Biological Psychiatry Global Open Science
March 1, 2026
Noam Goldway, Taly Markovits, Naomi Fine et al.
1 citation
Dissociation, an altered state of consciousness in which individuals feel detached from their body, environment, and sense of self, is a common feature of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Despite its significance, the neurocognitive processes underlying dissociation remain poorly understood, potentially limiting diagnostic precision and treatment efficacy in PTSD. To address this gap, we...
Psychedelic Medicine
March 1, 2026
Jonah Griffin-Stolbach, Hanna Molla, Donald Hedeker et al.
There has been great interest in the use of very low doses of psychedelic drugs like lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) to improve mood and cognition. However, controlled studies have thus far provided little support for their efficacy. One challenge is that the subjective effects are subtle and on the threshold of detectability, whereas the questionnaires used to assess the drugs' effects were...
Psychedelic Medicine
March 1, 2026
Sharday Mosurinjohn, Richard S. Ascough
5 citations
This article corrects an idea in psychedelic science and culture that the ancient Eleusynian Mysteries used psychedelics, as claimed by Carl Ruck and co-authors in The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries (1978), revitalized by Brian Muraresku's The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name (2020), and popularized by social media heavyweights such as Joe...
Journal of Religion and Health
February 28, 2026
Stephen P. Lewis, Jaime Clark-Soles, Oriana Mayorga et al.
2 citations
The rapid expansion of psychedelic research has opened significant pathways of opportunity in treating mental health disorders. Participants in recent clinical trials consistently report mystical-type experiences during dosing sessions, and some scholars posit that such experiences themselves help mediate clinical improvements in depression, PTSD, anxiety, and substance use disorders. These...
PsyArXiv
February 27, 2026
Trevor Hewitt, Anil K. Seth, David J. Schwartzman
preprint
Hallucinations arise from disruptions in neural processes that construct perceptual experience from sensory input. Progress in consciousness science may therefore benefit from methods that precisely characterise their phenomenology. We introduce and validate the 6-Dimensional Visual Hallucination Questionnaire (6D-VHQ), a brief instrument designed to quantify visual hallucination content across...
PsyArXiv
February 27, 2026
Veronika Chvostová, Johanna Prugger, Tim Hirschfeld et al.
preprint
The Open Data initiative Altered States Database (ASDB) collects psychometric questionnaire data on the subjective experiences of pharmacologically and non-pharmacologically induced altered states of consciousness. The ASDB is updated annually and can be utilized by both researchers and non-scientists to access information or conduct further analyses. The current update adds data published in...
Preprints.org
February 27, 2026
Luis Miguel Gallardo
preprint
This comprehensive literature review synthesizes the published scholarship on transpersonal psychology, transpersonal psychotherapy, and transpersonal hypnotherapy from the field's inception in the 1960s through 2026. Drawing from 283 unique scholarly sources across multiple databases, this review examines the theoretical foundations, philosophical underpinnings, clinical applications,...
Cambridge University Press eBooks
February 26, 2026
Katerina Kolotourou
Sound and hearing play a crucial role in the conceptualisation and perception of divine entities, cultic places, and ritual processes. Sound phenomena can evoke religious experiences, structure ritual communication and stimulate desired emotional responses, whilst exposure to certain resonance frequencies can affect the human body, thereby influencing one’s perceptions and states of...
Frontiers in Psychology
February 25, 2026
Natalie L. Dyer, Meredith Sprengel, Ivo V. Stuldreher et al.
Background: The human body radiates multiple biological fields which can be measured with sensors directly on or off the body. These electromagnetic fields are hypothesized to be altered by mind and body practices. The primary goal of the current study was to evaluate the feasibility of continuous multi-sensor monitoring during meditation and breathwork practices. It also explored methods to...
Behavioral Sciences
February 23, 2026
Joshua Lipson, Hannes Kettner, Robin Carhart-Harris et al.
BACKGROUND: The quality and valence of psychedelic experiences are influenced by a range of psychological and contextual factors. This study examines baseline mood and the "relational triad"-comprising social connectedness, mindfulness, and spirituality-as potential predictors of the quality of naturalistic psychedelic experiences. METHODS: Data were drawn from the Predicting Responses to...