The people who choose to consume psychedelic substances and the reasons they do so are as varied as the effects they produce, which are unique for every individual and rarely the same twice. The people that take psychedelics fit all demographics of age, gender, race, ethnicity, class, etc and the various motivations people have for their psychedelic use in modern society is equally as diverse.

One of the most fascinating and mysterious aspects of the psychedelic experience is the entity encounter. People who take psychedelics sometimes describe encounters with beings who seem to be sentient and who are often described as being ‘realer than real.’ These beings have been referred to as ‘guides,’ ‘spirits,’ ‘aliens,’ ‘helpers,’ ‘angels,’ ‘elves,’ and ‘plant spirits’. What could be the purpose of entity encounters?

“On this particular day, I also had back to back zoom meetings, however, as I sat and joined in I realised, that this, this was not a microdose. Luckily, we were about to break for lunch.”

A little update for our community!

Psychedelic substances refer to a class of psychoactive substances, which can induce strong changes in how we see the world, both through our psychology and sensory perception.

Some research has found MDMA to increase neuroplasticity (i.e., the growth of new neural connections in the brain) by way of the brain-derived neurotrophic factor

“So, let us just say we all ended up having an informal conversation about all things psychedelic and tried to weave in insights from the book where we could. This made for a very pleasant a warm atmosphere by the second half of the night.”

Historically, there seems to have been a bias against mysticism in psychiatry and psychology. Traditionally, the mental health field has tended to view mystical states as symptoms of mental illness, rather than paths to mental wellness.

For some, psychedelic or other mystical experiences can unsettle our confidence that reality is as it seems. I’m not here to say that the alternate realities or higher dimensions people perceive during psychedelic experiences actually exist or not. But I am going to argue that there is an important sense in which it doesn’t matter.