Nitrous Oxide Stats & Data
O=N#NGQPLMRYTRLFLPF-UHFFFAOYSA-NPharmacology
DrugBankDescription
Nitrous oxide, commonly known as "laughing gas", is a chemical compound with the chemical formula N2O. At room temperature, it is a colorless non-flammable gas, with a pleasant, slightly sweet odor and taste. It is used in surgery and dentistry for its anesthetic and analgesic effects. It is known as "laughing gas" due to the euphoric effects of inhaling it, a property that has led to its recreational use as an inhalant drug.
Mechanism of Action
Findings to date indicate that nitrous oxide induces opioid peptide release in the brain stem leading to the activation of descending noradrenergic neurones, which results in modulation of the nociceptive process in the spinal cord. Several receptor–effector mechanisms including dopamine receptors, α2 adrenoceptors, benzodiazepine receptors and -methyl- -aspartate (NMDA) receptors have been implicated although the relationship of one with the other is not known.
Subjective Effects
Physical
- Spontaneous tactile sensations: The nitrous oxide body high starts off as the sensation of a mixture of cold, warm, sharp and soft tingles which begin across the head and face at lower dosages but spread out across the body at higher dosages.
- Tactile suppression: This partially to entirely suppresses one's sense of touch, creating feelings of numbness within the extremities. It is responsible for the anaesthetic properties of this substance.
- Motor control loss: A loss of gross and fine motor control alongside of balance and coordination is prevalent within nitrous and becomes especially strong at higher dosages.
- Physical euphoria: This results in feelings of physical euphoria which range between mild pleasure to powerfully all-encompassing bliss.
- Changes in felt bodily form: This usually occurs with higher dosages and can be described as feelings that in a non-painful fashion your body's physical form is being stretched into infinity, compressed into a singularity or split into two separate halves.
- Decreased bodily weight: This creates the sensation that the body is floating and has become entirely weightless. It is often accompanied by feelings of slowly falling or drifting.
- Dizziness: Although uncommon, some people report dizziness under the influence of nitrous.
- Headaches: Although uncommon, a certain subset of people report headaches during the offset of nitrous oxide.
Cognitive
- Laughter: This effect is extremely powerful and pronounced within nitrous oxide and can be described as sudden bouts of intense laughter and giggling. It is especially prevalent in appropriate social settings.
- Euphoria: Feelings of mild to intense happiness and general positivity.
- Ego suppression, loss and death: At higher dosages, level 3 ego death is an all encompassing effect within nitrous oxide. It is unique in style due to its rapid onset and fast comedown, creating the experience that one's sense of self is rapidly disintegrated and then suddenly restacked through regaining one's own long term memory.
- Déjà vu: Although uncommon, a certain subset of people report strong feelings of déjà vu consistently when under the influence of nitrous oxide.
- Amnesia: At high dosages, it is often common for one to experience amnesia and memory loss after the experience has occurred. This is especially prevalent alongside of ego death.
- Unity and interconnectedness: During high dosage states of ego death, this component is a common but inconsistent accompanying effect.
Sensory
In comparison to other dissociatives such as Ketamine or DXM, the visual effects of nitrous oxide are comparatively simplistic.
- Visual acuity suppression: Blurred vision to the point of all encompassing blindness is a completely consistent effect within nitrous oxide even at moderate dosages.
- Double vision: This component is prevalent at moderate dosages and makes reading impossible unless one closes an eye.
- Pattern recognition suppression: This effect generally occurs at higher dosages and makes one unable to recognize and interpret perceivable visual data.
In comparison to other more classical dissociatives, hallucinations are particularly rare with nitrous but possible at high dosages.
- External hallucinations: These are delirious in believability and commonly only include mundane scenarios such as perceiving and talking to people who are not currently present.
- Internal hallucinations
- Distortions: These distortions are very powerful and loud enough in their volume to make the original sound completely unrecognizable. They include phasers, white noise, high pitch tones and notes, flanging, changes in pitch, echo effects, and stuttering.
- Suppression: This effect can be described as a muffling and quieting of externally sourced sound which results in it sounding more indistinct and distant than it would usually be.
Forked from Subjective Effect Documentation by Josie Kins, February 2014. Via dose.wiki (CC0).
Toxicity
PsychonautWikiThe exact toxic dosage is unknown. Potential problems include:
Addiction & dependence
As with other dissociatives, the chronic use of nitrous oxide can be considered mildly addictive with a moderate potential for abuse. Tolerance to many of the effects of nitrous oxide develops with prolonged and repeated use. This results in users having to administer increasingly large doses to achieve the same effects.
Effect Profile
Curated + 535 ReportsStrong dissociative depth, motor impairment, and mania with low insight
Community Effects
TripSitTolerance & Pharmacokinetics
drugs.wikiTolerance Decay
Acute tolerance: develops within a single session — the reset numbers above apply after sustained heavy use, not after one binge. Within-session tachyphylaxis usually resets largely overnight.
Demographics
Gender Distribution
Age Distribution
Reports Over Time
Effect Analysis
Erowid + BluelightEffects aggregated from 535 experience reports (504 Erowid + 31 Bluelight)
Effect Sentiment Distribution
Confidence Distribution
Positive Effects 54
Adverse Effects 29
Subjective Effect Ontology
Experience ReportsStructured effect tags extracted from 535 Erowid & Bluelight experience reports using a controlled vocabulary of 220+ canonical effects across 15 domains.
Auditory
Cognitive
Emotional
Motor
Selfhood
Tactile
Visual
Real-World Dose Distribution
62K DosesFrom 354 individual dose entries
Common Combinations
Most co-occurring substances in experience reports
Form / Preparation
Most common forms and preparations reported
Redose Patterns
Redosing behavior across 446 reports