“I suddenly became strangely inebriated. The external world became changed as in a dream. Objects appeared to gain in relief; they assumed unusual dimensions and colors became more glowing. Even self-perception and the sense of time were changed.”
It’s in those terms that Albert Hoffman, the first scientist to synthesize and learn about the psychedelic effects of LSD, described how he felt after ingesting the drug in 1944. This idea that dreamlike experiences can be elicited by drugs has been around for a long time. Even before Western societies became interested in psychedelics, the ceremonial use of plants and fungi containing psychoactive compounds by pre-industrial societies had ascribed them the role of "transporters" to the realm of dreams and to the spirit world.
However, it’s only during the last decade that researchers have made more important steps in studying this connection between the dream state and the psychedelic state. They’ve been interested in looking at how these drugs alter the mind, and how they might be helpful in clinical practice. Our normal state—during waking hours—is just one state of consciousness we experience. Looking at other states (such as when we’re sleeping or under the influence of drugs) can give us a more comprehensive picture of the human mind, and how it can be treated. Recent research has compared those different states to understand how psychedelics transform us and our experience of reality, and how they can contribute to treating our mental health problems.
The many restrictions in place around the world to use these substances in the lab, of course, have slowed down scientific progress in the field. Still, tenacious efforts have rewarded scientists the opportunity to use neuroimaging tools to map changes in consciousness elicited by psilocybin, a psychedelic molecule found in shrooms. The neurophysiological changes induced appeared similar to those seen in previous studies of dream neuroimaging.
But researchers have wanted to find more robust evidence that the changes in the mind caused by psychedelics not only looked the same in the brain of users as dreaming, but also felt the same. This is key to understand how different states of consciousness manifest themselves in people, and how these different states can be manipulated to offer better psychiatric care. “While MRI scans can help you see similarities between different states of altered consciousness, like dreaming or the psychedelic-induced state, there are limits to this approach. It overlooks perception entirely," says Enzo Tagliazucchi, a researcher at the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina who studies human consciousness. "It’s possible that two states look similar, but for some unknown reason, the subjective feeling is different. It’s important to investigate this aspect too."
To find out more, he and his student Camila Sanz recently conducted a study to compare the experiences of drug users with that of dreamers. They came up with an original approach to get around the restrictions surrounding the use of these substances in research settings. They turned to online testimonials where many drugs users go to report their experiences with a great variety of substances, from psychedelics and deliriants to sedatives and antipsychotic drugs. Using sophisticated analytical tools, they studied the content of thousands on these testimonials, to see which drugs were reported to induce a state most similar to dreaming.
Via; VICE
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