Psychedelics and How It Effects Your Creativity
Introduction and background information.
Psychedelics are psychoactive substances that are believed to affect an individual perception in terms of their moods and cognitive processes. It is considered to increase the activity of the unconscious mind in the process. They are considered hallucinogens as they are known to cause hallucinations to the patient or an individual taking the drug but are known to be safe as they do not cause addictions to the users. The name was made up by Humphrey Osmond in 1957, after identifying their effect on the mind, thus demonstrating their capability making it be considered useful o the mind[1]. Osmond introduced mescaline, where the drug was used in the treatment of alcohol addiction, and the result indicated that most of his patients demonstrated high success compared to other forms of therapy in coping with addiction. The psychedelics development led to the development of the commonly used drug LSD, which was later banned after the research on how it affects the brain by affecting the areas that control perception and cognition.
Psychedelics plants were used in ancient times by the non-western culture in the religious ceremony. In the shaman, the plants are used spiritually by the religious leaders to use it to the transformation done through drumming and chanting. The action causes the user to experience dreamlike experiences where they were believed to communicate with the spirit in their spiritual world[2]. The people who took part in the Takiwasi experienced physiological reaction in their body that caused them to have nausea, vomiting, diarrhea cases of dizziness, and an irregular heartbeat rhythm and hallucination cases. The ritual in Takiwasi is known to be incorporated with the catholic belief to be used in exorcism; in this context, the participant ayahuasca ritual explains the presence of supernatural beings giving them the religious protection of the community by the beings.
In the professional output, the psychedelics drugs are known to increase the creativity and productivity of the users known to take small doses of the psychedelics. The current research on psilocybin shows that they can affect the brain processes as pharmacological agents in brain stimulation[3]. The psychedelics users explain to have increased creativity in the taking of the LSD and seem to facilitate high problem-solving ability in them. Despite the advantages in the increased creativity the drugs are known to cause short term effect in the users that includes an increased heartbeat rate and cases of nausea while in the long-term effect the drug was known to cause persisting hallucinogenic perception disorder. In the pharmacological field, the drugs are used in therapy in the treatment, such as addiction, depression, and anxiety in the patient.
Research question and related sub-questions.
What effects do psychedelics have on the user’s creativity and productivity in terms of their brain processes?
What are some of the health effects associated with the consumption of drugs to improve our creativity?
Case material
The research will focus on the shaman people as a community known to use the drug for religious and cultural tools in the community. The community use of the psychedelic plants in the intervention to the sprit word explains the pharmacological effects of the drugs to the users in the therapeutic agent's bases. The drugs developed in the psychedelics are LSD, MDMA, psilocybin, and ayahuasca are thus considered in their effect in increasing the brain processes leading to increased creativity and productivity. In this effect, consideration of the effects of the concinnated drugs on the Takwasi natives in the rain forest in the religious ceremony and their hallucination effects are demonstrated by the people involved in the experience. The effect of the experiences to involved individuals in the addiction field is considered, and cases of hallucination in the supernatural things they saw and exorcism use by the Catholics.
The current research on LSD, MDMA, psilocybin, and ayahuasca, and the claims on their effects to increased productivity through a survey of the psychedelics users on their performance compared with non-users. The user’s experiences from their cognition concerning their creativity and the involvement in the movement of the stages of creative generation and their evaluation determine their effects. The effects of the drugs and how they affect perception moods and the cognition of an individual stimulate the creativity concerning the psychoanalytic theory on cognition. The effects in the individual as a consideration on the side effects reduce the effects of the drugs to the users despite the increased creativity and minds processes. In the perception case, the determination on the psychedelic’s ability to enhance and amplify the perception of the meaning of the concepts in place. Despite the effects of the drugs, the key aspect in their use as a guideline to protect the users from the misuse and the pharmacological uses in therapy for addicts, depressed and patient from post-traumatic experiences
Potential theoretical framework.
Using the unifying theories in the study of psychedelic drugs' effects helps analyze the results psychologically through the theories. The theories help define how the psychedelics causes the effects they have on the mood’s reception and the self in response to an individual's cognition. The effects of the self's cognition on the mind perception are defined through the psychoanalytic theory where the aspect of development and access of the unconscious mind in the cognition and the stimulation of the mind buy the psychedelics. The consideration of the filtration theory as an aspect that tries to explain the effects of the psychedelics in the brain filtration effects, thus allowing the effects of the drugs. The use of the unifying theories gives an oversite of the drugs to increase creativity and productivity.
The description of the current theories is based on neuroscience to understand the psychedelics drug effect. The theories include entropic brain theory where it proposes that the determinant in the brain's conscious state is the system informational character. This tries to explain cognitive neuroscience in response to psychedelic drugs' effects, thus affecting the conscious mind state and its effects on the neuromotor. Integrated information theory provides the mathematical of the quality and quantity of the drugs' effects to the mind of the user concentrating on the conscious experience. The data from neural imaging and psychedelic drugs are thus represented in the conceptualize framework, thus providing a better understanding n the effects of the drugs on the conscious mind; thus, creativity and productivity increase. Predictive processing is essential too in determining the brain codes in effects to the use of the drugs. The theories provide a framework for studying the effects of psychedelics in the brain's creativity, neuroimaging, and mathematical presentation of the effects.
Bibliography
DUPUIS, David. "The socialization of hallucinations. Cultural priors, social interactions and contextual factors in the use of psychedelics." Transcultural Psychiatry (2020).
Nichols, David E. "Psychedelics." Pharmacological reviews 68, no. 2 (2016): 264-355.
Prochazkova, Luisa, Dominique P. Lippelt, Lorenza S. Colzato, Martin Kuchar, Zsuzsika Sjoerds, and Bernhard Hommel. "Exploring the effect of microdosing psychedelics on creativity in an open-label natural setting." Psychopharmacology 235, no. 12 (2018): 3401-3413.
[1] Nichols, David E. "Psychedelics." Pharmacological reviews 68, no. 2 (2016): 264-355.
[2] DUPUIS, David. "The socialization of hallucinations. Cultural priors, social interactions and contextual factors in the use of psychedelics." Transcultural Psychiatry (2020).
[3] Prochazkova, Luisa, Dominique P. Lippelt, Lorenza S. Colzato, Martin Kuchar, Zsuzsika Sjoerds, and Bernhard Hommel. "Exploring the effect of microdosing psychedelics on creativity in an open-label natural setting." Psychopharmacology 235, no. 12 (2018): 3401-3413.
