There exist many examples of Psychedelics in popular culture. The psychedelic experience has had a strong effect on many genres of popular music, and psychedelic drug references are common in movies, books, and in popular music.

DMT

• The plot of the movie Blueberry (based on the comic Blueberry) touches DMT practices of Native Americans. The movie also features scenes of a DMT induced psychedelic experience. Recent web discussion with the creator of the film has indicated that the visions are meant to represent the use of various plants, the classic ayahuasca mixture being one of these. In addition, Datura and Mescaline related visions are conveyed.

• At the start of chapter 15 of the book "The Black Angel" by John Connolly (copyright 2005), DMT is referenced as a drug used to control people through instilling and then relieving fear via hallucinations.

• The first letters of Shpongle's "Divine Moments of Truth" track from the Are You Shpongled? album stand for DMT.

• Writer Warren Ellis mentions DMT in several of his works (including Global Frequency).

• William S. Burroughs's The Yage Letters is also related to his search for ayahuasca.

• The late Terrence McKenna was a longtime champion of DMT and wrote several books based on his experiences. The compilation "Noizemaker" of psychedelic trance by Lukasz includes a track with a sample of Terrence McKenna saying "I remember the first time I smoked DMT".

• In the video game San Andreas, the character "Truth", a drug dealer, offers DMT to another character along with several other drugs.

• Danny Carey, drummer of the band Tool, is known to use DMT along with meditation.

• The song "Severed Hand" by Pearl Jam involves DMT usage.

LSD

• The Beatles song "Tomorrow Never Knows" is a musical take on Timothy Leary's analogy between the LSD experience and the passage from death through to reincarnation described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

• The Beatles song "It's All Too Much." In 1980 George Harrison said: "'It's All Too Much' was written in a childlike manner from realizations that appeared during and after some LSD experiences and which were later confirmed in meditation."

Mescaline

• In Beavis and Butt-head Do America, the animated duo eat a rather large (softball sized) peyote cactus in an attempt to stave off dehydration in the Mojave Desert, and proceed to have psychedelic hallucinations.

Psilocybin/Psilocin

• The American stand-up comedian, satirist and social critic, Bill Hicks, has used his psilocybin experiences as themes in his act. The track "Time To Evolve"^* from Rant in E-Minor is one of several such examples.

• Terence McKenna has written extensively on the psychopharmacology of psilocybin, as well as authoring a popular and authoritative growing guide, Psilocybin: Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide ISBN 0932551068, written under the pseudonym Oss and Oeric.

• Comedian Lewis Black talks about a psilocybin experience in his 2005 album Luther Burbank Performing Arts Center Blues.

• The film Super Troopers features a scene in which a young male character ingests a large quantity of mushrooms and cannabis, immediately before being questioned by police officers.

• The American rock band Finch featured a song called Dreams of Psilocybin on their 2005 album Say Hello to Sunshine.

• The American rock band Incubus features a song called Psychopsilocybin on their 1995 album Fungus Amongus. Both the song title and the album title are references to psilocybin, and a picture of one species of hallucinogenic mushroom is on the album cover. The mushroom that appears is a 'fly agaric' mushroom (Amanita muscaria) which does not contain psilocybin, but however is one of it's psychoactive relatives^*.

Further reading

• Shapiro, Harry. (2003). Waiting for the Man: The Story of Drugs and Popular Music. ISBN 1900924587
• Starks, Michael. (1982). Cocaine Fiends and Reefer Madness: An Illustrated History of Drugs in the Movies. ISBN 0845345044 (hardcover) ISBN 0914171127 (paperback)