Psychedelics, Psychotherapy and Mysticism
Even for non-religious people mystical experiences are often reported as being profoundly spiritual and meaningful. Despite this, mystical experiences have been largely ignored by mainstream psychology and psychiatry.
Why has this been the case?
Mystical Experiences on 5-Meo-DMT & Psilocybin
Dr Dean Wright The Griffith Lab of Johns Hopkins, are one of the driving forces behind the current Psychedelic Renaissance. Their initial studies looked at how psilocybin can occasion Mystical Experiences. Mystical experiences are characterised by four primary domains, including: A sense of unity or profunditypositive mood transcendence of time/spaceineffability Having a mystical experience seems to […]
The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience
Dr Dean Wright The previous two posts (one and two) sought to identify how the Set of the person influences the psychedelic experience. The current study seeks to understand how the ‘drug‘ affects the psychedelic experience. The authors use the bounty of knowledge available from Erowid. They seek to help establish how different psychedelics influence the subjective effects of […]
Psychedelics and Connectedness
Dr Dean Wright A study from 2017 performed a thematic analysis of patients’ experiences of using psilocybin in a therapeutic context. Within the people who experienced the largest therapeutic effect, the theme of “connection” or “connectedness” was prevalent.. This could be further broken down into connection with the self, others, and the world. It makes sense that […]
Predicting Responses to Psychedelics
Dr Dean Wright You may have read about, or even participated in the Psychedelic Experience Survey, run by the Psychedelic Research Group at the Imperial College, London. This survey was designed to measure the effects of people’s personal use of psychedelics. To do this, participants complete a variety of online questionnaires at various time points, from two […]
Psychedelics and Creativity
Dr Dean Wright Creativity is a difficult construct to define within psychological terms. We know it when we see it, but how do we define it? Within psychology, creativity is commonly defined as the ability to generate ideas, solutions, or products that are both novel and appropriate. Being able to come up with alternative solutions to […]
Changing the ‘Depressed Filter’ using Psilocybin
Dr Dean Wright Within the mental landscape of a person with depression, some commonalities arise. These include persistent negative biases of how that person looks at themselves, and their future prospects. A sense of worthlessness and hopelessness generally arises, leading people to become apathetic and avoid pursuing activities. Within the depressed person, very often these […]
Music and Psychedelics
Dr Dean Wright Recent findings point to the potential of music to support meaning-making, emotionality, and mental imagery after the administration of psychedelics. These studies suggest that music plays an important role in facilitating positive clinical outcomes of psychedelic therapy. Read a review of the literature here: Abstract and Full text. Are you interested to know exactly what […]
MDMA for Social Anxiety in Autistic Adults
Dr Dean Wright The team at MAPS, lead by Alicia Danforth, have published a randomized, controlled, pilot study using MDMA-assisted psychotherapy to treat social anxiety in autistic adults. There was a signiificant reduction in Anxiety levels after the treatment, which remained low 6 months after the final therapy session. This difference was found to have […]
Do Psychedelics Take you ‘Higher’?
Dr Dean Wright Melbourne researchers, Tim Bayne and Olivia Carter have published a recent paper exlporing the current evidence of what exactly LSD and Psilocybin do to various domains of consciousness. They focus on the domains of sensory perception, cognitive function, and experiences of unity. They argue that psychedelics do not necessarily induce a “higher” state […]