A puff of this, and the world transforms into a colorful kaleidoscope of dancing patterns and waves of sound; a sip of that, and the muscles in your body relax like jello.
We know different drugs make us experience the world around us in very different ways — and their after-effects are often nowhere near as pleasant as the immediate results they produce.
So what exactly are these drugs doing to the brain to prompt these feelings?
UP NEXT: 17 'healthy habits' you're better off giving up
SEE ALSO: Surprising science-backed ways to boost your mood
Marijuana
When marijuana's active ingredient, THC, hits the brain, it causes brain cells to release the feel-good chemical dopamine. Dopamine is a part of the brain's reward system — it's the same chemical that makes us feel good when we do enjoyable things such as eating and having sex.
When overexcited by drugs, the reward system creates feelings of euphoria. This is also why, in some rare cases, excessive use can be a problem: The more often you trigger that euphoria, the less you may feel for other rewarding experiences.
Magic Mushrooms
A recent study showed that shrooms' main psychoactive ingredient, psilocybin, appears to quiet traditional brain activity and instead jump-starts new connections between different areas of the brain.
These new connections may be what causes users to describe "seeing sounds" or "hearing colors" and could also give shrooms some of their antidepressant qualities. More research is needed, of course. And shrooms don't come without health risks, which can include unpleasant hallucinations and increased anxiety.
Alcohol
Like other drugs, booze affects brain chemistry by altering the levels of neurotransmitters, the chemical messengers that pass along the signals that control our thinking and behavior.
Alcohol slows down our thinking, breathing, and heart rate by halting our "excitatory" messengers, the ones that typically increase our energy levels. But it amplifies our "inhibitory" messengers, those that usually work to calm things down. It also boosts our brain's feel-good dopamine levels.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider