Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A person who explores his or her own psyche, especially by taking psychedelic drugs

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

psycho- + -naut

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Examples

  • A psychonaut is a person who explores inner space, consciousness, the mind, and so forth, on an internal and personal level.

    Wrong Planet Asperger / Autism Forums 2008

  • In the book accompanying the exhibition, curator Laura Hoptman calls Gysin a "psychonaut," emphasizing not just his practical reliance on psychoactive drugs, but his artistic ideology of "derangement," his belief that "by erasing the artificial distinctions between words and images, and disentangling the two from their determined meanings, new meanings -- those that had been hidden or suppressed -- would arise, opening the way to new psychic vistas, even a new consciousness."

    Peter Frank: Blague d'Art: Brion Gysin, Together at Last Peter Frank 2010

  • In the book accompanying the exhibition, curator Laura Hoptman calls Gysin a "psychonaut," emphasizing not just his practical reliance on psychoactive drugs, but his artistic ideology of "derangement," his belief that "by erasing the artificial distinctions between words and images, and disentangling the two from their determined meanings, new meanings -- those that had been hidden or suppressed -- would arise, opening the way to new psychic vistas, even a new consciousness."

    Peter Frank: Blague d'Art: Brion Gysin, Together at Last Peter Frank 2010

  • In the book accompanying the exhibition, curator Laura Hoptman calls Gysin a "psychonaut," emphasizing not just his practical reliance on psychoactive drugs, but his artistic ideology of "derangement," his belief that "by erasing the artificial distinctions between words and images, and disentangling the two from their determined meanings, new meanings -- those that had been hidden or suppressed -- would arise, opening the way to new psychic vistas, even a new consciousness."

    Peter Frank: Blague d'Art: Brion Gysin, Together at Last Peter Frank 2010

  • In the book accompanying the exhibition, curator Laura Hoptman calls Gysin a "psychonaut," emphasizing not just his practical reliance on psychoactive drugs, but his artistic ideology of "derangement," his belief that "by erasing the artificial distinctions between words and images, and disentangling the two from their determined meanings, new meanings -- those that had been hidden or suppressed -- would arise, opening the way to new psychic vistas, even a new consciousness."

    Peter Frank: Blague d'Art: Brion Gysin, Together at Last Peter Frank 2010

  • In the book accompanying the exhibition, curator Laura Hoptman calls Gysin a "psychonaut," emphasizing not just his practical reliance on psychoactive drugs, but his artistic ideology of "derangement," his belief that "by erasing the artificial distinctions between words and images, and disentangling the two from their determined meanings, new meanings -- those that had been hidden or suppressed -- would arise, opening the way to new psychic vistas, even a new consciousness."

    Peter Frank: Blague d'Art: Brion Gysin, Together at Last Peter Frank 2010

  • The second is "2012 and Terence McKenna" (seven minutes), which looks at the work of the ethnobotanist and "psychonaut" who discovered a time pattern that mirrored the Maya calendar after he experimented with psychedelic drugs.

    DVD Verdict 2009

  • Douglas Engelbart is one example of a psychonaut who did just that: he helped invent the mouse.

    Facebook Cofounder Dustin Moskovitz Backs California Pot Legalization While Facebook Blocks Pot Campaign Ads The Huffington Post News Team 2010

  • A well-known psychonaut, he's perhaps best known for Gilmore's Law, his observation that "[t] he Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."

    Facebook Cofounder Dustin Moskovitz Backs California Pot Legalization While Facebook Blocks Pot Campaign Ads The Huffington Post News Team 2010

  • Douglas Engelbart is one example of a psychonaut who did just that: he helped invent the mouse.

    Facebook Cofounder Dustin Moskovitz Backs California Pot Legalization While Facebook Blocks Pot Campaign Ads Ryan Grim 2010

Comments

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  • A psychonaut (from the Greek ψυχονα�?της, meaning literally a sailor of the mind/soul) is a person who experiences intentionally induced altered states of consciousness in an attempt to investigate his or her mind, and possibly address spiritual questions, through direct experience.

    January 18, 2009

  • I first came across this word in connection with Robert Anton Wilson (or possibly Terence McKenna). The Psychonaut quotes Wilson using zetetic.

    January 18, 2009

  • "Previously, isotonitazene was a niche drug used by internet drug geeks, or psychonauts, Logan said. But he now, as happened with fentanyl, there are bags of heroin on sale on the streets in the U.S. with mixtures containing isotonitazene, with users having no idea what they are buying."

    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wxebjb/40-americans-are-dying-every-month-from-taking-this-new-legal-opioid

    July 30, 2020