The Electronic Dance Music Scene

Abstract

The electronic dance music (EDM) scene has been the subject of considerable research since the 1990s, including the research into its transpersonal aspects. Russell Newcombe, a researcher on drug use and drug policy, conducted the first study of EDM culture to understand club drug use in order to inform public health initiatives on harm reduction policies at EDM events. Completely aside from drug use, environmental factors at EDM events can induce altered states of consciousness among participants. Altered states can be defined as “a mental state which can be subjectively recognized by an individual as representing a difference in psychological functioning from that individual's ‘normal,’ alert, waking state”. Just as participating in the EDM scene can evoke altered states without drugs, taking club drugs at these events does not necessarily put people in an altered state.