What Are Psychedelics?
Michael Ebbinghaus • May 17, 2022
The Experience, Neurochemistry, and Spirituality
Psychedelics have come to the fore over the last decade. It seems that everyone and their grandmother has sat with the Grandmother. There is a lot of discussion and controversy over what psychedelics are, and getting down to what they do and the kinds of experiences they catalyze can be a difficult endeavor. In this article, I break down what psychedelics do experientially, neurochemically, and spiritually.
Before we get there, however, let’s look at the term “psychedelic” itself along with "entheogen," another common descriptor. Both terms are relatively similar, the former meaning literally “soul manifesting” and the latter “becoming the divine within.” Both of these terms point to something core to our being, something we don’t generally experience in our ordinary waking state of consciousness, that manifests through the ingestion of different substances whether they be lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) or ayahuasca, the traditional Amazonian brew with N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) as its active component. What this implies is that what we think we are, i.e. the ego, the self-concept we experience ourselves as in our day-to-day, is but a small component of who we really are. Psychedelics are great at this, and while “who we really are” is enigmatic right now, through the course of this article it will become plain what that means.
There are many classes of chemicals and traditional plant medicines that mediate altered states of consciousness and expanded states of being. Here I will be focusing more so on the classic psychedelics and traditional plant medicines with similar chemical makeup such as LSD, psilocybin (active component in magic mushrooms), DMT, ayahuasca, and mescaline. While all of these medicines have different phenomenologies and subtleties in neuroreceptor mechanics, not to mention their association with certain plant spirits (such as ayahuasca), they have many similarities that transcend their differences, and the ultimate reality they reveal is, at the end of the day, ultimate.
The Experience of Psychedelics
The range of psychedelic experiences is as varied as the substances, the individuals that take them, and the settings they take them in. All of these factors are vital, which is why there is so much emphasis on the set
(the mindset the individual inhabits when going into a psychedelic experience) and setting
(in what context they are taken). Someone with an atheistic worldview taking them at a music festival and melting into and becoming the music is going to have a very different experience than someone who takes them in a religious ceremony.
"What this implies is that what we think we are, i.e. the ego, the self-concept we experience ourselves as in our day-to-day, is but a small component of who we really are."
One of the reliable effects of the various psychedelics, however, is the relaxing or fading away of the ego, or the conceptual self. At lower doses one generally feels a looseness and a freedom not generally encountered, and at moderate-to-high doses one may experience varying degrees of ego death, the recognition that we are not what we generally perceive ourselves to be, that we create and repetitively engrain ourselves into habitual ways of being, that we are free to change whenever we wish, and that the totality of what we are could never be defined as an object of consciousness because we are consciousness itself (more on this in the “What Psychedelics do Spiritually” section).
How ego dissolution is experienced is, again, going to depend upon the disposition of the individual and their intention going in. Being primed with that knowledge is incredibly helpful, and it is why so often an intention of surrender can help one to pass through the phase of leaving the known with less difficulty. When entering the space past the ego, our reactions to and perception of the experience will be mirrored back to us. This is why Dr. Stanislov Grof, a Czechoslovakian physician who conducted tens of thousands of LSD-assisted psychotherapy sessions in the 1960s and 70s, describes psychedelics as being “non-specific amplifiers of consciousness.” What that means is that if we are intensely afraid of what is happening to us, the experience will appear and grow more and more terrifying. If we meet it with equanimity, presence, and bliss, it will fill us with radiance and the divine dance of cosmic love.
"...the totality of what we are could never be defined as an object of consciousness because we are consciousness itself."
One of the things that psychedelics shows us is the power of our mind to manifest reality, in fact it cannot be done without it! This is what modern Buddhist philosophy refers to as “reification,” or “making it real.” We all do this to varying degree. Almost all of us do it in our dreams where we encounter fantastic scenarios with no basis in physical reality and accept them as real and happening without resistance. We do this also in our waking life with who we think we are, our reactions to others, and our immediate reactions to situations and things. How often do we end a love relationship and feel that we are going to die or that we’ll never be happy again, only to reencounter the same scenario months and years later?
A helpful trick with this is to take command and sovereignty of one’s experience. Because what we are experiencing in the psychedelic experience is us, we can actually ask it to alter its form. So, if you find yourself in the midst of a rather unpleasant and challenging experience, perhaps confronting a demonic monster that is tearing apart your insides, we can ask It or the experience or God to change the way in which it is manifesting.
I’ve revealed my bias towards the spiritual side of the psychedelic experience, but I believe it to be Ultimate Truth, and like all ultimate truth, it exists within every level of reality. So while this is all happening within someone’s subjective experience, there is also something occurring in the external world, i.e. the alteration of neurochemistry, receptor dynamics, and electrophysiology, that mirrors what is happening. This is not to say that the subjective experience can be reduced to receptor chemistry – that is material reductionism. With that said, let us examine what’s going on in the brain during a psychedelic experience.
The Neurobiology of Psychedelics
Psychedelic science has been the greatest movement in the modern era to bridge the empirical subjective practices of the East (e.g. Tibetan Buddhism) with the empirical objectivism of the West (material science). The ego dissolution that the individual experiences can be mirrored in the way their brain begins to connect to itself in novel and liberating ways. The image at the top of this post reveals the diversity of connections that occur when someone is in a psychedelic state.
"We not only discover but experience in every cell of our being the continuous vibration and divination of a sacred whisper."
The classic psychedelics act chiefly on the 5-HT2A
(serotonin subtype 2A) receptor. These receptors are densely situated in an area of the brain commonly known as the Default Mode Network (DMN), so-called because it experiences greater activity when someone is at rest. So this is the part of you that, when you’re just sitting there on the bus with nothing to do or are in bed but not quite falling asleep, runs and runs and runs. It is a self-referential network. During these times of inactivity, unoccupied by our relationships, jobs, hobbies, and tasks, we are often tuned to what comes next. I have to do this tomorrow. Wow I really muddled up that conversation yesterday. Where is my life going? Et cetera. It is the neural correlate of the ego, that conceptual self we discussed earlier.
Can you guess what happens to it when someone psychedelics are ingested?
It doesn’t exactly disappear, but rather than neural activity remaining confined to this little area at the center of our head, the brain starts lighting up all over the place. Neurons that don’t often talk to one another are suddenly in a riveting and enthusiastic conversation. In this state, you are actually more connected to yourself than in the majority of waking life.
What’s more, the brain state that has been scientifically documented again and again is nearly identical to the state that advanced meditators drop into when they practice samatha. This points to a shift and broadening of awareness that is less focused on the little-s self and more on the big bad Carl Jungian Self. This brings us to…
The Spirituality of Psychedelics
Psychedelics reveal a deeper level of the reality that we are intimately connected to and inseparable from. The ego is our little self existing here in this plane, and for good reason. We need a place to stand so that we can feed, water, and perpetuate our organism, and what fun we get to have in doing so! However, because Western culture became so en-grossed (literally in the material world) and lost sight of its infinite interconnection to experience at large, we confused the incarnation with the totality, confused the servant with the master.
We all have a conception of who and what we think we are. We attach ourselves to various identities and roles, passions and hobbies, likes and dislikes. It's not intuitive or obvious, but we cannot be the object of our consciousness because we are the consciousness which perceives it. We are simultaneously the object to be perceived and the perceiver, however, only the latter remains. We were many forms before we took this one. We were particles in the air, trees, soil, and at some point, food in our mothers' mouths that was funneled into our physical form via our umbilical cord. Throughout all of the various cycles and changes the world, ourselves, and everything goes through, there is an awareness that permeates it all.
When we are under the influence of a psychedelic substance, the totality floods in. It opens the aperture between the conscious and unconscious, and we are able to recognize the fullness of what we are and dispel the illusion of our separateness. We not only discover but experience in every cell of our being the continuous vibration and divination of a sacred whisper. Eons long passed find themselves manifest in the moment, the network of our past and the unpaved road of the future spiral into eternity. Our fall from grace has gone full circle into the Christly redemption, and in what was once chaos, suffering, and confusion we find peace, beauty, and unending cosmic bliss.
The Sentient Soul
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What is Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy? Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP) is a modality that uses low dose ketamine alongside talk therapy to access non-ordinary states of consciousness, helping clients process trauma, depression, and anxiety in a new and deeper way. One of the most common complaints about traditional psychotherapy is that it can take a very long time for unconscious material to surface, even after a solid relationship has formed with your therapist. While there are techniques we utilize in our practice that do not require substances (e.g. dreamwork, sentence completion, automatic writing/drawing, etc.), the introduction of intentional medicine work can reliably shift one into an altered state of consciousness, catalyzing access to unconscious material. After a brief introductory period, you will take ketamine under supervision from your therapist either in-office or virtually in the comfort of your own home. The therapist will guide you to take your own journey as well as direct you towards areas that might benefit from exploration in an alternate perspective. Learn more What is Ketamine? Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic acting primarily on the glutamate neurotransmitter system. This differentiates it from the traditional psychedelics like LSD and psychedelic mushrooms which are much more prominent in the serotonin system. Ketamine increases neural plasticity, meaning that the brain becomes more flexible to change, open to new insights and behaviors. Ketamine has been used for over 50 years as a surgical anesthetic. It has no impact on the respiratory system, making it one of the most safe and effective medicines available. It is classified as a WHO top 10 essential medicine, and it is so safe that it is still the anesthetic of choice for children. It is a schedule III medication approved for off-label use in assisted psychotherapy, meaning a healthcare professional must be supervising in some capacity. Screening is essential, see below for more information. How KAP Works One of the things we like to stress is that the medicine is taking you to a place within yourself. It is not the ketamine "doing" anything other than relaxing your emotional defenses and allowing for exploration of consciousness. That said, you will feel a degree of relaxation in your body as well as your mind, which allows things which we keep buried to come up to the surface. By shifting into an alternate state of consciousness, we are able to sublimate many of the barriers we have in place that remain opaque to us. Oftentimes simply allowing this material to surface creates greater harmony, and you ma find yourself saying "Oh - this is what I've been afraid of for so long? It's not so big and scary after all." This is not always the case, of course. The nature of what is hidden can also be very painful, which is why the presence of the therapist as well as the therapeutic relationship is imperative when first working with alternate states of consciousness and healing trauma. What Does KAP Treat? Ketamine's claim to fame comes from its potent and immediate anti-depressive effect . While this requires lifestyle change and further exploration - greatly benefitted by depth psychotherapy - this can be incredibly helpful to those experiencing treatment resistant depression. It does this primarily through breaking up rigid neural networks (enhanced neuroplasticity), limiting one's ability to ruminate. Ketamine for depression can be powerful, indeed. In a meta-analysis of over 2,500 patients, it was found that 45% of people had significant drops in clinical depressions inventories, with 30% in remission. The benefits were often sustained at 6-month follow up. Ketamine-assisted therapy can be helpful for those who experience post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD . The clinical evidence here is quite strong, with multiple meta-analyses and an open label study showing durable and significant reductions in PTSD symptoms in as many as 69% of respondents and up to six-months' follow up. Ketamine for trauma is widely studied and efficacious. Anxiety is also significantly reduced after brief KAP treatments. In a glimpse, ketamine can treat: Treatment-resistant depression PTSD and trauma-related symptoms Anxiety and existential distress Addiction and maladaptive coping Spiritual exploration or life transitions What Does Treatment Look Like At Ebb & Flow Depth Psychotherapy, we believe in the importance of a strong therapeutic relationship to help sustain the positive effects from ketamine treatment. To this end, prior to any medicine session, there are 6-8 preparation sessions (this can be reduced to 2-4 if you are already working with another therapist). From there, we will conduct two initial dosing sessions with an integration session in between each. We would then conduct another 6-8 dosing sessions, also with an integration session in between each. Our Approach During each session, you will be gently guided into your body utilizing a simple meditation or, if preferred, ambient music. We utilize sublingual lozenges, tablets which will be dissolved and swished in the mouth for 10-12 minutes, then spit out. This offers a psycholytic approach rather than a psychedelic approach. We prefer the psycholytic approach for two main reasons: 1) This helps to make ketamine-assisted psychotherapy more affordable, as the presence of a medical professional such as an RN is not needed as they are in IM (intramuscular) or IV (intravenous) injections. 2) Psychedelic ketamine therapy can be effective, but in our hustle and bustle world, the subtle work often gets overlooked, and it is the subtle work that carries us the farthest. If you’re seeking a full psychedelic experience, I often recommend doing so on your own time and terms, ideally in nature or a supportive setting. There are few practitioners I would trust to guide me through such an experience, and they come at an extraordinary financial cost more often than not. With psycholytic ketamine therapy, we are nudging gently and entering into an altered state but not breaking open the doors of reality. Through the experience and through the journey you've taken thus far, which includes your triumphs and your traumas, we will expand not only on who you are but who you are meant to be. Your exuberant and mature presence is sorely needed in this world, and it requires reconciliation of our darker nature and highest aspirations. Who is KAP for? Ask yourself now: "Am I in a place where I am ready for deep self-exploration?" "Am I open to the idea of letting go of things which both pain and comfort me?" "Can I remain off of substances and away from process addictions (such as pornography, over-eating/bingeing and purging, sex, etc.) for at least three days?" You may not be ready for KAP if: Are experiencing active psychosis or mania Have untreated Bipolar I or II disorder Have a personal or family history of schizophrenia Are currently struggling with active substance dependence If you are in a grounded place and ready to make shifts in your life, KAP may offer the support you've been looking for. Ketamine Therapy In Austin, TX - How to Get Started Contact me today for your free consultation to see if ketamine assisted depth psychotherapy might be right for you. Myself and the fine clinicians over at Journey Clinical are ready to help you find deeper meaning in life and be the change in the world you wish to see. We conduct ketamine-assisted therapy in Austin, Texas as well as virtually all over the state. Reach out to us today!
