Psychedelic experience


A psychedelic experience is a temporary altered state of consciousness induced by the consumption of psychedelic drugs like mescaline, LSD, psilocybin, and DMT. For example, the term acid trip refers to psychedelic experiences brought on by the use of LSD. Psychedelic experiences are interpreted in exploratory, learning, recreational, religious/mystical and therapeutic contexts.

Etymology

The term was coined in 1953 by the psychiatrist Humphrey Osmond, during written correspondence with Aldous Huxley. Psychedelic derives from two Ancient Greek words, psyche meaning "mind" or "soul," and delos meaning "reveal" or "manifest."
The term "trip" was first coined by US Army scientists during the 50s when they were experimenting with LSD.

Phenomenology

Although, starting in the 19th and 20th centuries, several attempts have been made to define common phenomenological structures of the effects produced by classic psychedelics, a universally accepted taxonomy does not yet exist.

Visual alteration

Probably the most common, widely recognised psychedelic experiential phenomenon is the alteration in visual perception; this includes surfaces in the environment appearing to ripple and undulate. Albert Hoffman, the discoverer of LSD, described how during his bicycle ride home after his first deliberate LSD self-administration: "Everything in my field of vision wavered and was distorted as if seen in a curved mirror." Psychedelic visual alteration also includes spontaneous formation of complex flowing geometric visual patterning in the visual field. When the eyes are open, the visual alteration is overlaid onto the objects and spaces in the physical environment; when the eyes are closed the visual alteration is seen in the "inner world" behind the eyelids. These visual effects increase in complexity with higher dosages, and also when the eyes are closed.

Mystical-type experiences

Two scientific studies have concluded that psilocybin reliably triggers mystical-type experiences. The more recent study at Johns Hopkins University identified mystical experiences by means of several questionnaires designed to categorise altered state 'non-ordinary' experiences, including one questionnaire called 'the mysticism scale'. The researchers observed that psilocybin "occasions personally and spiritually significant mystical experiences that predict long-term changes in behaviors, attitudes and values".
The psychedelic experience is often compared to non-ordinary forms of consciousness such as those experienced in meditation and near-death experiences. The phenomenon of ego dissolution is often described as a key feature of the psychedelic experience.
Individuals who have psychedelic experiences often describe what they experienced as "more real" than ordinary experience. For example, the psychologist Benny Shanon observed from ayahuasca trip refers to "the assessment, very common with ayahuasca, that what is seen and thought during the course of intoxication defines the real, whereas the world that is ordinarily perceived is actually an illusion." Similarly, psychologist Stanislav Grof described the LSD experience as "complex revelatory insights into the nature of existence… typically accompanied by a sense of certainty that this knowledge is ultimately more relevant and 'real' than the perceptions and beliefs we share in everyday life."

Bad trip

A "bad trip" is a disturbing, unpleasant, potentially dangerous, and possibly traumatizing psychedelic experience. Bad trips are more common at high doses, where the psychedelic effect is more intense, and in unfamiliar environments, where anxiety and paranoia are more likely to arise. However, due to the synesthetic nature of psychedelic experiences, having a preconception of a bad trip can form a framework for a negative/uncomfortable segment of a psychedelic experience to become self-fulfilling; if the concept of a bad trip is unknown, there is no framework for such an experience to attach itself to whereas a preconception about the nature, duration or influence of a bad trip might make themselves true.
The manifestations can range from feelings of mild anxiety and alienation to profoundly disturbing states of unrelieved terror, ultimate entrapment, sheer insanity or cosmic annihilation. This is why a person who plans on taking a psychedelic should be accompanied by a trip sitter.
Bad trips can be exacerbated by the inexperience or irresponsibility of the user or the lack of proper preparation and environment for the trip. At the extreme, the occurrence of bad trips without proper preparation can result in a tripper committing self-harm or harming others, suicide attempts and contact with law enforcement.
Psychedelic specialists in the psychotherapeutic community do not necessarily consider unpleasant experiences as unhealthy or undesirable, focusing instead on their potential for psychological healing, to lead to breakthrough and resolution of unresolved psychic issues.

Interpretive frameworks

Link R. Swanson divides scientific frameworks for understanding psychedelic experiences into two waves. In the first wave he includes model psychosis theory, filtration theory, and psychoanalytic theory. Aldous Huxley was a proponent of filtration theory. In his book The Doors of Perception, he presents the idea of a mental reducing valve in order to explain the significance of the psychedelic experience. According to Huxley, the central nervous system's main function is to shut out the majority of what we perceive; the brain filters those perceptions which are useful for survival. Society aids in this filtering by creating a symbolic system which structures our reality and which reduces our awareness. Huxley postulated that psychedelics lessened the strength of the mind's reducing valve, allowing for a broader spectrum of one's overall experience to enter into conscious experience.
In the second wave of theories, Swanson includes entropic brain theory, integrated information theory, and predictive processing.

In religious and spiritual contexts

likened psychedelic experiencing to the transformations of consciousness that are undertaken in Taoism and Zen, which he says is, "more like the correction of faulty perception or the curing of a disease… not an acquisitive process of learning more and more facts or greater and greater skills, but rather an unlearning of wrong habits and opinions." Watts further described the LSD experience as, "revelations of the secret workings of the brain, of the associative and patterning processes, the ordering systems which carry out all our sensing and thinking."
According to Luis Luna, there is a distinctly gnosis-like quality to psychedelic experiencing; it is a learning experience that elevates consciousness and makes a profound contribution to personal development. For this reason, the plant sources of some psychedelic drugs such as ayahuasca and mescaline-containing cacti are sometimes referred to as "plant teachers" by those using those drugs.
Furthermore, psychedelic drugs have a long history of religious use across the world. They are often called entheogens because of their propensity to induce these kinds of experiences. Several modern religions exist today that base their religious activities and beliefs around psychedelic experiences, such as Santo Daime and the Native American Church. In this context, the psychedelic experience is interpreted as a way of communicating with the realm of spirits or ancestors.

Psychedelic psychotherapy

Psychedelic therapy refers to therapeutic practices involving the use of psychedelic drugs to facilitate beneficial emotional processing and exploration of the psyche. In contrast to conventional psychiatric medication which is taken by the patient regularly or as-needed, in psychedelic therapy, patients remain in an extended psychotherapy session during the acute activity of the drug and spend the night at the facility. In the sessions with the drug, therapists are nondirective and support the patient in exploring their inner experience. Patients participate in psychotherapy before the drug psychotherapy sessions to prepare them and after the drug psychotherapy to help them integrate their experiences with the drug.
An early practitioner of psychedelic drug based psychiatry was Humphrey Osmond, a British psychiatrist who was responsible for coining the word psychedelic. Osmond claimed that his own personal use of LSD had helped him to understand the inner mental states of his schizophrenic patients. Another important practitioner in this field is Stanislav Grof, who pioneered the use of LSD in psychotherapy. Grof characterised psychedelic experiencing as "non-specific amplification of unconscious mental processes", and he analysed the phenomenology of the LSD experience in terms of Otto Rank's theory of the unresolved memory of the primal birth trauma.