Hi everyone!

This week I’m in Denver for Psychedelic Science 2025 🙂

(the Psychedelic Science hero this year floating the relevance of non-linear optics as piece of the puzzle for psychedelic action? Perhaps see: 1, 2 – featured animation is from QRI collaborator Bijan Fakhri in the first link)

I’m going to be hosting a little get-together at The Dancers on Friday at noon, joined by Alien Insect (i.e. Andrew R Gallimore, writer of Alien Information Theory and Reality Switch Technologies) who will be eager to hear your entity contact stories (yes, even the unpleasant bits). 🙂

Call it a QRI Schelling Point: It’s for people interested in consciousness from a Qualia Research Institute angle. That is, efforts to map out the state-space of consciousness, algorithmically reduce psychedelic effects, describe the geometry of hallucinations, reverse engineering the correspondence between the shape and valence of an experience, and organizing Manhattan Projects of Consciousness-like gatherings with math, physics, meditation, and visual arts people to identify the equations behind psychedelic visuals, and so on; see also: psychedelic cryptography – secret messages only people high on LSD can read.

The Dancers are hard to miss. Find them right outside the convention center, between Champa str. and N. Speer blvd. They are gigantic.

Note: One of the key meetings I’m having at this conference will be with Bob Wold, the founder of Clusters Busters. When I was writing the Logarithmic Scales of Pleasure and Pain (see academic publication, h/t Chris Percy) in 2019 I stumbled upon various anecdotes that DMT at sub-hallucinogenic doses is capable of aborting (and then preventing) cluster headaches for a significant fraction of sufferers. Cluster headaches top the charts of painful conditions, and if aborting/preventing them can be safely and reliably done with DMT (and other psychedelics) then this might be one of the most promising directions for the suffering-focused wing of Effective Altruism (and anyone who cares about the true “amount of suffering” and how to reduce it). QRI collaborator and EA veteran Alfredo Parra has been working on quantifying the global burden of intense suffering, and concludes that there is a wide range of parameters for which cluster headaches turn out to cause more aggregate suffering than far more common conditions (e.g. migraines). Thus, along with a few other high-impact suffering-reduction interventions, at QRI we think that decriminalizing substances like DMT for painful conditions, and fostering education and access to them for cluster headache patients in particular, might be one of the most cost-effective ways of reducing the world’s suffering burden. That is, of course, alongside increasing the availability and adoption of other successful therapies (such as oxygen, for many). We are going to launch an Open Letter about this that we will disseminate strategically very soon, so stay tuned (I’ll ask you to sign it if you will!).

Importantly: if you or someone you know suffer from cluster headaches (or any other chronic pain condition that responds to psychedelic therapy) and want to share your testimonial with us in preparation for our launch, please fill out this form – ClusterFree Release Form.

See my interview with Jessica Khurana, founder of Eleusinia Retreat center in Mexico, the only psychedleic retreat center that specializes in offering its services to people who suffering from severe chronic pain of the sort that can be aided with psychedelic therapy.

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In early July I’m traveling to Crete for ASSC, followed by the the ASSC Sattelite Event on ​Non-Ordinary States of Consciousness “QUALIUS“. And from there I plan to visit France for a couple of days (July 15-18) before I head to Sweden (to attend Borderland! I hope to see you there!) and finally will take a brief break in the UK early August on my way back. Please hit me up if you’d like to meet: will update this page with the corresponding QRI Schelling Point for each of my visits.

UPDATE: There will be a France QRI Meetup on the 16th of July, from noon to 6PM in Paris (8 Gal Saint-Marc, 75002). Then a Swedish QRI Meetup on the 18th at 6:30PM at Boulebar Rålambshov in Stockholm. Finally, UK Meetup will also be happening on August 3rd 5PM (until late) at Newspeak House: https://lu.ma/mmjwfq5e?tk=ydkN6X See you there! 🙂

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Ps. I found this neat puzzle, see if you can figure it out 🙂