PSYCHEDELICS - Sciencemadness.org

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____________________________________________________ Psychedelics
before the mind once more something that has once been
perceived, by reproducing it as a presentation without the
external object having still to be there." Freud explained
hallucinations as a consequence of a topographic regression, a
reversal of the normal path of excitation so that the perceptual
systems are stimulated from within. Federn attempted
to deal with the problem of loss of the feeling o f reality (as
opposed to reality testing) seen in estrangement and depersonalization,
by postulating that the sense of something being
real required an adequate investment of energy (libido) in
the ego boundary. Although his concepts are murky, they
point toward the notion of a quantity of "realness."
REALITY-TRANSFER HYPOTHESIS
The experimental data and clinical examples cited above
warrant the hypothesis that there is a specific ego function
that bestows the quality of reality on the contents of experi-
ence. I would like to hypothesize that this function can be
influenced and that the quality of reality can be displaced,
intensified, or attenuated—a process of reality transfer. In
the meditation experiment, the sensory percepts are invested
with this quality, resulting in the vivid, intensely real experi-
ences reported. Why does this take place? An initial specula-
tion is that, since in the meditation experience the object
world as a perceptual experience is broken down or dediffer-
entiated, the cognitive organization based on that world is
disrupted in a parallel fashion. An ego function capable of
appropriately bestowing reality quality must be linked de-
velopmentally with the organization of logical, object-based
thought. It seems plausible that an alteration in that organi-
zation would affect the reality function. In the meditation ex-
periment, the subject is instructed to banish analytical, logi-
cal thought and to allow perception to dominate the field. In
a formal sense, these instructions constitute a regression to
the primitive cognitive state postulated for the infant and
young child, a state in which the distinction between
thoughts, actions, and objects is blurred as compared to the
adult. Such a regression is likely to be enhanced by the
passive-dependent relationship with the experimenter. The
body immobility, reduction in sensory input, and the rela-