"Just before going into a hallucinogenic trance, Indigenous Californians who had gathered in a cave likely looked up toward the rocky ceiling, where a pinwheel and big-eyed moth were painted in red." Source: Live Science.
"This mysterious 'pinwheel,' is likely a depiction of the delicate, white flower of Datura wrightii, a powerful hallucinogen that the Chumash people took not only for ceremonial purposes but also for medicinal and supernatural ones, according to a new study. The moth is likely a species of hawk moth, known for its 'loopy' intoxicated flight after slurping up Datura's nectar, the researchers said.
"Chewed globs that humans stuck to the cave's ceiling provided more evidence of these ancient trips; these up to 400-year-old lumps, known as quids, contained the mind-altering drugs scopolamine and atropine, which are found in Datura, the researchers said."
Described as an anticholinergic deliriant, sacred datura is extremely toxic. Deliriants are a class of hallucinogens which get their name from the fact that they induce a delirium rather than "the more lucid states produced by such other hallucinogens as are represented by psychedelics [LSD, for instance] and dissociatives [ketamine and others]."
According to Wikipedia, "The delirium produced, particularly by anticholinergics is characterized by stupor, agitation, confusion, confabulation, dysphoria, akathisia, realistic visual hallucinations or illusions (as opposed to the pseudohallucinations experienced on other classes of hallucinogens) and regression to 'phantom' behaviors such as disrobing and plucking. Other commonly reported behaviors include holding full conversations with imagined people, finishing a complex, multi-stage action (such as getting dressed) and then suddenly discovering one had not even begun yet, and being unable to recognize one's own reflection in a mirror."
Sounds like quite a trip if you're into this kind of thing.
Video from 2012.
The girl in the video above looks like a typical drug tourist, but she clearly recognizes the dangers involved in taking datura. For instance, she mentions at one point that the plant is sometimes used to murder people in Peru. That didn't stop her from trying it, though. Apparently, the trick to surviving the experience is to only deal with shamans who are presumably more trustworthy than your standard South American drug dealer.
Speaking of shamans, Carlos Castenada, well-known to old dopers, wrote a paper about datura (referred to as "devil's weed" by his supposed Yaqui shaman teacher, Don Juan) when he was an undergrad at UCLA in the Sixties:
"According to Castaneda's ex-wife Margaret Runyan (1921-2011), in her book A Magical Journey (1996) ... Castaneda's paper included references to datura's four heads, their different purposes, the significance of the roots, the cooking process and the ritual of preparation, all information that Castaneda supposedly learns later from Don Juan on visits between August 23 and Sept. 10, 1961, as described in THE TEACHINGS OF DON JUAN: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge (1968)." Source: The Wanderling.
Datura is so dangerous I'm amazed that anyone would use it for recreational purposes. I'm even more amazed that the Indians would use it as a rite of passage for their children:
"Datura wrightii is sacred to some Native Americans and has been used in ceremonies and rites of passage by Chumash, Tongva, and others. Among the Chumash, when a boy was 8 years old, his mother gave him a preparation of momoy [a tea made from datura] to drink. This was supposed to be a spiritual challenge to the boy to help him develop the spiritual well being required to become a man. Not all of the boys survived."
Related: The Erowid Datura Vault.
Five Terrifying Datura Trip Stories (video presentation of bad-trip accounts taken from Erowid)