Background: A resurgence of neurobiological and clinical research is currently under-way into the therapeutic potential of serotonergic or ‘classical’ psychedelics, such as the prototypical psychedelic drug lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), psilocybin (4-phosphoryloxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine), and ayahuasca – a betacarboline- and dimethyltryptamine (DMT)-containing Amazonian beverage. The aim of this review is to introduce readers to the similarities and dissimilarities between psychedelic states and night dreams, and to draw conclusions related to therapeutic applications of psychedelics in psychiatry. Methods: Research literature related to psychedelics and dreaming is reviewed, and these two states of consciousness are systematically compared. Relevant conclusions with regard to psychedelic-assisted therapy will be provided. Results: Common features between psychedelic states and night dreams include perception, mental imagery, emotion activation, fear memory extinction, and sense of self and body. Differences between these two states are related to differential perceptual input from the environment, clarity of consciousness and meta-cognitive abilities. Therefore, psychedelic states are closest to lucid dreaming which is characterized by a mixed state of dreaming and waking consciousness. Conclusion: The broad overlap between dreaming and psychedelic states supports the notion that psychedelics acutely induce dreamlike subjective experiences which may have long-term beneficial effects on psychosocial functioning and well-being. Future clinical studies should examine howtherapeutic outcome is related to the acute dreamlike effects of psychedelics.
consciousness
The Entropic BraIn: A Theory of Conscious States
Entropy is a dimensionless quantity that is used for measuring uncertainty about the state of a system but it can also imply physical qualities, where high entropy is synonymous with high disorder. Entropy is applied here in the context of states of consciousness and their associated neurodynamics, with a particular focus on the psychedelic state. The psychedelic state is considered an exemplar of a primitive or primary state of consciousness that preceded the development of modern, adult, human, normal waking consciousness. Based on neuroimaging data with psilocybin, a classic psychedelic drug, it is argued that the defining feature of “primary states” is elevated entropy in certain aspects of brain function, such as the repertoire of functional connectivity motifs that form and fragment across time. Indeed, since there is a greater repertoire of connectivity motifs in the psychedelic state than in normal waking consciousness, this implies that primary states may exhibit “criticality,” i.e., the property of being poised at a “critical” point in a transition zone between order and disorder where certain phenomena such as power-law scaling appear. Moreover, if primary states are critical, then this suggests that entropy is suppressed in normal waking consciousness, meaning that the brain operates just below criticality. It is argued that this entropy suppression furnishes normal waking consciousness with a constrained quality and associated metacognitive functions, including reality-testing and self-awareness. It is also proposed that entry into primary states depends on a collapse of the normally highly organized activity within the default-mode network (DMN) and a decoupling between the DMN and the medial temporal lobes (which are normally significantly coupled). These hypotheses can be tested by examining brain activity and associated cognition in other candidate primary states such as rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and early psychosis and comparing these with non-primary states such as normal waking consciousness and the anaesthetized state.
Human Nature and the Nature of Reality: Conceptual Challenges From Consciousness Research
Holotropic states (a large special subgroup of nonordinary states of consciousness) have been the focus of many fields of modem research, such as experiential psychotherapy, clinical and laboratory work with psychedelic substances, field anthropology, thanatology, and therapy with individuals undergoing psychospiritual crises (“spiritual emergencies”). This research has generated a plethora of extraordinary observations that have undermined some of the most fundamental assumptions of modem psychiatry, psychology, and psychotherapy. Some of these new findings seriously challenge the most basic philosophical tenets of Western science concerning the relationship between matter, life, and consciousness. This article summarizes the most important major revisions that would have to be made in our understanding of consciousness and of the human psyche in health and disease to accomodate these conceptual challenges. These areas of changes include; a new understanding and cartography of the human psyche; the nature and architecture of emotional and psychosomatic disorders; therapeutic mechanisms and the process of healing; the strategy of psychotherapy and self-exploration; the role of spirituality in human life; and the nature of reality.
Altered States of Consciousness: Drug-Induced States
Drug effects on consciousness are powerful probes of how physical processes in the body are connected to conscious experience. Drugs that alter consciousness – producing arousal, sedation, sleep, anesthesia, analgesia, euphoria, amnesia, hallucinations, or psychedelic-like intensification of perceptions, thoughts, and feelings – have been identified as interacting in various ways with cellular and molecular processes within the nervous system. While the focus has thus far been on synaptic connections between neurons, there is likely to be much more going on in the interaction of drugs with living systems that has not yet been identified. Psychedelic drugs, plants, and fungi are associated with perhaps the most interesting and profound of the drug-induced alterations of consciousness. Contemporary investigations of psychedelics include renewed interest in the transformational therapeutic potential of these substances, and may also lead to new insights into the nature of consciousness.
Stan Grof, Lessons from ~4,500 LSD Sessions and Beyond
“I realized people were not having LSD experiences; they were having experiences of themselves. But they were coming from depths that psychoanalysis didn’t know anything about.” — Stanislav Grof
Stanislav Grof, M.D., (stanislavgrof.com) is a psychiatrist with more than 60 years of experience in research of “holotropic” states of consciousness, a large and important subgroup of non-ordinary states that have healing, transformative, and evolutionary potential.
In this wide-ranging interview, we cover many topics, including: Some of his main takeaways after supervising or guiding ~4,500 LSD sessions; The place and role of “wounded healers”; Limitations and uses of traditional psychoanalysis and talk therapy; Holotropic breathwork and some similarities to MDMA; Stories of odd synchronicities and the seemingly impossible; Stan’s strangest personal experiences on psychedelics; What Stan believes humanity most needs to overcome: division and destruction
Psychedelics and Religious Experience
THE EXPERIENCES resulting from the use of psychedelic drugs are often described in religious terms. They are therefore of interest to those like myself who, in the tradition of William James, are concerned with the psychology of religion. For more than thirty years I have been studying the causes, the consequences, and the conditions of those peculiar state consciousness in which the individual discovers himself to be one continuous process with God, with the Universe, with the Ground of Being, of whatever name he may use by cultural conditioning or personal preference for the ultimate and eternal reality. We have no satisfactory and definitive name for experiences of this kind. The terms “religious experience,” “mystical experience,” and “cosmic consciousness” are all too vague and comprehensive to denote that specific mode of consciousness which, to those who have known it, is as real and overwhelming as falling in love. This Article describes such states of consciousness as and when induced by psychedelic drugs, although they are virtually indistinguishable from genuine mystical experience. The Article then discusses objections to the use of psychedelic drugs which arise mainly from the opposition between mystical values and the traditional religious and secular values of Western society.
Entheogenesis: Toward An Expanded Worldview for Our Time
Whereas the terminology of psychedelics has acquired spurious cultural associations of “tripping,” the historically primal concept of consciousness expansion has two advantages. One, it connects psychedelic drugs with other modes of consciousness expansion, such as meditation and creative visioning; and two, it suggests contrasting comparison with the consciousness contraction involved in concentration and focus. Both expansions and contractions can be observed at the level of an individual’s states of consciousness and also at the level of the shared worldview of society. Contemporary world culture is moving toward an expanded worldview that recognizes both the material and the spiritual dimensions of our existence.
Descending the Mountain
What happens when you administer psilocybin to experienced zen meditators? A neuroscientist and a zen master carry out a double-blind experiment on a sphinxlike mountain in Switzerland. Their goal: to examine the nature of consciousness.
“These substances are not for the sick only, they belong in the hands of meditation”
Albert Hofmann
Exactly fifty years after the ban on psychedelics a group of Zen meditators – who have never used any psychedelic substances before – are given psilocybin on the last day of a 5-day retreat. Half the group receives a placebo.
Mystical experiences are induced through a combination of deep meditation and psilocybin, a psychoactive compound found in magic mushrooms.
This scientific experiment, which was published in Nature magazine in 2020, may lift the controversy that has clouded the realm of psychedelics for far too long.
Scientist Franz Vollenweider and zen master Vanja Palmers descend from the mountain of bliss to teach us how we can integrate mysticism into our day-to-day life.
‘Descending the Mountain’ is a mesmerising testimony of inner climate change that shows us how psilocybin could create a revolution in improving mental health and strengthen our connection with our environment.
Towards a biophysical understanding of hallucinogen action
The serotonin 2A (5-HT2A) receptor is necessary for the psychopharmacological actions of the serotonergic hallucinogens such as LSD. An exploration of the biophysical actions of hallucinogens at the 5-HT2A receptor may be useful in understanding their unique psychological effects, particularly in the elucidation of structure-activity relationships for developing potent receptor- and functionally-selective 5-HT2A agonists. Experiments were undertaken to optimize, validate, and explore the utility of an in silico-activated human 5-HT2A receptor homology model developed previously in our laboratory. In the original model, a number of receptor-ligand interactions were observed. The lack of strong empirical support for several of the interactions indicated in the original modeling provided opportunities to explore further the topology of the 5-HT2A receptor binding site, which also provides support for the model itself. The first section of this work describes a qualitative use of our h5-HT2A receptor homology model to provide a molecular basis for the pharmacological characterization of psychoactive phenylalkylamine hallucinogens. Subsequent sections detail a systematic iterative approach to explore several of the receptor-binding interactions observed in virtual docking simulations to our h5-HT2A receptor model. Data were generated by site-directed mutagenesis of h5-HT2A receptor residues, with binding and functional assays. Mutation of Phe6.51(339) and Phe6.52(340) to leucine residues gave results consistent with previous studies that indicated an aromatic interaction between Phe6.52(340) and 5-HT2A receptor agonists. Importantly, a novel role for Phe6.51(339) was identified, where it was found to interact with a new class of 5-HT2A receptor agonists. Data from the mutation of Gly5.42(238), Ser5.43(239), and Ser5.46(242) to alanine residues are consistent with the orientations of phenylalkylamines, tryptamines, and ergolines observed in the original development of our h5-HT2A receptor model. Mutation of Ser3.36(159) and Thr3.37(160) to alanine residues did not, however, provide data to support the hypothesis of hydrogen bond interactions between these residues and the 2-methoxy of phenylalkylamines. Similarly, data from the mutation of Asn6.55(343) failed to support the hypothesis of its interaction with the carbonyl of ergolines. Overall, the data from this work provide strong evidence to support the topology of our h5-HT2A receptor homology model, although further refinement of the model remains necessary.
Opening the heart: Psychological and spiritual dimensions
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