Demystifying Psychedelics
As I signal on my professional profile, the human mind stands out as my primary subject of interest and as a scientific frontier worthy of ongoing exploration. However, in spite of our advances and the fact that in the last few centuries we have amassed a great deal of information on the material brain, the mechanisms governing emergent mental properties arising from the brain's composition still seem distant. Yet we never relent. Our consciousness, individual and collective - is continually striving to better understand everything in the world around it. This human search for insight into all things - including itself - is of endless fascination.
It is often difficult to reconcile the deeply materialistic and functional perspective on the human brain with the nuanced, individualistic subjective experience of the mind that we all share. Thus I extol Michael Pollan's 2018 narrative 'How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence' as it manages to guide readers on a clear path through the story surrounding the history, science and potential medical indications of Psychedelics. Psychedelics, etymologically derived from psyche (mind) and the Greek delos (reveal/manifest) and their associated affects walk the mystical line between the purely physiological and the inscrutably psychological. Chemically defined compounds, ingested, adsorbed, carried through the bloodstream, crossing the blood brain barrier, and acting with long standing effects on a narrow series of receptors to drastically alter our neural activity is feasible enough to understand. These effects are observable to the point of imaging altered blood flow with MRI in brain regions associated with key behaviors, emotions and memories. But there exist a myriad of personalities to the mental affect which indicate that experience, memory, and individual mental frameworks refract this chemically induced experience, into a unique spectrum of uncontrolled dream 'non-sense'. Both paradigms of understanding the brain and mind are at the pinnacle of their respective studies, and yet we still found standing at the edge of a cliff, staring out onto a vast series of unknowns - of the many integrative mechanisms of human perception and experience.
Historical Figures
The psychedelic narrative is a storied journey which branches forth from the mind into various associated experiences brought about by the discovery of psychoactive compounds. The experiences can range from intense euphoria to paralyzing terror, with lengthy duration potentially enhanced by altered perception of time. These experiences and their mystical hold over users have long had spiritual implications. Even natural substances in use today have been around for centuries - commonly used in ancient, shamanistic and religious traditions to elucidate transcendent experiences. Pollan tracks the arrival of psilocybin and psychedelics to the American zeitgeist through cultural elites at the top of Time-Life magazine Henry and Claire Luce. The story of banker R. Gordon Wasson happening upon the secret healings of the Mazatec Indian peoples in southern Mexico was a tantalizing account and brought awareness of these phenomena into a greater number of American minds. With the accidental discovery of LSD by Albert Hoffman in 1938 and the work of notable figures like Timothy Leary, these once rarified experiences have the potential to become commonplace - requiring us only to understand them more fully as tools for the mind.
'Modern' Medicine and New Approaches to Depression, Addiction, and End of Life Care
With the societal and legal backlash of the 1970s and classification of psychedelics to the schedule of illegal drugs, clinical studies of psychedelics have been limited in scope, especially compared to novel pharmaceutical antidepressant and addiction drugs. However in the underground, heroic decades of work has been ongoing, recorded by the likes of MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. Additionally, the thought of expanding consciousness has new, modern support from work which has been diligently pursued in Switzerland, Johns Hopkins University, and London. As of this writing, entrepreneurial efforts by companies such as MindMed, Field Trip Health and a myriad of others seek to harness business philosophies to expand access for all to potentially revolutionary mental health therapies. Polland discusses his tracing the undercurrents of psychedelic psychiatric research from the 1960s, through the period in which it was pushed underground, but continued into today's renaissance and rebirth, particularly abroad in countries with more relaxed drug scheduling and attitudes towards prosecution. By laying out the historic path on the subject, his writing helps to provide context and understanding for a path forward of adoption in areas of medicine/mental health which may benefit from the effects described. OCD, PTSD/Suicide, Palliative Care, Substance Abuse and Addiction are issues with multibillion dollar losses in productivity, and treatment regimens which may be improved or even revolutionized with the expansion of tools to include psychedelics. Issues of safety are discussed in the book as well to give understanding to readers of why we were once concerned as a society, and to contextualize that once we understand what we are dealing with after more research, we may not have as much to fear as once perceived.
The Default Mode Network versus the Dissolution of Ego
One hypothesis at hand regarding psychedelic's therapeutic value to mental health is reduction of the ruminations caused by the default mode network - an functionally interwoven, physically distributed series of brain regions that imaging identifies as more active when the brain is at 'resting wakefulness' than during a specific task. Work from the Imperial College of London (found here) published in 2014 provides an outline for the cognitive neuroscientific bases by which the dissolution of our own egos can provide healing. Additional research is digested and disseminated at PSR to identify mechanisms of change arising from psychedelic assisted psychotherapy (PAP). Pollan describes his personal experience with philosophical musings on his realism driven worldview countering mysticism, but still finding himself beholden to ego dissolving effects. Properly harnessing this phenomena to tackle the issues above will completely revolutionize the paradigm of understanding of our minds.
Problems, Solutions or Both?
The change in legal status of cannabis and the corresponding birth of an industry seems to serve as a sign of things to come for the potential legalization of psychedelic substances. As of this writing, The federal drug schedule, created in the past reads in direct conflict of the potential mental health benefits that psychedelic substances could bring to those suffering. Modern neuroscience along with advances in mainstream acceptance of mental health issues which can be helped via psychotherapy have illuminated new uses for these compounds, potentially transforming them from recreational drugs into functional tools. Still more challenges will arise beyond legal and societal acceptance such as: Dosing, Purity, Compound Development, Manufacture, and Distribution, Financial and Human Capital Constraints, Safety and Efficacy Reviews just to name a few. This new industry could be years, even decades away still - but to see the pieces begin to come together, Pollan's writing achieves this story telling mission beautifully.
I'm hoping that we continue to find that with the wonders of our human conscience, to change our minds all it may take is to cast an altered perspective onto the old to transform it into something new.
Comments