This is how LSD creates sleep states while awake

Psychedelics like LSD They have always been involved in controversy about its use, but what is clear is that its effect on the body reveals interesting aspects about the human brain.

Many people who habitually use these drugs, in fact, assure that under their influence they notice that they access other planes of reality. It is not simply that they see strange things, impossible things; is that they really believe that, in their own way, the world that they can see, touch and hear exists, and remains hidden when they do not use these substances.

This phenomenon is very similar to what happens when we dream. After all, dream events, as surreal as they may seem objectively, seem valid at the time, and we rarely question them just when we perceive them. But recent research has revealed that the similarity between the effect of LSD and dreams goes further of this resemblance.

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The effects of psychedelics

Use of the psychedelic drug LSD,

well known for its recreational use In areas such as concerts or music clubs, it makes the world of those who consume it change completely for several hours at a time. Everything that is seen around changes, but beliefs and ideas about oneself (that is, self-concept) also change.

This powerful effect on people's minds is, in part, a mystery to unravel. The interaction between drugs and the human brain is a very complex process, and it is very difficult to distinguish what exactly it is what is happening in our brain when using LSD.

Fortunately, a study carried out by a team of scientists from the University of Zurich has found the causes behind the dream-like states of consciousness that appear after consumption of the LSD.

This group of researchers has been working to know the therapeutic potential of psychedelic substances known to generate hallucinations, that is cause altered states of consciousness. Specifically, they focused on the effects of LSD, which last between 12 and 17 hours, and those of psilocybin, another similar substance whose effects last between 4, 5 or 6 hours.

And is that although we use the term "drugs" to refer to various substances, their mechanisms of action are usually very different, and those for psychedelics in particular are easily distinguishable from those for consumables such as the cannabis or alcohol. Now... what exactly makes waking dreams appear after taking LSD?

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The therapeutic potential of LSD

The study conducted by these Swiss researchers was conducted with the participation of 25 volunteers, some of whom received only a placebo. Generating the phenomenon to be studied in laboratory conditions (the effect of LSD in the system nervous, these scientists analyzed the data obtained and published their conclusions in the journal scientific Psychopharmacology.

Rainer Kraehenmann, a member of the research team that conducted the study, points out that the measurement of altered states of consciousness, comparable to the dream episodes we experience when dreaming, were measured from the marker called cognitive surrealism from descriptions in real time about what is experienced.

But what people who have taken LSD experience does not simply consist of strange events. These experiences are much more vivid that what an adult without diagnosed mental disorders lives without the effects of a drug, and also a clear pattern of thought appears less relational, in a certain way creative and less restricted to schemata rigid.

Precisely these last properties are what make LSD a potentially useful tool in some therapies, especially with those in which a pattern of thought is fought in which the perceived limits generate anxiety.

How do dream states appear with LSD?

LSD has been known for years works by enhancing the effect in the brain of a neurotransmitter called serotonin. Neurotransmitters are microscopic elements that neurons use to communicate with each other, and the LSD causes the receptors of these nerve cells to take up more of these tiny ones particles.

Kraehenmann and his colleagues have made this hypothesis about the functioning of LSD in neurons is more detailed, when observing that a drug called ketanserin blocks the dream potential of the LSD. Ketanserin suppresses the ability of serotonin 2A receptors to work, thus preventing the possibility of external substances magnifying the effects of the neurotransmitter.

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