Psychedelics help to release past trauma that has been stored in the body and nervous system (7).

The alkaloids present in some psychedelic plants such as ayahuasca and iboga/ibogaine kill parasites in the digestive tract, helping to detoxify and rebalance the gut microbiome where 90% of our serotonin is produced (8).

Psychedelics have been reported to help treat autoimmune disorders by addressing underlying issues such as inflammation, maladaptive chronic stress responses, and imbalances in the gut microbiome (9).

Psychedelics can provide some relief from chronic pain by addressing the psychosomatic aspect of the pain (10).

Psychedelics promote neurogenesis and neuroplasticity, which means that they trigger the growth of new brain cells, and forge connections between parts of the brain that wouldn’t normally communicate with each other (11). This explains why psychedelics have such a broad range of treatment - rewiring neural pathways is what enables people to quit addictions, break out of the mental loops associated with depression and anxiety, clear mental chatter, become aware of how one’s thoughts and biases shape reality, and see the world from a new perspective.

Stepping outside of our ordinary state of consciousness helps us to dis-identify with the collection of thoughts, judgments, memories, and conditioning that shape our experience of reality. This provides an opportunity to reconnect with one’s essential self and tap into universal truths.

Psychedelics reduce activity in the thinking parts of the brain, and increase activity in the feeling parts of the brain. In this altered state, we perceive the world, ourselves, and others very differently than we normally do. Turning down the volume of our thinking mind allows us to tap into more primal and uniquely valuable forms of knowing - namely our emotions, intuition, and instinct (12).

To deal with the pain that we inevitably experience over the course of our lives, many of us have gotten into the habit of “boxing up” emotions in an attempt to move forward and leave the past in the past. However, cutting off the parts of ourselves that hold painful memories causes a restricted range of emotion and expression, a flattening that prevents us from feeling fully alive. Over time we may experience symptoms of anxiety or depression, or have angry outbursts (13). In a psychedelic healing session, the pain of the past will arise from the subconscious mind so that it can be confronted, processed, and released. It is an opportunity to touch on past events from a removed perspective, to express and release the emotions that were too overwhelming to feel at the time. (14).

Experiencing the altered state of consciousness brought about by psychedelics can be a life-changing experience in-and-of itself. Our senses and perceptions take in the world differently, and reality as we’ve known it drastically transforms. Imagine experiencing life in the body of an animal, such as a dog with an extremely powerful sense of smell, or a snake seeing the world through infrared vision - it causes one to realize that our perception of reality is only a slice of the whole picture, and there is much going on beyond what our senses perceive. This often brings about existential questions such as, what is the true nature of reality? What is going on all around us that we can’t perceive with our bodies? Is there a realm beyond the material? With this broader view of life, our day-to-day problems hold less gravity (15).

At powerful doses, psychedelics bring about total ego dissolution, leading to an out-of-body experience and temporary dissociation from any sense of self, which many people describe as mystical, or a meeting with the divine. This profound experience outside of linear time can be both ecstatic and terrifying, and shares many commonalities with accounts of near-death experiences. It simply cannot be distilled into words, but many people feel that it’s on par with their most significant life events, such as the birth of a child.