The Dionysian is one of the three cultural drives in The Birth of Tragedy, along with the Apollonian and Socratic. The Dionysian is there associated with intoxication, ecstasy (being- outside-of-oneself), and thus with cultural productions such as lyric poetry and many aspects of music (especially harmony). This artistic drive implicitly has a metaphysics (i.e. a way of understanding the nature of reality). The coming together of Dionysian and Apollonian drives into a singular cultural production is the account of the nature of ancient tragedy.