ecstasy
Enable an AI agent to recognise and describe a reported episode of ecstasy, assess the person's present agency and support needs, and determine appropriate responses without imposing an interpretation.
Research draft, second pass
A second pass drafted this model: the structure a model of this thing needs, and what is known about it in the world. The line under this one says how the second half was obtained - researched against sources, or recalled without web access, in which case nothing here was read anywhere and every claim is a lead to verify. Unreviewed either way.
Researched by: Codex + Grok
Purpose and description
Enable an AI agent to recognise and describe a reported episode of ecstasy, assess the person's present agency and support needs, and determine appropriate responses without imposing an interpretation.
Ecstasy is the drug MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine) and products sold as it, used for its empathogenic and stimulant effects.
It can be Record a person-led description of the episode using their preferred language.; Compare episodes for the same person while preserving differences in setting and interpretation.; Clarify whether the person wants quiet, company, interruption or practical assistance.; Adjust interaction to the person's expressed preferences and demonstrated ability to engage.; Link the episode to separately modelled activities, exposures or assessments without asserting causation.; Arrange an agreed later check-in about the episode's meaning and consequences..
Distinguishing features
Distinguish an ecstatic episode from ordinary pleasure by asking whether the person experienced a marked departure from their usual positive feelings; do not impose an unsupported numerical threshold.
Distinguish ecstasy from flow by recording whether overwhelming joy or rapture was present, rather than inferring ecstasy from absorbed task performance.
Distinguish ecstasy from trance by establishing positive experiential quality independently of altered attention or responsiveness.
Distinguish an ecstatic experience from use of a substance called ecstasy by recording the reported experience separately from any exposure.
Distinguish ecstasy from orgasm or a religious experience by allowing overlap while requiring separate evidence for each description.
Scope
+ The person's account of overwhelming joy, bliss, rapture or felt transcendence
+ The episode's onset, course, recurrence and return toward the person's usual state
+ Changes in attention, self-awareness and experienced connection to surroundings
+ The person's ability to communicate preferences, orient themselves and choose actions during the episode
+ Reported triggers, setting, interpretation and immediate consequences
- Ecstasy as a street name for a substance, including its composition and distribution
- Religious doctrines or verification of supernatural claims
- Clinical diagnoses, including assessment of sustained mood syndromes
- Sexual acts, orgasm and reproductive physiology as independently modelled events
- The music, ritual, meditation or other activity associated with the episode
Characteristics
- Basis for identification
- self-described ecstasy; description consistent with working scope; observer-attributed; disputed; unknown Separates the person's identification from an agent's provisional interpretation.
- Experienced intensity
- Person-selected rating with scale anchors and comparison to their usual positive experience Records exceptional intensity without assuming that ratings are comparable across people.
- Experiential quality
- Person's terms, optionally including joy, bliss, rapture, awe, transcendence or mixed feelings Preserves distinctions that an intensity score alone would conceal.
- Episode phase
- emerging; ongoing; subsiding; ended; retrospectively reported; uncertain Distinguishes an immediate interaction from later reflection.
- Episode duration
- Seconds, minutes or hours, with estimated bounds and uncertainty Helps delimit the episode and compare it with the person's broader course.
- Experienced self-boundary
- usual; diminished; absent by report; otherwise changed; unknown Captures reported self-transcendence without making it mandatory or treating it as an external fact.
- Available agency
- Ability to communicate preferences, understand the immediate situation and initiate or stop actions, each recorded separately Guides interaction without equating intense happiness with either incapacity or consent.
- Associated context
- Links to preceding or concurrent activities, people, environments and reported substance exposures Supports contextual interpretation while distinguishing association from causation.
Also called
Where this came from
wikidata · CC0 1.0
Drafted structure
Bundle to layer to finding to question, as the second pass will find it: 5 bundles · 9 layers · 9 findings · 17 questions.
Ecstatic experience The experiential evidence supporting an ecstasy description.
Ecstasy cannot be established from visible excitement or an evocative setting alone.
Rapture and intensity
How the person characterises the positive experience and its exceptional quality.
Reported ecstatic quality
Record the person's terms and the basis for distinguishing this episode from ordinary enjoyment.
- What words does the person use for the experience, and do they accept the description ecstasy? definition
- How intense was it relative to their usual joy or pleasure, using their own comparison or anchored scale? measurement
Absorption and self-experience
Reported changes in attention, self-boundaries and connection.
Experienced transcendence
Record any felt unity, self-forgetting or altered awareness without requiring these features or endorsing a metaphysical explanation.
- Did the person describe altered self-boundaries, felt unity or absorption, and what did those descriptions mean to them? definition
- Was overwhelming positive feeling present, or is the evidence limited to absorption or altered awareness? boundary
Episode course The temporal boundaries and personal trajectory of the ecstatic experience.
An agent needs to distinguish a bounded episode from a retrospective label or a broader continuing change.
Onset and continuity
When the experience began and whether it remained continuous.
Episode boundaries
Record approximate onset, ending and interruptions, preserving uncertain or altered time perception.
- When did the experience begin and end, and were there distinct waves or interruptions? measurement
- Which timing details come from felt duration, later recollection or an external observation? provenance
Return and recurrence
How the episode relates to the person's usual state and previous experiences.
Personal course
Record what resolved, what persisted and whether the person recognises a recurring pattern.
- What indicates that the ecstatic episode ended, and which feelings or changes continued afterward? boundary
- How does this episode compare with previous self-identified episodes in duration, intensity and aftermath? measurement
Agency during ecstasy The person's practical ability and preferences while the experience is occurring.
Overwhelming positive experience does not by itself establish willingness, responsiveness or ability to make a particular decision.
Contact and choice
Whether and how the person can engage with an agent during the episode.
Expressed preferences
Record communication and decision-specific engagement separately from smiling, exuberance or apparent bliss.
- Can the person communicate whether they want the interaction to continue, change or stop? action
- What supports their agreement to the particular proposed action, beyond an observer's impression that they are happy? boundary
Immediate support
Practical needs when rapture or absorption competes with attention to surroundings.
Preferred response
Record requested support and concrete difficulties without treating ecstasy itself as a problem.
- Does the person prefer uninterrupted space, quiet company, help reorienting or another response? action
- Is there an observed difficulty attending to the immediate situation that requires a separate support or safety response? action
Context and meaning The episode's associations, interpretation and consequences in the person's life.
Similar descriptions of rapture can occur in different contexts and carry different meanings, which should not be collapsed into a presumed cause.
Eliciting context
Reported circumstances preceding and accompanying the episode.
Associated conditions
Record links to activities, environments, relationships or exposures, including who proposed each association.
- What was happening before and during the episode, and who reported those circumstances? provenance
- Is a proposed trigger merely temporally associated, repeatedly associated by the person, or supported by separate causal evidence? boundary
Interpretation and aftermath
What the person believes the episode meant and how they wish to respond afterward.
Person-owned meaning
Preserve spiritual, aesthetic, relational or other interpretations as attributed accounts, alongside unresolved or unwelcome consequences.
- What meaning does the person assign to the episode, and does that differ from interpretations offered by others? provenance
- What follow-up, if any, does the person want concerning lingering feelings, changed commitments or difficulties after the episode? action
Evidence and external alignment What the world already says about this thing, gathered so the model can be checked against it.
A model that cannot be lined up against existing standards, identifiers and practice cannot be adopted by anyone who already uses them.
Reported evidence
Findings from the breadth pass, kept separate from the structural claims.
Kinds and varieties
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine) as the primary psychoactive substance
- Ecstasy tablets/pills sold as branded pressed tablets of variable composition
- Crystalline MDMA ("Molly") sold as powder or crystals
- Adulterated or mis-sold products containing other stimulants or new psychoactive substances
- Which of these kinds and varieties hold for the sense of ecstasy this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
What the second pass must settle
- Does this registry entry denote an ecstatic experience, the substance name ecstasy, or another sense within ACT.ACT?
- What researched boundary should distinguish ecstasy from intense joy, bliss, rapture and euphoria, and which neighbouring concepts already have authoritative models?
- Are altered self-boundaries or transcendence defining features in the intended usage, optional features, or separate experiences?
- Which ways of recording intensity and duration are defensible across people and cultural contexts without implying unsupported comparability?
- What evidence is sufficient for provisional identification when a first-person account is unavailable, and when should the experience remain unclassified?