ps418

Visionary experiences are an occasional component of near-death experiences, and accounts of them are also found in many religious texts. These experiences also play a central role in many shamanic rituals. By vision I mean an experience of "mentally" perceiving places and objects and people, usually accompanied by a sense of profundity or "knowing." They are qualitatively different from imagination, are percieved as being much more detailed and "real," and are seen to unfold autonomously, independent of the intentions of the experient. Visionary experiences can be reliably induced through the use of various psychedelic drugs, particularly DMT or DMT-containing plants, psilocybe mushrooms, and ketamine. Visions are only very infrequently reported with LSD, and only at very high doses. An important step to understanding the nature of the visionary experience is simply to map their phenomenology: What is seen? In what order? How does culture and expectation influence the vision? How are the visions interpreted? And so on.

One important contribution to this effort was Rick Stassman's research with oral and intravenous DMT. From 1990 to 1994, Strassman of New Mexico's School of Medicine conducted several hundred DMT administrations with dozens of human subjects. The results are published in journal articles, and in his book DMT: The Spirit Molecule. A good account of the subjective effects of DMT is provided by Strassman's article Subjective effects of DMT and the development of the Hallucinogen Rating Scale. MAPS 3(2) Spring 1992, which describes the effects of IV doses of 0.04, 0.1, 0.2, and 0.4mg/kg. At high doses, DMT produces remarkable experiences that are described as being similar to near-death visionary experiences, including perceptions of detailed and novel landscapes and experiences of contact with various beings.

Now, there is a new book by cognitive psychologist Benny Shannon charting the phenomenology of the Ayahuasca visionary experience. Ayahuasca or Yage is a brew made from the vine Banisteriopsis caapi, and is widely used by shamans in South America. The active ingredient is DMT. The book is called The Antipodes of the Mind: Charting the Phenomenology of the Ayahuasca Experience.

Shannon describes in detail the experiences and phenomena that accompany Ayahuasca use, based both on his own experiences and those of others, as well as how those experiences are interpreted by those who have them. Looks like fascinating reading. Shannon admits to being amazed by the experiences, yet skeptical of the occult claims so often made for them by people such as Terrence McKenna. Also, though I'm not a big fan of Scientific American, the former editor of SciAm and novice psychonaut, John Horgan, gave the book a 5/5 rating at Amazon.com.

There is also a brief article by Shannon called Ayahuasca and Creativity available. There is also a review of Shannon's book by William Benzon.

Patrick