Hmmm........I really should get down to business and harvest a vast quantity of lemon balm. Aside from my telling an autie friend of mine, of sorts, that I would send her some plants, I have a distinct feeling, especially now its flowering, that it would make a fantastic spirit.
As for the psychoactive properties of absinthe, etc. I wonder....thujone is not a psychedelic on its own. Wormwood is nothing of that sort, and will merely cause seizures and panic attacks. I have long had a theory, that thujone, being a GABA antagonist, could perhaps be in essence, removing, or counteracting a rate-limiting step in the intoxication produced, I.e passing out, throwing up, or both, before the NMDA antagonist dissociative signature of EtOH actually gets its chance to show up.
So in essence, the combination of C2H5OH (GABAa PAM, NMDAr antagonist, in addition to all the lesser effects such as on AMPARs, glycinergic transmission (I think), purinergic receptors, CRF receptors, etc.) and thujone (GABAa antagonist) is maybe removing the sedative properties of alcohol, allowing the dissociative anaesthetic properties to be 'unmasked' in a manner of speaking.
Opinions on said theory, people?