Simon Powell - The Psilocybin Solution

Regarding psilocybin’s radical enhancement of visual perception, it seems logical to surmise that a change in the functioning of serotonergic systems facilitates a greater “absorption” of the external information impinging upon the eyes. More information inherent in light flows through the visual system and into the brain, and this is experienced as breathtaking visual clarity. Since we humans are effectively embedded in an ocean of photic information, by subtly altering brain chemistry we can allow a tidal influx of this informational sea of light to sweep over the visual system, leaving us awash in perceptual data.

All objects, whether organic or inorganic, possess an intrinsic meaning or set of relations to other objects. They possess informational content, linked as they are to a network of relations with other objects. As discussed earlier, to see an object is not merely to apprehend its shape or color, but to access its meaning. After all, the retina of the eye only records an inverted two-dimensional pattern of light intensities, much as computer vision records arrays of light intensity values. This is not seeing. Real seeing, as we know it, involves the perception of what the object signifies. To see an object is to perceive, all at once, its role, function, and relations—that is, its meaning—within a vast network of objects.

Under the spell of psilocybin, I suggest that one is able to penetrate deeper into the informational content of objects, akin perhaps to accessing a higher dimension that is otherwise occluded. This is a bit like looking up a word in a dictionary and noting all its meanings, thus coming to understand the word in its fullest sense. Normally we might not perceive the entire meaning of a word, accessing maybe only a fraction of its true semantic content, yet, in theory at least, we might come to ascertain more. This is what psilocybin perception involves: the accessing of latent information normally hidden to us by the hardwired constraints of the brain (my comparison to the comprehension of words is useful as, in the next chapter, I hope to show further how “material” objects in various domains—like the domains of physics, chemistry, and biology—are themselves elements within a hierarchy of language-like systems, playing functional roles just like words).

As to the wealth of revelatory thoughts and ideas that erupt into consciousness during psychedelic ecstasy, these would appear to be, as with visions, a manifestation of the Other, in that they represent the holistic patterning of neuron-mediated information. This may often be experienced as a kind of internal dialogue with a wise being. Profound thoughts take on a rapidly flowing life of their own, generating further thoughts and insights. It is impossible not to once more invoke language here as a conceptual explanatory tool, though this type of inner psychedelic language involving complex thoughts and ideation works far more efficiently than the language system of the spoken word. Everyday language appears sluggish and cumbersome in contrast to the language of psychedelic contemplation, which moves at a profoundly different pace. Indeed, the sheer fluency and dramatic insightfulness of psychedelic contemplation explains its emotional impact and ineffability.

If we conceive of language in whatever mode as a communicatory information system, we can see that its modes are many and varied, all operating at different speeds and with different properties. The principle however is the same. There is a flow of information and a natural progression that yields further information, just as with spoken dialogue. When we communicate with one another in conventional language, whether written or spoken, we initiate a dialogue in which information is exchanged. Regardless of whether this dialogue is one-sided or not, the process is dynamic in that information flows from one system to another, from one person to another, from one brain to another, from one mind to another.

With psychedelic contemplation, an internal dialogue ensues in which a flow of ideas takes place between the self and the Other, where the Other is a dissociated or higher-level informational source acting as one component in the dialogue process. Through psilocybin’s activating influence, the psyche becomes a conduit to the Other, facilitating a dialogue of thought in which radical knowledge is received. It’s an incredible idea to be sure, yet, as I hope I have made clear, the psilocybin experience demands these kinds of incredible explanation.

We are now equipped with a model that views consciousness as a particular pattern of information embodied in the rapidly flowing electrochemical state of the brain. And we also have an informational entity that we can call the Other that is activated and brought to life after the ingestion of psychedelic alkaloids like psilocybin. Both consciousness and the Other can be better understood as processes (or verbs) as opposed to things, moreover processes involving the patterning, or focusing, or coalescing, or orchestration, of vast amounts of information.

Now we must turn to the nature of information itself. In particular, we shall look at information outside of the brain and see if it too can be understood in the same way. Does an informational language underlie Nature itself? Can molecules and atoms be interpreted as informational elements in a molecular or physical language? Is everything made of information? If so, does the reality process ultimately consist of a flow of self-organizing language-like information? Did our man Einstein emerge out of, grow up in, become famous in, and eventually die in an essentially informational reality process? Read on, then, for my psilocybin mushroom tale has hardly even begun. Information, it seems, cannot be stopped.

Nature’s entheogenic agents have provided compelling evidence for the following two most interesting of propositions: first, that consciousness is a form of information substantiated within the brain’s neuronal firing activity and, second, that this kind of cerebral information has a tendency to organize and integrate itself. Evidence in support of the first proposition was provided by looking at the ways that consciousness becomes altered according to subtle changes in brain chemistry, especially changes occurring at synapses. Chemically induced changes to global states of neuronal firing are synonymous with changes in consciousness, and since global states of neuronal firing must be global states of information (what else could they be?) we can conclude that consciousness is a form of information.

Evidence to support the second proposition—that cerebral information has a tendency to organize itself—came from an examination of psychedelic phenomenology and even dreaming, both processes highlighting the way that psychological information organizes itself without a deliberate effort on our part. Which is to say that we can find ourselves experiencing sacred visions after ingesting entheogenic agents or likewise find ourselves experiencing elaborate dream scenarios while we sleep (perhaps mediated by endogenous DMT).

The former experience, the psychedelic visionary state, seems to represent a very extreme manifestation of informational organization, so much so that a third proposition suggests itself, namely that an intelligent Other, distinct from the ego or self, lies behind the sacred thrust of psychedelic phenomenology. Such a dissociated Other can be considered to represent an organized source of intentional information that becomes activated when an individual’s neuronal system is infused with psychedelic alkaloids. We can thus concur with Huxley in his assertion that psychedelics allow a greater amount of what he called Mind at Large to flow into conscious perception. The Mind at Large is the Other, which potentially interfaces with the human psyche, revealing itself in the visionary experience and possibly during symbolic dreams. Information is the stuff of both the Other and the human mind. Conscious experience is information in process, as is the entheogenic experience. The greater the field of information being processed or integrated, the more conscious we may become (the word consciousness means “knowing together”).