Bitesized! Ibogaine pt 2! Mystical Experience and Neurological Changes!

So what is mysticism? In short, perception or interaction with a larger, you know, thing.

A god, an orchestrator of the universe.

an energy that connects us all.

One framework says it includes a sense of internal unification, external oneness, release from time-space, internal experience and objectivity, contentment, joy, duality, and experience greater than words.

So you can see why it's so hard to describe, delineate, or meaningfully share with others.

It is a highly subjective experience.

That said, psychological research tools have been developed to characterize mystical experience for understanding its connection to healing.

These measurement scales have revealed that greater mystical experience correlates with greater improvements in things like depression, substance use disorder, and distress over serious illnesses.

But...

What is going on biologically? Previous brain imaging studies have shown psychedelics' mystical experiences take place while electrical signals change, notably with peak alpha frequencies decreasing in power during psychedelic use.

peak alpha frequencies are known to be higher in PTSD sufferers, correlating with many of the symptoms that we know to hate.

Overactive brain functioning, hyperstimulation, and hypervigilance.

So mystical experience itself appears to be a reprieve from, let's call them, the overactive nervous system horrors.

A recent study even indicated that these suffering-causing peak alpha frequencies were still decreased one month after psychedelic treatment, aligned with greatly improved PTSD symptoms, suggesting that psychedelic treatment may cause enduring changes to brain functioning in peak alpha frequencies.

But we don't know much more about mystical experience in the brain.

So these authors set out to investigate the connection between ibogaine treatment, mystical intensity, and alterations in PTSD severity while tracking that peak alpha frequency with electroencephalography, EEG.