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We are, every one of us, tied together by an ancient biochemical link; one that predates the divergence of all major kingdoms of life. What began two and a half billion years ago in the primeval waters of the Archean Eon would one day come to be involved in almost all aspects of animal life. What might the origins of serotonin and its chemical cousins reveal about the nature and function of psychedelic experience? How might the processes of psychedelic experience help us find meaning, learn from the past, gain insight, and find a way forward? Could they even help us strategize, innovate, re-orient our priorities, and more effectively allocate our resources?… (Read more)
Research Horizon
From sensitizing visceral sensation in the vagus nerve to the intersection of psychedelics with systems thinking, from the neuropsychological mechanisms of insight to the alteration of social status and resource access priority, and from accelerated conditioning, deconditioning, and neuroplasticity, to the fundamental building blocks of meaning—and how they all interact—we’ll be exploring a broad spectrum of topics and research related to psychedelic experience… (Read more)
I. Psychedelic and Systems Thinking
We’ll take a look at the implications of various effects of psychedelics on systems thinking mindsets and skills, and what they might mean for creative and other psychedelic professionals. Have a look at what we have planned… (Read more)
Articles
Can You Feel It? On Psychedelic Microdosing
Microdosing, beyond the sub-perceptual, for solving currently relevant complex procedural and social-emotional problems that require innovative solutions. […] Warning: the serotonin system is involved in regulating energy metabolism, social status (including resource access priority such as to food and mates), and psychedelics may lead to a challenging re-evaluation of priorities… (Read more)
Quantifying Psychedelic Insight – A Quick Peek and the Psychological Insight Questionnaire (PIQ)
Johns Hopkins researchers develop a groundbreaking new tool to assess specific, discrete insights from psychedelic experiences. This first-of-its-kind measure examines particular insights and realizations rather than general feelings of insightfulness. Their findings suggest insights may be more strongly linked to improvements in well-being than mystical experiences… (Read more)
D. W. Woolley, the Serotonin Hypothesis, and the Genesis of Psychopharmacology
Canadian biochemist D. W. Woolley’s research into antimetabolites at the Rockefeller Institute led him identify serotonin as an important player in mental illness, challenging then-prevailing Freudian views. Woolley’s work not only helped initiate the field of psychopharmacology but also shifted the perception of the brain from an electrically driven organ to one profoundly influenced by chemistry… (Read more)
Adult Disorganized Attachment: Pathology, Absorption, and Mystical Experience
Adult Disorganized Attachment (ADA) represents the most dysfunctional attachment style, marked by conflicting anxious-avoidant and aggressive-approach behaviors. This short review explores ADA’s links to dissociation, absorption, and a propensity for mystical experiences. While mystical experiences may offer adaptive outcomes for ADA, their pathological counterparts, such as fearful ego dissolution, remain underexplored… (Read more)
Multiple Functional Enhancements of Dopamine Signaling by LSD
This study adds to the growing body of evidence that serotonergic psychedelics affect the dopamine system, implicating them in reward and motivation. This may partially explain anecdotal reports of psychedelics dramatically affecting those with symptoms of attention deficit… (Read more)
A New Understanding: The Science of Psilocybin – Summary and Critical Analysis
This analysis outlines and expands on the psycho-social implications of the film with the use of details directly from the publications, interviews, supplemental panel discussion, paid archives, and from a 2016 presentation given by Dr. Jeffrey Guss, the co-principal investigator of the NYU Psilocybin Cancer Research Project (the main focus of this film), on the study’s primary clinical outcomes. A brief look at some of the science of how psychedelics might work in this context is offered… (Read more)
Probable Evolutionary Relationship of Serotonin and the Plant Growth Hormone Auxin – D. W. Woolley, 1962
In these pages, taken from “Chapter 4 – Serotonin,” D. W. Woolley documents a few structural and functional similarities between serotonin in animals and auxin in plants, and traces its evolutionary lineage back to our earliest ancestors… (Read more)
Relieving Psychedelic Speech Paralysis – Four Strategies for Dealing With Ineffability
“It is not the case that a man who is silent says nothing,” so goes an Apache saying. But silence is often misinterpreted, Branham warns. Some of the strategies often used to overcome this difficult problem include explicitly qualified expression, poetic evocation, and self-destructive anti-expression (including formal and rhetorical subversion)… (Read more)
Classical Psychedelics for Alzheimer’s and TBIs?
Beyond their well-known effects on altering consciousness, classical psychedelics like LSD may hold therapeutic potential for neurodegenerative conditions. This article examines the emerging research suggesting that these compounds could combat inflammation, clear beta-amyloid, combat the effects of sleep-loss on learning, and promote neuroplasticity, with potential implications for treating conditions like Alzheimer’s and traumatic brain injuries… (Read more)
Psychedelic Clinical Trials for Patients With Terminal Illness Set to Begin at St. Vincent Hospital
Confronting terminal illness can lead to a devastating sense of demoralization, loss of hope, meaning, desire for hastened death, depression, and anxiety. Terminal cancer is the second leading cause of death in the world. Cancer will take one in four of us, and almost half of us will face it — at least once, at a rate of 1.6 million people in the US alone every year… (Read more)