
Hallucinogenic Fish - ajaviaad
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinogenic_fish
======
jborichevskiy
I found this sentence entertaining:

> Hallucinogenic fish can be contrasted with psychedelic fish. Psychedelic
> fish do not produce hallucinations if eaten, but look as if they were the
> product of a psychedelic hallucination.

~~~
arthurcolle
I'm always reminded how delightful it is that Wikipedia didn't degenerate into
a Stack Overflow. The sentence you mention is pure poetry.

~~~
dan-robertson
Wikipedia has many similar problems to stack overflow and other different
problems. The sites take different approaches to moderation yet “power users”
on both feel like they are fighting back a torrent of low quality content.
Wikipedia has the advantage of being run by a charity that is not trying to
turn a profit.

~~~
p1necone
Are you saying "feel like" because you don't believe that to be the case?

~~~
californical
I thought it made sense from the context -- the moderators on both platforms
have that feeling.

I could say "I feel like I spent all day doing code reviews," meaning that I
probably did other things too, but the volume of code reviews was draining, so
the small amount of other things that I did were less noticable.

Using "feel like" in that context is accompanying the hyperbole that follows.
The mods aren't _literally_ fighting a torrent of spam/bad content, but there
probably is a lot of it, so it "feels" more extreme

~~~
p1necone
Just asked because it was ambiguous to me, thanks for clarifying.

~~~
californical
Never know when someone may not be a native English speaker, thought that
might have been possible to get stuck on haha.

------
slim
This fish is quite common on the markets in Tunisia. We actually avoid it in
the hallucination season because it mostly causes bad trips. It tastes good.

~~~
derefr
"Hallucination season" is a wonderful phrase. Or band name.

------
bllguo
> The active agent(s) that cause hallucinations in humans, and the origin of
> these agents, are not clear. Some authors think they could come from toxins
> associated with macroalgae that accumulate in the flesh of the fish.

does anyone know why we can't tell what substances cause the hallucinogenic
effects? to a complete layman (i.e. me) this seems like the kind of thing
modern science should be able to determine

~~~
eindiran
When you're talking about a complex biological system like an animal or plant,
there will often be dozens of alkaloids in your sample[0]. That makes it
difficult to isolate the relevant ones and say with certainty that alkaloid x
is the one responsible for the psychoactive effects, especially if the
alkaloid in question is currently unknown. Then you'd need to isolate it and
see if you can get the effects from the isolated alkaloid.

For a good example of historically what it took, check out the story of how
Hoffman isolated psilocybin from psychedelic mushrooms:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybin#Modern](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybin#Modern)

So ultimately it comes down to whether people have put in the time to isolate
the various alkaloids and then determine which ones are psychoactive.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echinopsis_pachanoi#Alkaloids](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echinopsis_pachanoi#Alkaloids)
In San Pedro cactus for example, there have been a dozen that were extracted,
isolated and identified.

~~~
wil421
> Hofmann was aided in the discovery process by his willingness to ingest
> mushroom extracts to help verify the presence of the active compounds.

It sounds like Hoffman was eager to find more hallucinogens after discovering
LSD.

~~~
eindiran
In Hoffman's book "LSD: My Problem Child", he has a chapter (#6, entitled "The
Mexican Relatives of LSD") where he talks at length about the process of
isolating psilocybin and what his motivations were in participating. What you
mentioned definitely played a role.

Here is a .pdf copy of the book from MAPS: [0] If you're interested in the
history of this stuff, it's well worth a read.

More generally, I think many exceptional drug chemists have been willing to
bioassay the novel drugs they make. Almost inarguably the most prolific drug
chemist of all time, Alexander Shulgin, bioassayed over 200 novel drugs,
making him the first human being to try almost all of them[1]. What is most
interesting about Hoffman in this regard is that he didn't set out to be a
drug chemist: he discovered LSD was psychoactive on accident[2]. So his
temperament (with regard to his willingness to bioassay novel compounds) was a
fortuitous coincidence.

[0]
[https://maps.org/images/pdf/books/lsdmyproblemchild.pdf](https://maps.org/images/pdf/books/lsdmyproblemchild.pdf)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Shulgin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Shulgin)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_lysergic_acid_dieth...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_lysergic_acid_diethylamide#Discovery)

~~~
bagacrap
not necessarily a coincidence, but perhaps a result. Psychedelics increase
openness to new experiences.

------
eindiran
There was an episode of Hamilton's Pharmaopoeia about hallucinogenic fish that
was quite interesting. I can't find the whole episode on YouTube, but here is
a clip from it:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6N3j5g066CU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6N3j5g066CU)

~~~
EamonnMR
I watched it. He only got confused, pained looks from people he asked about
the fish and did not achieve any sort of mind alteration.

------
andrewflnr
It's really surprising to me that psychoactive chemicals are so common in the
natural world. Why do so many chemicals designed for pretty unrelated roles
have effects on human brains? I would naively expect that to happen
approximately never.

~~~
derefr
All known organic life shares something close-enough to a common ancestor that
it all has a common set of inherited low-level _intracellular_ signalling
machinery based on very simple chemicals (e.g. sodium, potassium, calcium;
nitric oxide; purines; etc.) All _complex_ life (e.g. both prokaryotes and
eukaryotes) shares some higher-level signalling machinery as well—even
bacteria have dopamine receptors!

In higher lifeforms, e.g. animals, some of these _intracellular_ signalling
chemicals have been repurposed to become _intercellular_ signalling chemicals
within specific tissues. However, these molecules _continue_ to act as
intracellular signals within cells; it is often the _reaction_ of the cell to
the intracellular stimulus that is perceived by a larger group of cells as the
intercellular stimulus.

Animals have developed advanced tissue isolation, circulatory, and
xenometabolic mechanisms to prevent parasites and predators from injecting
these "intercellular but actually intracellular" signals into arbitrary places
in the body, because—sort of like every microcontroller having JTAG pins—every
cell is "listening" for these signals, and might do something stupid/unplanned
in response if the body wasn't evolved to ever emit them into such tissue.
Best to put up some firewalls to hide all these open ports. This also allows
you to use the same signal to mean different things in different componentized
tissues (e.g. how serotonin acts in the gut vs. in the nervous system.)

But these firewalling mechanisms, e.g. the blood-brain barrier, are
_themselves_ simple, inherited from pretty early on in the multicellular tree
of life. So they mostly just block the simple, active forms of these
molecules—the ones the body uses itself.

So, in other words, for an organism to evolve a novel poison, it just has to
take its _own_ signalling molecules—which it already knows how to make, and
shares in common with pretty much everything else—and then evolve some enzyme
that "tags" that molecule in such a way that most evolved barriers won't stop
it, and also in such a way that it will either break down on its own, or will
break down in response to other molecules floating about in the target area,
back into the signaling molecule. Boom—toxin.

It's also pretty easy to take the gene you use for creating a signalling
molecule, copy it, and let the copy mutate so it now produces a _deformed_
version of the signalling molecule—one that locks into the same receptor, but
either doesn't activate the receptor, or is excitotoxic to the receptor, or
isn't recognized by the various -lyzes and -ases which organisms evolve to
garbage-collect signals.

Keep in mind, most of the time, these kinds of poisons will be maladaptive,
because the produced toxin will end up attacking the host's _own_ body; but if
the gene happens to only get expressed in tissues of some gland (e.g. the
salivary gland), then it has room to evolve into a venom.

Evolving to be _poisonous_ is a bit harder, I think; it needs to coincide, or
maybe be preceded by, the evolution of a barrier to similar toxins, e.g. skin
that won't absorb the poison produced by your own sweat glands. Most poisonous
animals probably preyed upon another poisonous or venomous plant/animal at
some point, and evolved the defence first, before either harnessing that toxin
from their food, or evolving something similar themselves.

~~~
andrewflnr
That _does_ rather put things in perspective. Thanks for the great
explanation.

------
ConsiderCrying
> Ingesting the dreamfish Sarpa salpa can result in hallucinations that last
> for several days.

I wonder why this fish hasn't been 'mined' for its hallucinogenic properties
yet. Surely some of the more adventurous drug users would jump at a chance to
try something this powerful? The article on the fish itself seems to state
that it was available in restaurants, so it's not exactly a rare find, I
assume.

~~~
eindiran
Almost all hallucinogenic drugs lasting for more than 18 hours are considered
bad drugs. Eg the DOx series psychedelic amphetamines (excluding DOM, which
people like for some reason), most of the benzofurans, the alkaloids of the
Datura plant, etc. Even non-hallucinogenic drugs with long half-lives are
considered not ideal (see the long lasting benzodiazepines especially).

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOx](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOx)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substituted_benzofuran](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substituted_benzofuran)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datura](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datura)

~~~
shadykiller
Datura is known for lasting mental impact. It can can also be really dangerous
for potential users due to extreme delirium and confusion. Most trip reports
are also negative.

Unviable as a street drug.

~~~
codr7
From my experience, when used in moderation it doesn't cause any of the
negative effects typically described in trip reports. To me it seems that
people overdose by ingesting several hundred seeds in one go without having a
clue what they're dealing with. I took 3 seeds the first time I tried it,
which was enough to get a taste of the effect for me, and then gradually
increased the dose by a few seeds at a time over several weeks until I reached
a point (around 50 seeds) where it was pulling so hard on my mind that I
didn't feel like going further. I haven't noticed any lasting mental impacts.

Drinking a liter of vodka in one go without having any experience with alcohol
also potentially causes extreme delirium and confusion, yet people drink
alcohol all the time and are mostly fine.

~~~
eindiran
A lot of ethanobotanists report that peoples using datura traditionally or
spiritually (eg in the context of Ayurvedic medicine) don't tend to experience
as many negative effects as people using it recreationally:

[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235762980_A_review_...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235762980_A_review_on_the_pharmacological_and_toxicological_aspects_of_Datura_stramonium_L)

But with that said, I would strongly caution people not to take tropane
deleriants. Unless you really know what you're doing, there's a solid chance
you are going to end up being high for way too long or end up in the hospital.

I'll also caution codr7 that seeds (especially from different sources) can
have hugely different potencies, so be careful dosing anything via seed,
especially something as serious as datura. It sounds like this works for you,
so I don't intend to sound patronizing: I just want to make sure that I am
spreading harm reduction everywhere I go, and datura/tropane alkaloids can be
very dangerous.

~~~
codr7
I am aware, it's not like there's a lack of warnings out there. But 3 seeds
aren't going to cause a bad trip for anyone, no matter how potent they are.
The bad trips are from ingesting 100-300 seeds without prior experience, which
is a very stupid and risky thing to do.

------
rv-de
Even dolphins like to trip:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msx3BAhIeQg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msx3BAhIeQg)

------
beepboopbeep
See also: Sea sponges [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5-Bromo-
DMT](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5-Bromo-DMT)

------
JTechno
This fish is eaten in some places in spain, I've tried it myself but never had
hallucinations.

------
1_over_n
Toad licking is also a thing

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River_toad#Entheogeni...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River_toad#Entheogenic_uses)

------
ryanmercer
>Ingesting the dreamfish Sarpa salpa can result in hallucinations that last
for several days.

As someone that did a lot of stuff in their youth [1], I strongly say _no
thank you_.

[1] I mentioned some of the good and bad experiences recently in this comment
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22225541](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22225541)

------
jaeh
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Blue trout eating Algae off the
floor of the Ocean. I watched Seabass glitter in the moonlight near the
Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
Time to fly.

------
banana_smoothie
It's not especially relevant to this link, but I think this conversation needs
a voice in favor of these "hallucinogenic" fish. All fish are living beings
who should not be subject to exploitation for your personal benefit.

------
omk
Wonder if their consumption by pirates led to Mermaid theories. <grin>

~~~
ryanmercer
Quite possible. Other possible causes could be other sea life with various
toxins/compounds, food poisoning, alcohol poisoning, sun poisoning. Toss in
some inner ear issues and sea sickness from especially rough waves...

As a random aside, I dated a professional mermaid (kids parties, adult
parties)/mermaid sex worker (cam _mostly_ ) briefly several years ago. scales
tattooed on her face, had a few different tails... yeah, even if I was out to
sea for months I don't think a real mermaid (or the hallucination of one)
would get me all hot and bothered. The tails and general mermaid themed decor
was a bit much.

------
mandelbrotwurst
^ relevant username!

~~~
goldenkey
So is yours: "Man Of Living Sausage" ^_^

String theory much?!

~~~
rv-de
are we now on reddit, or what?

------
siddarthd2919
No wonder people enjoy living in Hawaii. Half of the fish in that list is in
Hawaii

