Chat
Suche
Mitglieder
Kalender
KT- Wiki
Hilfe
The Experience Elicited by Hallucinogens Presents the Highest Similarity to Dreaming within a Large Database of Psychoactive Substance Reports
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10....00007/full
Ever since the modern rediscovery of psychedelic substances by Western society,
several authors have independently proposed that their effects bear a high resemblance
to the dreams and dreamlike experiences occurring naturally during the sleep-wake
cycle. Recent studies in humans have provided neurophysiological evidence supporting
this hypothesis. However, a rigorous comparative analysis of the phenomenology (“what
it feels like” to experience these states) is currently lacking. We investigated the semantic
similarity between a large number of subjective reports of psychoactive substances and
reports of high/low lucidity dreams, and found that the highest-ranking substance in
terms of the similarity to high lucidity dreams was the serotonergic psychedelic lysergic
acid diethylamide (LSD), whereas the highest-ranking in terms of the similarity to dreams
of low lucidity were plants of the Datura genus, rich in deliriant tropane alkaloids.
Conversely, sedatives, stimulants, antipsychotics, and antidepressants comprised most
of the lowest-ranking substances. An analysis of the most frequent words in the
subjective reports of dreams and hallucinogens revealed that terms associated with
perception (“see,” “visual,” “face,” “reality,” “color”), emotion (“fear”), setting (“outside,”
“inside,” “street,” “front,” “behind”) and relatives (“mom,” “dad,” “brother,” “parent,”
“family”) were the most prevalent across both experiences. In summary, we applied
novel quantitative analyses to a large volume of empirical data to confirm the hypothesis
that, among all psychoactive substances, hallucinogen drugs elicit experiences with
the highest semantic similarity to those of dreams. Our results and the associated
methodological developments open the way to study the comparative phenomenology
of different altered states of consciousness and its relationship with non-invasive
measurements of brain physiology.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10....00007/full
Ever since the modern rediscovery of psychedelic substances by Western society,
several authors have independently proposed that their effects bear a high resemblance
to the dreams and dreamlike experiences occurring naturally during the sleep-wake
cycle. Recent studies in humans have provided neurophysiological evidence supporting
this hypothesis. However, a rigorous comparative analysis of the phenomenology (“what
it feels like” to experience these states) is currently lacking. We investigated the semantic
similarity between a large number of subjective reports of psychoactive substances and
reports of high/low lucidity dreams, and found that the highest-ranking substance in
terms of the similarity to high lucidity dreams was the serotonergic psychedelic lysergic
acid diethylamide (LSD), whereas the highest-ranking in terms of the similarity to dreams
of low lucidity were plants of the Datura genus, rich in deliriant tropane alkaloids.
Conversely, sedatives, stimulants, antipsychotics, and antidepressants comprised most
of the lowest-ranking substances. An analysis of the most frequent words in the
subjective reports of dreams and hallucinogens revealed that terms associated with
perception (“see,” “visual,” “face,” “reality,” “color”), emotion (“fear”), setting (“outside,”
“inside,” “street,” “front,” “behind”) and relatives (“mom,” “dad,” “brother,” “parent,”
“family”) were the most prevalent across both experiences. In summary, we applied
novel quantitative analyses to a large volume of empirical data to confirm the hypothesis
that, among all psychoactive substances, hallucinogen drugs elicit experiences with
the highest semantic similarity to those of dreams. Our results and the associated
methodological developments open the way to study the comparative phenomenology
of different altered states of consciousness and its relationship with non-invasive
measurements of brain physiology.