"A scientist who is not a mystic, is no scientist."
The value of non-ordinary states of consciousness for science
When we think of science, we think of logic, deduction, objectivity, and systematization. While it’s true that we scientists employ these techniques in our pursuit of knowledge, the majority of scientists will tell you that another factor - creativity - plays a crucial role in our ability to come up with insights, solutions, and discoveries.
Scientists have experimented with a variety of methods to induce these creative breakthroughs, including psychedelics and other non-ordinary states of consciousness. Rumor has it that Francis Crick was on an LSD trip when he had the novel insight that DNA has a double helix structure (1). Biochemist Kary Mullins, who won the Nobel prize for inventing the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), admitted that LSD had helped him visualize sitting on a DNA molecule and “watching the polymerase go by” (2). These psychedelic experiences, as described by the scientists who have used them, provide alternate perspectives of the scientific problems they had been working on, many times from the perspective of the object of interest itself (e.g. becoming the DNA molecule).
Let me explain further using astrobiologist Bruce Damer’s recent exceptional talk on this topic from the McKenna Academy’s Ethnopharmacologic Search for Psychoactive Drugs (ESPD55) conference. Damer explains his position that, “Psychedelics can drive creative breakthroughs in science and maybe even flashes of genius.” In the talk, he described a method he has personally used with psychedelics to explore scientific problems that were the focus of his work. For example, in a high-dose psychedelic session, when pondering the origin of life on Earth (one of the professional problems he had been working on), he had a vision of a hot spring near a volcano that contained protocells.
During this vision, he posed the question, “What do I do?”
The answer, he reports, was (and often is in these trips), “Become it now.”
His consciousness merged and became one with that of the proto-cells, taking on their conscious perspective and allowing Damer to gain crucial insights into their existence. Following the psychedelic trip, he continued to further explore and contemplate the insights he received through breathwork and yoga sessions, ultimately deriving a testable hypothesis: the hot springs hypothesis for an origin of life (3). Damer published the hypothesis in a peer-reviewed scientific journal and continued the work required to test the theory. He closed his talk saying, “Psychedelics can produce visions that land in the real world and produce value for humanity.”
Psychedelics aside, other non-ordinary states of consciousness have been used by scientists and artists to tap into the creative space. Thomas Edison famously used the hypnogogic state for creative scientific solutions, meditating on a scientific problem while holding two steel balls in each hand as he progressively relaxed, such that he would drop the balls and wake up should he begin to fall asleep. This allowed him to capture insights and breakthroughs before they could slip away into his sleep state. Artists and writers, such as Salvador Dalí and Edgar Allan Poe (and many more), have also used non-ordinary states of consciousness for creativity. Personally, I have had my best epiphanies on long, meditative walks and in that brief moment between waking and dreaming (i.e. hypnagogia).
So, many of us are aware of the value of these non-ordinary states of consciousness, yet persist on prioritizing linear, analytical thought at the expense of truly creative and innovative thinking.
Besides creativity and breakthroughs for scientific problems, experiencing states of non-ordinary consciousness - particularly mystical states - provides a broader understanding of the human experience, which, I would argue, provides important context to any scientific endeavor. If the brain, psyche, or, more broadly, the human experience is like an iceberg, how much are we missing by focusing our attention on conscious states, which are like the tip of the iceberg?
As a reminder, mystical states are described as being and having qualities of:
Sacredness: a sense that what is encountered is holy or sacred.
Noetic quality: imbued with an aspect of meaning and a sense of encountering ultimate reality that is more real than usual everyday reality.
Deeply felt positive mood: joy, ecstasy, blessedness, peace, tenderness, gentleness, tranquility, awe.
Ineffability: difficult to put into words.
Paradoxicality: to explain the experience, one seems to have to describe the co-existence of mutually exclusive states or concepts.
Transcendence of time and space: traditional notions of time and space have no meaning.
Let me drop a couple mystical experience descriptions below as a reminder:
“This has come upon me through repeating my own name to myself silently, till all at once …individuality itself seemed to dissolve away into boundless being, and this not a confused state but the clearest, the surest of the surest, utterly beyond words – here death was an almost laughable impossibility …I am ashamed of my feeble description. Have I not said the state is utterly beyond words?” – Alfred, Lord Tennyson (4, p. 295)
“… I had ceased to exist,” I refer to a concrete experience that is verbally as incommunicable as the feeling aroused by a piano concerto, yet just as real – only much more real. In fact, its primary mark is the sensation that this state is more real than any other one has experienced before – that for the first time the veil has fallen and one is in touch with “real reality.” – Arthur Koestler (5, p.345-363)
Why do these experiences feel more real than everyday reality? How are they so imbued with life-altering meaning? We cannot dismiss these experiences by merely providing the neural correlates – which are unknown, in any case – as an explanation. We do know that brain network functionality, entropy, and energy harmonics are altered on psychedelics (which can reliably produce these states) (6-8).
But then, how do these states improve the perception of meaning? It is generally assumed that the brain creates ‘meaning’ through higher-level cognitive processes, requiring coordination amongst various brain networks. One might expect, then, that in a deconstructed state such as that on psychedelics, one might experience something blank or dim, or the type of unconscious state experienced under general anesthesia. Instead, what is experienced is an extraordinary experience of pure, undifferentiated, unitary consciousness. And, to confuse matters even more, the language used to describe these experiences tends to have – somewhat mysteriously – a mystical, spiritual, or religious quality, even from individuals who are, prior to the experience, atheists or not affiliated with any particular religious or spiritual denomination. What can these core experiences tell us about the essence of being human? Of how our biology has evolved?
These mystical, non-ordinary states of consciousness can happen under a variety of circumstances, not just those brought on by chemically-induced psychedelics. For example, over 90% of the world’s 4,000 recognized societies have one or more procedures for induction of non-ordinary states of consciousness, using methods such as fasting, sleep deprivation, and drumming/dancing/clapping/chanting practices at great intensity over longer periods of time (9). In other words, there has been great value derived from these experiential states across time and societies. Deriving creative insights and breakthroughs is one valuable consequence, but there is also healing and more.
Non-ordinary states of consciousness are powerful and transformative human experiences that have a profoundly important, yet mysterious, psychological phenomenon at their core. I would argue that scientists, whether they study consciousness or not, should embrace and utilize non-ordinary states of consciousness – especially states of mystical oneness – to help them in mapping the entirety of the human experience. Since the experiences are ineffable, a first-hand account is required!
After all, Albert Hofmann, the scientist who discovered LSD, famously said, “A scientist who is not a mystic, is no scientist.”
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1. Rees A. Nobel Prize genius Crick was high on LSD when he disscovered the secret of life. Mail on Sunday, 8 August 2004, pp. 44–45.
2. Mullis K. Dancing naked in the mind field. New York: Pantheon Books, 1998.
3. Damer B, Deamer D. The hot spring hypothesis for an origin of life. Astrobiology 2020; 20: 429–452.
4. James W. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. Longmans, Green & Co., 1902.
5. Koestler A. The Invisible Writing. Boston: Beacon, 1954.
6. Carhart-Harris RL, Leech R, Hellyer PJ, et al. The entropic brain: A theory of conscious states informed by neuroimaging research with psychedelic drugs. Front Hum Neurosci 2014; 8: 20.
7. Herzog R, Mediano PAM, Rosas FE, et al. A mechanistic model of the neural entropy increase elicited by psychedelic drugs. Sci Reports 2020 101 2020; 10: 1–12.
8. Atasoy S, Deco G, Kringelbach ML, et al. Harmonic Brain Modes: A Unifying Framework for Linking Space and Time in Brain Dynamics. Neuroscientist 2018; 24: 277–293.
9. Locke RG, Kelly EF. A Preliminary Model for the cross-cultural analysis of altered states of consciousness. Ethos 1985; 13: 3–55.