Turn on, tune in, heal yourself

When I first tried psychedelics in the 1970s, I wasn’t trying to heal myself. I was curious to find out how psychedelics, including LSD and “magic” mushrooms, could alter my consciousness.

image: New Scientist

My trip into hallucinogenic world of psychedelics wasn’t as studious as Aldous Huxley’s. He took notes as he journeyed into a state of altered perception. In his book, The Doors of Perception, he says:

“Half an hour after swallowing the drug I became aware of a slow dance of golden lights . . .”

That’s pretty much the way my experience went. It wasn’t always a joy ride –not something you tried casually. It required commitment and was truly a “trip.” Once you stepped onto that path, more like a conveyor belt, there was no turning back at for many hours.

“Turn on, tune in, drop out” was a phrase first popularized by Timothy Leary in 1966. He was a promoter of psychedelics as part of the hippy counterculture. Leary borrowed the phrase from the Canadian media guru, Marshall McLuhan.

Regrettably, after psychedelics became “recreational drugs,” they were made illegal. That’s when serious investigation into the medicinal applications of that family of drugs stopped.

One of those early studies in the 1950s was at the Saskatchewan Mental Hospital in Weyburn. That’s when the term “psychedelic” was first coined.   Saskatchewan was home to some of the most important psychedelic research in the world at the time. Treating patients with a single dose of psychedelic was seen as an attractive, cost-effective approach. It fit with the goals of a new, publicly funded health-care system started by Saskatchewan’s new premier, Tommy Douglas. The treatment was aimed at restoring health and autonomy to patients who had long been confined to asylums.

Since then, the prohibition of drugs has been a disaster. Instead of limiting drug use, making them illegal under the criminal code has increased the use of unregulated, contaminated and dangerous street drugs. This is especially true of synthetic opioids such as Fentanyl.

The trouble with opioids is that they are addictive with ever-increasing doses.

Now that the hippy era just a nostalgic memory and acid trips are no longer in vogue, the medical uses of psychedelics are being investigated again.

Health Canada has only approved psilocybin treatment for people in palliative care. The Vancouver Island based company, Numinus Wellness, is one of many who are looking go beyond that to the treatment of mental illness, addiction and trauma. Dr. Evan Wood, chief medical officer at Numinus says:

“With one in five Canadians currently grappling with debilitating mental-health conditions, we can’t afford not to look at psilocybin seriously (Globe and Mail, Sept. 4, 2021).”

The pandemic has further increased the incidence of mental illness.

The difference between using opioids versus psychedelics is that one or two treatments of psychedelics can completely change your view of reality.

“A session with psilocybin seems to disrupt this network,” adds Wood, “reset it and decrease its activity, thus alleviating the symptoms. The changes it appears to be bringing about with people are really profound. It gets at the root of what’s driving people to these mental disorders. Instead of giving them chemicals that numb those feelings, these treatments help you put that trauma behind you.”

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Sense and consciousness

Consciousness is at once mundane and profound. It’s mundane because it’s as common as the air we breathe. It’s profound because it shapes our view of the spiritual world.

The Mystery of Consciousness. John Searle

Consciousness is by nature non-physical. For most of us, it seems to be “centred just behind my eyes, right in the middle of my head,” says Jay Ingram in his book Theatre of the Mind – Raising the Curtain on Consciousness. That’s not the case for everyone. Some locate consciousness in the back of the head, or even the throat or heart.

Sometimes consciousness seems not to be in the body at all, as when you think of the last time you were on the beach; you might see yourself from behind, from above or just about anywhere except inside your head.

Consciousness leads us to imagine beings without bodies. The existence of ghosts, gods, angels, devils seems perfectly plausible. If gods exist, then religions are a natural consequence.

The speculation is endless. If our minds are as separate from material bodies, then it’s perfectly reasonable to assume that we continue to exist after we die. And maybe those non-physical beings materialize in the bodies others as in reincarnation.

There are some indisputable qualities of consciousness. John Searle, in his book The Mystery of Consciousness lists them. For one, consciousness is completely subjective: it’s all about us. Another is its singular nature. Despite drawing from widely different senses, it presents us with one view. The pain of stubbing your toe occupies the same world as what you are reading.

However, the impression that consciousness is non-material is wrong. It seems to me that the mind and body are one and that dualism, the so-called mind-body problem, is a consequence of the misunderstanding of consciousness. That would explain why mental illness can be treated through chemicals or through the mind. George Johnson explains:

“Depression can be treated in two radically different ways: by altering the brain with chemicals, or by altering the mind by talking to a therapist. But we still can’t explain how mind arises from matter or how, in turn, mind acts on the brain (Globe and Mail, Aug. 5, 2016, Magic in the machine)”

The two treatments only seem different if we are convinced that the mind and brain are separate.

Just what consciousness is remains a mystery but here are four explanations from the most plausible to least.

Neuroscientist Michael Graziano proposes that consciousness is a kind of con game the brain plays with itself, similar to a dream. Consciousness is simulation of the workings of the brain –the firing of neurons and synapses. “The machine mistakenly thinks it has magic inside it.”

Along the same lines, Jay Ingram suggests that consciousness is a story that our brains tell ourselves: “consciousness is a highly processed and abstracted version of the world outside the head, an invention more than an impression… (p.27).”

John Searle: “In my view we have to abandon dualism and start with the assumption that consciousness is an ordinary biological phenomenon comparable to growth, digestion, and the production of bile (p.6).”

And lastly, consciousness is built into everything including molecules and atoms. Called panpsychism, advocates see themselves as minds in a world of minds.