DMT and Déjà Vu: Insights From Bergson and Cognitive Science

During the DMT trance, there can be an extremely powerful feeling of déjà vu. The realm is strangely familiar, strangely so because this familiar realm is, at the same time, utterly alien. This world is alien in two senses: it is unlike anything in waking consensus reality, and it appears to be a futuristic, high-tech…

View Post

When Objects Breathe: Psychedelics and the Hylozoic Experience

After ingesting mescaline, Aldous Huxley wrote that he saw “a bunch of flowers shining with their own inner light and all but quivering under the pressure of the significance with which they were charged”. In The Doors of Perception (1954), he describes, as many psychonauts do, the world becoming alive under the influence of psychedelics.…

View Post

Psychedelic Apophenia: Seeing the Influence of Psychedelics Where None Exists

Being passionate and enthusiastic about psychedelics – or even evangelical about them – can sometimes lead to seeing their influence everywhere. When you spend a lot of time thinking about these substances, as well as using them, it’s as if the world becomes more psychedelic; nature becomes more alive, and you imagine how things would…

View Post

Breathing Your Way to Altered States

In a blog post from a couple of years ago, I described my first experience with high ventilation breathwork – a form known as Psychedelic Breath, based on the principles of Holotropic Breathwork, developed by the Czech psychiatrist and LSD researcher Stan Grof. In that post, I also detailed some of the research on high…

View Post

Entering the Hypnagogic State Through Yoga Nidra

Yoga nidra (or yogic sleep) is a technique for inducing a state of consciousness between waking and sleeping. I often use it when I’m sleep-deprived, either as a way to (hopefully) have a nap, or at least to feel more rested, which can happen without needing to sleep. Research is also emerging on the benefits…

View Post