Psychic Action of Mescalin

A Preliminary Note on the Psychic Action of Mescalin, with Special Reference to the Mechanism of Visual Hallucinations

By Alwyn Knauer, M.D., formerly Assistant of Professor Kraepelin, Professor of Experimental Medicine, Fordham University, New York, and William J. M. A. Maloney, M.D., ChB., F.R.S.Edin., formerly Crichton Research Fellow in Clinical Neurology and Psychiatry; Adjunct Professor of Neurology, New York Post Graduate Medical School; Attending Neurologist, Neurological Hospital, New York.

Read before the New York Neurological Society, March 6, 1913.

In the world of psychical things, our experience is always confined within the narrow limits of what we call our own mind. We can gain knowledge regarding psychic phenomena which we ourselves have never consciously experienced only from that which is imparted to us, — only from that which is externalized of the mental processes occurring within the psyche of others. What these others actually experience, we can but faintly realize, for we are wholly dependent upon that which they choose to reveal. If they can but imperfectly express their mental experiences, either verbally or emotionally, we can never attain to any but a vague conception of the actual psychical processes which they are undergoing. If they are reluctant to inform us of what is passing within their consciousness, we must remain practically in ignorance of it. We can just as little decipher their thoughts as we can decipher the thoughts of animals. As psychiatrists, therefore, we must be as chary of deduction when dealing with abnormal minds as we would be as psychologists, when dealing with animals.

Seldom can an insane person rationally communicate the essential nature of his disturbed mental processes, and still more seldom are we in a position to compare such a patient's mental picture with analogous pictures from our own experience.

We must therefore realize that, from a strictly scientific standpoint, the subjective abnormal mental complexes, called psychoses, are extremely difficult processes to interpret. We know of them very little. What we do know are usually accompanying objective phenomena, which apparently play no essential role in the psychoses; but which are added to, or incorporated with the subjective phenomena.

Obviously we would soon clarify the whole symptomatology of psychiatry, if psychiatrists themselves were in the position to live through all the different psychoses. As this experience is denied us, only one way remains, by which we can hope to reach more light in our science; namely, by administering to one another such substances as will produce in us transitory psychoses.

Kraepelin was the first investigator to endeavor, by means of experimentally induced psychoses, to explore the way to the complicated mental phenomena of the insane. He and his pupils established exact experimental methods, by which they investigated the action of tea, alcohol, morphine, trional, bromide and other drugs upon mental processes... Unfortunately, the substances, which Kraepelin and his pupils employed, produce mental states which have little similarity to actual insanities. In Kraepelin's clinic we endeavored further to extend knowledge of pathological mental states by producing mental conditions nearly allied to generally recognized types of insanity, in order to study the mechanism of processes which bore a close likeness to actual mental disease. For this purpose we used the Mexican drug peyote — the mescal button.

Prentiss and Morgan, Weir Mitchell and Eshner had described the phenomena induced by the mescal button, Anhalonium Lewinii — a favorite narcotic among Mexican Indians, and dilettante drug habitues. Heffter had shown that the active principle of the drug was contained in the alkaloid mescalin. We administered to a number of physicians who volunteered, and several times to each of ourselves, the sulphate of mescalin, the essential principle of this delusional Mexican drug. We made altogether twenty-three experiments. The drug was injected into the subcutaneous tissue of the forearm. It caused an intoxication of a curious and unique nature, which markedly developed in about an hour.

Consciousness, during this intoxication, remained practically unclouded. Its extent was, however, tremendously limited, in a fashion somewhat similar to that which Vogt has described as characteristic of consciousness in hypnosis... Although attention is directed to one subject at a time, it is not immured in that one subject, as happens in hypnosis, but successively passes from one subject to another. Yet, during a poisoning, while any one subject is under consideration, that subject occupies conscious attention in a much more intense and exclusive manner than normal.

Mescalin and Alcohol. The mescalin poisoning has also certain similarities with alcohol intoxication, inasmuch as it produces a feeling of increased mental capacity, of ease in mental work... The integrity of the associative and apperceptive faculties is retained in mescalin poisoning. Hence arose one of the features distinguishing mescalin from alcoholic intoxication: viz., that the investigated person, as a rule, seemed outwardly little affected, and appeared to the uninformed not to be under the influence of a powerful intoxicant. The most remarkable feature of the intoxication was hallucinations. Exceptionally, auditory hallucinations were present. Often the hallucinations in the muscular sense sphere were quite astonishing. The following is a brief account of these hallucinations observed in one of the earliest experiments. Time, two and a half hours after the injection of the drug:

"When standing, I could not walk until I was pushed, and then I unsteadily, stiffly, shuffled along, certain I was going to fall, but improving in confidence and ease of walking with every step. On reaching the laboratory felt faint; could not remember what mechanism to employ to get from the upright to the sitting posture; and was helped to lie down on the floor. Shortly afterward, to my great surprise, I realized that I had no head, but in its place a sheet of ground glass, such as is used in cameras as a screen. Trying to touch my nose, I, with my eyes open, watching my hand, felt about my chest, neck and face, quite unknowing where I would find it, but I recognized it at once when I did touch it. Where my ear was, was an insoluble mystery; I could not find it so long as with open eyes I followed and controlled the movements of my searching hand. But, with my eyes shut, if I did not attempt consciously to do the task, or to think of what I did, my hand moved accurately to the desired locality. I was quite unconscious of the position of any part of my body, so long as it was still, but if it were moved for me, or if I moved it myself, my power to judge its position immediately awoke. At rest, I felt I had no thighs or legs, only tiny ankles and feet attached to the groin. Yet, on being tested, on being required to perform a fairly complicated movement, I did it almost faultlessly, and during the movement, although the limbs appeared numb and heavy, the real delusion disappeared, i.e., I was no longer conscious of the two little feet in any way existing alongside of, or combined with the sensation of my moving legs."

Visual Hallucinations. Subjectively, the visual sensibility was tremendously increased. This hyperesthesia we objectively demonstrated for color, by means of Marbe's color wheel. The sharpness of contour which all objects seemed to have, while very apparent subjectively, we failed to demonstrate objectively. Soon after the onset of the visual hyperesthesia, to nearly all of the investigated persons, out of total darkness, kaleidoscopic pictures appeared.

The following excerpts from the report of a poisoning will perhaps suffice to convey the general trend of the visual hallucinations. Time, four hours after injection:

"Immediately before my open eyes are a vast number of rings, apparently made of extremely fine steel wire, all constantly rotating in the direction of the hands of a clock; these circles are concentrically arranged, the innermost being infinitely small, almost point like, the outermost being about a meter and a half in diameter. The spaces between the wires seem brighter than the wires themselves. Now the wires shine like dim silver in parts. Now a beautiful light violet tint has developed in them. As I watch, the center seems to recede into the depth of the room, leaving the periphery stationary, till the whole assumes the form of a deep funnel of wire rings... The cone apex recedes, the inner rings of the circle rapidly change color; beautiful crimsons, purples, violets, blues and greens quickly succeed one another. The wires are moving sinuously in groups from below upwards, passing, crossing and recrossing each other, and curving intricately, so as to produce rarely balanced figures, such as are seen in a kaleidoscope. The background to this gorgeous color panorama was first like faintly illuminated ground glass; it is now a silvery tint, and is deepening into a yellow like pure gold. The colors and their shades vary in different parts of the field. The illumination proceeds from a light, or lights moving suddenly from place to place behind the background, and producing wonderful effects of deep shade and bright light contrast, of sudden bursts of light, and equally sudden extinctions.

"On pressing upon my eyes, the whole picture seemed to materialize; the wires became thicker, and much more brightly colored; they now seemed very much nearer, more solid, more real and quite distinct from the background, which apparently remained where I had seen it previously; soon they slowly receded.

"The wires are now flattening into bands or ribbons, with a suggestion of transverse striation, and colored a gorgeous ultramarine blue, which passes in places into an intense sea green. These bands move rhythmically, in a wavy upward direction, suggesting a slow endless procession of small mosaics, ascending the wall in single files. The whole picture has suddenly receded, the center much more than the sides, and now in a moment, high above me, is a dome of the most beautiful mosaics, a vision of all that is most gorgeous and harmonious in color. The prevailing tint is blue, but the multitude of shades, each of such wonderful individuality, make me feel that hitherto I have been totally ignorant of what the word color really means. The color is intensely beautiful, rich, deep, deep, deep, wonderfully deep blue. It is like the blue of the mosque of Omar in Jerusalem, but there is here no trace of Arabic script on the mosaics. The dome has absolutely no discernible pattern. But circles are now developing upon it; the circles are becoming sharp and elongated at the four points of the compass, and are flattening at the sides; now they are rhomboids; now oblongs; and now all sorts of curious angles are forming; and mathematical figures are chasing one another wildly across the roof. The colors are changing rapidly — from blue green to black, to brown — passing successively through an infinite variety of transitional shades..."

Six hours later: "A beautiful palace, filled with rare tapestries, pictures, and Louis Quinze furniture has been peacefully unfolding itself, room after room, each a little different from all the rest, all marvelously bright and beautiful, and all colored in the same scheme — violet, cream and gold. In these rooms ladies appeared. They were all absolutely without motion, without the slightest suggestion of reality; in fact they were as a series of portraits, or of statue groups, which I was observing in a picture gallery."

Twenty hours later: "Long, light green outlines, suggesting crocodiles, lizards and other reptiles are appearing, but they are all indistinct, remote and unreal; they arouse absolutely no sensation of fear. Gigantic plaster casts, rough and unfinished, suggesting death masks; crude representations of gargoyles, such as ornament the Notre Dame in Paris; grotesque dolls; hideous monstrosities of human birth, preserved in bottles; visions of human intestines, of sections of abdomens, and sections of the pregnant uterus, have been annoying me all night."

It was characteristic of practically all the poisonings that to wavy lines succeeded mosaics; carpets; floral designs; ornaments; wood-carving; windmills; monuments; mausoleums; panoramic landscapes; statuesque men and animals, frequently of unnatural, doll-like form; and finally complete scenes which changed so as to unfold episodes in a connected manner. The pictures were mostly plastic in form, of very sharp contour, painfully bright, and colored as by chalk. The vividness of these hallucinations varied remarkably in the same person in the course of the same intoxication. Sometimes the visions were dark, contourless, colorless shadows; at other times they had a remarkably sharp contour. Usually they were marvelously colored, and not rarely their brightness seemed positively to pain the eyes.

Independence of the Hallucination. The independence of the hallucinations towards thought and will was not quite absolute. Upon intently thinking, or intently willing to see, a particular object, no immediate result occurred; the hallucination apparently continued undisturbed and unchanged. Yet after a longer or shorter interval, obtruding itself upon the panorama of the hallucinations, came another hallucination, one which was directly related with the particular object which had been intently willed. In addition to its delay this self-suggested representation was not a precise reproduction, but merely a distorted effigy of the vision which was desired. Thus, while watching a panorama of a danseuse on a stage, one of us attempted to picture a shoe. He repeated to himself all the separate parts of a shoe, and endeavored by concentration to bring up an hallucinatory image of a shoe. The danseuse continued to dance undisturbed for some time, and then suddenly and unexpectedly there appeared a gigantic misshapen shoe, seemingly moulded in plaster, and colored green.

[A further section distinguishing mescalin hallucinations from ordinary visual images, from peripheral after-images, and from central after-images, and proposing a five-level scheme running from visual idea to objective reality, is omitted here.]

Definite delusions appeared in several of the investigated persons; had for these persons all the elements of reality; were identical with mescalin hallucinations; and owed their reality mainly to the affection of the critique [i.e., the faculty of critical judgment]. One of us imagined he saw crawling on the wall an insect, of whose material existence he was so convinced that he proceeded to slay it; he then discovered that the object was nothing more than a stationary nail. Another hearing the pencil scratching on the paper on which one of us was recording his hallucinations, thought it was a dog howling, and insisted upon the creature being quieted.

In one instance, however, the hallucinations of muscular sense and of vision were replaced by definite combined delusions. In this person the feeling arose that the body was cut in halves transversely at the waist. Presently he saw the lower half of his body before him, and somewhat to the right side. He became very excited about it, and found that when he moved, the separated part of the body moved with him. He danced vigorously in an effort to restore his former integrity. In this person also other visual delusions occurred. Thus, he saw a French soldier and had to be forcedly restrained from attacking his delusion.

It is noteworthy that we found no indication of the fundamental importance of sexual experience in the content of our artificial hallucinations and delusions, even when special means were taken to elicit it.

In addition to these actions, mescalin produced a most remarkable effect upon the appreciation of time. Persons under the influence of mescalin enormously overestimated time periods. Seconds seemed minutes; minutes seemed hours. One of the investigated persons, who had been left half an hour in the dark, thought he had lived through the whole night in this time. We investigated this phenomenon experimentally, and found that the overestimation although largely subjective was still demonstrable objectively. The results of these investigations, together with the details of our measurement of the power of perception, the power of reckoning, the power to distinguish, the memory, the simple motor reactions, the weight sense, fixed and free word associations, and the visual acuity for colors, will later be published.