Can Psychedelics Expand Your Mind?

Do psychedelics have the potential to expand your mind, or even your consciousness?

It’s hard to believe, but when humans first came into contact with psychedelics, it was not only over a million years ago, or approximately, that we weren’t fully aware beings but also lower on the food chain.

Throughout these millions of years, people harvested and consumed mushrooms, which are known to contain psilocybin, which gives them their hallucinogenic properties. We gained status over other animals as a result of this. As we established ourselves as the dominant species, we acquired a wealth of useful skills, including the ability to protect our tribe and ourselves, which was obviously crucial to our survival.

It has been stated that biologists are unable to explain why there has been so little change in our physical human biology over the past 100,000 years. But since psilocybin was first used, our brains have undergone significant evolution, changing even our language system.

Since then, psychedelics and their effects on the human mind have been the subject of much research.

Recent studies using neuroimaging have demonstrated that our brains do not operate as well on a daily basis as they would if we were on psychedelics like psilocybin. This might be used to support the claim that using psychedelics actually raises our consciousness.

Neuroscientist Sam Harris addressed the claim that consciousness is an illusion in his book Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion. According to the author, our thoughts are born, raised, and die inside our own awareness. Harris contends that we can remove ourselves from painful situations if we realize that our identity is limited to our thoughts.

However, even though the trip may be magical, people on a spiritual quest to become enlightened or simply learn more about consciousness should not take the ingestion of psychedelic drugs lightly as the trip’s result. This is especially true for those who want to increase their awareness.

of the trip will be linked to your own biology, genetic make-up and how you’ve learned to understand and interpret psychological experiences.

It is expressed by Harris:

It is your mind, rather than circumstances themselves, that determines the quality of your life.

It seems that this sums it up nicely that it may not matter whether you ingest psychedelic drugs to expand your mind, as ultimately it is your mind that determines whether you have that quality of life.

Do you think that psychedelics can expand your mind? Feel free to leave comments and questions below.

References:

McKenna Terrence (1992).The food of the gods. USA: Bantam Books, 3rd ed. pp. 20–21.

Robin. l. Robert C. Harris, Leech (2014). The entropic brain is a hypothesis of consciousness based on neuroimaging studies using hallucinogenic substances. Neuroscience Frontiers. 20 (140), 64.