1
Contents
Acknowledgement
2
Preface
3
Authors Historicity
5
Research Methodology
7
Chapter 1
8
-Objectives
9
-Overview
9
Chapter 2
11
Literature Review
11
-Understanding Psychosis
11
-Black Patch Psychosis
15
-Imperial College London
15
Chapter 3
17
Psychoanalytic Psychotropic Psychotherapy
17
Psychedelic Experience
18
The Therapeutic Set Up
18
Three major outcomes of successful therapy
19
Chapter 4
19
Say “know” to drugs!
19
Chapter 5
24
Conversations that determine a life
24
-Shokeen is so keen
25
-Barbie Girl
28
Chapter 6
32
The Field Trip
32
The story of two villages
32
-Malana
32
-Vattakanal
33
-La faerie: Nevin and Krity
35
Conclusion
37
References
38
2
Acknowledgement​:
I take this opportunity to thank everyone who has helped me in my work.
I would like to thank my supervisor, Wrick Mitra for showing concern with my topic.
I am also grateful to other professors who have helped me in times of need.
I would also like to thank my love, my friends and participants without whom it would've been
highly unlikely of me to pull it off.
Most of all., I would like to thank my mother. For she has given me lessons that life otherwise
couldn't teach.
3
Preface
I often break in and out of a headspace, like a pendulum. Sometimes one may find it hard to keep
the chain of connections intact. There are many conversations with people in my work which
have been translated by me. I am not fully sure if I have done them justice but I have often taken
advice from sources whenever there was a gap in the understanding of a word and its usage.
There have been numerous people who helped me in the process and I am grateful to them.
In this Information era I have the audacity to call you or anyone an addict and prove it to them. I
can easily monitor social media feeds, look-up tagged locations-photographs-people, posts, likes,
groups, blogs, testimonies, comments, notes, reviews anything I can find. A cue is any tiny bit of
information that can be looked up for as long as one is connected to the internet. Maybe you like
Icecreams, traditional kurtas over T-Shirts; and maybe your favorite color is saffron or maybe
that you prefer bidis over cigarettes. I’ll use a computer to organize this information.
Suppose, X checks into the gym and clicks a selfie and uploads it, an analysis of each checkins
may say that X checks into the gym around 10 am everyday. X checks in with Y frequently, and
I know now who X is likely to be found with.
The frequency of your checkins and the common people in your photographs would help me
easily figure out where you would likely be and at what time! I can profile objects and colors
from your life, anything that has happened in your life which has been converted to digital data is
right there behind someone's screen waiting to be found! This is what a hack looks like or maybe
4
you just walked into the mind of a psychopath and figured out how I track my victims. But I
must mention that this is also the very same method which social media handlers use to target
you to sell you their products! One can look up key-logs from cookies from both inside and
outside of your computer and figure out anything they want! It’s not something that only C.I.A
or IT cells do. Infact anyone who knows enough about Penetrative Open Source Projects like
KALI would tell you the same!
This is not about internet security protocols. It is not about you or me being addicts. It is about
how easily we can use definitions. Addiction is a term that is based on a whole lot of
assumptions. You have words for the combination of words to confuse warts like me.
Meh!
Easy definitions! I say.
I like fish , I want fish!
I like food, I want to live.
I like life, I want to be happy.
I like money and I need it more than I want happiness.
I like to be happy, I don't have the money but I can love!
I like to love but I also want sex!
I like sex I want it more than I want love!
I can't afford anything and now I do drugs!
I like Drugs, I want Drugs!
I like them more than other things!
Sometimes I like them more than my Life!
Sometimes it’s the only thing I love​!
Addictions is an easy definition coming from the assumption that there is always a hierarchy in
object relations.
5
Authors Historicity
I was born into an Orthodox Syrian Catholic family from Kerala. Tradition tells me that we
belong to one of the oldest Syrian Catholic families. ''Pullan'' is the family name. We are spread
throughout the Ernakulam district in Kerala. One would find us in higher densities around the
most important places for worship and at the most important religious hub especially meant for
us St. Thomas Christians in India . The malayatoor malla. The family occupies land and
maintains a favorable position within the syro malabar clergy. There are literally many different
pullan families all of who trace their root back to angamaly at the foothills of the malayatoor hill
that most Christians hold holy. The whole of it is ''Kunnathu Kudi Pullan'' which literally
translates to ''Pullan who settled on the top''.
Suffering holds a great deal of importance in Christianity. From the period of Lent till Easter is
the holiest of months in Christianity.
Thoughts and prayers were all that we had when we moved to Delhi, my mom would tell me.
Thoughts and prayers were all that we had when dad got sick. Thoughts and prayers were all we
had when he died. Thoughts and prayers were all we had when mom had to leave us. Thoughts
and prayers were something I could never connect to.
I have but very few memories of my father. The few I have are playing like a loop at the back of
my head. They are always there, In motion, so that I don't forget any of those details.
It was not easy for me to get to those memories. I only remembered parts of my father. I only
knew of him through conversations others had about him. It would often hurt me. I would often
think about how it would've been had he been alive. I would have continued winning dress up
races because I would have then had my father to train me in sports. I would also get to ride on
6
the back of his cycle. I would think about so many things without knowing the limit to my
thoughts. I'd dream sometimes, I would imagine that we buried the wrong person. I was in denial
for a great part of my childhood. The man they buried that day was not my father. My father was
someplace else playing a prank on us. One day he would come back through the same door he
had disappeared
After my first psychedelic trip, I felt more closer to my father than ever. I felt close to my mother
as well, she managed to get us through those tough times but it was after a long time that this
side of me was recognizing the absence of him.
I cried all that I couldn't cry when he had died. It was an unending stream of sorrow that I had
drowned myself in. As I gathered myself back, I slowly started thinking about his bicycle. Then
came a coconut tree. My father was upside down, hanging from a coconut tree. He was doing the
"Look ma! No hands!" trick. I slowly started remembering memories from my childhood that
were never there. I remembered that time when he walked into the house with a wound on his
face. I remembered the first beating, the fights he had with mom. Our house that we lost. Our
little family. Slowly I saw traces of him in me. It sent shivers down my spine as I realized how
much I missed him, but now, I reminded myself of my father.
.
7
Research Methodology
The idea behind this research was to understand how people made sense of their personal and
social world mediated by substances that can bring a change in psychic activity. The main focus
was the personal front of the lived experience. I wanted to be an insider. To understand things as
they were building. Much of what happens during a psychedelic trip is often recalled as a
personal experience, since it depends on the many personal accounts and experiences that have
happened throughout the life of the individual. IPA I believed was the research methodology that
I had to look into.
Sample
The tool used in this methodology are unstructured questionnaires and interviews. I wanted my
questions to be as open ended as possible. The objective was not to find answers but to listen to
what other people had to say. Having a questionnaire is indeed helpful but of the many times I
tried asking questions, often it felt as if those questions were falling flat for the respondents.
.
8
Chapter 1
During the beginning of my pursuit for a dissertation topic, I am convinced now, that I was
driven by extreme curiosity. I am aware that I may have completely overlooked certain subjects
and shown resistance for conflicting ideas. I have since then stopped grazing like a cow in an
open field and have strengthened my resolve to not jump to any conclusions too quickly.
My research questions are as follows: ​Are hallucinations pathognomonic of psychosis? Am I
psychotic when I am hallucinating? Is there a potential for hallucinogens to be used as tools
for treatment?
My dissertation is a set of comments built around these questions. I am not attempting to answer
any of it. I would be elaborating upon the symptomatology of psychosis, especially
schizophrenia, with regards to hallucinations, for hallucinations are symptoms fundamental to
psychiatry. They come in various forms and kinds and it is not that easy to understand one. Often
there have been wrong diagnoses caused due to misinterpreted symptoms. I am trying to show
certain differences, as to how this symptom is unique in itself. Its both a symptom for an
impending diagnosis as well as a marker for a cure.
Hallucinations also have a potential to be used as an aide in treatment. There is an increase in the
number of people who are diagnosed with depression and addiction. Substance induced
hallucinations have been overlooked simply because the potential harms have always weighed
over the potential gains, but recent research is suggesting otherwise. There are substantial studies
9
being conducted around the world which are opening up a new meaning. Classic psychedelic
substances have the potential to cure conditions that otherwise look untreatable.
Objectives
The objective is to see if hallucinations are indicative of a particular condition that is psychosis.
The objective also is to approach hallucinations from a different point of view where it is not the
symptom that is meant to be treated but the treatment that can be used for aiding in therapy.
Overview
Ben had been depressed for five years. He tried antidepressants and talking therapy. It did not
work. In june 2015, Ben was administered with a dose of psilocybin in a controlled
environment. Since then, Ben has been depression free.
Bonnie is 40 years old, he suffered from depression for the last 30 years. In that time he took
everything, C.B.T, group therapy, a list of medications prescribed by his doctor, meditation, yoga
but nothing helped. In june 2015. he too was administered with a dose of psilocybin in Imperial
College London. He has been depression free since then. It’s not just that the symptoms of his
depression vanished but he also was able to kickstart his social life. He joined an acting course
and then a printing course. He then flew on a plane for the first time.
Classic psychedelics are thought of as bad things. One would often be reminded of hippies, the
sixties, dazed and confused youth, people jumping out of windows, people thinking they can fly.
So much stigma against it. Contrary to popular belief it was one of the classic psychedelics that
proved to be a fortune for Bonnie and Ben.
10
Given our lack of understanding and its bad reputation, we must think to ourselves and ask
ourselves a question, What does this mushroom know that our psychiatrists and psychologists
don’t? What does it do that we can't? .
What the researchers observed was that there was a significant reduction in the depression score
of each patient months after having taken psilocybin. This is a highly unlikely treatment that no
other existing medication can offer.
Knowledge is created through discourse and it is precisely why I am pursuing this topic so that
there is more discourse created around this topic. My work begins where conventional
medications fail.
There are Three phases of antidepressant prescribing practised in india. The pharmaceutical
company promotes their drugs through the specialist. Antidepressants are seen as an extremely
lucrative business model. Since the patient is expected to be buying medication for months if not
years, pharmaceutical companies rewards doctors for writing prescription of their brand. Most of
the sales happen with the licensed non-specialist. The third in this tier are the compounders and
quacks who use their self learnt know hows to medicate just about anyone with anything.
There are several new class of antidepressants that is available in India but unavailable
elsewhere. Tianeptine or Stablon is the most recent to join this market. Since the companies want
to produce more medications they sell old medications with a new brand name. There is also a
strong competition for getting patents. There are as much as 60000 new drugs in the
psychopharmaceutical market today. During the ancient times one would say that the cure was
within ourselves, this was Ayurveda. Homeopathy turned out to be placebo. While Psychiatry
has become more about medicating the many modern moods of an individual.
The problem with antidepressants is that it is trying to treat a transient symptom and not the root
cause. Medication cannot cure the body without the support of the mind. The body is seen as a
sight for action and this medication cannot be patented. Isn't it then difficult to make money out
of something that you can't put a patent on and sell.These are the gaps and shortcomings within
11
medical and therapeutic practice that create a space for psychotropic substances to be used in
therapy.
Chapter 2
Literature Review
Understanding Psychosis
Hallucinations are conventionally treated as a psychotic disorder although we have known for a
long time that hallucinations could occur in non-psychotic conditions as well. I have my own
understanding of the psychic apparatus, which doesn’t mean that it’s unique. I believe that the
brain is always conscious. Unlike Freud, who believed that the psyche was constituted in three
parts, I think the psychotic core is formed during the birth of a child. All primitive and
primordial traits that are akin to the great apes are found here. It is the foundation on which the
neurotic self learns, and constructs itself through processes of internalization and rationalization.
The balance between the neurotic self and the psychotic core is what determines the
characteristics of our mental life.
“In neurosis the ego suppresses part of the id out of allegiance to reality, whereas in psychosis it
lets itself be carried away by the id and detached from a part of reality”. (Freud, 1924, Neurosis
and Psychosis)
I am not trying to disprove Freud's conceptualization; on the contrary, I see myself looking for
anchors or cues from someone else's great imagination. Freud made a clear distinction between
Neurosis and Psychosis in the paper cited. His formulation of the psychic apparatus helped us
understand the structure which “the ego creates, autocratically, a new external and internal
world” He affirmed that this new world was constructed in accordance with the id’s wishful
impulses, the id remained completely dependent on the external world and that the motive of this
12
dissociation from the external world was some very serious frustration by reality of a wish - a
frustration which seems intolerable. "(Freud, 1924)
We have to keep in mind a lot of things, and it is precisely this keeping in mind part that is the
most troubling. “Hallucination and perception emerge from the same set of processes”
(Ramachandran, 2010) The difference is that when we are perceiving, the stability of external
objects and events helps the brain anchor them. This is more or less how we function normally in
our day to day lives. If hallucination and perception, as V.S Ramachandran argues, emerge from
the same set of processes then, since the brain is plastic, it can be hypothesized that certain
neural pathways that fire during perception might just cross each other. The end result would be
something that is called "synaesthesia''. Such a hypothesis can show that the space between
ordinary perception and hallucination is somewhat closer than what it is understood to be.
According to Freud, hallucinatory confusions are the most extreme and striking form of
psychosis (Freud 1924). Either the external world is not perceived at all, or the perception of it
has no effect whatsoever on the psyche. From this he goes on to add that hallucinations are seen
to be located in the external objective space. The hypothesis that I laid out for you would
seriously contest that. For where can you locate this external objective space when the line
between what is real and what is ​perceived​ to be real is very thin?
We know that hallucinations, when they happen in psychosis, become a medium of fulfilling
internal needs. When the pain or emotional distress becomes unbearable, hallucinations become
a way of coping with such an unbearable reality. The mind creates an imagined reality both
internal and external. This is the major and most fundamental difference between neurosis and
psychosis that Freud carved out and that knowledge is what we owe him for.
Now we know that psychosis is not just one thing, it's multi-dimensional and has multiple
causes. It can be a transient symptom in a variety of personality disorders. The cause of
psychosis, usually, is a mental illness such as major depression, delusional disorder or
13
schizophrenia. Some people can also become psychotic by substance abuse. There is a hierarchy
of abuse potentials according to which substances are arranged. Psychosis can be induced by
anything from methamphetamines, cannabis, heroin to psychiatric medication like
benzodiazepines or synthetic opiates. There are general medications like steroids that can also
cause a psychotic reaction.
"When the depressive psychosis has become manifest, its cardinal feature seems to be a mental
inhibition which renders a rapport between the patient and the external world more difficult."
(Abraham 1927). Psychosis is a conflict between ego and reality. It can be manifested in the
form of hallucinations, delusions, psychic impairment that grossly interferes with social,
occupational, academic or basic day-to-day functioning. It is sometimes referred to as a "break
with reality". During psychosis, the preconscious system is invaded by the unconscious in a
search for primitive forms of libidinous satisfaction, such as hallucination. During a psychotic
reaction one is said to be in a “psychotic break with reality”. It means the loss of contact with
reality and normal perception for the subject experiencing it.
Like hallucinations, sometimes a psychotic reaction may not even have an external correlate.
During an experience of delusion the person may end up believing something true to be false or
vice versa. Emotions can become widely inconsistent with reality like in the case of catatonic
schizophrenia which is a bodily condition caused due to the wild flight of thoughts and emotions
of someone going through a manic episode. There is thus no one cause for psychosis. Psychosis
can happen due to schizophrenia and major depression. It can also happen as a result of
mourning. Psychosis is not just a flight from mourning as Freud famously theorised; mourning
can ​induce psychosis as a defense, but psychosis can manifest itself in a lot of other ways like I
pointed out.
The typical condition of a psychotic can be demonstrated in the following lines from Alistair
Reynolds' science-fiction novel:
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"As her psychosis took hold she moved deeper and deeper into the house, putting as much
distance as possible between herself and the outside world. This became her world. To begin
with it was just a few rooms. Then it contracted down to just this one, and then to just this tank.
Even that wasn't enough. She constructed barriers to fool and delay the ghosts. Corridors that
don't lead anywhere, or which spiral back on themselves. Hidden stairways that they won't see.
Mirrors everywhere, to baffle and confuse her tormentors. Doors that open onto walls. Of course,
even that isn't sufficient by itself. The ghosts are clever and resourceful, and they'll keep trying to
find a way in. That's why the house has to keep changing, so that they never get used to one
particular configuration." (Reynolds. 2008)
However excruciating such accounts may sound and feel, delusions and hallucinations occur as
means of expressing something that has been suppressed for long, lying dormant inside the mind
of a person. They need to be understood as a function, as a method of communicating to the
'other' (that which is not self), revealing to the world that the self is shattering and crumbling
apart. Think of it as the last resort, before an ultimate collapse of the psyche.
"A fair number of analyses have taught us that the delusion is found applied like a patch over the
place where originally a rent had appeared in the ego’s relation to the external world'' (Freud
1924). Delusions and hallucinations thus become markers that reveal to us the condition of the
person's self that is trying to hold itself together by whatever means it can. The stories mad
people tell themselves literally function to create meaning and organize experience out of all that
has become disorganized and meaningless in the wake of a psychotic breakdown.
Delusions are viewed as arising from the healthy part of the person who attributes meaning to
anomalous experience as a way of compensating for significant losses, traumas and destructive
events that are too painful to directly acknowledge to the self. "Normally, the external world
governs the ego in two ways: firstly, by current, present perceptions which are always renewable,
and secondly, by the store of memories of earlier perceptions which, in the shape of an ‘internal
world’, form a possession of the ego and a constituent part of it" (Freud 1924)
15
A psychotic episode could also be called an episode where the Id is going berserk. The Id being
this part of the personality that functions primarily on the basis of the pleasure principle, will
want anything and everything that feels good at that particular time. The super-ego which is said
to work on the morality principle doesn't really exist because of the absence of the "father's no".
Hence the Id shows no consideration for reality of the situation and goes berserk. But then a
psychotic doesn't necessarily have to be a psychopath. Contrary to popular belief, the psychotics
are relatively less harmful people. It then confuses me a little- isn't psychopathy an episode of
Id's exuberance too?
There is a great deal of importance given to metaphors and signification in critical theory and
beyond. But when the metaphor is something paternalistic and the signification, almost always
phallic, it doesn't give you a very diverse picture. Well, if we were to get stuck here with our
highly evolved plastic brains, then there really is nothing that makes us unique.
Black Patch Psychosis
It occurs post operatively in patients who are undergoing ocular surgery. Patients with a hearing
impairment are more susceptible to develop psychosis in such conditions. It is basically a
psychic adaptation where the brain is trying to make up for the sensory deprivation that is caused
due to the application of a blatch patch on the retina post surgery to aid the healing of the retina.
Imperial College London
Twenty individuals with treatment resistant depression were given a high psilocybin dosage as a
part of one of the first studies to be conducted in decades on the psychedelic drug psilocybin.
The study was conducted to seek and find if there were any therapeutic benefits of psilocybin to
be used for treatment.
The study found out that the depression scores were going down like never before after
administering psilocybin. Although it was a small group, the findings were amazing. The
16
reductions in depression score were significant not comparable to any other types of
conventional medication. The depression score not only went down but they stayed like that for
almost six months. After six months six of them were still in remission with no symptoms of
depression, three of them did not really respond to the drug but there were small reductions in
their depression score for almost two weeks. For eleven people, the depression stayed down for
two months but after that the symptoms started showing up again.
This may sound very disappointing but with antidepressants, you have to take them everyday,
they have some unpleasant side effects, they take weeks to work and they are not a cure but a
palliative treatment, With psilocybin what they saw was immediate relief, immediate reduction
of symptoms, it works longer and without side effects, it appeared to be working on root causes
rather than just hiding the symptom.
We are entering an epoch of depression where it is becoming the leading cause of disability
worldwide.
During their study to find the effects of psilocybin on the brain, they found out that the brain
went from being rigid to becoming flexible. To hear from the patients in their own words as to
how they feel about a certain condition is the best way of knowing how much a treatment has
helped.
17
Chapter 3
Psychoanalytic Psychotropic Psychotherapy
It’s like turning on the light inside a dark house
The psychedelic experience
Psychedelics allow the unconscious brain to become conscious, there are repressed memories
built up over the course of life which are pushed aside towards a place from where you can't see
it. They lie there dormant. During a psychedelic experience you literally begin to embody each
of those repressed memories. Pain, remorse, grief, love, each one of those repressed memories is
out there in front of you. It embraces you as you embrace it back. It can be incredibly painful or
incredibly beautiful the point here is that all these memories come to you and demand you to feel
them authentically because you couldn't otherwise.
There are basically three main types of experiences that can occur during a psychedelic trip.
They are
visiting past traumas; having insights about your own life, as in, negative parts of your life come
alive and they themselves tell you how to change them; and the experience of harmony and
unity.
The therapeutic set up
18
After the patient is administered with psilocybin, for example, they are given eye shades because
the eyes become really photosensitive. There is good music and the patient is asked to surrender
to whatever comes up. The therapists should have by now provided for the trust that is required
by the patient to believe in a cure. This should happen well in advance before the administering
of the psychotropic substance. Four months of weekly session should help create that space of
trust.
The therapist is not to structure the content of the patient's thoughts, he isn't meant to direct them
either. It does not mean that the therapist is not required, This therapeutic setup is not too far
away from the psychoanalytical set up.It also has a start, a middle and an end. There is a
structure to this kind of session. There is the flow of thoughts and ideas and symbols that build
on each other so intricately that it feels like a session that is designed by the best therapist. As a
non-psychedelic therapist, one would find themselves planning a session well in advance. The
effort could be aimed at anything. It could be about how to make this person talk about their
traumas. Or it could be about helping the patient develop a little motivation. It could be anything
that the therapist wants for the betterment of the patient but the problem here is that this is all
coming from the therapist. The patient experiences this as something coming from the outside
which he can easily put aside, the effort of the therapist can thus miss the mark.
During a psilocybin session the patient is going through on their own journeys of healing. The
ideas and thoughts all came from within the patient themselves and all these ideas and images are
seen to be very transformative, because the lessons were planned by the most accurate therapist
there is the patient themselves.
There are three major outcomes of a successful therapy.
The patient who is depressed feels of this depression as a cell that they are trapped inside. A
successful therapy would result in the patient themselves recalling a feeling here they felt
liberated. Patients would describe a feeling, a feeling of not being emotionally locked up inside.
19
From being avoidant of emotions they become accepting of emotions. From being disconnected
with the world to becoming fused with the other.
Many of the patients have often come out saying that they had experienced childhood trauma
which they could not rationalize then. The trauma was so big that they couldn't process it but
with psilocybin. It becomes easy to accept the past , to accept suppressed emotions, It's like
someone arranging all the files on your computer, the deleted, the lost the missed, the unused,
it’s like all the files right where you want them. Many people often relate to nature on
psychedelics. They begin to see nature as not just trees and mud and climate but they begin to
relate to it. They begin to see themselves and everything around them as a product of this nature.
Years and years of short term or long term therapies like psychotherapy is not sustainable for
everyone. What I am saying is that already existing therapies should incorporate psilocybin so
that therapies become more effective more efficient. It's not that the mushroom is able to cure
depression but it's more like the mushroom shows you the key to the door that is to be unlocked.
Chapter 4
Say “know” to drugs!
If you remember, I began by pitching the idea of making use of psilocybin mushrooms for
psychotherapy. What I have now realized is that, to make such a therapy viable in India it needs
to be capitalized and brought into the country, only then can it sell. The process I believe will
gather enough momentum by the turn of this decade and one day there will be a global call for
the use of certain substances in aiding therapy! It is guaranteed to happen but only time will tell,
if and when India will follow up!I have been studying psychedelics and a few other psychoactive
substances for the past three years.
(Sound like a junkie who is about to throw a rant).
During the course of which I have come across a variety of substances that alter the mind in a
variety of ways. Some of them are extracted, synthesized or prepared in makeshift laboratories
20
while others are natural and/or indigenous to particular places. You must have heard the names
of a few of them. Cannabis is the most commonly used. Lysergic acid diethylamide or LSD is
the first that is mentioned when one is asked about a psychedelic agent. Hyoscine also known as
scopolamine is another compound that is found in the seeds of a flowering plant called “datura
stramonium” which is abundant throughout the country. “Chanka” is a relatively new
psychoactive psychedelic agent which is yet to be identified, it’s a mixture of herbs and seeds of
various plants, the knowledge of which is restricted to a few indigenous healers and smugglers in
south India.
Psilocybin is the active compound in Psilocybin mushrooms which is entirely a different order of
organisms. N.N-Dimethyltryptamine or DMT is an active psychedelic compound that is found in
the bark of “babul” and “khair”. MDMA or ecstasy is another psychoactive drug whose
medicinal properties are slowly being unraveled. Most of these substances are banned in India
while some of them are yet to be recognized. The point here is that a ticket to a psychedelic or a
psychoactive trip is right under your nose and most of us don’t even realize it! I’ve been using
psychedelics for quite a few years now. My first psychedelic experience or a psychedelic trip, as
they call it, happened when I was in my first year of graduation. It has been indeed one of the
many life changing experiences I’ve had, the memories of which when they come, embrace my
naked existence.
I am guessing it was almost after a year long gap since my first trip that I started doing
psychedelics recreationally, by this time my interest in them had grown exponentially. I often
read a lot about them and slowly started tracing references of it in literature and art. Along with a
group of friends, I did it once every 4-6 weeks, the collective trips we had often aided our music
making process. What was common about all these substances was that they induced a sense of
euphoria, except for in the case of “datura” which is a very potent deliriant. There was a striking
similarity between the effects of Psilocybin and LSD. The eye, I felt as if, was constantly feeding
on information, my sense of hearing too changed and music sounded very different but people
21
had the same voice, there was no distortions in sound. I could recognize, perceive and make
judgements with a little bit of an effort and it felt as if my tactile senses had heightened.
The chain of associations that you make while you are on a trip is beyond the limit that Freud
placed on an individual's capacity when it came to recalling dreams. Unlike dreams, there is in
fact no limit to one’s ability to trace a chain of thought under the effects of LSD or Psilocybin.
You might feel as if your brain cells will fry if you over do it, but that doesn’t happen. On LSD
and Psilocybin the connections that you make, each association that come across, each of those
repressed memories, however intense they may be, seem to be mediated through the substance. It
is as if the substance somehow makes the processes of acceptance and rationalisation easier. I
must say that the experience is easiest on Psilocybin.
This is how one of my respondents chose to describe it.
“I was wrestling with myself and then suddenly out of nowhere I realized exactly what It was,
that made me fight with myself. There was so much venom inside me, something happened and
it vanished.”
Often there are numerous examples which are very similar to the one above. Most people who
have had a pleasant experience recall a feeling which is something very peculiar to certain types
of substances. They often mention a profound ego death experience which is pleasant but
intense. As it wears off, there is an affinity towards various emotions and each one of them is
accompanied by a sense of relief.
A study done by ​Robin L. Carhart-Harris​ found that psilocybin which is the main psychoactive
alkaloid of the entheogen psilocybin mushroom also known as magic mushroom reduces the
overall cerebral blood flow (CBF) to specific key brain regions, such as the thalamus and the
medial prefrontal cortex. These regions are heavily connected to all other areas of the brain. The
result strongly implied that the subjective effect of the psychedelic substance decreased brain
activity and connectivity at the key connector hubs. They described it as the brain being in "a
22
state of unconstrained cognition", The different brain areas were seen to be receiving less input
from each.
You see, the hippocampus is the area of the brain mostly associated with episodic memory. One
realizes that there are a lot of psychedelic users who report revisiting and reliving specific
moments of their pasts and especially their childhoods. One can infer then, that, psychedelics
reduce the overall activities of the hippocampus, but this is also accompanied by an increase in
activities of the hippocampal neurons that encode those episodes of someone's life, which they
happen to be reliving during the trip.
The authors of the aforementioned paper did a similar study with LSD. What is consistent in
these research studies is the fact that there is an entropic effect on cortical activity. The scientists
concluded that this entropic effect was a key characteristic of the psychedelic state. One would
say, thus, that the brain is falling towards disorder as in it is like a soup of galaxies consuming
each other, distorting space time, a cosmic carousel. I often like using such analogies because
there is a great similarity between both the most massive things in the observable universe as
well as the most fundamental of particles. Like this neuron inside your brain which you think is
about to fry itself because it's literally spewing out serotonin under an electron microscope would
look acutely similar to our local supercluster “Laniakea”. These studies provide support for the
safety and efficacy of the use of psychedelics in therapy. Preliminary tests have provided
evidence for the use of psilocybin for treatment resistant depression.
(Read it in a breath)
It’s like a comic relief without much comedy!
I like scene.
I’ve been using it since class three. It has multiple meanings
and It’s not just a part of a play or film.
I see scenes in my dreams when I sleep.
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I see them when I wake up when I eat.
I’d be damned if there's no scene!
My friends have scenes with me.
Music scenes and Gig Scenes,
Its at times quite confusing!
It’s not just something visual you see,
Its perceived by more than one means.
Sometimes we have bad days
And we call it a sad scene!
Verbal assaults and Junkie scenes!
But!
Our scenes
are not on our TV,computer,mobile screens.
Where nude scenes and sex scenes
become the most used search terms!
As the earth burns!
Medications and Vaccines!
War and catastrophes!
Heres your bill for a new disease.
This won’t be approved, it has no valid points!
But the scene is eternal!
The scene has always been here!
It’s the flesh that fades!
I am an arms dealer with weapons in the form of words!!
This ain't a scene it's a goddamn arms race!
For as long as the human being has inhabited the planet, from that time since the great
apes climbed down trees and ventured out to conquer the land, I am proposing a new term,
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unlike for the period in history from where we think we started having significant impact
on the planet, as in, opposed to the anthropocene.
I welcome you to the Anthropo-scene!
Chapter 5
Conversations that determine a life.
Case 1
“ Shokeen is so keen”
He had come out from the middle of an exam, when I first met him in the lawns of Dara Shikoh.
We shared a cigarette and that was the only form of contact that we had for a long time. Never a
“hello” or a “goodbye”. It was just the cigarette butt that had the privilege of exchanging any
kind of information between us. I don't remember exactly what we talked about the first time we
talked but we did end up becoming friends.
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Laid back and reserved, the exact opposite of what most people belonging to his clan typically
are like.
This stereotyping by me was the result of my ignorance to see beyond what I had personally
experienced. As I recall the last “Shokeen” person I knew before this, was an arrogant student
in school who ended up physically assaulting our school principal. For me he is someone who
has left behind his roots to look for new routes. You see, for people from a certain kind of
volatile community background, especially one that is too violent, that is highly sensitive and
vulnerable to tension. It becomes really hard for someone from within to break out of this chain
of spite and revenge. They too are born into it.
He showed me a video one day, telling me that it was a CCTV footage from his neighbor's
security camera. There was a road, a couple of street vendors, a shop, a cow and people on cycles
and motorcycles going about their business. There was nothing unusual at all for the first few
seconds. One sees a scooty then, there are two occupants, there is an oncoming motorcycle, there
are two occupants on that motorcycle, “that guy on the back of the scooty is my friend” he tells
me. The guys on the motorcycle come straight at the guys on scooty, they almost collide, but the
scooty driver manages to take control . The guy riding the scooty immediately gets off, it seems
like he is about to start a fight when suddenly the man riding pillion on the motorcycle is also off
his vehicle. He has his arms raised and the guy who looked as if he was about to throw punches
stopped and stood frozen. He’s shot twice next to the ear, as he falls to the ground,the guy comes
and shoots him two more times.
“They killed him for a mere price of 2000 rupees”he adds. As I am trying to recount the horror of
what I had just seen he tells me of more disturbing news. “People are willing to kill people for
any amount of money, the cheapest hit is for a mere 400 rupees”. His village is called
“Dhichaon” which is in Najafgarh.
I had heard about this place a long time ago when I was in class 6th. After my father's demise my
mother had to complete preliminary training before joining the police force, The Police training
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school is in Najafgarh. My mother, of the little times she came during the weekend, she would
come with many stories, of the many stories she told me, some of them had references of the
“najafgarh naala”. As I grew up, I would often read about it in the newspapers, about the many
identified- unidentified bodies that would float up in the drain. The murderers and gangsters,
slowly it all became part of the urban noise. I would forget about his place until I was reminded
of it.
Days go by and slowly I get to know Shaukeen. One day he invites me over and shows me
around his village, it was in the winters. Evening approached by the time I reached. After an
hour’s drive from the metro station, there is a drastic change in the landscape. Box type
structures stacked over each other slowly start disappearing and give way to more evenly spread
out less high buildings. There are trees, bushes, shrubs. There is more sky in my frame, the
horizon spreads itself out and I begin to see fields sprawled out and little compounds. I noticed
that there were big gates in each compound and outside almost every compound one would find
elders, sitting about and smoking from their big ​hookahs​.
“Ye raha tera Najafgarh Nallah” (“Here is your Najafgarh drain”) he yells at me.
“Once when I was a kid, there were seven murders in my village, one each day,” Najafgarh isn’t
new to this type of news. Its almost everyday business here. Two different people named Yogesh
have killed two different 17 year-old girls within the past four months. This place is like the
fulcrum of the murder machine. There are gunmen on hire and they come for cheap. The gang
wars in Najafgarh also happen now in full public display with much of the footage coming on the
internet. There are then fanatics who make up sensitive videos just to instigate a family against
another. So why would I be here, at this time, with this guy?
I just wanted to hang around with my friend who wanted to show me around his place. He told
me that the friends he had here were different from the friends he made anywhere else. “Most of
my friends carry a small pistol, they dropped out of school but at times work in my father’s field.
Those are some young guys from my old school, they are a bunch of kids who basically like to
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carry a knife.” He points out in the distance to what look like an upcoming mob. It’s hard for
someone to grow up among them and not be like them. I wonder what happened in his life that
made him different. “I smoked my first joint here” he then points out to a clumsy looking tree
that is almost eaten by worms. I learnt that he became familiar with cannabis when he was in
class 12th. His van driver would smoke it often, he recalls.
Shaukeen has been using cannabis recreationally since he joined college. He said that the
Internet has played a huge role in his life and so has music,literature and movies. “I did not know
about sociology until I joined the course but once I started college I started enjoying it and then I
found Dara Shikoh and since then it has become my second home”. His “second home”, a lot of
us would say that about college, about places that hold an importance so significant that the idea
of being there is reminiscent of having another mother to behold you. We have seen each other
pursue university education and there have been changes in both our attitudes, towards each
other and our friends which we have constantly monitored. We acknowledge these changes and
often talk about them.
It was around the time of the JNU protests in 2016. There were many conversations and heated
arguments in the air around Dara Shikoh. On the big day of the protest, I was asked by someone
to come to college so that we could proceed from campus together. There were students
mobilising within the campus, I saw Shaukeen at Dara Shikoh and asked him if he cared to join.
His reply fell like a brick on my face. “I don’t care”. It made me uncomfortable, I began to think,
I tried arguing. I said “You listen to Rage Against The Machine, they are a band that is
anti-establishment, if they didn’t care you wouldn’t be having those words that you wear so
proudly on your T-shirt” His answer was short. His words were clear. He wouldn’t protest for
anything, he said he was selfish. He would only care to protest if something disturbed his private
space. There was nothing of that sort with the JNU incident that presently bothered him. The
media died and so did the many voices that were raising their concern.
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It was almost a year later when Ramjas College started appearing into news in March 2017.
There was again the big dissent and the big day of the protest. I was in college going about the
same business when I heard a voice calling me from behind. As I turned around I saw Shaukeen,
he’s wearing a T Shirt with a quote from 1984. He asks me,“Are you not going for the protest?”
It was quite unusual of him to ask. I told him I was going for the protest and he just followed up
by telling me that he was coming along as well. I could not think enough about that moment
from almost an year ago, when we had difference of opinion. I just wanted to know, why now?
So I asked him what made him change his mind. He just says “I was stupid back then”. I ask
him, “back when?”. He shouts “When I could not connect with an individual from inside my safe
space.” I ask him what made him think that he could now.
Shaukeen was on a trek when he took a mild dose of LSD. From what he recalls there were
shooting stars gleaming in the sky which enhanced the visual experience.“There were only good
vibes in the air. I could feel like I was talking to colors. We sat and made a fire, played some real
mellow music, laughed, looked around, sat back at the fire.” This went on for a while. They kept
stargazing the entire time and towards the end of the trip as it was nearing dawn “my friend who
was with me showed me a video, in that video there was lots of dust, and as the dust clears, there
is a figure. The figure is of a boy, he is shivering with fear as his body is having a convulsion, his
clothes are torn and he’s barely holding himself up. There is a body next to him. As the camera
clears there are many bodies, the kid is in shock and the shock is visible in his movements. It was
an actual footage from the moments after a bomb explosion, which killed fleeing refugees.”
Something must have happened there, during that trip. A video like that during a psychedelic trip
is a potential threat. Uncontrolled emotional responses and such violent content dont fuse well
together. “My private space was intruded, I was on drugs, I should’ve been enjoying it, but I
couldn't. My eyes really only opened up in the middle of my trip. I felt as if someone pulled my
eyelids over to the back of my head. I saw how manipulative everything had become. How I had
fallen victim to those manipulations...I could see clearly now with my brand new eyes”
“Brand new eyes?”
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What is this?
Is this some kind of a joke?
If anyone could afford a trek to the hills and get themselves an eye opening experience of a
lifetime, experience the world with more humility and authentic relatedness, this would sell
crazy in the market, wouldn’t it?
Case 2
“Barbie Girl”
S has a huge collection of Barbie dolls, she collects dolls and makes accessories for them. She
has more than a hundred different variety of Barbie dolls and many hundred different varieties of
clothes that she herself made for them. S is not playing with the dolls like a kid, she tells me. She
does it for fun.
S is my friend’s girlfriend. I was introduced to her when I was visiting my friend’s place. They
both live together and are from Manipur. Most of what I know about her is from what I had
heard from my friend. He would seldom mention anything serious about her.
One day when I was visiting his place, S and I had a conversation. Till that moment S was only
my friend’s shadow. She usually did not speak much when I was around. Often she'd go into
another room and avoid any kind if contact. S has a diary with odd drawings and scribbles .
There is nothing much in it except for her favorite quotes and unfinished drawings. S was a
complete stranger to me for a while.
It turned out that S knew about me and of my friend circle from before we had first met. I felt a
bit ashamed about myself. We both constantly frequented the same Poetry and Pints sessions in
north campus, and I was much unaware!
30
As I began to know her I realized that I had completely overlooked so many things. The feelings
that she conveyed to me reeked of hopelessness and guilt. She felt bad for her single mother and
some points wanted to leave Delhi and stay in her native land but she had a debt to pay. She felt
sorry for herself. She did not like being in this situation. She liked to paint and draw a lot in
school but now she had stopped enjoying so many things that she once loved. “I feel bad when I
am drawing, I can't concentrate on the drawing. My eyes fill up!”
I had conversations where she confessed that she has thought about killing herself. She wanted to
do it because she hated everything. She couldn’t do it because she loved the guy and she knew
he loved her back. Yet she complained. Yet she cried. “Everyday weeping yourself to sleep
asking the same question Is there no end to this?” I am glad one day something changed. We had
a conversation and that too about quarter life crisis and substance issues, discussing and debating
on a lot. There were no sides to choose because both of us used substance. It was but a matter of
preferences. Ultimately she asked me which substance was better than the other and in what way.
I told her that psychedelics were a class of substances that were better compared to the others.
They are very potent and often the experiences that one has are very profound and personal.
There was a long gap after that. We rarely saw each other. I would hear from my friend about S,
often he would talk about how she was going through another break down and how he had been
trying hard to make it up to her. He told me he tried to comfort her but couldn't. I felt helpless in
front of my friend.
As winter break approached we began seeing less of each other. He hardly came to college and I
did not go to his place. Then one day I got a call. My friend sounded too excited I could sense so
much happiness in his voice. He told me that he had finally got his fix of a psychedelic trip. He
also told me that he and S did it together,
Drugs don't give people superpowers, people give drugs superpowers.
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I do not like reducing anyone to a mere icon or a definition, one may or may not call me a
reductionist but given that this here is a vantage point where I may appear to be only seeing what
I want to see. I must assure you that what follows is true and I mean every word of it.
Many days had passed since I last visited my friend. It was in the month of January when I
decided to pay him a visit. I had only met him once or twice in college. The changes I saw were
acute and visible, my friend had become regular with college. He would talk more, socialize
more and would often start conversations with strangers all by himself He wasn't like this at all. I
asked him what he felt like, for It's not that he joined some social etiquette course online. He tells
me that '' It felt as if I was now more in sync with the things that were within me and around
me.'' I told him I was interested in knowing how his girlfriend felt. I asked him if he saw any
changes in her that stood out in front of him. My friend goes into the other room and comes back
with a diary. I remembered that It was the same diary that Sami kept her quotes and drawings in.
I quickly grab it and scroll through the pages. As I turn the pages I come across the old content.
Line after lines and scribbling, line after line and scribbling, then at once is a painting of a
woman under a tree overlooking the sea. This is where it begins, from here on, the following
pages look like they are straight from a design school persons sketchbook. The intricacies in the
drawing is unlike anything I've seen her make. The color tone and contrast is more vivid and the
forms are more lifelike.
Between these two spaces of art is a gap, a gap full of random lines going haywire. If one wants
to, they can easily look up and see correlated events happening in this space. The quotes are from
first year. Some of these incomplete drawings too. Then there is five pages of scribbling, he tells
me they are from the time when she was on LSD. The intense artworks that follow is what she
had made since the trip.
“The impact of a psychedelic agent is almost immediate. Some people just have a better affinity
towards it. The resulting changes are extensively visible in the personality traits, if one wants to
observe.” I asked him if what I thought made any sense to him. I told him that I wanted to talk to
32
her about her experience, which i did! She had cut her hair short. She smiled more often now and
I started enjoying talking to her, I am not lying. She seemed not upset, not sad or depressed, her
conversation where not deadening and numbing and that was enough . She went back home for a
few days and came back later to continue studying. She has been better and she believes it too.
Chapter 6
The field Trip
The story of two villages.
Malana
Nestled deep within the Parvati valley is an ancient village. A village that calls itself the world's
oldest democracy. A village that believes that their people are direct descendants of Alexander's
troops. It’s called Malana and sometimes ‘Little Israel’. A lot of places are called little Israel but
33
this is the most prominent place among the rest for the Israelis. It’s famous for its ​charas​ (or
hasheesh), which is basically resin rubbed and pressed together from cannabis buds. The
villagers over here smoke charas. The kids smoke charas at a young age and so do the elders. I
was offered charas by an old lady who claimed to be 86.
The place is a mess now. It's over ridden by drug peddlers and land mafia. It wasn't like this
before. The foreigners, especially the Israelis and the Italians were the first to frequent this part
of the valley. They came here because this place was cut off from much of the civilization. They
also came here because in these hills grew a strain of cannabis that was far more potent than
anything the world had ever seen. The hand rubbed charas was such a signature item in the West
that soon many international communities and groups started pouring in. Then came the boon, it
was to last for another 30-40 years. But with the turn of the first decade in the second
millennium, things started taking a U-turn.
The laws for cannabis were lenient in India while the west was making it illegal. This changed.
As cannabis became the most abused substance in India the Indian Law too, adapting from the
Geneva convention, put it under a blanket ban. Although its uses were culturally significant, yet,
slowly there was a kind of stigma that was attached to such substance.
As the Indian government came hard with its own war on drugs, the people of Malana found it
harder to adapt. They couldn't switch to growing other crops. “The cops would come and burn
the fields down. They would also take some charas from us. They too smoke it. The inspector, I
know him. He knows what is happening. They climb this mountain to burn this field. We go up
two mountains and plant ten fields.''
Although the West is step by step legalizing cannabis, There is always a demand for the charas
that is made here. With Israel legalizing cannabis, it's the foreign tourists and international
attention that has died down. Malana is more frequented by the Indian crowd now.
Vattakanal
34
Vatta​ means ‘‘round or circular’’ in Tamil and Malayalam. ​Kanal​ is the equivalent for a ‘‘ water
canal”. ​Kanal​ also means “burning charcoal”. In the History books, ​Vattakanal​ was named due
to its significant geographical location on top of a circular ridge, which offered a distinct bird's
eye view of the Palani wildlife reserve and the Kodaikanal valley below.
Vatta ​also means ‘‘madness’’ in malayalam and there are often more than one parallel stories
which one might hear from the locals.
The journey on the train finally seems to be concluding with the sight of nilgiris beginning to
emerge on the horizon. I am travelling towards Kodaikanal along with three of my friends, who
perhaps are for the first time, traversing this part of the Indian subcontinent. The train comes to a
stop and quickly departs from the station allowing us just enough time to gather our rucksacks
and get off. Once the train pulls away to a distance, an awkward silence comes through the
background. As we walked the length of the platform with our throats running dry and the sun
right above our heads, we realized that It was just the 4 of us. There was apparently no one else
in that 22 rake train who chose to get off here, not even a vendor from those general
compartments.
We take a Tamil Nadu government run bus towards Kodaikanal from the railway station, which
is a distance of 140 kilometres. The journey took a lot more time than we expected. Some of us
chose to sleep while Umesh and I gazed outwards at the abrupt landscape changes. The bus took
us on dwindling roads and narrow viaducts, it moved through the thick cover of the forest,
making distant stops often dragging itself on the climbs and swinging down the hill. As we reach
Kodaikanal the temperature quickly drops, the sun has begun to set and the lights inside the bus
are turned on. There are hands in the air, quickly grabbing jackets and hats, sweaters and shawls
being pulled out from bags, an episode which looked like a dress up race which we too joined
sooner. There were many taxi drivers prowling around the bus stand and all of them seemed to
know exactly where we were headed. Since we were assured of our transportation, we chose to
relax a bit, break our journey here, eat and then proceed to Vattakanal which was just at a
distance of 9 kilometres from Kodaikanal.
35
I could sense a bit of tension in the air as soon as we loaded ourselves into the taxi. The taxi
driver who was at first so keen at dropping us off at Vattakanal now seemed unenthusiastic. The
road slowly started narrowing and the canopy engulfed us, all we could hear was the sound of the
engine and the clatter of metal in the boot. I had to light a cigarette here just so that something
could cut the silence. It could’ve been anxiety too. The flint caused a mini lightning inside the
car which gave me enough time to see his face, I could sense trouble I am sure. It was not a
threat but something else.
One toke….
Nothing…
Two tokes….
Still nothing
Three tok….
It was on my face, almost like a slap!
“Sir where are you going to vattakanal?”
I told him I had a friend there, I mentioned his name and he pretended to believe it.
Soon he carpet bombed us with questions. One for each passenger.
“Why the youth is always going to vattakanal?”
“What is so special there?”
“Isn’t our Kodaikanal beautiful?”
He did not seem to care what our replies would be for he himself answered all of them for us. He
told us he knew exactly why there was such a hulla boo around vattakanal and went to to name
all the vices he thought one could find there, parties, alcohol, drugs and then suddenly, he paused
and asked me if I had anything on me. For if I had anything, even alcohol, I was to throw it
away. He told us that there was a checkpost just a mile before vattakanal and that they constantly
monitor the traffic.
36
The taxi slowed down as it neared the checkpost. There was quite a commotion in the middle of
the night which is unusual to such places. I saw a couple of young adults being frisked and
someone else throwing up in the shade of the dark. The taxi driver asked me to get off saying
that if you show them respect they would be easy. I told them my name and my purpose, they
frisked me, thoroughly went through my Identity card as I just stood there wondering how this
place had changed so much. Somehow the others were not asked to get off at all. They just
looked inside my backpack and that was it.
We were here at vattakanal bidding goodbye to the taxi wallah who had almost taken the life out
of us.
La faerie: Nevin and Krity
This place is named aptly. With gazebos and hammocks overlooking a little waterfall, you could
just sit here and dream all you want. It is like a small scene in itself and is constantly frequented
by all kinds of people. The guys who run this place are the nicest of human beings. They serve
both the Indian and Foreign crowd without any bias. Most of homestays here only serve to a
specific kind of crowd. You would often find things priced higher for Indians.
There was a recent incident involving the death of two adults in Vattakanal. Much to their
surprise when I mentioned this to Krity and Nevin they were surprised that the news had made it
all the way to the capital. Twelve people had booked two rooms for a night. Six stayed in each
room. In the night since it was cold someone was stupid enough to keep the fire running with all
the doors and windows shut. This lead to the death of two people, they died of asphyxiation.
No where is it mentioned that the cause of death was asphyxiation except for some newspapers
in North India. In the South, it's a totally different story. ​The killer mushrooms are wreaking
havoc, r​eads one newspaper. The other talks and compares mushrooms to cocaine and other
drugs. “This is what is happening here”. Nevin points out. “The local politicians want to make a
news out of everything”, Krity adds. There is not a single death reported directly due to the use
of psilocybin mushrooms. Its toxicity and overdose potential is almost negligible.
37
The media however has something else to report. There is a footage of a cafe. There are some
foreigners inside the cafe and some Indians are walking into it. There is some smoke. The
backdrop is exceptionally beautiful. The screen cuts here. The music changes. Its suspense music
with loud beats. Like footsteps approaching. The screen comes back on. It appears to be a list at
first. The script is foreign. One but realizes that it's a menu. The camera zooms in, now it reads
'black tea' in Hebrew. Cut! The news anchor comes back and yells into the camera, she tell you
what you saw was a drug den. The list that you saw was a drug list. With black tea being the
most dangerous of the list. Priced at 20.00 in real life (if one were to zoom in a little more). The
anchor is manipulative as she reads 2000! Then on repeat, are the images of bodies being carried
out from Vattakanal police station.
The owners of this cafe have been running this place for the last 30 years, they are a very humble
couple who'd be the last to sell mushrooms even if they were to be legalized. Their food is too
much to handle for a soul who is already on a mushroom trip. They don't sell drugs but they do
end up becoming victims to politicians playing blame games.
Conclusion
There is an exponential increase in the number of cases of depression throughout the country. It
holds true for almost the entire planet. It is high time that we look beyond conventional healing
practices, they are indeed the result of many years of research but then when some information
becomes redundant it is required of us to move beyond normative healing traditions that only
care to alleviate the symptom to the surface. Hallucinations are not entirely pathognomonic of
psychosis . They become a symptom that reveal an impending episode of psychosis. But a
hallucination does not just mean psychosis. As I have recounted, Hallucinations could help cure
conditions that are unresponsive to medication. Hallucinations must thus be understood with
great insight. There are often patterns and symbols within them that can become shortcuts to get
to those repressed memories that are causing a disturbance. They may be scary in nature. It's like
facing your big fear, but the fact is that we hide away our fears because we are too scared to look
38
into them and see for ourselves the flaws within us. Much has been studied about hallucinations
as a cause of a mental condition but the healing property of such an insight has been completely
overlooked. It has never been described earlier.
References:
Freud, S. (1917) Mourning and Melancholia. Collected Papers, Vol. 4: 152-170. Retrieved from
http://www.columbia.edu
Freud, S. (1924). Neurosis and Psychosis. On Psychopathology. Translated by James
Strachey. Edited by Angela Richards. (London, Penguin Books: 1987): 209-218
Freud, S. (1899) The Interpretation of Dreams. Retrieved from​ ​https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org
Klein, Melanie. (​1946).​ ​Notes on Some Schizoid Mechanisms.​ ​J Psychother Pract Res​. 1996
Spring; 5(2): 160–179.
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Kumar, Santosh and Soren, Subhash. (2009) Hallucination : Etiology and clinical implications​.
Ind Psychiatry J​. 2009 Jul-Dec; 18(2): 119–126.
Pollock, George H. (1994) Essential Papers on Object Loss. Retrieved from
https://books.google.co.in/
Ramachandran, V.S. (2010). Tell Tale Brain. Retrieved from​ ​http://home.iitj.ac.in
Robin L., Harriss, Carhart. (2011) ‘Neural correlates of the psychedelic state as determined by
fMRI Studies with Psilocybin’. ​ ​Vol. 109 no. 6. pp 2138–2143. Retrieved from
http://www.pnas.org/content/109/6/2138.full
Robin L., Harriss, Carhart. (2016) ‘Neural correlates of the LSD experience revealed by
multimodal neuroimaging’​ ​Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A.​ 2016 Apr 26;113(17): 4853-8.
Reynolds, Alastair. (2008). House of Suns. Retrieved from​ ​https://libraryqtlpitkix.onion.link
Singh, Jagmohan M.D. (1984) Black Patch Psychosis.​ ​I​ndian J Psychiatry​. 1984 Jul-Sep; 26(3):
248–249.​ Retrieved from​ ​https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Important Links to look out for :
Major research is done by MAPS which stands for Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic
Studies.​ ​http://www.maps.org/research
Papers on Psychotropic Psychotherapy. Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies
1986-present (same URL as above)
Johns Hopkins University is also currently holding clinical trials on a variety of substances.
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/single_dose_of_hallucinogen_may_creat
e_lasting_personality_change
40
Psilocybin for cancer patients.
http://www.bpru.org/cancer-studies/
Psychological support.
https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/psilocybin-with-psychological-support-for-treatme
ntresistant-depression(1e5697f3-b48d-4622-b2f4-56fbb9b712a4)/export.html
Watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZIaTaNR3gk