I think that specifically thát effect is responsible for the enhancement of psychedelics, by these tropanes.
My guess would be that, by blocking signals to the brain, the brain starts 'filling the gaps', itself, and psychedelics are putting the brain intoastate where it is even more able than normally, to fill in missing information for itself.

If that hypothesis is true, then other substances that block signals going to the brain, via other routes, would also enhance the effects of psychedelics in minute amounts that are not narcotic by itself.

A small amount of salvia, DXM, or opiates would then have a simmilar effect as tropanes. Again, in amounts that do not have any narcotic effect itself.

But if those substances block more signals within the brain itself, then signals going to the brain, than it could block more psychedelic effects at the same time. So it would depend on the balance between the blocking of signals within the brain and signals going to the brain.

Polytrip, that makes sense but then you have something like strychnine (from Nux vomica) which also makes mescaline far more like LSD. Strychnine works very differently from caffeine or hyoscyamine. It increases all sensory nerve impulses so that you see, hear, smell, and feel things with much more detail and accuracy. How would that fit into this concept of blocking such responses to make mescaline more LSD-like? It seems to be the exact opposite and yet it makes mescaline more LSD-like.

Also mixing of caffeine, hyoscyamine, and strychnine at the same time with mescaline produces the most LSD-like experience you can get from mescaline as far as SWIM has experienced. They all do different things and yet achieve a similar goal. Can anyone explain that?

These substances all work through different mechanisms.
Strychnine blocks glycine inhibiting receptors that causes muscles to relax after tension.
Maybe these signal inhibiting systems normally inhibit signals that are generated by the brain itself.

If that would be the case than it's interaction with psychedelics is because of it's effects on signals generated by the CNS itself, rather then it's effects on incoming signals from the senses.

it would enhance the senses because the brain can spend more time analyzing incoming data. And this same mechanism could account for it's psychedelic enhancing effect: the brain is less inhibited in analyzing data, but the analyzing proces is being twisted by the psychedelic.

I would say that generally speaking, the brain normally doesn't realy want to be put in a psychedelic state and that it has all kind of mechanisms with wich it will try to correct the distortions brought on by psychedelics. The psychedelic state is being determined then, by the balance between the forces that temporarily try to derange the system and the forces that will try to keep it on track.

That would be really worth while to do for the following reasons

1) conceptually, its sounder than sound
2) it wound give a greater understanding of what a psychedelic drug actually is; Beyond its structural formula.
3) It may suggest other interesting compounds which could be investigated
4) It might allude some information as to what the shape of the pharmacore is which interacts with those receptors
5) You can probably find the information sitting right there at your PC within an hour or so googling

Could you start a thread for that?