What Do Psychedelics Do Actually?

    What  they do is explain to us how psychosis happens.  New research informs us about the brain structures involved, but what it does is simply pin down in the brain something we have  seen for years clinically; both help to clarify psychedelic effects.  It is not that brain research is more scientific; rather, it offers the cerebral corollary for what happens clinically.

  The research is by Drs. Carhart-Harris and David  Nutt, using MRI’s to pinpoint what  goes on after a subject is  given a small dose of psilocybin. (See http://www.beckleyfoundation.org or/and http://www.huffingtonpost.com) There was  reduction in those areas of  the brain that, inter  alia,  control feelings and their rise into the top level cognitive  cortex.  It also seems to unhinge parts of the limbic system,  including the anterior cingulate cortex.  Basically it allows lower level imprints to rise unabated into the thinking area;  and from there, because as someone said, it  is like trying to drink from a fire hose, there is an inundation and flooding.  The brain regions dealing with constricting conscious/awareness give way and we get  exactly, not approximately, what happens in psychosis.  The  difference is that in psychosis there is a slow accretion of imprinted pain that finally damages the gating system and feelings rise and  flood the thinking cortex;  exactly what happens much quicker with psychedelics.  The gates are open in either  case; the pain is the  same.  Nothing changes except the time to takes to damage  the  gates and allowing flooding.

  And what happens when there is flooding?  The cortex is exigently  pressed into service to cover over the rising feelings with whatever ideas and imagination the person/brain can concoct.  They have a bizarre quality to them because they arise not out of specific feelings but from an amalgam of them.  The “fire hose” is spritzing everywhere.  And the brain is forced to use its latest developing structure, the neo-cortex, to join the fray.  I repeat: this is no different from lifelong lack of love and trauma that puts cracks in the defense system (including lowering serotonin  supplies), which  then ultimately gives way.  When it (defense) does not give way but only weakens we get ADD attention deficits where the gates are leaky and cannot properly contain the upsurge.  The feelings rise  and are scattered but do not produce full-blown psychosis.  But they prevent careful and sedulous attention to each task; there are  too many tasks,  too much input that breaks  up focus and concentration.  The brain is forced to pay attention to multiple  inputs (leaky gates), and cannot do it.  In this way we could say that ADD is the forerunner, the harbinger, of a psychosis to come.  This only means that the gates are leaky and  will not withstand further trauma input.  The beginning signs of a collapsing defense system can be delusions; this happens often with lifelong use of  marijuana which gnaws away at defenses.  All this  means according the study cited above is  that the areas of the brain that control  memory retrieval are faulty and do not function well.  What some drugs including psychedelics do is facilitate the retrieval of memory; the problem is with these drugs, there is too much retrieval all at  once and the  top level cannot integrate it.  And when there are leaky gates brought on by drugs you get  continued and long  lasting sleep problems as rising feelings agitate without cease.  The feelings rise to just-below-cortical levels so that the top level is constantly stimulated, and falling into sleep becomes impossible.  Sometimes a lone feeling may come up such as feeling unsafe throughout childhood. Occasionally the person can focus on one thing to  alleviate the agitation……"if I try the door knob  twenty times a day I will feel safe".  Often there  is no  awareness of the role of the obsession; the person simply feels better  if she can try the door knobs.  The ritual alleviates latent anxiety.

  This is the difference between what seems like pure statistical  science and clinical science.  Clinically, we see the relationship among disparate phenomena; we understand why this happens and that does not.  We are not bound exclusively by the "facts".  That is, we have a frame of reference in which to place the facts.  This frame of reference is truth beyond facts; it gives meaning to the facts and broadens our understand of what it all means.  This does not mean that we do not use brain science to further our understanding, but that seeing all this in action explains so much and takes us beyond  pure  statistics.  As I said many times; we are after biologic truths, not simply statistical data.  It is data with imagination that we need.