A fabulous book on this is Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved (PiHKAL) which can be found as a PDF online (the link I had has died but try Google and filety

A fabulous book on this is Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved (PiHKAL) which can be found as a PDF online (the link I had has died but try Google and filetype:pdf). Summary: a chemist is interested in psychedelics so he starts creating candidate psychoactive substances, and he then tests them on himself and friends. He wrote a lovely book about his journey.