[7] Despite several attempts that have been made, starting in the 19th and 20th centuries, to define common phenomenological structures of the effects produced by classic psychedelics, a universally accepted taxonomy does not yet exist.
"[23] Similarly, the psychiatrist Stanislav Grof described the LSD experience as "complex revelatory insights into the nature of existence… typically accompanied by a sense of certainty that this knowledge is ultimately more relevant and 'real' than the perceptions and beliefs we share in everyday life.
[8][25] A bad trip on psilocybin, for instance, often features intense anxiety, confusion, agitation, or even psychotic episodes.
[26] Bad trips can be connected to the anxious ego-dissolution (AED) dimension of the APZ questionnaire used in research on psychedelic experiences.
[28] In most cases in which anxiety arises during a supervised psychedelic experience, reassurance from the session monitor is adequate to resolve it; however, if distress becomes intense it can be treated pharmacologically, for example with the benzodiazepine diazepam.
[29][30][31] Set refers to the participants' internal state – their mental, emotional and physical state, as well as their intentions for the experience (whether they want to solve a complex problem, discover the underlying secrets of the universe, or heal from a past trauma) – the better these preliminary conditions, the better the experience usually goes.
Leary and others have found that, due to the highly suggestible nature of the psychedelic experience, the environment the participant is in plays a critical role.
[29][30] The psychiatrist Stanislav Grof wrote that unpleasant psychedelic experiences are not necessarily unhealthy or undesirable, arguing that they may have potential for psychological healing and lead to breakthrough and resolution of unresolved psychic issues.
[33][page needed] Drawing on narrative theory, the authors of a 2021 study of 50 users of psychedelics found that many described bad trips as having been sources of insight or even turning points in life.
[9] Swanson writes that Osmond's view seems "less radical, more compatible with materialist science, and less epistemically and ontologically committed" than Huxley's.
[9] Supporting this theory, research has found that LSD disrupts thalamic gating, leading to altered perceptions by allowing more information to flow through the brain's gatekeeping mechanisms.
[9] For instance, Czech psychiatrist Stanislav Grof characterised psychedelic experiencing as "non-specific amplification of unconscious mental processes", and he analysed the phenomenology of the LSD experience (particularly the experience of what he termed psychospiritual death and rebirth) in terms of Otto Rank's theory of the unresolved memory of the primal birth trauma.
[38] The theory suggests that the entropy of brain activity within certain limits indexes the richness of conscious states, particularly under the influence of psychedelics.
[40] Sarit Pink-Hashkes and colleagues have applied the predictive processing paradigm in neuroscience to psychedelic experiences in order to formalize the idea of the entropic brain.
"[42] Watts further described the LSD experience as, "revelations of the secret workings of the brain, of the associative and patterning processes, the ordering systems which carry out all our sensing and thinking.
[44] Furthermore, psychedelic drugs have a history of religious use across the world that extends back for hundreds or perhaps thousands of years.
[48] As mentioned in the beginning, psilocybin-assisted therapy has been proven to be beneficial when treating different kinds of psychiatric disorders due to its unique enhancements on the mind.