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Consciousness

IJTS Special Topic Section: Ketamine ● The Transformative Power of Ketamine: Psychedelic States and a Personal History of Transformation

January 1, 2014 / Consciousness, Ketamine, Mystical experiences, Other disciplines, Other subjects, Papers, Personal development, Personality, Psychology, Publications, Spirituality / By /

Abstract

A discussion of the nature of transformation and its relationship to psychedelic experiences— particularly ketamine experiences—is presented and discussed along with a schema for thinking about types of states that may be encountered and transformations that may occur related to psychedelic use and practice. This is followed by a longitudinal historical approach for portraying and examining personal transformation along with a proposed instrument— The Transformational Codex—for cataloging that history and the elements that compose it.

Wolfson, P. E. (2014). The Transformative Power of Ketamine: Psychedelic States and a Personal History of Transformation. International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 33(2).
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IJTS Special Topic Section: Ketamine ● Ethnographic Accounts of Ketamine Explorations in Psychedelic Culture

January 1, 2014 / Addiction, Consciousness, History, Other disciplines, Papers, Personal development, Psychology, Publications, Safety, Sociology, Spirituality / By / , ,

Abstract

Off-label use of ketamine as a mind-altering substance did not begin in the laboratory, but in the psychedelic culture that grew out of the 1960s counterculture movement. Whatever the risks and limitations of such experimentation, without them the remarkable therapeutic effects of the drug might well have gone unnoticed, and unresearched. The following personal accounts—both inspiring and cautionary—offer glimpses into the cultural contexts that found ketamine to be much more than a reliable anesthetic.

Ring, K., Metzner, R., & Wolfson, P. E. (2014). Ethnographic Accounts of Ketamine Explorations in Psychedelic Culture. International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 33(2).
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Confrontation with the Unconscious: Jungian Depth Psychology and Psychedelic Experience

February 6, 2022 / Boeken, Book reviews, Consciousness, Personal development, Publicaties / By

Carl Gustav Jung pioneered the transformative potential of the deep unconscious. Psychedelic substances provide direct and powerful access to this inner world. How, then, might Jungian psychology help us to better understand the nature of psychedelic experiences? And how might psychedelics assist the movement toward psychological transformation described by Jung?

Jungian depth psychology and psychedelic psychotherapy are both concerned with coming to terms with unconscious drives, complexes, and symbolic images. Unaware of significant evidence for the safe clinical use of psychedelic drugs, Jung himself remained wary of psychedelics and staunchly opposed their therapeutic use. His bias has prevented Jungians from objectively considering the benefits as well as the risks of using psychedelics for psychological healing and growth.

Confrontation with the Unconscious intertwines psychedelic research, personal accounts of psychedelic experiences, and C. G. Jung’s work on trauma, the shadow, psychosis, and psychospiritual transformation — including Jung’s own “confrontation with the unconscious” — to show the relevance of Jung’s penetrating insights to the work of Stanislav Grof, Ann Shulgin, Ronald Sandison, Margot Cutner, among other psychedelic and transpersonal researchers, and to demonstrate the great value of Jung’s penetrating insights for understanding difficult psychedelic experiences and promoting safe and effective psychedelic exploration and psychotherapy.

Scott J. Hill, Ph. D., lives in Sweden, where he conducts scholarly research on the intersection between psychedelic studies and Jungian psychology. He holds degrees in psychology from the University of Minnesota and in philosophy and religion from the California Institute of Integral Studies.

Confrontation with the Unconscious: Jungian Depth Psychology and Psychedelic Experience, door Scott J. Hill, Muswell Hill Press, 252 pagina’s.

Koop dit boek via bookdepository.com en steun daarmee Stichting OPEN.

Exploring the impact of ketamine on the experience of illusory body ownership

January 1, 2011 / Consciousness, Ketamine, Papers, Psychology, Psychosis, Publications / By / , , , , , ,

Abstract

Background: Our sense of body ownership is profound and familiar, yet it may be misleading. In the rubber-hand illusion, synchronous tactile and visual stimulation lead to the experience that a rubber hand is actually one’s own. This illusion is emer in schizophrenia. Given the evidence that ketamine, a noncompetitive N-methyl-D-aspartate antagonist reproduces symptoms of schizophrenia, we sought to determine whether the rubber-hand illusion is augmented by ketamine.

Methods: We studied 15 healthy volunteers in a within-subjects placebo-controlled study. All volunteers carried out two versions of the rubber-hand task, each under both placebo and ketamine infusions. In one task, they saw a rubber hand being stroked in synchrony with tactile stimulation of their real, hidden hand. In the other, stroking of the real and rubber hands was asynchronous. We recorded subjective changes in sense of ownership, as well as participants’ ability to localize their hidden hand.

Results: Ketamine was associated with significant increases in subjective measures of the illusion and in hand mislocalization. Although asynchronous visuotactile stimulation attenuates the strength of the illusion during both placebo and ketamine, there remained a significant illusory effect during asynchronous visuotactile stimulation under ketamine compared with placebo. The strength of the illusion during asynchronous visuotactile stimulation correlated with other subjective effects of the drug.

Conclusions: Ketamine mimics the perturbed sense of body ownership seen in schizophrenia, suggesting that it produces a comparable alteration in integration of information across sensory domains and in the subjective and behavioral consequences of such integration.

Morgan, H. L., Turner, D. C., Corlett, P. R., Absalom, A. R., Adapa, R., Arana, F. S., … Fletcher, P. C. (2011). Exploring the impact of ketamine on the experience of illusory body ownership. Biological Psychiatry, 69(1), 35-41. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2010.07.032
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Influence of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD-25) on Subjective Time

November 1, 1959 / Consciousness, LSD, Other subjects, Papers, Phenomenology, Psychology, Psychopharmacology, Publications, Spirituality / By / , ,

Aronson, H., Silverstein, A. B., & Klee, G. D. (1959). Influence of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD-25) on subjective time. AMA archives of general psychiatry, 1(5), 469-472., 10.1001/archpsyc.1959.03590050037003
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30 April - Q&A with Rick Strassman

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