QUOTE : It is necessary to emphasize that DeQuincey, Coleridge and Cocteau were exceptionally talented (and exceptionally disturbed) individuals. In DeQuincey’s case, furthermore, the extravagant and glorious visions he describes were all experienced, as Dr. Robert DeRopp notes, “between sleeping and waking,” when all talented people, even without opium, can project their imaginations most vividly. (This is technically known as hypnagogic hallucination, needs no drugs and is practiced as a method of mind expansion by some occult schools, such as Louis Culling’s “Great Body of God.”) For the majority of opium addicts whose medical records exist, no such psychedelic effects are recorded, and most of them have the same depressed or soporific experiences as morphine or heroin addicts. In short, if you are looking for psychedelic effects, use the real psychedelics; unless you’re an artist of DeQuincey’s or Coleridge’s stature, you are very unlikely to find them on opium.