Knowledge Tree
visionary experiences
Facts (10)
Sources
The Mechanisms of Psychedelic Visionary Experiences - Frontiers frontiersin.org Sep 27, 2017 8 facts
claimThe effects of psychedelics in producing visionary experiences involve the same mechanisms elicited by other non-drug mechanisms for altering consciousness and producing visionary experience.
referenceBarrett and Griffiths (2017) identified parallels in the neural bases of psychedelic and meditative effects on the Default Mode Network (DMN), specifically hypothesizing that visionary experiences result from decreased activity and functional connectivity in the medial nodes of the DMN (PCC and MPFC), which mediate self-referential processing.
claimVisionary experiences across diverse modes of altering consciousness share a common mechanism released by the interruption of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the default mode network (DMN).
claimVollenweider (2001) proposes that diverse processes producing visionary experiences share a common underlying mechanism of thalamic sensory overload, which results in a disruption of cortico-subcortical processing.
claimDivination, defined as the acquisition of information manifested in visionary experiences, is a central feature of shamanic ritual.
claimVisionary experiences express personal affectivity and representational capacities, presenting material to the subject that emerges from their own deep personal affective layers of consciousness.
claimThe functions of mirror neurons in representing visual images of others' behavior and one's own behavior support the hypothesis that mirror neurons mediate the production of both internal visual representations and visionary experiences.
claimVisionary experiences produced by psychedelics, meditation, hypnosis, and pathological conditions like epilepsy share similarities, suggesting a need for a general model to explain these states.
Psychedelics, Sociality, and Human Evolution frontiersin.org 2 facts
claimPsychedelic use can amplify symbolic behavior and a predisposition for collective rituals and synchronicity by stimulating the deployment of rhythmic, hermeneutical, and rhetorical activity to communicate ecstatic and visionary experiences, as argued by Doyle (2011).
claimTerence McKenna proposed in 1992 that psilocybin's effects—stimulating visual acuity, sexual activity, and ecstatic/visionary experiences—influenced hominin foraging, sensitivity to community, and religious and spiritual concerns.