Is There a Psychedelic Aspect to Childhood Games?

When you see the word “psychedelic,” a number of things might come to mind, from microdosing certain mushrooms to the combination of lights and sounds at a particularly epic rock show. The sort of games most people played during their formative years don’t tend to be on that list — but maybe they should be. That, at least, is the conclusion that University of California, Davis professor Jay Mechling reached via one avenue of his research.

Mechling has written extensively about groups and rituals, from the Boy Scouts to the American military. And in a recent article for JSTOR Daily, Livia Gershon explored one of his findings: that certain common activities can lead to, basically, altered states of consciousness.

Mechling, Gershon writes, cites the mid-20th century work of the philosopher Roger Caillois, who described different versions of play, including one called “ilinx.” What makes ilinx unique is the way that it temporarily affects participants’ perception — so, things like spinning or swinging would very much qualify.

In the 2021 paper “Folklore and Transmarginal Consciousness,” published in the journal Western Folklore, Mechling made a convincing case for the ecstatic elements of everyday activities. “Playground swings induce the vertigo of ilinx, as do merry-go-rounds,” Mechling writes. “And away from the playground, children and young people swing on ropes hung from trees or other high structures.”

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Mechling goes on to cite the work of the late Brian Sutton-Smith, a developmental psychologist who reckoned with some of the same questions. Mechling points to Sutton-Smith’s contention that “play and games and their near kin, rituals, far from being trivial pursuits, actually have played a crucial role in the evolution of human strategies for survival and, beyond that, happiness.” You might not think of playgrounds as spaces where human consciousness evolves — but there’s a case to be made that that’s precisely what’s happening there.

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Tobias Carroll

Tobias Carroll lives and writes in New York City, and has been covering a wide variety of subjects — including (but not limited to) books, soccer and drinks — for many years. His writing has been published by the likes of the Los Angeles Times, Pitchfork, Literary Hub, Vulture, Punch, the New York Times and Men’s Journal. At InsideHook, he has…