What Does Psychonautics Involve According to PsychonautWiki?
PsychonautWiki describes itself as "the open encyclopedia of psychonautics," and its main page organizes the subject into a few clear areas: practices, tools, oneironautics (dream work), and indexes covering experiences, substances, and related media. According to the wiki, psychonautics involves deliberately exploring subjective experience — through methods like breathing techniques, fasting, meditation, sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, and tulpa practice — and using tools such as the Shulgin Rating Scale, psychedelic art, and "vibes" to frame or record what happens.
Practices listed by PsychonautWiki
The wiki's "Psychonautics" section names these practices directly:
- Breathing techniques
- Fasting
- Meditation
- Sensory deprivation
- Sleep deprivation
- Tulpa (a practice involving an intentionally created, perceived companion or entity)
These are presented as methods a person can use to alter or investigate their own mental state, rather than as substance-specific techniques.
Tools the wiki groups under psychonautics
Alongside practices, PsychonautWiki lists tools for structuring or interpreting the experience:
| Tool | What it appears to cover |
|---|---|
| Meditation frequency | Sound/frequency used with meditation |
| Psychedelic art | Art as a tool or record of altered states |
| Shulgin Rating Scale | A scale for describing intensity of psychedelic experience |
| Vibes | Subcategories: Good vibes, Trippy vibes, Bad vibes |
Oneironautics and dream-related topics
PsychonautWiki treats dream work as its own area, under "Oneironautics." The listed topics include:
- Dreams
- Dream characters
- Dream signs
- Intuitive awareness
- Lucid dreaming
- Reality checks
- Sleep paralysis
- Yoga Nidra
This suggests that, in the wiki's framing, psychonautics extends into sleep and dream states, not just waking practice.
Indexes and further material
The main page also links to broader indexes — Experience, Psychoactive substance, Psychonaut media, Replication, Ritual, Subjective effect, Tripsitting, and Tutorial — plus featured articles on subjective effects (for example, visual and cognitive effects) and drug articles. It also includes a responsible-use note stating that naloxone is now recommended to be carried by anyone using street drugs or nearby.
If you want the full definitions and the wiki's own wording, the source is the PsychonautWiki main page itself; the categories above reflect how that page organizes the topic.