Julian Jaynes (1920 – 1997) was an American psychologist and is best known for his 1976 book, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. ‘Bicameral’ means having two chambers. The theory of the bicameral mind says that the two hemispheres of our ancestors’ brains – the left and right – carried…
View Post
Having control of one’s body and one’s mind – also called self-ownership – is, I believe, the most basic human right anyone can have. Mill summed up it nicely in On Liberty: “Over one’s mind and over one’s body the individual is sovereign” – although he did (rightly so) allow for exceptions involving actions which…
View Post
The sensory deprivation tank (also known as an isolation tank or a floatation tank) was invented in 1954 by John C. Lilly. Lilly (1915-2001), as well as being interested in the effects of sensory deprivation on consciousness, was also interested in dolphin communication and psychedelic drugs. When studying neurophysiology at the National Institute of Mental…
View Post
This lecture, ‘Why Study Psychedelic Drugs?’, is from ‘A Discussion on Scientific Research with Psychedelic Drugs’, a conference chaired by Professor David Nutt at Imperial College London (12/06/2013). In this lecture, Professor David Nutt outlines why the scientific investigation of psychedelic drugs is worthwhile and valuable. He points to the fact that actual scientific discoveries…
View Post
Ketamine is a dissociative drug, meaning that it produces feelings of dissociation – dissociation from one’s environment and even dissociation from one’s own body. The drug is used in human and veterinary medicine, both as an anaesthetic (to knock the patient out) and as an analgesic (to numb any feelings of pain). Ketamine is also…
View Post