In this episode we have the challenging job of getting our head around the psychology of altered states of consciousness or ‘exceptional human experiences’ as today’s specialist calls them. Are they mere illusions of the mind? Does their ability to radically change our world view and sense of meaning in the world give them a special status in psychology and mental health? And how do we talk scientifically about significant similarities between such experiences across different times and cultures that appear to imply the existence of an alternative kind of ‘reality’ what ever ‘reality’ is.

Fortunately, to navigate this bag of worms, we have a researcher who has devoted his career to the study of these experiences both psychedelic and other, Dr. David Luke. David Luke is currently a module leader of the Psychology of Exceptional Human Experience in Greenwich Universities Psychology and Counselling Department, a course he has been running since 2009.

He is also currently an Honorary Senior Lecturer for the Centre for Psychedelic Research, Division of Brain Sciences, Imperial College London. He was President of the Parapsychological Association between 2009 and 2011, and received the Faculty's first Inspirational Teaching Award (2016) from the University of Greenwich.

He is a prolific author and editor of books, and today we’ll be discussing his 2017 book ‘Otherworlds: Psychedelics and exceptional human experiences’ and his new book, a collections of essays he has edited called ‘DMT Entity Encounters: Dialogues on the Spirit Molecule’

He is also the co-founder of the Breaking Convention Conference on Psychedelics.

What we discuss in this episode: 

00:00 Intro

04:20 Measuring subjective qualitative experiences

11:45 The different types of altered states of consciousness

18:00 Reduced activity in the DMN (Default Mode Network) during alternate states of consciousness, but increased brain region connectivity

21:30 Evaluating mystical experiences psychologically

33:00 The connection between psychedelics and telepathy

57:00 Psychonautics - trying to map psychedelic realms and types of beings encountered

and much much more (full show notes here)

References:

William James - Radical Empiricism

During Altered states there is a reduced activity in the DMN but increased brain region connectivity

Johns Hopkins and NYU studies - Intensity of mystical experience correlation with positive clinical outcomes.

%50 drop in atheism among DMT experiencers

Stephen Szára - first DMT experiments in 1950’s

Charles Laughlin - Polyphasic culture and transpersonal anthropology

Medicalisation and Reciprocity Specialists Symposium