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Psilocybin-induced subjective time-dilation is real

Wired has a piece on a recent study of psilocybin. The study, Effects of Varied Doses of Psilocybin On Time Interval Reproduction in Human Subjects, published in this month's issue of the journal Neuroscience Letters, demonstrated the subjective time effects of 5mg of psilocybin, one of the active psychedelic compounds found in magic mushrooms.


The duration reproduction task (DRT) followed the same design in both experiments. A 500 Hz tone was presented to subjects via headphones for a defined duration s (presentation phase); after a constant interval of silence, w = 2 s, the same tone was presented again and the subjects had to switch off the tone by pressing a key when the duration of the second tone was subjectively equal to that of the first tone.

In the study, participants who had been given psilocybin switched off the tone earlier than they should have, which indicates they experienced the elapsed time to have been greater than it actually was. Ergo, people under the influence of mushrooms feel that time passes more slowly.

Tip of the Hat to four2oh for the heads up.

Posted By NaFun at 2008-02-26 12:06:41 permalink | comments
Tags: psilocybin mushroom time
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Howard. : 2009-03-11 23:59:27
I believe that our brain is actually turned off in these moments and you are experiencing a waking form of death where there is no boundary between anything. I think people are actually having this experience outside of time, and the balance of our senses that create our internal reproduction of what we perceive is happening externally. There is much to be learned from exploring this duality of what we perceive as reality. There is nothing without context, and you have to understand that in any experiment. Every person's experience is subjective and really only meaningful to them. Communication has evolved to an insane level between humans. We have so much to think about that it makes modern humans neurotic , and that's why we have so much metal illness now.
K. : 2008-02-29 20:15:05
Did the tone sound the same while under the influence? Assuming their perception of time slowed, it would follow that the tones sounded lower pitched.
jamesk : 2008-02-29 13:06:00
Time is not a universal constant, it is a arbitrary measure of state change through space.
zupakomputer. : 2008-02-29 11:17:57
That's good, but I'd prefer to see studies that prove how psychedelics & other drugs enable those ingesting them to actually hear and see better than they can as compared with when not having taken any substance.

It's still subjective then, but it would open up new understanding of how sensory input is actually processed, since models would be required to show how chemical changes enable the likes of greater ranges of hearing.

(it's an oldie but goldie, but proves the above is true; unless you are tripping, or have biochemistry whereby you are naturally psychedelic anyway, then you cannot hear that last bit at the end of the Sgt. Pepper album.)

That would then quicken understanding of say, how magnetic fields and other aspects of the aura are altered by the changes in molecular shapes processed as neurotransmitters.

There's one other problem with any studies of the passage of time - there isn't exactly a specific agreement on what time is. We can measure time passing in relation to instruments calibrated in synch with the rotation of this planet and it's orbit around the Sun - there's needed a way of seeing that time is really changes in space (at any scale).

As VALIS put it, "Here son, time changes into space."

Infinity might be found to be the freeing up of constraints in which space is forced into cyclical repeat patterns. Heaven, if you will, is this same space but with movements left only to conscious intent.

jamesk : 2008-02-26 15:11:47
As one who studies this kind of literature regularly, everyone knows it's not a valid paper unless there's some dense inscrutable calculus to model the general case. That's what makes it "science". My formula for mushroom-induced time dilation would remove the constant w and replace it with a scalar variable calculated by dose over duration. But yeah, if you want to be crude about it, then okay, you can plot a response line with it.
yeschaton : 2008-02-26 14:07:02
Please don't attempt to read the article while under the influence, as time may grind alarmingly close to a halt: [link] border="0" style="width:450px">

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