Peyote is a small mescaline-containing cactus that grows naturally in the Southeastern regions of the United States and in Mexico. The cactus has been considered a sacred sacrament by numerous Native American tribes for well over a thousand years and is still used in religious ceremonies.
The psychoactive substance in peyote, mescaline, typically only has a duration of between ten to twelve hours and produces vivid hallucinations as well as increased wakefulness.
Unfortunately, in one case, the increased wakefulness caused by mescaline did not just last between ten to twelve hours; it lasted for two weeks.
According to a case report published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, in 2003 a 54-year-old Native American man experienced two weeks of psychosis after a traditional Native American ceremony involving peyote.
Not long after ingesting peyote, “he became convinced that he was hunted by animal spirits, which prevented him from getting any sleep for the next 2 weeks,” as the authors of the case report explain.
The man had previously suffered from alcoholism and combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but had not experienced any symptoms for twenty years.
Eventually, he was persuaded to seek medical care from a hospital. After being given the tranquilizer trazodone by the hospital staff, he slept uninterrupted for 15 hours, which completely resolved all of his psychotic symptoms.
Interestingly, it appears that this two week episode of psychosis was induced by the sleep disruption caused by mescaline, not because of its hallucinatory effects.
“Reports of prolonged peyote-induced psychosis are rare and often associated with sleep disturbances,” according to the authors of the report.
As the authors note, certain individuals may be predisposed to experiencing psychosis as a result of sleep deprivation. “With a history of PTSD and alcohol use placing him at such a risk, the patient not only exhibited the depressed mood and irritability characteristic of a sleep-deprived state but also displayed predominately positive symptoms of psychosis consistent with other previously observed cases of psychosis from sleep disruption.”
Follow-up assessments suggest that the Native American man did not suffer any serious long-term consequences from his two week ordeal.
Reference:
Lu, B.Y., Woofter, C. & Escalona, R. (2004). A case of prolonged peyote-induced psychosis resolved by sleep. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, Vol 65, No 10: 1433-1434.
