Why it feels like you can communicate with Nature on LSD
It’s likely that, while you’ve been watering it, you have mumbled something to the cactus on your coffee table or the yucca tree by your window. But there are some people who claim to have actually communicated with plants—and nature at large—after taking acid or other psychedelics. Most pass these conversations off as mere hallucinations, but others—usually the types who take mushrooms once and then get very into wind chimes—believe the plants really were talking back.
Now, thanks to more open attitudes around testing illicit drugs—and new scientific tools and technologies, such as magnetic resonance imaging—we’re finally beginning to understand the effects of LSD on the human brain. At the forefront of the research into these effects is Enzo Tagliazucchi, a neuroscientist at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in Amsterdam. “There is no evidence that communion with entities during psychedelic experiences is not an illusion,” he explains on the phone from Buenos Aires, when I ask if LSD really allows users to communicate with nature. “Why this particular illusion appears under certain drugs is unknown, but should be addressed by future neuroimaging experiments.” So, hey, maybe those plants really are chatting with you, or maybe they’re not: We need to wait for researchers to carry out more studies before anything can be said definitively. But what’s certain is that—as Bill and Louis show—these experiences can be truly affirming and life-changing, regardless of their authenticity.
Original Article (Vice Magazine):
Why It Feels Like You Can Communicate with Nature on LSD
Artwork Fair Use: Mearone
