Psychedelic Science

The psychedelic experience has been explored and documented for thousands or years, and scientific research into psychedelics is not new.

The origin of psychedelics and their use predates written history, as they were employed by early cultures in many sociocultural and ritual contexts. Modern psychedelic research began in the 1940’s when Albert Hoffman first synthesized and later discovered the psychedelic properties of LSD, on April 19th 1943, a day now celebrated as bicycle day. Most notably, the advent of LSD and subsequent research into its effects contributed to a new understanding of serotonin and the central role of the neurotransmitter in cognition and behaviour. Early psychedelic research focused intensively on the possibility that LSD and other psychedelics had a serotonergic basis for their action. Moreover, in the late 1900’s, psychiatrists, psychologists and psychotherapists began uncovering the unparalleled potential of serotonergic psychedelics as effective psychotherapeutic tools.

Psychedelic science unfortunately halted as the war on drugs began in 1971. However, after decades pause and thanks to ongoing drug policy reform efforts, the scientific investigation of psychedelics resumed starting in the early 1990’s.

Serotonergic psychedelics are considered safe and powerful substances that alter perception and mood by affecting various cognitive processes.

Currently, institutional research is focused on psilocybin, MDMA and LSD as therapeutic interventions to depression, addiction, PTSD, OCD, and end of life anxiety. Researchers are also beginning to explore the efficacy of psychedelics in various dosages for ADHD, Alzheimers, autism and physical pain, while some research has explored the potential of psychedelics for non-medical uses.

67% of healthy people who participated in psilocybin studies at John Hopkins reported that their experience was one of the top five most important spiritual experiences of their life, and 38% said it was the single most important.

Moreover, 79% of participants said it increased their personal well-being and life satisfaction.

According to current data, it seems psychedelics might help address:

• Depression

• Addiction

• Anxiety

• PTSD

• OCD

• ADHD

• Suicidal Ideation

• Cluster Headaches

• Eating Disorders

• Autism

• Alzheimers

• Chronic Physical Pain

• Immunity

Moreover, it seems that psychedelics may be used for:

• Cognitive Enhancement

• Personal Discovery & Development

• Spiritual Emergence & Development

• Creative Inspiration

Psychedelics cause entropy within consciousness, occasion self-transcendence, and produce meaningful transformative experiences that help people understand themselves, heal and grow.

More recent studies aimed to investigate one of the most remarkable and least understood domains of the psychedelic experience, most commonly referred to as ego-dissolution, provides evidence that serotonergic psychedelics selectively expand global connectivity, changing the brain’s modular organization and, simultaneously, the perceptual boundaries between the self and the environment via regions that are rich in 5-HT2A receptors, as well as the thalamus.

These important results help inform not only the neurobiology of the psychedelic experience but also a fundamental aspect of human consciousness, namely the sense of possessing a coherent self-identity, or ego, distinct from others and separate from the external environment.

Scientific research is reliably demonstrating how psychedelics, used effectively, have therapeutic and transformative effects and a tendency to increase spirituality, empathy, and a general sense of connectedness to nature and other humans in healthy and non-healthy individuals.

Psychedelic Medicine

Data is demonstrating the efficacy of many psychedelics for a variety of health conditions.

Recent developments in the field of psychedelic science have occurred in clinical research, where several double-blind placebo-controlled studies of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy in patients with cancer-related psychosocial distress have demonstrated unmatched positive relief of anxiety and depression.

Further, two small pilot studies of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy have demonstrated positive benefit in treating both alcohol and nicotine addiction.

Used in supportive settings, psychedelics lead to improved psychological functioning and personal wellbeing, increased spirituality, empathy and connection to nature, and prosocial behaviour, especially when combined with meditation.

A Johns Hopkins study found that profoundly meaningful mystical experiences occasioned by psilocybin lead to lasting personality transformations that broadly affect cognition, emotions and behaviour. The large dose psilocybin sessions, held in supportive therapeutic settings produced an event of personal meaning and spiritual significance which study participants ranked among the most profound of life experiences, in line with a marriage or the birth of a child.

The study concluded that psilocybin occasioned mystical experiences in conjunction with sustained personal practices such as meditation, and expert guidance, may lead to enduring positive transformations in psychological functioning and measurable increases in prosocial attitudes and behaviours.

By increasing cross-talk between brain regions, psychedelics produce a more interconnected brain, and by decreasing activity in the default mode network, people can experience the therapeutic potential of self-transcendence.

A brain on psychedelics is more interconnected than a brain unaffected by psychedelics. When the brain is affected by psychedelics, communication between brain regions happens more broadly, allowing for important personal or universal insights that can be reflected upon and used for healing and growth.

Psychedelics also decrease activity in the default mode network, a brain network implicated in a sense of self, or ego. By reducing the activity of this network, people can experience self-transcendence, or ego-dissolution, which contributes to psychological healing and a healthy psychology.

It appears that psychedelics reliably promote neuroplasticity and reduce inflammation as a result of their effects on the serotonin 2A receptor.

Several rodent models have been developed over the years to help unravel the neurochemical correlates of serotonin 5-hydroxytryptamine 2A receptor activation in the brain, and a variety of imaging techniques have been employed to identify key brain areas that are directly affected by psychedelic substances.

Accordingly, animal studies are starting to reveal the mechanisms by which psychedelics reduce inflammation throughout the body. Data indicates that serotonergic psychedelics might increase neurogenesis (production of neurons), spinogenesis (development of dendritic spines in neurons), and synaptogenesis (the formation of synapses between neurons), while promoting neuroplasticity. Psychedelics can thus be beneficial to neurodegenerative and neuroinflammatory diseases such as Alzheimer’s, depression, addiction and anxiety.

Psychedelics increase neuroplasticity, and in effect, psychological flexibility and openness, important components of good mental health.

Psychological flexibility entails the ability to fully engage with the needs of the present moment and shift mindsets and behaviours accordingly, in addition to being aware of and committed to behaviours consistent with personal values.

The increase in neuroplasticity and psychological flexibility produced by psychedelics might explain their efficacy of as treatments for various mental health conditions which stem from psychological rigidity, such as depression.

Psychedelics can lead to increases in the personality traits of openness, extroversion and conscientiousness, and a decrease in neuroticism.

While brain activity generally returns to a baseline after the psychedelic effects wear off, it seems these substances have long-term effects too. Recent studies measured the effects of psilocybin on five domains of personality — neuroticism, extroversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness — and found significant increases in openness, extroversion and conscientiousness, and decrease in neuroticism following a high-dose psilocybin session. 

It seems as though psychedelics shift people from egoism to ecoism. By making a person identify more strongly with nature, psychedelics lead to increased pro-environmental behaviour.

Although correlational, research indicates lifetime psychedelic use to be associated with greater pro-environmental behaviour through increased nature relatedness. This means people who use psychedelics throughout their life are kinder to the planet because they identify more strongly with nature as a result self-transcendence, also known as ego-dissolution. Considering what appears to be a growing disconnection between humans and the planet, which results in rampant suicide and ecocide, psychedelics may provide a sustainable solution.

Psychedelics show great promise in treating a variety of health conditions, including health conditions that are not medically recognized.

The Default Mode Network

Primary brain areas involved in the effects of psychedelics are located in the default mode network, otherwise known as the DMN.

The DMN has a variety of functions, including past and future mind wandering, autobiographical recollection, and processing self-related and social information. Most notably, the DMN is responsible for the psychological ego structure, which is responsible for the sense of self-identity.

Psychedelics reduce activity in the DMN. In turn, other regions of the brain reconnect, allowing for the possibility of a more neurologically connected and psychologically integrated human organism.

Key parts of the DMN include the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), and the posterior inferior parietal lobule (pIPL). Through neuroimaging, researchers have discovered that psychedelics decrease blood flow in some of these brain areas, and also reduces synaptic connectivity within the DMN. Neuroimaging studies have also shown that synaptic connectivity between other brain networks is increased when psychedelics are administered.

While it is understood that psychedelics act on a specific serotonin receptor largely residing in the default mode network, very little is known or understood about how these small-scale chemical events translate to transformations in human consciousness.

During a psychedelic experience, the usual connections in the DMN rapidly and temporarily dissolve, allowing the brain to become free from the usual control of the DMN. The rapid loss of DMN control over the brain’s activity is correlated with the common, profound, and highly transformative experience of ego dissolution. While ego-loss can be frightening, especially to individuals who are new to the experience, the psychological process is correlated with healing and growth via marked increases in openness, empathy and feelings of connection to nature.

The DMN is partially responsible for various mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, addiction, PTSD, ADHD, autism, pain, and more. Both the hyperactivity and disrupted activity of the DMN can contribute to problematic symptoms.

The hyperactivity of certain regions of the DMN can contribute to unhealthy amounts and forms of self-involved thought. Hyperactivity in particular parts of the DMN has been correlated with excessive rumination in people with severe depression. Lower activity in other regions of the DMN has also been correlated with overgeneral autobiographical memory (OGM), which is a symptom of depression, PTSD and bipolar disorder.

Although DMN activity is reduced during the psychedelic experience, its activity increases in the weeks following the experience, as the DMN is, in a sense, “resetting” itself. This “reset” of the DMN seems to be beneficial both to individuals suffering from depression, anxiety, addiction and PTSD, as well as individuals who are not suffering from any medically recognized condition. The latest research is making it increasingly clear that changes in the activity of specific parts of the DMN can contribute significantly to the reduction of symptoms.

Psychedelics have a highly potent and immediate impact on DMN activity, which is seems to be very useful in treating a variety of health conditions. However, the influence of the DMN over cognition can be reduced by various other means, such as meditation, exercise and a wholesome lifestyle.

Meaning Making

The powerful meaning-enhancing properties of psychedelics enhance perception of significance via an innate therapeutic mechanism, stimulating healing and growth through personally and spiritually meaningful experiences.

A central aspect of psychedelics and their unmatched effectiveness for healing and growth can be found in their unique capacity to produce profoundly meaningful experiences. At best, psychedelics occasion spiritual experiences which can then lay the foundations of personal and spiritual meaning for an individual’s life. This foundation can then be built upon in order to effectively change behaviour, thus allowing for healthier habits and ways of life.

Powerful events of personal and spiritual meaning occasioned via psychedelics can be life changing catalysts, as these substances assist people in overcoming addiction, depression and other treatment resistant disorders. They even seem to offer a renewed sense of meaning to those facing life-threatening illness.

Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, found relief from alcoholism with the help of LSD, stating that the discovery of spirituality via profoundly meaningful psychedelic experiences helped him overcome his dependency to alcohol. This isn’t a unique phenomena, as thousands of people travel to psychedelic-healing retreats in various parts of the world to heal their substance dependency, while accumulating research indicates that psychedelics can heal by producing powerful experiences of personal and spiritual significance.

The meaning-enhancing effects of psychedelics play a principle part in the transformative and therapeutic potential of psychedelic substances.