Healing With Psychedelics, Virtual Reality & Artificial Intelligence

The article Healing With Psychedelics, Virtual Reality & Artificial Intelligence was originally published on Microdose.

“Set refers to the subject; setting is the session’s environment. Matrix is the environment from which the subject comes: the environment surrounding the subject before and after the session, and the larger environment to which the subject returns.”  — Betty Eisner, 1997, Pioneer, LSD Research

The use of psychedelics in therapy and personal growth continues to grow, thanks in part to the growing body of research showing their potential for healing depression, anxiety, addiction, and other mental health issues. At the same time, virtual reality (VR) has become an increasingly popular tool for creating immersive and powerful therapeutic experiences, whether for treating phobias, addiction, or trauma. These fields offer a new frontier for innovation and therapeutic healing.

This article will explore how psychedelics and VR are being combined with AI to create powerful therapeutic experiences. So, let’s look at what we know about psychedelics, VR, and AI separately. 

Psychedelics are natural or man-made compounds that produce profound changes in consciousness, including non-ordinary states of perception and intense emotional experiences. The physiological effects are usually mild and short-lived, but the psychological impacts can be significant. 

VR is a computer-generated simulation of a three-dimensional environment that users can interact with using specialized hardware or equipment. It can be used to create immersive, interactive experiences that allow users to explore and manipulate a virtual environment. 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a technology that enables machines to think like humans and act intelligently. AI systems can recognize patterns, learn from experience, and make decisions based on their analysis. This technology has been used in various industries, including healthcare, finance, automotive, and more. AI is rapidly changing how we interact with the world around us by providing more innovative solutions and increased efficiency for everyday tasks. 

When these three technologies are combined, the potential for therapeutic applications is profound. By manipulating a user’s senses in a virtual world, therapists may be able to create powerful therapeutic experiences that could not be achieved through traditional methods. 

Psychedelics, AI, and VR: a look at the research 

The research is building to assess the synergies between VR with LSD, psilocybin, and MDMA to treat certain psychiatric disorders effectively. In this literature review, we look at the efficacy of VR, AI, and psychedelics in treating various mental health conditions, including substance use disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), eating disorders, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. Research results show evidence suggesting that VR and psychedelic therapies may effectively treat certain psychiatric diseases. 

Alone, psychedelic psychotherapy has been well-researched and used to treat depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  With AI, we further have the opportunity to revolutionize research into psychedelic drugs and unlock their potential as medical treatments. With its ability to quickly process large amounts of data and uncover patterns in complex systems, AI can further help scientists make progress in understanding how psychedelics affect our brains and bodies – paving the way for more effective treatments in the future. AI can also be used to develop personalized treatment plans for individual patients based on their unique needs.  AI allows these companies to search more comprehensively for novel psychedelics with desired therapeutic applications. 

HMNC Brain Health uses its AI Platform to develop groundbreaking therapies, combining Psychiatry, Genomics, and Analytics. AI is also used to gain precision when assessing mental health, bio-markers, and DNA. AI enables researchers to conduct more comprehensive searches of chemical databases and uncover molecules that may have otherwise gone undiscovered. AI-assisted searches also provide greater insight into molecular structure and predict likely outcomes for potential medicines, which could lead to the earlier discovery of potentially effective treatments. 

VR can simulate real-world scenarios that evoke strong emotional reactions from patients, allowing them to confront their fears in a safe environment. This immersive environment could help individuals process traumatic memories or gain insight into their behavior more quickly than traditional talk therapy alone. The need for more research and an evidence-based strategy to design and roll out Virtual Reality (VR) applications in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy has been identified. VR research has far-reaching implications in various fields, such as psychology, pharmacology, and medicine. By gaining a better understanding of the inner workings of the brain, researchers have looked at VR. They have found the experience and benefits similar to LSD or other Psychedelics. Using VR as a research tool has allowed a deeper understanding of the effects of psychedelics, such as an altered perception of time and space, improved creativity, enhanced mood regulation, and deeper self-reflection. The same technology can be used to study how people respond to various kinds of stimuli in the environment. 

“One way to use VR is by allowing patients to create and build their setting from the inside out in the preparation process for the psychedelic session.”  — Dr. Prash Puspanathan, Enosis Therapeutics

Enosis Therapeutics has advanced the research of VR technology used with psychedelic therapy to create immersive patient experiences. For example, as a state-altering method, VR can bridge normal and altered consciousness to ease the transition process and reduce some patients’ anxiety before a psychedelic experience. This allows a better capacity to surrender to the experience and go into it more easily, giving patients a chance to dive deeper. After all, this is your personal matrix. 

Enosis Therapeutics modules enable individuals to experience the full range of a psychedelic journey. They recently conducted a groundbreaking study to determine the effectiveness of virtual reality (VR) in psychedelic therapy. The results were encouraging, as participants reported increased satisfaction and therapeutic efficacy from VR scenarios. This provides strong evidence for using VR technology in therapeutic protocols, demonstrating that incorporating such immersive experiences can positively impact the outcome of psychedelic therapy sessions. With this information, Enosis is now focused on leveraging properties unique to immersive environments, such as the capacity to buffer from unwanted stimuli or reliably and quickly induce a mindful presence to ensure more successful patient outcomes.

The potential benefits of combining psychedelic psychotherapy with AI and VR are vast. By leveraging these technologies, clinicians may be able to provide more effective treatments for mental health issues while reducing the risk of adverse effects associated with psychedelics. As research explores the synergies between these technologies and psychedelic psychotherapy, we may soon see even more significant advances in this field. 

Entheo Digital develops Breath, Light, And Sound Therapy (BLAST) biofeedback systems that amplify psychedelic-assisted journeys, with or without medicine. Their systems provide immersive environments that modulate three aspects of experience: respiration, visual field, and auditory/tactile sensation. The system uses vocal toning, or long vowel tones, to generate an audio-visual trance experience that activates the parasympathetic nervous system. This helps to reduce stress, increase oxygen flow throughout the body, and cultivate positive states of mind. The visual field is modulated with specialized LED light patterns designed to activate specific brain waves like alpha, delta, and theta, which are associated with improved attention, cognitive flow, and focus. Finally, the musical experience is entirely generated from the user’s voice, which provides a personalized journey that results in feelings of greater self-efficacy. This system can help people rapidly learn mindfulness skills and better understand their psychological and emotional state by utilizing neuroscience techniques to understand how the brain works. 

“It’s not like the end of the world—just the world as you think you know it.” – Rita Dove

Neuroscience helps us better understand how psychedelics affect our mental states. For example, fMRI scans can show changes in brain activity after a psychedelic experience, which can help researchers pinpoint potential therapeutic benefits and uncover how psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy Neuroscience studies have already shown that certain psychedelic compounds can alter activity and communication in the brain, leading to changes in perception and cognition. AI has already been used to detect patterns in neural networks and can be utilized to identify new pathways between various brain regions. Additionally, VR provides an interactive platform for Neuroscience research by allowing users to experience simulated environments with carefully monitored modifications. Combining these technologies allows for a completely novel, immersive experience where the user interacts with a simulated environment, giving researchers valuable insight into how the brain reacts to different stimuli. 

As neuroscience continues to evolve, the potential of psychedelics, AI, and VR to further our understanding of the brain is becoming increasingly apparent. For example, a recent study found that participating in a group virtual reality experience can produce responses similar to those triggered by psychedelics. This suggests that VR could be used as a full-spectrum tool to capitalize on and catalyze the innately therapeutic aspects of psychedelic substances. 

Researchers investigate how different environments impact our brains and behavior through AI and VR technology. https://neurosciencenews.com/vr-psychedelics-21412/  The combination of psychedelics, AI, and VR has opened up new possibilities for Neuroscience research. As these technologies continue to advance, we may soon be able to explore the brain’s inner workings in ways we never thought possible. With this newfound knowledge comes the potential for us to better understand ourselves and develop treatments for various neurological disorders.

Ethical considerations:

Psychedelics can cause confusion, disorientation, anxiety, panic, or paranoia. They also interfere with the perception of reality, which may lead to a distorted sense of self-awareness and blurred boundaries between the user’s existence and non-ordinary consciousness. It is essential to be aware and prepared for the possible risks before engaging in psychedelic use.  The medicalized model is very focused on screening and contraindications.

Virtual Reality creates a simulated environment that immerses users in an artificial world. The risk is that users potentially become so immersed in virtual environments that they lose sight of their in-real-life (IRL) lives, creating psychological issues such as disillusionment with the natural world and addiction to virtual worlds. Again, a supervised approach to preparing, journeying and integration is the key. 

Artificial Intelligence: The far-reaching implications for our society are positive and negative. AI can be used as an autonomous decision-making machine that humans do not fully understand or control. We must develop ethical standards for AI applications to ensure their use does not infringe upon our civil liberties or humanity’s greater good. Go to this link for more information. 

In summary, the research into psychedelics, AI, and VR offers tremendous opportunity for exploring how we think about our relationship with technology itself—the idea that humanity does not exist separate from technology but is instead intertwined within it—as well as promising potential to uncover new treatments for various conditions whether they are physical or mental disorders. Further research into these topics could also help identify ways machine learning algorithms can better interpret human behavior while preserving autonomy and choice over our data bio, psycho and social context resulting in a win-win situation for researchers and end users. But this is not a panacea, and there is a shadow side to these technologies and frameworks that needs careful consideration in their use and application.

Note: This article presents a study, research, and a point of view that should not be taken as advice. The author offers transpersonal coaching and counseling. He is an Interfaith MDiv, Contemplative Psychotherapist and Psychedelic Assisted Therapy Provider, who holds space for therapeutic presence, preparing, integration and the use of digital therapeutics. The Work Mindfulness Project http://www.workmindfulness.com The Mindfulness Experience podcast https://themindfulnessexperience.podbean.com/

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