Altered States

Songs sung by or about people in altered mental states, often temporarily. This can include being under the influence of drugs or alcohol, but more appropriately states such as sleep deprivation and illness.

Central theme

• Am I Awake? - Sleep deprivation
• Apophenia
• Brain Problem Situation - Narrator is drunk
• Destination Moon - Altered perception of reality caused by sickness
• Idaho - Sleep deprivation
• I Like Fun - Narrator implied to have stopped taking psychiatric medication.
• Slow - Potion-inflicted hallucinations
• Thunderbird - Narrator implied to be drunk
• Tryptophane - Effects of tryptophan
• Unsupervised, I Hit My Head - (Diminishing) Effects of coffee

Briefly mentioned

• All The Lazy Boyfriends - "Spaced out and sleepless"
• The Cap'm - "You probably think that I'm high on pot / But I'm not, I'm not"
• I Am A Ring - "And I am a panic"
• I Lost Thursday - "It's supernatural how spaced out we can be"
• Ooh La! Ooh La! - "Music takes your mind into a trance"
• Renew My Subscription - Hallucinations due to either mental illness or withdrawal: "Refill my prescription / to whatever that thing is that makes / the carpet stop turning into snakes"
• When The Lights Come On - "Let's table this discussion / Until my concussion"
• Spin The Country Dial - I'm highly medicated and I'll never be the same"

Honorable mentions

• Bread Hair - "I'm a wigged-out daddy with bread on top." In this case wigged-out is a pun, although being "wigged-out" is a altered mental state.
• If I Wasn't Shy - Flansburgh "wrote it in an altered state."

See also

• For the items often responsible, see Drinks, Drugs, and Coffee
• For more specific psychoses and states, see Addiction, Compulsion, Insanity, Mind Control / Hypnotism, and Paranoia