Psychedelic Healing

In the West, traditional and indigenous spirituality was perceived as erroneously attributing divinity to nature. This required the profound psychedelic experiences and encounters that fuel these traditions to be dismissed as hallucinations. Over the past decade, scientific research into the medical applications of psychedelics has made significant progress. Numerous academic studies have confirmed their therapeutic potential for various mental health disorders. However, the essence of the psychedelic experience itself eludes the scientific method. While the therapeutic outcomes of psychedelics can be quantified, and psychedelic experiences can be recounted and categorized, the authenticity of the spiritual experiences they trigger remains ontologically unverifiable. Within the scientific community, these experiences are often dismissed as side effects—even though their benefits are increasingly undeniable.

In his extensive study „Phenomenology of the Ayahuasca Experience,“ Israeli psychologist Benny Shanon provides compelling evidence for a common „language“ within the Ayahuasca experience. Indigenous peoples of South America have used this healing brew for centuries to connect with the spirit world. Shanon's interviews with hundreds of Ayahuasca travelers revealed consistent patterns, recurring symbols, animals, beings, and motifs. He suspects that this common language might be embedded in human DNA and could be activated by the medicine. However, he does not go so far as to claim that these experiences offer a real insight into the spirit world, which contemporary shamanism often refers to as „energies.“.

Even AI image generators do not provide ontological insights, but they can penetrate these areas by drawing from the vast image repository they were trained on. This creates AI-generated visualizations that blur the lines between hallucination, imagination, and speculation. I call this the Dreamspace.