This post leads you to an audio podcast (transcript is provided) of an interview with Roland Griffiths, PhD, a professor in the departments of psychiatry and neurosciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His principal research focus in both clinical and pre- clinical laboratories has been on the behavioral and subjective effects of mood-altering drugs. It discusses research on the use of psychedelics with healthy volunteers.
I should say that one of the things that we’re seeing across these studies though, is this altered sense of what we believe reality to be made up of, that it’s a much larger project than many people have contemplated prior to going into these sessions. That it’s simply much more, it’s much larger and more mysterious, and there’s a sense of humbling that comes out of having that experience. It really a sense of astonishment at the largeness of the project, and a sense of gratitude that comes out for being gifted this opportunity to be this sentience, highly evolved human creature, walking the face of the earth, and we find ourselves with this astonishing fact that we are aware that we’re aware. It’s really so puzzling, but it’s the very nature of what it is to be a conscious human entity. There’s grander and beauty and humility that comes out of that.
via Speaking of Psychology: Psychedelic therapy with Roland Griffiths, PhD