Christa Smith Psy.D.Shift

Altered States of ConsciousnessWhy we need themPosted Aug 24, 2015Source: © Christa Smith 2015

When you hear the words “altered state of consciousness” you may think of bellbottoms,

hippies, and LSD. But some altered states have nothing to do with drugs and are more

important than we may think.

Altered states of consciousness, sometimes called non-ordinary states, include various mental

states in which the mind can be aware but is not in its usual wakeful condition, such as

during hypnosis, meditation, hallucination, trance, and the dream stage.* Altered states can

occur anywhere from yoga class to the birth of a child. They allow us to see our lives and

ourselves with a broader lens and from different angles of perception than the ordinary mind.

I often witness clients relying too heavily on the ordinary mind. They painstakingly analyze

themselves and their problems with little payoff, as if the ordinary mind is the only and best tool

for healing. Adele was one such client. She was a 45 year-old mother of two who suffered

from depression related to aging. She was highly intelligent   and could articulate perfectly why

being in her forties bothered her so much. But as much as she tried to convince herself it

wasn’t true, she could not shake the idea that her life was essentially over, that all of the good

times were in the past. She struggled to overcome this belief, which was at the heart of her

depression, but made little progress.

Many of us are like Adele, we live our lives and meet our challenges with the intellect,

neglecting the opportunities that altered states offer. Maybe we just prefer the safety and

predictability of the ordinary mind and the world of thought. We know what’s wrong

intellectually but we feel stuck when it comes to getting relief. We feel stuck, in part, because

we are relying too heavily on figuring out our problems. When we only use the ordinary mode

of consciousness our problems can become self-perpetuating. We are like a person stuck in a

hole who digs with a shovel rather than climbing out with a ladder. Sometimes we can’t see the

ladder with the ordinary mind. It’s times like these that dropping the effort to figure ourselves

out can be the best medicine. Not dropping the effort to get better, but giving the intellect a rest

for a while.

Some of psychology’s most effective models of depression treatment, like Mindfulness

Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), are based on the notion that the intellect can’t always solve

our problems and can actually make matters worse. In treatments such as MBCT, healing

requires getting into non-ordinary modes of mind, such as mindfulness. These alternate modes

are beyond words. Whatever transpires in these states of mind does so in a different language

than that of thought. Maybe that’s why non-ordinary states can be so transformative, because

they offer something that thinking never will.

After many months of processing her grief and her fears about aging in therapy, Adele gave

up. She decided that she wasn’t going to try to figure out how to get rid of her depression.

Instead she spent time creating opportunities for non-ordinary states to arise. She went on a

retreat and when at home she took long walks in the woods. At the end of one such walk,

looking at a river, something mysteriously coalesced. She knew she could focus again on what

she liked about life and what she could do with the rest of hers. From that point on she began

to feel better and eventually made a full recovery. 

Thinking through our problems is an important part of healing, but we may end up viewing the

problems we face solely with the same mind that helped create them. Altered states of

consciousness are sacred and powerful places which reveal that there is more to ourselves

and our potential for healing than the ordinary mind can grasp.

John Ryder Ph.D. Hypnosis: The Power of Trance

Is Hypnosis Really an Altered State of Consciousness?Truth versus fiction about hypnosisPosted May 29, 2009

If you are interested in how the mind works, you will be fascinated by hypnosis. Do you

remember getting lost in thought? The most common example is when you are in a car, bus, or

train, thinking about something until you get surprised, catching yourself reaching your stop or

exit and you return to the normal alert state of awareness. That is a typical example of a trance, your mind being in two places at the same time. We all experience going in and out of

a trance nearly every day of our lives. There are many reasons that we get entranced, some

are common others can be extreme situations. The key is what is the real benefit of entering a

trance?

If you have questions about hypnosis, then ask away! I have spent nearly three decades

studying and teaching how to use hypnotic techniques to get more out of life. Use this blog to

find out how you can take advantage of the hidden power of your mind.

The most common question I hear is 'can everyone get hypnotized?' Some people think that

it is a sign of weakness to be hypnotized, not true at all. You cannot be hypnotized against

your will, nobody can take over your mind and make you a robot. However, everyone can

enjoy entering a trance if they want to do it. The hidden power of your mind is to circumvent

the conscious part that often creates blockages, limitations or just criticizes your efforts to

achieve. Hypnosis, or trance, allows you to communicate more directly to

the subconscious part of your mind and thereby, if used properly and skillfully can be a major

asset to promote progress. There are many theories about how hypnosis works and why it is

so powerful and although the debate continues about these issues, there is no question that it

really does work and very well indeed.

Jack came to me to stop smoking. After 22 years of the bad habit and his kids complaining he

finally got up the motivation to quit. Hypnosis is an excellent tool to help change behaviors like

smoking. As I evaluated Jack's habit, I suggested a variety of strategies to build up his

motivation and determination to quit. It is important to identify what could be called the "internal

weaknesses or potential sabotage" to the success of the intentions being made. I consider all

hypnosis, "self-hypnosis" so during the induction I teach the client how to relax and enter that

special zone. During the trance, Jack was given the internal tools he needed repeatedly to

overcome his weaknesses and successfully quit smoking. Months later, I learned that he

remained grateful to be free of this bad habit.

The use of hypnosis is based on scientific research on what techniques work and the artistic

skill of placing a person in a trance and communicating the specific goals of the session

effectively. I record most of the sessions with my clients because repeating the process

increases the strength and effectiveness of the technique. There are no dangers to the use of

hypnosis, nobody ever gets stuck in a trance, or can be forced to do something against their

will. Hypnosis is the art of persuasion it relies on direct and indirect communication, which

includes metaphors, emotional tone, imagery and so forth. A great deal of advertising and

entertainment rely on the very same principles to persuade people to buy something or keep

paying attention.

At this point you should be able to answer the question of whether hypnosis is really an altered

state of consciousness. When we consider consciousness as a spectrum from comatose or

unconscious to hyper vigilant, extremely alert wakefulness, you can appreciate that we all go

up and down that scale. We enjoy the thrills of a roller-coaster and the peace and tranquility of

a warm, sunny beach. Hypnosis, tends to be s shift of awareness in the direction

of sleep without actually falling asleep. The key factors are an absorption of awareness,

relaxation of the body, and a dissociation from your surroundings. These are the very reasons

that hypnosis can certainly be considered an altered state of consciousness.

If you have any questions about hypnosis or its power, I do welcome your comments and

will try to answer your queries. For now, may all your journeys into the deeper parts of your

mind be fruitful and help you achieve more success and happiness.

John Ryder, Ph.D.Psychologist, Hypnotherapist, and Author of POSITIVE DIRECTIONS; JohnRyderPhD.com

Dtsch Arztebl Int. 2016 Apr; 113(17): 289–296.

Published online 2016 Apr 29. doi:  10.3238/arztebl.2016.0289

The Efficacy, Safety and Applications of Medical HypnosisA Systematic Review of Meta-analyses

Winfried Häuser, PD Dr.,*,1 Maria Hagl, Dr. phil. Dipl.-Psych.,2 Albrecht Schmierer, Dr.,3 and Ernil Hansen, Prof.4

AbstractHypnosis for purposes of medical treatment goes back a long way. The British Medical Association endorsed the use of hypnosis in somatic medicine in 1955, on the basis of case reports and series backed up by expert consensus, and the American Medical Association followed suit in 1958 (1, 2). Whether robust evidence exists for the efficacy and safety of hypnosis in somatic medicine in the era of evidence-based medicine (EBM) (3) remains to be clarified. Because systematic reviews with quantitative analysis (meta-analyses) of randomized controlled trials provide the highest level of evidence in EBM (3), we decided to carry out a systematic review of meta-analyses on medical hypnosis.

The aims of this article are as follows:

To define the various forms of hypnosis To describe the requirements that have to be fulfilled before therapeutic hypnosis can be carried out To provide a historical overview of the use of hypnosis in medicine and the assessment of its efficacy To identify the indications for medical hypnosis supported by robust evidence To present the evidence for use of positive suggestions as a component of effective doctor– patient

communication.

DefinitionsThe term “hypnosis” is used to mean both an altered state of consciousness (synonym: hypnotic trance) and the procedure by which this state is induced (4). During a hypnotic trance physiological, cognitive, and affective processes as well as behavior can be modified. A hypnotic state and hypnotic phenomena can be induced by another person (therapist) or alone (self-hypnosis). The subjective experience of hypnosis is characterized by a high degree of authenticity (experienced as real) and involuntariness (“it happens by itself”) (4).

Hypnosis can be distinguished from other states of consciousness such as normal wakefulness, sleep, deep relaxation, or meditation by means of electroencephalography (EEG) and imaging modalities (4). A hypnotic trance is characterized by a number of physiological and mental reactions, e.g., altered perception of time, selective amnesia, regression to a younger age (retrieval of memories or experiences from an earlier developmental stage), a marked inward focus, and heightened suggestibility, i.e., a stronger reaction to suggestions (4). In clinical situations associated with high affective participation of the patient, such as emergencies, diagnostic and therapeutic interventions, or communication of a serious diagnosis, hypnotic phenomena may occur spontaneously (e1, e2).

Suggestions work via verbal and nonverbal signals that correspond to internal expectations and have a powerful effect on mental and involuntary somatic processes. For example, cutaneous perfusion or the flow of saliva is not amenable to influence by a deliberate intellectual action, but can be affected by a suggestion, e.g., a picture or a story. In general use the word “suggestion” tends to imply manipulation, but in hypnosis it should be understood as meaning a proposal, an offer of options (“I suggest”). In

contrast to the widespread preconceptions, hypnosis is not authoritarian, passive, and centered around the therapist, but a resource- and solution-oriented method in which the focus is on the patient’s own potentials (4).

Applications of hypnosisDepending on the goals, various applications of hypnotic techniques can be distinguished (4):

Medical hypnosis Alleviation of somatic symptoms Reduction of mental stress during medical treatment Amelioration of disordered physiological/biochemical parameters Facilitation of physiological/biochemical healing processes

Hypnotic communication Waking suggestions (suggestions without trance induction) Suggestions with the patient under general anesthesia Use of findings from hypnotherapy for effective doctor–patient communication

Hypnotherapy (psychotherapy with the patient in a trance) Improvement of problem management by giving the patient access to their own resources Facilitation of changes in behavior Restructuring (minimization, reinforcement, new conditioning) of cognitive–affective patterns Restructuring of emotionally stressful events and sensations Reintegration of non-accessible (dissociated) feelings

Experimental hypnosis Basic research on somatic sensations (e.g., pain), emotions, and states of consciousness

Stage hypnosis Demonstration of hypnotic phenomena to entertain an audience

The perception of hypnosis as an authoritarian, manipulative technique, nourished particularly by its use in stage shows, represents the greatest barrier to the (re)integration of hypnosis into medical treatment.

Phases of medical hypnosisA session of medical hypnosis generally lasts between 20 and 50 min and can be divided into various phases (4):

- Verification of the indication; explanation (correction of inappropriate anxiety or false expectations); definition of goal(s)

Induction Consolidation Therapeutic suggestions Reorientation, posthypnotic suggestions Discussion Integration into daily routine: use of an audio file at home; behavioral exercises (e.g., exposure training);

possibly learning of self-hypnosis techniques.

Hypnosis today (American Psychological Association)Hypnosis continues to show promise in reducing pain and soothing anxiety, although the research is still inconclusive about its success in smoking cessation.By Brendan L. SmithJanuary 2011, Vol 42, No. 1Print version: page 50

The first task for many psychologists who use hypnosis is telling patients what hypnosis is and what it isn’t. "If you watch hypnosis on TV, the subject always ends up clucking like a chicken, being naked or assassinating a president," says Eric Willmarth, PhD, founder of Michigan Behavioral Consultants and past president of APA Div. 30 (Society of Psychological Hypnosis).Even though stage hypnotists and TV shows have damaged the public image of hypnosis, a growing body of scientific research supports its benefits in treating a wide range of conditions, including pain, depression, anxiety and phobias.

"Hypnosis works and the empirical support is unequivocal in that regard. It really does help people," says Michael Yapko, PhD, a psychologist and fellow of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis. "But hypnosis isn’t a therapy in and of itself. Most people wouldn’t regard it that way."

Hypnosis can create a highly relaxed state of inner concentration and focused attention for patients, and the technique can be tailored to different treatment methods, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy. Patients also can become more empowered by learning to hypnotize themselves at home to reduce chronic pain, improve sleep, or alleviate some symptoms of depression or anxiety.

Hypnosis has been used for centuries for pain control, including during the Civil War when Army surgeons hypnotized injured soldiers before amputations. Recent studies have confirmed its effectiveness as a tool to reduce pain. Among the leading researchers in the field is Guy H. Montgomery, PhD, a psychologist who has conducted extensive research on hypnosis and pain management at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, where he is director of the Integrative Behavioral Medicine Program.

In one study, Montgomery and colleagues tested the effectiveness of a 15-minute pre-surgery hypnosis session versus an empathic listening session in a clinical trial with 200 breast cancer patients. In a 2007 article in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (Vol. 99, No. 17), the team reported that patients who received hypnosis reported less post-surgical pain, nausea, fatigue and discomfort. The study also found that the hospital saved $772 per patient in the hypnosis group, mainly due to reduced surgical time. Patients who were hypnotized required less of the analgesic lidocaine and the sedative propofol during surgery.

"Hypnosis helps patients to reduce their distress and have positive expectations about the outcomes of surgery," Montgomery says. "I don’t think there is any magic or mind control."In a 2009 article in Health Psychology (Vol. 28, No. 3), Montgomery and colleagues reported on another study, which found that a combination of hypnosis and cognitive-behavioral therapy could reduce fatigue for breast cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy.

Research has also shown the benefits of hypnosis for burn victims. In a 2007 report in Rehabilitation Psychology (Vol. 52, No. 3), Shelley Wiechman Askay, PhD, David R. Patterson, PhD, and colleagues at the University of Washington Medical School found that hypnosis before wound debridements significantly reduced pain reported by patients on one pain rating questionnaire.

No cure-allPeople vary widely in their ability to respond to hypnotic suggestions, a trait which can be measured by standardized scales. But it isn’t well understood what causes the varying levels of "hypnotizability" or their significance.

Yapko says few clinicians use hypnotizability scales because responses to a structured test don’t predict how a patient will respond to hypnosis in treatment. He served as guest editor for a recent special issue of the International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis (Vol. 58, No. 2) that examined research on hypnosis and depression. In an editorial, Yapko urged more research and a rejection of outdated views that hypnosis can precipitate suicide or psychosis in depressed patients. Other articles examined how hypnosis can be integrated with cognitive-behavioral therapy or used with depressed patients and their families.

Willmarth says he doesn’t always use hypnotizibility scales with his patients, but will try a hypnosis session and measure the patient’s response to see if it is effective. "You have to be a little bit willing to fail in order to do it often enough to succeed," he says.

Hypnosis may not succeed in all cases and can actually be detrimental in some instances, especially in the realm of retrieving memories.

Joseph P. Green, PhD, a psychology professor at Ohio State University at Lima, has researched how hypnotic suggestions can produce distorted or false memories. He also found that people may believe hypnotically induced memories are more reliable, mirroring a mistaken cultural belief that hypnosis acts like a truth serum. Hypnosis is "on thin ice" when used to recover memories, as is the case with most other memory retrieval techniques, Green says.Hypnosis got a bad name in the 1990s when some therapists convinced patients they had been molested or abused as children because of hypnotically induced memories, which often had no evidence to support them. As a result, many innocent people were wrongly accused of abuse in hundreds of court cases, Yapko says.

"People didn’t really understand the suggestibility of memory," he says. "That whole issue has pretty much fallen by the wayside now" because of advances in research.

In a 2007 decision, the Supreme Court of Canada established a precedent that post-hypnosis evidence is inadmissible in court because of its unreliability. In R. v. Trochym, the court overturned a murder conviction after a witness changed her timeline of events following a

hypnosis session that was requested by detectives. The jury wasn’t told that the witness had been hypnotized or that she had changed her recollection.

"In sum, while it is not generally accepted that hypnosis always produces unreliable memories, neither is it clear when hypnosis results in pseudo-memories or how a witness, scientist or trier of fact might distinguish between fabricated and accurate memories," the decision stated.

Up in smokeSmokers also should be wary of the plethora of hypnosis programs and tapes peddled online with guarantees of instant success. "Despite the widespread use, the science warranting that popularity is suspect," Green says.

Green began studying hypnosis and smoking cessation more than 25 years ago after seeing overblown claims from itinerant hypnotists who held weekend sessions in hotels before moving on to the next town. In a January article in the American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis (Vol. 52, No. 3), Green and Binghamton University psychology professor Steven Jay Lynn, PhD, wrote about the body of research on hypnosis and smoking cessation and found mixed results.

In a literature review published in 2000 (International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, Vol. 48, No. 2), Green and Lynn analyzed 59 studies on hypnosis and smoking cessation. While hypnosis was more successful than no treatment, it was generally equivalent to other smoking-cessation methods. However, many studies had combined hypnosis with cognitive-behavioral therapy or other treatment methods, so it was impossible to determine the effectiveness of hypnosis alone. Green says hypnosis may help smokers quit, but more research needs to be done. In a 2008 report published by the Cochrane Library, Neil C. Abbot, operations director for ME Research UK, and colleagues examined nine randomized trials and also found insufficient evidence to recommend hypnosis as a specific treatment for smoking cessation.

Learning the ropesWhile more research is being conducted on the benefits of hypnosis, graduate schools are lagging behind in incorporating hypnosis training into psychology programs, say Yapko, Willmarth and Montgomery. "The universities have really dropped the ball by thinking hypnosis is a sideshow rather than being relevant to effective psychotherapy," Yapko says.

Some graduate schools may not be convinced of the effectiveness of hypnosis or the research supporting its use, but other schools have developed clinical hypnosis classes, including Saybrook University’s Graduate College of Mind-Body Medicine in San Francisco, where Willmarth teaches a hypnosis course. At Washington State University, psychology professor Arreed Barabasz, PhD, directs the hypnosis laboratory and teaches graduate-level hypnosis courses and research seminars. He also is editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis.

Since many psychologists have never taken a hypnosis class as part of their education, they often seek training later in their careers. It can be bewildering to find a class, though, since a search for "hypnosis training" generates more than 600,000 hits on Google.

"You can go anyplace on the weekend and get a hypnosis certification," Willmarth says. "You have thousands of lay hypnosis schools that are willing to train anyone who will pay the tuition."

To make sure psychologists don’t end up with charlatan teachers, Willmarth recommends courses approved by the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis. ASCH also offers a certification in clinical hypnosis for licensed health-care professionals with at least a master’s degree. Certification requires at least 40 hours of ASCH-approved workshop training, 20 hours of individualized training and two years of independent practice using clinical hypnosis.Willmarth says interest in clinical hypnosis is growing and more psychologists are learning how hypnosis can help their patients.

"It goes in waves," he says. "Right now, we’re on an upswing."

Brendan L. Smith is a writer in Washington, D.C.Further reading

Patterson, D.R. (2010) Clinical Hypnosis for Pain Control. Washington, DC: APA.

What is a trance? (Yale)

What are trances?Trance behaviors are difficult to define, but most observers seem to be able to tell when a person is in a trance. Aside from altered and often internally-oriented states of thinking, there seem to be changes in emotional expression, changes in body image, feelings of rejuvenation, and increased suggestibility. There is evidence for shared physiological processes during different forms of trance as well as other ASCs (Winkelman 1986). Trance states involve both amplification of certain internal cognitive processes as well as a decoupling of sensory processing (Hove et al. 2015).

Can Trance Type be Predicted by Social Structure? The type of trance generally varies with social complexity. More complex societies, that is, those with higher

political integration, more dependence on agriculture, more dependence on food production, more permanent communities, and more social stratification, are more likely to have possession trances. Simpler societies, such as most hunter-gatherers are more likely to only have non-possession trances (Bourguignon 1976; Greenbaum 1973; Swanson 1978).

If the effect of political hierarchy is controlled, societies where people are more involved in decision-making are less likely to have possession trances (Bourguignon and Evascu 1977; Swanson 1978).

Biological basis for visual hallucinations identifiedPublished on March 19, 2014 at 9:10 AM ·  By Eleanor McDermid, Senior medwireNews ReporterVisual hallucinations in patients with schizophrenia may be caused by hyperconnectivity in a specific area of the brain, say researchers. “While [visual hallucinations] are generally neglected in clinical assessments in this population, functional connectivity data provide biological support for their distressing reality”, says the team, led by Judith Ford (San Francisco VA Medical Center, California, USA).Ford and colleagues studied 180 schizophrenia patients, and found that the 45 who had experienced visual hallucinations in the month prior to brain imaging had hyperconnectivity between the amygdala and the visual cortex, relative to 178 mentally healthy controls matched for age, gender, handedness and ethnicity.“This hyperconnectivity may facilitate retrieval and reactivation of visual memories, arguably the raw material of [visual hallucinations]”, the team writes in Schizophrenia Bulletin.Patients with visual hallucinations also had significantly increased connectivity relative to 50 patients with auditory hallucinations and 67 without any visual or auditory hallucinations. The connectivity was strongest for Brodmann area (BA)18, and tended to be stronger for right than left BA18 connectivity.Of note, connectivity between the amygdala and BA18 was significantly stronger in patients with visual hallucinations than auditory hallucinations for both the right and left hemispheres.“Hyperconnectivity between the amygdala and visual cortex may reflect the ability of these areas to communicate too efficiently with each other, perhaps resulting in excessive conscious experiences or [visual hallucinations] of negatively charged, threatening images,” say Ford et al.However, contrary to their expectations, patients with visual hallucinations did not have increased connectivity between the hippocampus and the visual cortex, despite the reported role of the hippocampus in visual hallucinations and memory retrieval.The lack of hyperconnectivity involving the hippocampus may suggest that visual hallucinations in the schizophrenia patients in their study “relied less on retrieval of memories than on intrusive negative visual images,” say the researchers, although they note that they had no information on the content of the patients’ visual hallucinations.Forty-two of the patients reported both visual and auditory hallucinations. Although the researchers did not know whether these were experienced simultaneously (eg, “talking heads”) or separately, they did find a trend towards hyperconnectivity between the visual and auditory cortices in these patients, relative to those without hallucinations.They suggest: “Perhaps the wiring is in place for the simultaneous experience of auditory and visual percepts in this sample, and, perhaps, this relationship would be significant in people who indeed had simultaneous [auditory hallucinations] and [visual hallucinations].”Licensed from medwireNews with permission from Springer Healthcare Ltd. ©Springer Healthcare Ltd. All rights reserved. Neither of these parties endorse or recommend any commercial products, services, or equipment.

IMPORTANT CLARIFICATIONS AND DELINEATIONS: Hallucinations vs. Delusions, Illusions and Associations (as well as different types of hallucinations

Delusionso false beliefs firmly maintained in spite of indisputable and obvious proof to the

contrary not shared with other members of patient's culture/subculture

o e.g. thinking the CIA is spying on you Hallucinations

o perceptions in the absence of external stimulio e.g. hearing sound when no sound is present

Illusionso misinterpretations of actual external stimulio e.g. hearing the wind blowing and thinking it is a bird chirping

Loose associationso ideas are presented with illogical or tenuous connections between them

Hallucination types Visual hallucinations

o common in deliriumo more often a feature of medical rather than psychiatric illness

Auditory hallucinationso common in schizophreniao more common in psychiatric than medical disease

Olfactory hallucinationso often occurs as an aura of psychomotor epilepsy or brain tumors

Gustatory hallucinationo rare

Tactile hallucinationso common in alcohol withdrawal

e.g. formication - the sensation of ants crawling on one's skino also seen in cocaine abusers ("cocaine bugs")

Hypnagogic hallucinationo occurs while going to sleep

Hypnopompic hallucinationo occurs while waking from sleep

Opportunities for further research: When do Hallucinations occur naturally? Schizophrenia Bi-polar disorder Sleeplessness

Epilepsy Prolonged meditation

Intro to Hallucinogenic drugs: Cannabis, Mescaline, and LSD (University of Minnesota)

The drugs that produce the most extreme alteration of consciousness are the hallucinogens, psychoactive drugs that alter sensation and perception and that may create hallucinations. The hallucinogens are frequently known as “psychedelics.” Drugs in this class include lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD, or “Acid”), mescaline, and phencyclidine (PCP), as well as a number of natural plants including cannabis (marijuana), peyote, and psilocybin. The chemical compositions of the hallucinogens are similar to the neurotransmitters serotonin and epinephrine, and they act primarily as agonists by mimicking the action of serotonin at the synapses. The hallucinogens may produce striking changes in perception through one or more of the senses. The precise effects a user experiences are a function not only of the drug itself, but also of the user’s preexisting mental state and expectations of the drug experience. In large part, the user tends to get out of the experience what he or she brings to it. The hallucinations that may be experienced when taking these drugs are strikingly different from everyday experience and frequently are more similar to dreams than to everyday consciousness.

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/psilocybin-a-journey-beyond-the-fear-of-death/)

Psilocybin: A Journey beyond the Fear of Death?Johns Hopkins clinical pharmacologist Roland Griffiths talks about a major new study hinting at psychedelic drugs as therapeutic powerhouses 

By Richard Schiffman on December 1, 2016 Véalo en español

In one of the largest and most rigorous clinical investigations of psychedelic drugs to date, researchers at Johns Hopkins University and New York University have found that a single dose of psilocybin—the psychoactive compound in “magic” mushrooms—substantially diminished depression and anxiety in patients with advanced cancer.Psychedelics were the subject of a flurry of serious medical research in the 1960s, when many scientists believed some of the mind-bending compounds held tremendous therapeutic promise for treating a number of conditions including severe mental health problems and alcohol addiction. But flamboyant Harvard psychology professor Timothy Leary—one of the top scientists involved—started aggressively promoting LSD as a consciousness expansion tool for the masses, and the youth counterculture movement answered the call in a big way. Leary lost his job and eventually became an international fugitive. Virtually all legal research on psychedelics shuddered to a halt when federal drug policies hardened in the 1970s.The decades-long research blackout ended in 1999 when Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins was among the first to initiate a new series of studies on psilocybin. Griffiths has been called the grandfather of the current psychedelics research renaissance, and a 21st-century pioneer in the field—but the soft-spoken investigator is no activist or shaman/showman in the mold of Leary. He’s a scientifically cautious clinical pharmacologist and author of more than 300 studies on mood-altering substances from coffee to ketamine.Much of Griffiths’ fascination with psychedelics stems from his own mindfulness meditation practice, which he says sparked his interest in altered states of consciousness. When he started administering psilocybin to volunteers for his research, he was stunned that more than two-thirds of the participants rated their psychedelic journey one of the most important experiences of their lives.

Griffiths believes that psychedelics are not just tools for exploring the far reaches of the human mind. He says they show remarkable potential for treating conditions ranging from drug and alcohol dependence to depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Clinical pharmacologist Roland Griffiths. Credit: Vanessa McMains

They may also help relieve one of humanity’s cruelest agonies: the angst that stems from facing the inevitability of death. In research conducted collaboratively by Griffiths and Stephen Ross, clinical director of the NYU Langone Center of Excellence on Addiction, 80 patients with life-threatening cancer in

Baltimore and New York City were given laboratory-synthesized psilocybin in a carefully monitored setting, and in conjunction with limited psychological counseling. More than three-quarters reported significant relief from depression and anxiety—improvements that remained during a follow-up survey conducted six months after taking the compound, according to the double-blind study published December 1 in The Journal of Psychopharmacology.“It is simply unprecedented in psychiatry that a single dose of a medicine produces these kinds of dramatic and enduring results,” Ross says. He and Griffiths acknowledge that psychedelics may never be available on the drugstore shelf. But the scientists do envision a promising future for these substances in controlled clinical use. In a wide-ranging interview, Griffiths told Scientific American about the cancer study and his other work with psychedelics—a field that he says could eventually contribute to helping ensure our survival as a species.[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]What were your concerns going into the cancer study?The volunteers came to us often highly stressed and demoralized by their illness and the often-grueling medical treatment. I felt very cautious at first, wondering if this might not re-wound people dealing with the painful questions of death and dying. How do we know that this kind of experience with this disorienting compound wouldn’t exacerbate that? It turns out that it doesn’t. It does just the opposite. The experience appears to be deeply meaningful spiritually and personally, and very healing in the context of people’s understanding of their illness and how they manage that going forward.Could you describe your procedure? We spent at least eight hours talking to people about their cancer, their anxiety, their concerns and so on to develop good rapport with them before the trial.

During the sessions there was no specific psychological intervention—we were just inviting people to lie on the couch and explore their own inner experience.What did your research subjects tell you about that experience? There is something about the core of this experience that opens people up to the great mystery of what it is that we don’t know. It is not that everybody comes out of it and says, ‘Oh, now I believe in life after death.’ That needn’t be the case at all. But the psilocybin experience enables a sense of deeper meaning, and an understanding that in the largest frame everything is fine and that there is nothing to be fearful of. There is a buoyancy that comes of that which is quite remarkable. To see people who are so beaten down by this illness, and they start actually providing reassurance to the people who love them most, telling them ‘it is all okay and there is no need to worry’— when a dying person can provide that type of clarity for their caretakers, even we researchers are left with a sense of wonder.Was this positive result universal?We found that the response was dose-specific. The larger dose created a much larger response than the lower dose. We also found that the occurrence of mystical-type experiences is positively correlated with positive outcomes: Those who underwent them were more likely to have enduring, large-magnitude changes in depression and anxiety.Did any of your volunteers experience difficulties?There are potential risks associated with these compounds. We can protect against a lot of those risks, it seems, through the screening and preparation procedure in our medical setting. About 30 percent of our people reported some fear or discomfort arising sometime during the experience. If individuals are anxious, then we might say a few words, or hold their hand. It is really just grounding them in consensual reality, reminding them that they have taken psilocybin, that everything is going to be alright. Very often these short-lived experiences of psychological challenge can be cathartic and serve as doorways into personal meaning and transcendence—but not always.Where do you go from here?The Heffter Research Institute, which funded our study, has just opened a dialogue with the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) about initiating a phase 3 investigation. A phase 3 clinical trial is the gold standard for determining whether something is clinically efficacious and meets the standards that are necessary for it to be released as a pharmaceutical. Approval would be under very narrow and restrictive conditions initially. The drug might be controlled by a central pharmacy, which sends it to clinics that are authorized to administer psilocybin in this therapeutic context. So this is not writing a prescription and taking it home. The analogy would be more like an anesthetic being dispensed and managed by an anesthesiologist.You are also currently conducting research on psilocybin and smoking. We are using psilocybin in conjunction with cognitive behavioral therapy with

cigarette smokers to see if these deeply meaningful experiences that can happen with psilocybin can be linked with the intention and commitment to quit smoking, among people who have failed repeatedly to do so. Earlier we ran an uncontrolled pilot study on that in 50 volunteers, in which we had 80 percent abstinence rates at six months. Now we are doing a controlled clinical trial in that population.How do you account for your remarkable initial results?People who have taken psilocybin appear to have more confidence in their ability to change their own behavior and to manage their addictions. Prior to this experience, quite often the individual feels that they have no freedom relative to their addiction, that they are hooked and they don’t have the capacity to change. But after an experience of this sort—which is like backing up and seeing the larger picture—they begin to ask themselves ‘Why would I think that I couldn’t stop cigarette smoking? Why would I think that this craving is so compelling that I have to give in to it?’ When the psilocybin is coupled with cognitive behavioral therapy, which is giving smokers tools and a framework to work on this, it appears to be very helpful.You are also working with meditation practitioners. Are they having similar experiences?We have done an unpublished study with beginning meditators. We found that psilocybin potentiates their engagement with their spiritual practice, and it appears to boost dispositional characteristics like gratitude, compassion, altruism, sensitivity to others and forgiveness. We were interested in whether the psilocybin used in conjunction with meditation could create sustained changes in people that were of social value. And that appears to be the case.So it is actually changing personality?Yes. That is really interesting because personality is considered to be a fixed characteristic; it is generally thought to be locked down in an individual by their early twenties. And yet here we are seeing significant increases in their “openness” and other pro-social dimensions of personality, which are also correlated with creativity, so this is truly surprising.Do we know what is actually happening in the brain?We are doing neuro-imaging studies. Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris’s group at Imperial College in London is also doing neuro-imaging studies. So it is an area of very active investigation. The effects are perhaps explained, at least initially, by changes in something [in the brain] called “the default mode network,” which is involved in self-referential processing [and in sustaining our sense of ego]. It turns out that this network is hyperactive in depression. Interestingly, in meditation it becomes quiescent, and also with psilocybin it becomes quiescent. This may correlate with the experience of clarity of coming into the present moment.That is perhaps an explanation of the acute effects, but the enduring effects are much less clear, and I don’t think that we have a good handle on that at all.

Undoubtedly it is going to be much more complex than just the default mode network, because of the vast interconnectedness of brain function.What are the practical implications of this kind of neurological and therapeutic knowledge of psychedelics? Ultimately it is not really about psychedelics. Science is going to take it beyond psychedelics when we start understanding the brain mechanisms underlying this and begin harnessing these for the benefit of humankind.The core mystical experience is one of the interconnectedness of all people and things, the awareness that we are all in this together. It is precisely the lack of this sense of mutual caretaking that puts our species at risk right now, with climate change and the development of weaponry that can destroy life on the planet. So the answer is not that everybody needs to take psychedelics. It is to understand what mechanisms maximize these kinds of experiences, and to learn how to harness them so that we don’t end up annihilating ourselves.

A B O U T T H E A U T H O R ( S )Richard SchiffmanRichard Schiffman is an environmental journalist based in New York City.

Magic Mushrooms Expand the Mind By Dampening Brain ActivityA new brain-scan study helps explain how psilocybin works — and why it holds promise as a treatment for depression, addiction and post-traumatic stress.

By Maia Szalavitz @maiaszJan. 24, 2012

RELATED

Psychedelic Chemical Subdues Brain Activity  Nature

Magic Mushroom Trips Point to New Depression Drugs  Reuters

Magic Mushrooms May Be Therapeutic  CNN

(Updated) More than half a century ago, author Aldous Huxley titled his book on his experience with hallucinogens The Doors of Perception, borrowing a phrase from a 1790 William Blake poem (which, yes, also lent Jim Morrison’s band its moniker).

Blake wrote:

If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed

himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern.

Based on this idea, Huxley posited that ordinary consciousness represents only a fraction of what the mind can take in. In order to keep us focused on survival, Huxley claimed, the brain must act as a “reducing valve” on the flood of potentially overwhelming sights, sounds and sensations. What remains, Huxley wrote, is a “measly trickle of the kind of consciousness” necessary to “help us to stay alive.”

A new study by British researchers supports this theory. It shows for the first time how psilocybin — the drug contained in magic mushrooms — affects the connectivity of the brain. Researchers found that the psychedelic chemical, which is known to trigger feelings of oneness with the universe and a trippy hyperconsciousness, does not work by ramping up the brain’s activity as they’d expected. Instead, it reduces it.

Under the influence of mushrooms, overall brain activity drops, particularly in certain regions that are densely connected to sensory areas of the brain. When functioning normally, these connective “hubs” appear to help constrain the way we see, hear and experience the world, grounding us in reality. They are also the key nodes of a brain network linked to self-consciousness and depression. Psilocybin cuts activity in these nodes and severs their connection to other brain areas, allowing the senses to run free.

“The results seem to imply that a lot of brain activity is actually dedicated to keeping the world very stable and ordinary and familiar and unsurprising,” says Robin Carhart-Harris, a postdoctoral student at Imperial College London and lead author of the study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Indeed, Huxley and Blake had predicted what turns out to be a key finding of modern neuroscience: many of the human brain’s highest achievements involve preventing actions instead of initiating them, and sifting out useless information rather than collecting and presenting it for conscious consideration.

For the study, the authors recruited 15 brave volunteers to receive injections of psilocybin or placebo, in alternate sessions, while being scanned in an fMRI machine. Taken intravenously, psilocybin alters consciousness in a mere 60 seconds, as opposed to the 40 minutes it normally takes when administered orally. And the high lasts a half an hour, not the five hours that typical users experience.

Provisions were made for the possibility that the participants might panic while high in the noisy, claustrophic setting of the scanner, but none of the volunteers did so. In fact, once they’d become accustomed to the noise and small space, “they quite liked being enclosed and

felt secure,” Carhart-Harris says. All of the participants had previously been, as Jimi Hendrix put it, “experienced.”

Researchers had assumed that the hallucinations and bizarre sensations caused by psilocybin would have at least one part of the brain working overtime. But instead they found the opposite.

“The decline in activity was the most surprising finding,” says Carhart-Harris, “and anything that’s of surprise is usually important.”

Reducing the brain’s activity interfered with its normal ability to filter out stimuli, allowing participants to see afresh what would ordinarily have been dismissed as irrelevant or as background noise. They described having wandering thoughts, dreamlike perceptions, geometric visual hallucinations and other unusual changes in their sensory experiences, like sounds triggering visual images.

Indeed, if we always paid attention to every perceptible sensation or impulse like this, we’d be incapable of focusing at all. This is why it’s difficult to sit still and try to tune in all the feelings and perceptions we normally tune out, but why also, like psychedelic drugs, meditation can make the world seem strange and new.

The particular brain regions that were silenced or disconnected from each other by the drug also provided insight on the nature of psychedelic experience and the therapeutic potential of psilocybin. Two regions that showed the greatest decline in activity were the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC).

The mPFC is an area that, when dysfunctional, is linked with rumination and obsessive thinking. “Probably the most reliable finding in depression is that the mPFC is overactive,” says Carhart-Harris.

All antidepressant treatments studied so far — from Prozac, ketamine, electroconvulsive therapy and talk therapy to placebo — reduce activity in the mPFC when they are effective. Since psilocybin does the same, Carhart-Harris and his colleagues plan to study it as a treatment for depression. “It shuts off this ruminating area and allows the mind to work more freely,” he says. “That’s a strong indication of the potential of psilocybin as a treatment for depression.”

The PCC is thought to play a key role in consciousness and self-identity. “The most intriguing aspect was that the decreases in activity were in specific regions that belong to a network in

the brain known as the default network,” notes Carhart-Harris. “There’s a lot of evidence that it’s associated with our sense of self — our ego or personality, who we are.”

“What’s often said about psychedelic experience is that people experience a temporary dissolution of their ego or sense of being an independent agent with a particular personality,” he says. “Something seems to happen where the sense of self dissolves, and that overlaps with ideas in Eastern philosophy and Buddhism.” This sense of being at one with the universe, losing one’s “selfish” sense and vantage point, and feeling the connectedness of all beings often brings profound peace.

The researchers also looked for an effect on the language-processing areas of the brain, since users so often report that their experience is difficult to put into words. “There wasn’t any correlation between people saying that the experience was ineffable and any change in brain activity,” Carhart-Harris says. “It may just be because the way we symbolize the world with language is a constrained function. It has a degree of precision to it, really, and these drug experiences are so unusual we don’t have words to describe them.”

Carhart-Harris and his colleagues did find support for claims made by sufferers of painful cluster headaches that psilocybin reduces the frequency of their attacks. These headaches are known to involve overactivity of a brain area called the hypothalamus, and psilocybin calmed this region.

Interestingly, Nature‘s Mo Costandi reports that another study of the effects of psilocybin on the brain found the opposite effect of Carhart-Harris’ group:

“We have completed a number of similar studies and we always saw an activation of these same areas,” says

Franz Vollenweider at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. “We gave the drug orally and waited an hour, but

they administered it intravenously just before the scans, so one explanation is that [their] effects were not that

strong.”

Another neuroscientist told Nature that some studies find that lowered activation of the mPFC is associated with anticipatory anxiety rather than calmness or overall lack of depression. The researcher theorizes that the brain images in the current study picked up the participants’ fear, rather than their mystical experiences. But that conflicts with participants’ reports: they said their trips were mainly positive.

Carhart-Harris cautions against using psilocybin outside of a well-monitored therapeutic setting, however, particularly for patients with depression. “What we found was in healthy volunteers,” he says. “They liked the experience and didn’t have negative reactions, but

during depression people are more sensitive to having a negative response to psychedelic drugs.”

In fact, that may help explain why psychedelic drugs are rarely addictive and why some of them may even have potential to treat other addictions. Unlike addictive drugs, which typically allow users to escape, psychedelic drugs have the opposite effect: instead of allowing users to avoid negative emotions, they magnify the painful feelings. Researchers believe this may help patients address their problems instead of fleeing them — in the context of an empathetic therapeutic setting — but it can also exacerbate distress. (Psilocybin is illegal in the U.S. and is considered a Schedule 1 drug, a class of substances that “have a high potential for abuse and serve no legitimate medical purpose in the United States,” according to the Department of Justice. Other Schedule 1 drugs include marijuana, heroin and LSD.)

Indeed, the new research bolsters the idea of “psychedelic” as an accurate label for these drugs. The word was originally coined by Huxley, from the Greek “psyche” for mind or soul and “delos” for manifest. A growing body of literature suggests that these drugs can indeed help scientists understand the workings of the mind and brain, by revealing some of the underpinnings of consciousness.

Some have argued, for example, that the geometric visual hallucinations commonly seen by people on psychedelics (and by some sufferers of migraines) help reveal the architecture of the brain’s visual processing mechanism. “One hypothesis is that what you’re actually seeing is the functional organization of the visual cortex itself. The visual cortex is organized in a sort of fractal way [it repeats the same patterns in different sizes]. It’s the same way that fractals are everywhere in nature. Like tree branches, the brain recapitulates [itself],” says Carhart-Harris. “You’re not seeing the cells themselves, but the way they’re organized — as if the brain is revealing itself to itself.”

Correction [Jan. 24, 2012]: The original version of this story misquoted Nature reporter Mo Costandi.

Maia Szalavitz is a health writer for TIME.com. Find her on Twitter at @maiasz. You can also continue the discussion on TIME Healthland‘s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIMEHealthland.

Psychol Med. 2016 May;46(7):1379-90. doi: 10.1017/S0033291715002901. Epub 2016 Feb 5.

The paradoxical psychological effects of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD).Carhart-Harris RL1, Kaelen M1, Bolstridge M1, Williams TM2, Williams LT1, Underwood R3, Feilding A4, Nutt DJ1.

Author informationAbstract

BACKGROUND:

Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) is a potent serotonergic hallucinogen or psychedelic that modulates

consciousness in a marked and novel way. This study sought to examine the acute and mid-term

psychological effects of LSD in a controlled study.

METHOD:

A total of 20 healthy volunteers participated in this within-subjects study. Participants received LSD (75 µg,

intravenously) on one occasion and placebo (saline, intravenously) on another, in a balanced order, with at

least 2 weeks separating sessions. Acute subjective effects were measured using the Altered States of

Consciousness questionnaire and the Psychotomimetic States Inventory (PSI). A measure of optimism (the

Revised Life Orientation Test), the Revised NEO Personality Inventory, and the Peter's Delusions Inventory

were issued at baseline and 2 weeks after each session.

RESULTS:

LSD produced robust psychological effects; including heightened mood but also high scores on the PSI, an

index of psychosis-like symptoms. Increased optimism and trait openness were observed 2 weeks after LSD

(and not placebo) and there were no changes in delusional thinking.

CONCLUSIONS:

The present findings reinforce the view that psychedelics elicit psychosis-like symptoms acutely yet improve

psychological wellbeing in the mid to long term. It is proposed that acute alterations in mood are secondary

to a more fundamental modulation in the quality of cognition, and that increased cognitive flexibility

subsequent to serotonin 2A receptor (5-HT2AR) stimulation promotes emotional lability during intoxication

and leaves a residue of 'loosened cognition' in the mid to long term that is conducive to improved

psychological wellbeing.

Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousnessDrug researcher David Nutt discusses brain-imaging studies with hallucinogens.

Zoe Cormier 11 April 2016

Imperial College London

Under the influence of LSD, the brain's visual cortex

has increased connectivity with other brain regions

(right) than when imaged under placebo (left).Researchers have published the first images showing the effects of LSD on the human brain, as part of a series of studies that are examining how the drug causes its characteristic hallucinogenic effects1.

David Nutt, a neuropsychopharmacologist at Imperial College London who

has previously examined the neural effects of mind-altering drugs such as the hallucinogen psilocybin — an active ingredient in magic mushrooms — was one of the study's leaders. He tells Nature what the research revealed, and how LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) might ultimately be useful in therapies.

Why study the effects of LSD on the brain?For brain researchers, studying how psychedelic drugs such as LSD alter the ‘normal’ brain state is a way to study the biological phenomenon that is consciousness.

No link found between psychedelics and psychosisWe ultimately would also like to see LSD deployed as a therapeutic tool. The idea has old roots. In the 1950s and 1960s, thousands of people took LSD for alcoholism; in 2012, a retrospective analysis of some of these studies 2  suggested that it helped to cut down on drinking. Since the 1970s, there have been lots of studies with LSD on animals, but not on the human brain. We need that data to validate the trial of this drug as a potential therapy for addiction or depression.

Why hasn’t anyone done brain scans before?Before the 1960s, LSD was studied for its potential therapeutic uses, as were other hallucinogens. But the drug was heavily restricted in the United Kingdom, the United States and around the world after 1967 — in my view, due to unfounded hysteria over its potential dangers. The restrictions vary worldwide, but in general, countries have insisted that LSD has ‘no medical value’, making it tremendously difficult to work with.

Suzanne Plunkett/REUTERS

David Nutt.How did you get approval to give volunteers LSD?United Nations conventions and national laws do permit academic research on heavily restricted drugs such as LSD. In the United Kingdom, this sort of study is legal as long as the drug is not being used as a therapeutic. This was not a clinical trial: we gave LSD to volunteers who were already experienced with the drugs and took their brain scans over eight hours in the lab in Cardiff, UK, in 2014. It took us nine months to get approval from a UK ethics committee for the work: the research was funded by the Safra Foundation [a philanthropic foundation based in Geneva, Switzerland] and the Beckley Foundation [a charity near Oxford, UK, that promotes drug-policy reform], although we needed to crowdfund through Walacea.com for the resources to analyse the data.

What were the results of the study?To take advantage of the “long trip” produced by LSD — an eight-hour experience, as compared to, say, four on psilocybin — we put our participants through a huge range of tests.

In one study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, we looked at blood flow in different parts of the brain using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and at electrical activity using magnetoencephalography1. We found that under LSD, as compared to placebo, disparate regions in the brain communicate with each other when they don’t normally do so. In particular, the visual cortex increases its communication with other areas of the brain, which helps to explain the vivid and complex hallucinations experienced under LSD, and the emotional flavour they can take.

Ayahuasca psychedelic tested for depression

On the other hand, within some important brain networks, such as the neuronal networks that normally fire together when the brain is at rest, which is sometimes called the ‘default mode’ network, we saw reduced blood flow — something we’ve also seen with psilocybin — and that neurons that normally fire together lost synchronization. That correlated with our volunteers reporting a disintegration of their sense of self, or ego. This known effect is

called ‘ego dissolution’: the sense that you are less a singular entity, and more melded with people and things around you. We showed that this could be experienced independently of the hallucinatory effects — the two don’t necessarily go together.

What else?Among other studies, one of our team, Mendel Kaelen, a PhD student at Imperial College London, has a paper which will appear next week in European Neuropsychopharmacology3  looking at how listening to music affects the experience of taking LSD. He found that communication between the parahippocampus [a brain region important in memory storage] and the visual cortex [which processes information input from the eyes] is reduced when you take LSD. But when you hear music as well, the visual cortex receives more information from the parahippocampus, and this is associated with increases in ‘eyes-closed’ imagery and personal memories. So music enhances the LSD experience and might be important in therapeutic settings.

Another study, to be published in Current Biology4 and led by Robin Carhart-Harris of Imperial, looks at how ego dissolution correlates with an increase in global connectivity — all the parts of the brain communicating with each other to a greater degree.

With only 20 participants — and only 15 quality data points because 5 people moved too much inside the brain scanner — how confident can you be in your findings?We got very clear and significant effects — and they were consistent with the data from previous studies with psilocybin4, although the effects with LSD were much stronger.

Are other scientists working with LSD?We think there is only one other group in the world currently working with LSD in humans. They are based at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, led by Franz Vollenweider. They seem to be focusing on using antagonists [which block LSD and its effects] to clarify the pharmacological targets of LSD. They have done their own fMRI scans, but taken during psychological tasks, rather than when the brain is at rest, as we did. Their results haven’t been published yet, so I can’t comment on their findings.

What studies will you do next?We have plans to do separate experiments to look at how LSD can influence creativity, and how the LSD state mimics the dream state.

More importantly, we have already completed a trial on psilocybin as a therapy for treatment-resistant depression funded by the UK Medical Research Council: not as a daily drug, but in targeted psychotherapeutic sessions. Results will be presented next month. The basic argument for this is that we know that the default-mode network is overactive in people who are depressed, and we know from our earlier study5 that psilocybin reduces how integrated that network is — at least during the ‘trip’ itself.

Our latest brain-imaging study suggests that LSD has similar effects — suggesting that it could be trialled therapeutically, too.

Nature

doi:10.1038/nature.2016.19727

References 1. Carhart-Harris, R. L. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci USAhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1518377113 (2016).2. Krebs, T. S. & Johansen, P.-O. J. Psychopharmacol. 26, 994–1002 (2012).

3. Kaelen, M. et al. Eur. Neuropsychopharmacol. (in the press).4. Tagliazucchi, E. et al. Curr. Biol. (in the press).5. Carhart-Harris, R. L. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 109, 2138–2143 (2012).

Harvard neuroscientist: Meditation not only reduces stress, here’s how it changes your brainBy Brigid Schulte May 26, 2015 (Washington Post)

Sara Lazar, a neuroscientist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, was one of the first scientists to take the anecdotal claims about the benefits of meditation and mindfulness and test them in brain scans. What she found surprised her — that meditating can literally change your brain. She explains:

Q: Why did you start looking at meditation and mindfulness and the brain?

Lazar: A friend and I were training for the Boston marathon. I had some running injuries, so I saw a physical therapist who told me to stop running and just stretch. So I started practicing yoga as a form of physical therapy. I started realizing that it was very powerful, that it had some real benefits, so I just got interested in how it worked.

The yoga teacher made all sorts of claims, that yoga would increase your compassion and open your heart. And I’d think, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m here to stretch.’ But I started noticing that I was calmer. I was better able to handle more difficult situations. I was more compassionate and open hearted, and able to see things from others’ points of view.

I thought, maybe it was just the placebo response. But then I did a literature search of the science, and saw evidence that meditation had been associated with decreased stress, decreased depression, anxiety, pain and insomnia, and an increased quality of life.

At that point, I was doing my PhD in molecular biology. So I just switched and started doing this research as a post-doc.

Q: How did you do the research?

Lazar: The first study looked at long term meditators vs a control group. We found long-term meditators have an increased amount of gray matter in the insula and sensory regions, the auditory and sensory cortex. Which makes sense. When you’re mindful, you’re paying attention to your breathing, to sounds, to the present moment experience, and shutting cognition down. It stands to reason your senses would be enhanced.

We also found they had more gray matter in the frontal cortex, which is associated with working memory and executive decision making.

It’s well-documented that our cortex shrinks as we get older – it’s harder to figure things out and remember things. But in this one region of the prefrontal cortex, 50-year-old meditators had the same amount of gray matter as 25-year-olds.

So the first question was, well, maybe the people with more gray matter in the study had more gray matter before they started meditating. So we did a second study.

We took people who’d never meditated before, and put one group through an eight-week  mindfulness- based stress reduction program. 

Lazar: We found differences in brain volume after eight weeks in five different regions in the brains of the two groups. In the group that learned meditation, we found thickening in four regions:

1. The primary difference, we found in the posterior cingulate, which is involved in mind wandering, and self relevance.

2. The left hippocampus, which assists in learning, cognition, memory and emotional regulation.

3.  The temporo parietal junction, or TPJ, which is associated with perspective taking, empathy and compassion.

4. An area of the brain stem called the Pons, where a lot of regulatory neurotransmitters are produced.

The amygdala, the fight or flight part of the brain which is important for anxiety, fear and stress in general. That area got smaller in the group that went

through the mindfulness-based stress reduction program.

The change in the amygdala was also correlated to a reduction in stress levels.

Q: So how long does someone have to meditate before they begin to see changes in their brain?

Lazar: Our data shows changes in the brain after just eight weeks.

In a mindfulness-based stress reduction program, our subjects took a weekly class. They were given a recording and told to practice 40 minutes a day at home. And that’s it.

Q: So, 40 minutes a day?

Lazar: Well, it was highly variable in the study. Some people practiced 40 minutes pretty much every day. Some people practiced less. Some only a couple times a week.

In my study, the average was 27 minutes a day. Or about a half hour a day.

There isn’t good data yet about how much someone needs to practice in order to benefit.

Meditation teachers will tell you, though there’s absolutely no scientific basis to this, but anecdotal comments from students suggest that 10 minutes a day could have some subjective benefit. We need to test it out.

We’re just starting a study that will hopefully allow us to assess what the functional significance of these changes are. Studies by other scientists have shown that meditation can help enhance attention and emotion regulation skills. But most were not neuroimaging studies. So now we’re hoping to bring that behavioral and neuroimaging science together.

Q: Given what we know from the science, what would you encourage readers to do?

Lazar: Mindfulness is just like exercise. It’s a form of mental exercise, really. And just as exercise increases health, helps us handle stress better and promotes longevity, meditation purports to confer some of those same benefits.

But, just like exercise, it can’t cure everything. So the idea is, it’s useful as an adjunct therapy. It’s not a standalone. It’s been tried with many, many other disorders, and the results vary tremendously – it impacts some symptoms, but not all. The results are sometimes modest. And it doesn’t work for everybody.

It’s still early days for trying to figure out what it can or can’t do.

Q: So, knowing the limitations, what would you suggest?

Lazar: It does seem to be beneficial for most people. The most important thing, if you’re going to try it, is to find a good teacher. Because it’s simple, but it’s also complex. You have to understand what’s going on in your mind. A good teacher is priceless

Q: Do you meditate? And do you have a teacher?

Lazar: Yes and yes.

Q: What difference has it made in your life?

Lazar: I’ve been doing this for 20 years now, so it’s had a very profound influence on my life. It’s very grounding. It’s reduced stress. It helps me think more clearly. It’s great for interpersonal interactions. I have more empathy and compassion for people.

Q: What’s your own practice?

Lazar: Highly variable. Some days 40 minutes. Some days five minutes. Some days, not at all. It’s a lot like exercise. Exercising three times a week is great. But if all you can do is just a little bit every day, that’s a good thing, too. I’m sure if I practiced more, I’d benefit more. I have no idea if I’m getting brain changes or not. It’s just that this is what works for me right now.

Meditation Changes How Genes Are ExpressedFirst study to show rapid beneficial changes from meditation at the molecular level.

The health benefits of meditation are becoming well-established, but we still know little about how these effects are achieved.

A new study, though, sheds light onto the molecular changes that take place in the body as a result of meditation.

For their new study, Kaliman et al. (2014) recruited 19 experienced meditators, who each carried out an intensive 8-hour session of mindfulness meditation.

They were compared with a group of 21 others who engaged in quiet non-meditative activities for the same period of time.

Both groups gave blood samples before and after their activities.

After analyzing these samples at the molecular level, they found some remarkable changes.

Amongst the group of experienced meditators, changes could be seen in the way certain important genes were expressed.

The expression of genes which are involved in inflammation, and generally in the body’s stress-response, were down-regulated.

These changes were not seen in the control group.

The body’s stress-response is important for all sorts of health conditions such as cancer, metabolic diseases and neuropsychological problems.

Richard J. Davidson, one of the study’s authors said:

“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper that shows rapid alterations in gene expression within subjects associated with mindfulness meditation practice.”

Stress recovery

Both groups were also given a test of social stress afterwards. This involved having to give a surprise speech in front of an audience and video camera.

Tests of cortisol levels in participants’ saliva revealed that the expert meditators were able to recover quicker from this stressful event than the other group.

This study may demonstrate physiological mechanisms which helps explain why mindfulness meditation is so beneficial.

Professor Davidson said:

“Our genes are quite dynamic in their expression and these results suggest that the calmness of our mind can actually have a potential influence on their expression.”

The lead author of the study, Perla Kaliman, added:

“The regulation of HDACs and inflammatory pathways may represent some of the mechanisms underlying the therapeutic potential of mindfulness-based interventions. Our findings set the foundation for future studies to further assess meditation strategies for the treatment of chronic inflammatory conditions.”

How Meditation Improves AttentionThe science of meditation and attention, including a beginner’s guide to meditation.WILLIAM JAMES WROTE that controlling attention is at “the very root of judgement, character and will”. He

also noted that controlling attention is much easier said than done. This is unfortunate because almost

every impressive human achievement is, at heart, a feat of attention. Art, science, technology — you

name it — someone, somewhere had to concentrate, and concentrate hard.

Wouldn’t it be fantastic to be able to concentrate without effort? Not to feel the strain of directing

attention, just to experience a relaxed, intense, deep focus? So naturally the million dollar question is:

how can attention be improved?

Psychologists are fascinated by the sometimes fantastical claims made for meditation, particularly in its

promise of improving attention. It certainly seems intuitively right that meditation should improve

attention — after all meditation is essentially concentration practice — but what does the scientific

evidence tell us?

Does meditation improve attention?

The problem with attention is that it naturally likes to jump around from one thing to another: attention is

antsy, it won’t settle — this is not in itself a bad thing, just the way it is. Attention’s fidgety nature can be

clearly seen in the phenomenon of ‘binocular rivalry’. If you show one picture to one eye and a different

picture to the other eye, attention shuttles between them, wondering which is more interesting.

A simple lab version of this presents a set of vertical lines to one eye and a set of horizontal lines to the

other. What people see is the brain flipping between the horizontal and the vertical lines and

occasionally merging them both together, seemingly at random. People usually find it difficult to see

either the horizontal or the vertical lines — or even the merged version — for an extended period

because attention naturally flicks between them.

If the binocular rivalry test is a kind of index of the antsy-ness of attention, then those with more

focused attention should see fewer changes. So reasoned Carter et al. (2005) who had 76 Tibetan

Buddhists in their mountain retreats meditate before taking a binocular rivalry test. They sat, wearing

display goggles and staring at the lines, pressing a button each time the dominant view changed

between horizontal, vertical and merged. The more button presses, the more times their attention

switched.

In one condition their meditation was ‘compassionate’, thinking about all the suffering in the world while

in the other it was ‘one-point’ meditation focusing completely on one aspect of their experience, for

example their breath going in and out. Although the ‘compassionate’ form of meditation had no effect,

the ‘one-point’ meditation reduced the rate of switching in half the participants.

The results were even more dramatic when the Buddhists carried out the one-point meditation while

looking through the goggles. Some of the most experienced monks reported complete image stability:

they saw just the horizontal or vertical lines for a full 5 minutes. When compared to people who do not

meditate, these results are exceptional.

Quicker results

Of course we don’t all have 20 years to pass in a mountain retreat learning how to concentrate, so is

there any hope for the rest of us? A recent study by Dr. Amishi Jha and colleagues at Pennsylvania

University suggests there is (Jha, Krompinger & Baime, 2007). Rather than recruiting people who were

already superstar concentrators, they sent people who had not practised meditation before on an 8-

week training course in mindfulness-based stress reduction, a type of meditation. This consisted of a

series of 3-hour classes, with at least 30 minutes of meditation practice per day.

These 17 participants were then compared with a further 17 from a control group on a series of

attentional measures. The results showed that those who had received training were better at focusing

their attention than the control group. This certainly suggests that meditation was improving people’s

attention.

Dr. Jha and colleagues were also interested in how practice beyond beginner level would affect

people’s powers of attention. To test this they sent participants who were already meditators on a

mindfulness retreat for one month. Afterwards they were given the same series of attention measures

and were found to have improved in their reactions to new stimuli. In other words they seemed to have

become more receptive.

Attentional improvements from meditation, though, have recently been reported even quicker than 8

weeks. A study carried out by Yi-Yuan Tang and colleagues gave participants just 20 minutes

instruction every day for five days (Tang et al., 2007). Participants practised a Chinese form of

meditation called ‘integrative body-mind training’, which uses similar techniques to other types of

meditation. They found that after only this relatively short introduction participants demonstrated

improved attention compared to a control group, along with other benefits such as lower levels of stress

and higher energy levels.

There is even evidence that meditation can improve a major limitation of the brain’s attentional

system. Attentional blink is the finding that our attention ‘blinks’ for about half a second right after we

focus on something (follow the link for the full story). Meditation, however, seems to be able to increase

our minds’ attentional bandwidth. Slagter et al. (2007) gave participants 3 months of intensive

meditation training and found that afterwards the attentional blink was seriously curtailed. In other

words people were capable of processing information more quickly and accurately. Perhaps, then,

meditation really can open the doors of perception…

This research on meditation’s effect on attention is just the tip of the iceberg. Other studies have also

suggested that meditation can benefit motivation, cognition, emotional intelligence and may even

sharpen awareness to such an extent that we can control our dreams (Walsh & Shapiro, 2006). And

these are just the psychological benefits, there also appear to be considerable physical benefits.

Beginner’s guide to meditation

Since it is so beneficial here is a quick primer on how to meditate. Meditation is like chess: the rules are

relatively easy to explain, but the game itself is infinitely complex. And like chess the names and

techniques of meditation are many and varied but the fundamentals are much the same:

1. Relax the body and the mind. This can be done through body posture, mental imagery,

mantras, music, progressive muscle relaxation, any old trick that works. Take your pick. This step

is relatively easy as most of us have some experience of relaxing, even if we don’t get much

opportunity.

2. Be mindful. Bit cryptic this one but it means something like this: don’t pass judgement on your

thoughts, let them come and go as they will (and boy will they come and go!) but try to nudge

your attention back to its primary aim, whatever that is. Turns out this is quite difficult because

we’re used to mentally travelling backwards and forwards while making judgements on

everything (e.g. worrying, dreading, anticipating, regretting etc.). The key is to notice in a

detached way what’s happening but not to get involved with it. This way of thinking often doesn’t

come that naturally.

3. Concentrate on something. Often meditators concentrate on their breath, the feel of it going in

and out, but it could be anything: your feet, a potato, a stone. The breath is handy because we

carry it around with us. But whatever it is try to focus all your attention onto it. When your

attention wavers, and it will almost immediately, gently bring it back. Don’t chide yourself, be

good to yourself, be nice. The act of concentrating on one thing is surprisingly difficult: you will

feel the mental burn almost immediately. Experienced practitioners say this eases with practice.

4. Concentrate on nothing. Most say this can’t be achieved without a lot of practice, so I’ll say no

more about it here. Master the basics first.

5. Zzzzz Zzzzz. That’s not meditating, that’s sleeping.

This is just a quick introduction but does give you enough to get started. It’s important not to get too

caught up in techniques but to remember the main goal: exercising attention by relaxing and focusing

on something. Try these things out first, see what happens, then explore further.

New ways of being

As William James pointed out attention is so fundamental to our daily lives that sharpening it up is

bound to spill over into many different areas of everyday life. This series of articles on attention shows

that when attention goes wrong people are frequently beset by unsettling experiences, but when it goes

right we are capable of all sorts of incredible abilities, like multitasking the cocktail party effect, and

even curtailing the attentional blink.

In fact attention is so fundamental to consciousness that it’s no exaggeration to say that what we pay

attention to makes us who we are. Potentially, then, meditation offers a way to remake ourselves,

leaving behind damaging or limiting habits and discovering new ways of being.

Further reading: Science of meditation and state of Hypnosis (UCLA; Holroyd) http://www.asch.net/portals/0/journallibrary/articles/ajch-46/holroyd.pdf