psychedelics

12+ Reasons to Donate to ClusterFree

Posted on by algekalipso

Why cluster headache mitigation should become your #1 effective giving priority this Season: impactful, novel, very alive, and with plausible fast results!

By Andrés Gómez Emilsson, ClusterFree Co-Founder & Member of Advisory Board

TL;DR: To motivate action and feel genuine internal alignment around a decision, sometimes we need to see it from many different angles. Even when a single reason should be enough, we need to motivate our entire internal coalition of subagents! Hence, all of these reasons to support ClusterFree in its mission:

Summary of the 12+ Reasons to Support This Cause

  1. Watch real people rapidly improve – Video testimonials of torture stopping in minutes
  2. Logarithmic scale of impact – Helping someone with this condition is potentially one of the highest-leverage interventions anyone can do as a gift to someone’s life
  3. Insurance against illegible suffering – Building a world that takes invisible pain seriously, including your own in the future! (crossing fingers you never experience such things!)
  4. Proof-of-concept for valence-first cost-effectiveness – This illustrates the corner cases where QALYs/DALYs fail catastrophically
  5. Intellectual coalition – Scott Alexander, Peter Singer, Anders Sandberg, Robin Carhart-Harris, etc. have seen the evidence and are convinced this is real
  6. Schelling point for suffering reduction – Network effects for future high-impact work, attracting genuine talent to focus on deep suffering reduction is its own value proposition
  7. It’s a strike against medical paternalism – Informed consent for known therapies, even when not officially approved, when it comes to extreme suffering, should always be an option on the table
  8. Actually tractable – Success looks like a 3-5 year timeline with a clear theory of change
  9. Speed cashes out in suffering prevented – 70,000 people in extreme agony right now, every day of delay matters greatly
  10. Works as an accelerant for an existing movement – Adding coordination to grassroots momentum that’s already underway (giving the psychedelic renaissance wings!)
  11. Psychospiritual merit (if you believe in “karma”) – Buddhist texts specifically highlight headache relief, “immeasurable merit” in store for you and your loved ones if you decide to help with clean intentions
  12. Bodhisattva vision – Practice looking into darkness without flinching
  13. Bonus – I’ll stop talking about Cluster Headaches in Qualia Computing!: Fund it so I can get back to core QRI research

Introduction: Why Multiple Reasons Actually Matter

In principle, deciding where to donate should be straightforward: calculate expected value, fund the highest-impact opportunity, done. In practice, we’re coalitions of subagents with different reward architectures, time horizons, epistemics, and thresholds for action.

At a neurobiological level, motivation doesn’t work the way we pretend. It’s not about “willpower” or “being convinced by good arguments.” Different brain regions make “bids” to the basal ganglia, using dopamine as the currency. Whichever region makes the highest bid gets to determine the next action. Scott Alexander explains this in Toward A Bayesian Theory Of Willpower (2021). What we call “motivation”, within this framework, is just whichever subsystem’s bid is currently winning. Whether the details are right or not, I think this tracks how I see people behave.

If you want to trigger high-effort action, giving just one reason may not be enough. That only raises one bid. Layer multiple kinds of reasons (emotional, moral, social, self-interest, narrative, identity-based), and you multiply the bidders in your internal parliament. Scott uses stimulants as an example: they “increase dopamine in the frontal cortex… This makes… conscious processes telling you to (e.g.) do your homework… artificially… more convincing… so you do your homework.”

Look, I’m being straightforwardly manipulative here. Giving you twelve reasons instead of one is designed to activate more of your subagents. But it’s prosocially manipulative – to help you integrate a truth you might already intellectually accept but haven’t acted upon yet. The bullet point approach can be misused when it obfuscates (think laundry list of complaints when there’s really just one big issue), so let me be meta-transparent: I genuinely believe ClusterFree is extremely high-impact, and I’m deliberately structuring this to get past your action threshold. If any one or even several of these reasons feel less convincing to you, ignore them. The robust core case stands on its own.

There’s also the threshold problem. In Guyenet On Motivation (2018), Scott discusses how higher dopamine makes the brain more likely to initiate any behavior. When dopamine is low, even strong reasons may not overcome inertia. Increased dopamine “makes the basal ganglia more sensitive to incoming bids, lowering the threshold for activating movements.” Sometimes what’s needed isn’t better arguments but enough energetic activation to allow any reason at all to push action over the threshold. Which is why you should read this while high on LSD and/or Adderall fully rested and energized.

Naturally, this connects to annealing. At QRI, we think of belief updating as requiring an energetic process. It’s not enough to know something matters; you need metabolic resources to actually integrate that knowledge and reconfigure your behavior accordingly. The REBUS (RElaxed Beliefs Under pSychedelics) framework applies here: people intellectually understand that cluster headaches are astronomically bad, that preventing them is extraordinarily high-leverage, and that this is one of the most intense forms of suffering you can and should urgently address. Yet this knowledge may remain compartmentalized and inert, unable to meaningfully shape action, resembling other “ongoing moral catastrophes” by which future generations may judge our society.

What breaks through? Multiple simultaneous channels of evidence that together cross energy thresholds. Emotional resonance. Social proof. Narrative coherence. Personal connection. These aren’t redundant: they join together as a gestalt that pushes forward the energetic budget needed for actual system-wide updating.

So here are the twelve reasons to support ClusterFree. Not because you need all twelve to “get it” intellectually, but because different reasons will activate different coalitions in your brain.

And if you’re not in a position to donate but still want to help – please keep reading. There are many high-impact ways to contribute at the end!

1. You Can Actually See People Rapidly Improving

Most charity is abstract. You send money into a statistical void and trust the meta-analyses.

With ClusterFree, you can watch video testimonials of actual people describing how psilocybin or DMT stopped “the worst pain imaginable” in minutes. The person who was screaming, punching walls, and contemplating suicide is suddenly calm, coherent, and alive again.

Watching someone’s face change like that hits you differently than reading a cost-effectiveness analysis. Your brain gets direct evidence of the state change. You see the suffering stop.

And strategically, patient testimonials are how this actually works. Raw video testimonials of “this stopped my torture” create demand that no institutional gatekeeping can fully suppress. People are already using this in advocacy. We’re just collecting the stories systematically and making them impossible to ignore. One major medical center sees enough of these, runs a supervised protocol, publishes clean results, and every other institution’s liability calculation flips.

2. On the Logarithmic Scale of Helping Another Human, This Is Unfathomably High

Preventing cluster headaches for life is plausibly one of the single largest “good deeds” a human can do for another human being. Yes, this is grandiose. But if something big IS true and you know it, pretending it’s not to avoid looking grandiose is fake humility that damages the cause.

Cluster headaches are called “suicide headaches” because the pain is so extreme that people actively contemplate ending their lives during attacks. Patients report “drilling through my eye socket,” “being stabbed in the brain,” “pain so bad I can’t think, can’t speak, can’t do anything but scream.”

Here’s a rough intuitive sketch of what the logarithmic scale of helping another person might look like (this isn’t rigorous math – it’s an illustration of what’s likely the case, directionally right[1]):

  • 10^0: holding a door open
  • 10^1: gifting a pen
  • 10^2: introducing them to someone useful
  • 10^3: helping them move places
  • 10^4: catching a major work or family mistake before it ruins their week
  • 10^5: teaching them a compounding skill (meditation, programming, emotional regulation)
  • 10^6: funding their higher education, changing their entire socioeconomic trajectory
  • 10^7: helping them escape a pathological family system
  • 10^8: preventing them from falling into a cult, deep addiction, or abusive relationship
  • 10^9: curing a chronic condition like treatment-resistant generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)
  • 10^10: saving their life while preserving psychological integrity
  • 10^11: giving them a permanent upward shift in baseline wellbeing and quality of consciousness, such as advanced contemplative practice can do over the course of decades
  • 10^12: preventing cluster headaches for life

Why 10^12? A single cluster headache attack is plausibly in the 10^9 to 10^11 range of negative valence – orders of magnitude worse than migraine, worse than childbirth, worse than even torture. A typical patient experiences thousands of these across their lifetime. The multiplication is straightforward.

We’ve done empirical work quantifying cluster headache intensity using patient self-reports, cross-condition comparisons, suicide attempt rates, and other methods. Full details in our EA Forum posts (Quantifying the Global Burden of Extreme Pain from Cluster Headaches, Logarithmic Scales of Pleasure and Pain) and our Nature: HSSC paper.

The theory of change for the open letters on ClusterFree is straightforward:

Patient testimonials – Raw evidence that DMT/psilocybin (even at subhallucinogenic doses) works for a large fraction of sufferers, spreading organically through desperate communities. This is already happening underground.

Reputation-Amplified Legitimization – Get enough credible voices (clinicians, researchers, policy experts) publicly acknowledging both the crisis and the evidence. We already have 800+ signatures, many from extremely prestigious people. This shifts what’s discussable. Journalists cover it differently. Clinicians stop whispering with fear of judgment and start preparing, even if quietly at first (I’m already seeing signs of this in some groups).

Clinical cascade – One major medical center runs a supervised protocol, publishes clean results, and every other institution’s liability math inverts. You don’t need consensus. You need one proof point, and the dominoes fall.

3. It’s Insurance Against Your Own Extreme Suffering Being Dismissed

Cluster headaches are invisible. No blood, no broken bones, nothing on medical imaging. Just someone screaming, rocking, punching walls while doctors tell them to “try reducing stress”, “have you considered yoga?”, or “maybe try an Ibuprofen?”.

This is what illegible suffering looks like. People don’t believe you. Institutions can’t help you. You’re trapped in a cage of agony that no one else can see.

Supporting work on illegible suffering means supporting the principle that intense subjective experience matters even when it can’t be measured easily. By supporting ClusterFree, you’re building the world where, if you ever wind up in incomprehensible pain (chronic illness, treatment-resistant conditions, novel syndromes medicine doesn’t understand yet, a hard-to-communicate and hard-to-alleviate pocket of deep biopsychosocial suffering), people will actually take it seriously. Where “I am in agony, and this helps” is treated as highly important data, the existence is safer and more dignified.

Medical, institutional, and social gatekeeping kills people. It traps them in years of unnecessary suffering because the safe and affordable tools that work aren’t “approved” yet. By supporting the patient-driven, evidence-based access to what actually helps, you’re contributing to practical moral betterment and making the world safer for everyone who might need it. Including you.

4. It’s a Proof-of-Concept for Valence-First Cost-Effectiveness

Most effective altruism uses QALYs (Quality-Adjusted Life Years) or DALYs (Disability-Adjusted Life Years) to evaluate interventions. These metrics have a major limitation: they systematically underweight extreme suffering. A QALY-based analysis of cluster headaches captures some utility loss but misses orders of magnitude of suffering because attacks are brief and non-lethal – even though they’re torture-level and recurring. The frequency distribution is also extremely skewed (some sufferers have 10+ attacks daily), which standard health economics frameworks struggle to properly account for.

ClusterFree evaluates interventions based on how bad things actually feel and what their actual prevalence is – not through the lens of reduced life expectancy or economic burden: “How much suffering are we preventing when measured by its actual intensity?”.

We’ve quantified cluster headache intensity and prevalence using patient self-reports, cross-condition comparisons, suicide attempt rates, and other complementary empirical methods. The result is clear: cluster headaches score astronomically high. This is why preventing them matters so much more than conventional metrics would suggest.

If you want a future where we optimize for the real reduction of suffering instead of metrics that structurally and systematically ignore its most intense forms, ClusterFree is the seed. We’re showing how you can make rigorous, evidence-based decisions by taking the actual experience seriously. This serves as a template for charity evaluation and ethical triage (not necessarily to replace current Effective Altruism methods, but to add a _critical_ missing evaluation angle to the ensemble model for how to help most effectively). 

5. You’ll Be in the Company of Intellectual Giants

Scott Alexander supports this. Anders Sandberg supports this. Peter Singer supports this. These are thought leaders with decades of track records in rigorous, scout-mindset thinking about doing good. They don’t endorse lightly. They’ve looked at the testimonials, the statistics and trends, the theory of change, and said: this is real.

If you trust their epistemics even a little, their endorsement is strong Bayesian evidence. These aren’t people chasing trends or optimizing for social approval.

And beyond the rationalist/EA sphere? Robin Carhart-Harris supports this – one of the leading psychedelic neuroscientists in the world. Shamil Chandaria supports this – doing serious work on meditation, predictive processing, and contemplative neuroscience. Christopher H. Gottschalk supports this – a neurologist who actually treats cluster headache patients and knows firsthand how devastating they are.

EA thinkers, psychedelic researchers, clinical neurologists, contemplative scientists – they’re all saying the same thing. That doesn’t happen often.

You get to join this coalition early. While it’s still underrecognized. While it requires actually engaging with the arguments instead of following the consensus. While supporting it means skin in the game.

Supporting ClusterFree now signals good taste (you can spot high-impact opportunities before they’re obvious), high reasoning capacity (you can evaluate complex arguments across disciplines), genuine compassion (you care about actual suffering, not just legible causes), and epistemic independence (you can disagree with the consensus when the evidence demands it).

When this becomes mainstream (and it will), you were there first.

6. It’s Creating a Schelling Point for Serious Suffering-Reduction Work

ClusterFree is reducing the coordination costs and bringing together people who can spot neglected pools of immense value early on.

Researchers who care about phenomenological intensity. Clinicians frustrated with institutional gatekeeping who want evidence-based psychedelic medicine. Policymakers who understand regulatory strategy. Patients with direct experience who want to help others. All working on the same thing with a clear theory of change.

Many causes tend to be either too vague (“reduce suffering”) or too narrow (“fund this one study”). ClusterFree hits the sweet spot – it is specific enough to be actionable, broad enough to matter at scale, and legible enough to attract serious supporters.

The network effects compound. When the next high-leverage suffering reduction project comes along, there’s already a group of competent people who know how to execute. The people showing up now will co-build what comes next. Rather than funding one project, you’re seeding a network that keeps generating high-impact work.

7. It’s a Strike Against Paternalistic Control Over Suffering Relief

Right now, people with cluster headaches are told they cannot officially access psilocybin or DMT – the interventions that consistently, rapidly, and reliably work for a large fraction of sufferers – because the institutions have decided they’re not allowed to make that informed choice. Even when they’re screaming in agony. Even when they’re suicidal. Even when nothing else helps.

Medical paternalism is at its most cruel when patients hear: “We know you’re suffering, but you can’t have the effective, affordable, and safe-to-manage thing that stops your agony, because we haven’t finished the proper studies yet, and/or because of the system’s inertia.” Never mind that converging evidence shows it works. Never mind that patients are already using it skilfully and reporting dramatic relief. Never mind that the risk profile is more than worth it given the suffering prevented.

ClusterFree, with your support, is building the legal, scientific, and social infrastructure to challenge that amoral status quo. We pave the way for informed consent, supervised access, and letting people make rational decisions about their own unbearable pain.

If you value bodily autonomy, participatory medicine, and the right to pursue relief from extreme suffering, this is the fight. And it’s winnable thanks to multiple predictors of success. 

8. This Is Actually Tractable

Most extreme suffering feels impossibly hard to address. Oftentimes, contemplating extreme suffering causes a sense of helplessness. It’s too big, too entrenched, and too complex. You can care deeply and still feel like there is nothing you can meaningfully do about it.

Cluster headaches are different. We have video testimonials. We have 800+ signatures from people with institutional power. We have a clear mechanism – psilocybin/DMT abort attacks rapidly and safely. We have willing clinicians ready to run supervised protocols. We have patient demand already creating the underground adoption.

The main barrier is coordination and legitimacy-building. That’s where ClusterFree steps in: we close the gap between common knowledge and the rollout of systemic solutions. 

And we’re going beyond mere advocacy. Bob Wold of ClusterBusters calls DMT a “breakthrough therapy” for its near-instant pain relief; we’re working to understand why it works, so we can foster next best steps. Our research includes exploring legal, non-hallucinogenic (or only mildly hallucinogenic) alternatives like 5-MeO-DALT, which one patient discovered in Shulgin’s TIHKAL and used to successfully treat 46 cluster headache patients. Developing targeted therapies based on understanding the mechanisms and testing new approaches translates into accessibility and effectiveness.

We (admittedly optimistically) believe this is doable within 3 to 5 years of focused and effective execution: build the coalition, get one major medical center to publish clean results, and watch the common knowledge cascade. Meanwhile, we’re already developing better treatments with maximally broad legal adoption.

Most things that matter this much take decades… or never even happen. This one is actually within reach.

9. Every Month of Delay Means Unnecessary Pits of Suffering

Right now, while you’re reading this, ~70,000 people are experiencing a cluster headache attack. More will start in the next few minutes. And more after that, like a global wave of agonizing pain.

Roughly 3 million people worldwide have cluster headaches in any given year. Many experience attacks daily or multiple times per week during the cluster periods. We estimate that globally, cluster headache patients spend approximately 70,670 person-years per year in pain, with about 8,570 person-years (about 3.1 million person-days) spent at extreme pain levels (≥9/10).

The math is brutal: with every month of delay, patients undergo millions of preventable torture-level attacks. While other cause areas and interventions may warrant dilemmas of donating now or later, the case of ClusterFree is urgently clear – donate now, and we will do our best at bringing unimaginable counterfactual relief to millions in 2026-2027. 

Our model is designed for speed – we are not waiting for perfect RCTs, commercial products, or stable institutional consensus. We are building the strategic legitimacy cascade that lets institutions act on what we already know.

The suffering is happening right now. The effective solution exists right now. We know how to connect the dots, and the only question is how fast we can do so.

10. ClusterFree Is Accelerating an Already Developing Movement

ClusterBusters has been doing heroic work for years, building community, sharing information, and giving people hope. The psychedelic renaissance has been shifting cultural and scientific attitudes. Various researchers and advocates have been pushing this forward through different channels.

ClusterFree adds a specific piece: demonstrating that this is a winnable fight right now.

We bring:

  • An explicit theory of change (testimonials lead to reputation-amplified legitimization, which leads to clinical cascade);
  • 800+ signatures from outstanding individuals, many with institutional power and cultural influence;
  • A straightforward narrative: “this is effective, safe, and urgent, and we can scale this legally” – and we’re not afraid to signal DMT as especially promising (due to its extremely fast pain relief profile when “vaped” at the onset of an attack);
  • Coordination infrastructure that connects patients, clinicians, researchers, and funders around a shared goal; and
  • A global but local-context-sensitive approach in both coverage and mindset: while ClusterBusters focuses on the U.S. and UK, we’re building parallel advocacy tracks across multiple jurisdictions (Canada, Europe, Latin America, etc.) to build the missing capacity.

This strategy acts synergistically with other approaches, de-risking them rather than obstructing them. When a major medical center decides to run a supervised protocol, they will do it in an environment where 800+ credible voices (as of December 13th 2025) have already confirmed that this is real, this matters, and the research must take place as soon as possible.

Our strategy is being developed and executed by uniquely talented individuals with a strong track record. Alfredo Parra leads the organization – he is exceptional at navigating the interface between institutions, has 7+ years of nonprofit management experience, and is provingly extremely conscientious and high-integrity (don’t take my word for it – look at all the work). The team and the community that seeded it concentrate people who simultaneously understand the importance of suffering reduction, psychedelic phenomenology, regulatory strategy, and movement building. They both care about the deep structure of consciousness and aren’t swayed by common narratives. This is a rare comparative advantage, and in our view, proves an excellent fit to push this cause forward.

The fruitful work has been happening already. Where we step in is providing leverage at a specific bottleneck: making the path to legitimacy visible and coordinated.

11. If You Take “Karma” Seriously, Look at What the Texts Say About Headache Relief

In the Bodhicaryāvatāra, Śāntideva teaches that “immeasurable merit” arises even from the simple thought: “Let me dispel the headaches of beings.” The tradition treats this literally. Not metaphorically. Relieving sharp, overwhelming pain generates outsized karmic effects because it interrupts some of the most intense forms of duḥkha in the human realm.

Why headaches specifically? Because they were considered the archetype of piercing, mind-breaking pain in the classical world. Cluster headaches exceed even that ancient benchmark. They represent some of the most unbearable moments a human mind can experience.

The logic of meritorious karmic logic is clear: if intention aligned with the relief of severe suffering produces merit that scales with the intensity of dukkha relieved, then work that prevents torture-level pain for thousands of people is not ordinary charity but a high-density, boutique, ultra-rare karmic investment.

For practitioners of the Bodhisattva path, karma constitutes a feedback loop shaping future clarity, opportunity, and awakening. Helping beings escape states of extreme pain is singled out across the Mahāyāna as one of the fastest ways to accumulate merit and purify obscurations.

If even contemplating the wish to relieve a single headache creates immeasurable merit, then actively supporting work that may end this class of suffering at scale plants karmic seeds that ripple across lifetimes.

Even if you hold a weak, naturalized version of karma (something like “intentions to help tend to produce good outcomes proportional to the good intended”), the efficiency here is absurdly high. Instead of helping someone have a slightly better day, you’re preventing thousands of hours of above-torture-level pain per person.

And what if you don’t believe in karma at all? The consequentialist case is still clear. You’re preventing, say, ~10^12 units of negative valence per person.

12. You Get the Bodhisattva-Tier Vision

Most people, when they look into the true darkness of suffering (the worst pain imaginable, sustained for hours, recurring for decades), recoil. They look away. They rationalize (“someone else will handle it”), they cope (“well, suffering is just part of life”), and freeze (“I can’t do anything about this anyway”).

Such reactions are understandable given the limits of our agency and the scope of the challenge. Luckily, there’s another response possible and available today:

You see it, and you roll up your sleeves. Where others flinch or cope, you take intentional action.

That capacity to clearly perceive the worst of what’s real and respond with competence, care, direction, and focus – rather than despair, avoidance, denial, or freezing – is a rare gem. It separates people who talk about compassion from people who enact it. The “Bodhisattva move” is: “I see the suffering. I will not turn away. I will do what needs to be done.”

Supporting ClusterFree strengthens that moral muscle. It’s a practice for the kind of person you may want to be: someone who can look into the darkest abyss and respond with pragmatism, not platitudes.

And a bonus reason for Qualia Computing readers…

So I Can Stop Talking About Cluster Headaches in Qualia Computing

Look, I very deeply care about this work, and this is why ClusterFree needs to claim its own space. QRI has a complementary mission to fulfill – studying and utilizing coupling kernels, topological approaches to the boundary problem, neural annealing frameworks, and the deep structure of valence.

The more ClusterFree is funded and self-sufficient, the more I can get back to the core theoretical work for which I’m best suited. Which, by the way, is exactly how we identify the next high-leverage suffering reduction opportunities!.

If you want me to shut up about cluster headaches and get back to talking for hours about beam-splitter holography and DMT phenomenology, the fastest way to make that happen is to generously fund ClusterFree.

You’re welcome.

What We’re Specifically Asking For

ClusterFree is currently a two-person operation: Alfredo leading the day-to-day execution (coalition building, clinical coordination, policy navigation, the 800+ signature campaign), and me providing strategic direction, research frameworks, writeups like this one, and QRI infrastructure. The initial donations will let us hire additional top talent to manage critical workstreams, so that we can:

  • Pursue parallel regulatory tracks in different jurisdictions;
  • Optimize our media presence by talking to journalists, podcasters, and medical journals;
  • Build global partnerships with patient organizations, headache centers, psychedelic advocacy groups, and retreat centers that treat this and related conditions;
  • Coordinate with medical centers willing to run supervised trials;
  • Create high-quality topical resources for patients in multiple languages, which are scarce and difficult to find; and
  • Pursue other high-impact value streams we’re ready to launch with additional capacity.

If significant funding is obtained, it will allow us to personally visit retreat centers and bring people with cluster headaches to suitable settings where they can experiment with these therapies, and where we can study them thanks to the QRI approaches to systematic phenomenology mapping, including EEG and biorhythms monitoring. This might turn out to be really important, possibly allowing us to determine what aspect of psilocybin/DMT relieves the pain. Our working assumption, based on many interviews with sufferers, is that DMT’s “body vibration” effect is key for its pain relief – if true, this is something we could significantly optimize by developing more targeted therapies.

While our network of volunteers is growing (see Slack below), having dedicated paid staff accelerates our efforts dramatically. The faster we move, the louder we say “no” to overlooked suffering.

Can’t Donate But Want to Help?

There are many high-impact ways to contribute beyond financial support:

  • Sign the open letter – Adding your name increases our legitimacy and helps shift the Overton window.
  • Share patient testimonials – If you have cluster headaches and have used psychedelics, your story can help build the evidence base. We believe that video testimonials from sufferers, in particular, are especially powerful. Recordings showing the moment itself where psilocybin/DMT relieves the suffering in real time might have the most emotional resonance overall.
  • Join our Slack – We list simple but high-impact volunteer tasks (translations, social media, research assistance, essay feedback, etc).
  • Connect us with key people – Do you know journalists, podcasters, clinicians, policy makers, or potential donors? Introductions are greatly appreciated!
  • Spread the word – Share this essay, talk about cluster headaches with the right mood, and become the relieving change you want to see and experience in the world.

Conclusion

With all these reasons in mind, ClusterFree satisfies the utilitarian, the virtue ethicist, the long-term strategist, the person who wants meaning, the person who values courage, the person who wants to accumulate spiritual merit, the person who wants to bring these therapies to the FDA approval status, the person who just wants to see real humans stop screaming in pain, and the one who embodies all these motivations simultaneously.

Donate to ClusterFree

Donate to QRI (the incubator organization that made this possible, and conducts more aligned efforts)

Sign the open letter

Our internal coalitions can agree that this matters, and we can actually do it. Thank you.

Acknowledgments: Many thanks to Marcin Kowrygo for his generous edits of the draft. Thanks to Chris Percy, Roberto Goizueta, Hunter Meyer, and, of course, Alfredo Parra for relevant discussions and suggestions for this write-up. Huge thanks to the ClustersBusters team for their incredible and ethically urgent work (and generosity with their time to help people in need, as well as accepting being interviewed in a pinch at Psychedelic Science 2025). Thanks to Jonathan Leighton (OPIS) for inspiration, aligned work, and fighting the good fight! Thanks to Jessica Khurana (and her team) for founding Eleusina Retreat – the world’s only retreat center focused on using psychedelics, legally, for treating extreme pain conditions. Thanks to Maggie Wassinge for her copious emotional support, love, and motivation to keep doing the real work, even when it feels hopeless at times (seriously, THANK YOU). And to the spirit of Anders Amelin (RIP), who is always with us, encouraging and motivating, giving us strength and intelligence. May he rest in peace, knowing we’re pursuing our ambitious suffering-reducing goals <3 And thanks to the entire QRI team, as well as the broader qualia community at large, for creating a container where these ideas can be freely explored with curiosity and without stigma. And finally, thanks to all of the donors of QRI and ClusterFree: we will do what we can to make you proud of supporting us. Metta!

[1] On the 10^12 estimate: This is admittedly a back-of-the-envelope calculation, but here’s the reasoning. A cluster headache patient might experience anywhere from 3,000 attacks (conservative, successful treatment) to 30,000+ attacks (severe chronic cases) over their lifetime. Using a conservative estimate of 3,000 attacks averaging ~60 minutes (3,600 seconds) each gives us ~10^7 seconds of extreme pain. Now for the intensity ladder. Holding a door open might prevent ~0.1 units of discomfort, using a pinprick as 1 unit. Kidney stones, already rated 10/10 on standard pain scales, are plausibly ~1,000× more intense than a pinprick (10^3). Each second of cluster headache pain appears to be ~10× worse than kidney stones (10^4 relative to our baseline). Multiply by 10^7 seconds, and we get 10^11 from pure hedonic intensity alone. Additionally, cluster headaches impose a constant inter-ictal burden (meaning, the suffering between attacks), including PTSD, anticipatory anxiety, and a profound sense of doom between attacks (see interview with Cluster Busters founders at 53:10-53:40). This could add a 2-5X multiplier, bringing us to ~10^12. For severe cases with 10× more attacks, the calculation easily reaches 10^13 or higher. The true value likely ranges between 10^7 (very mild cases with effective treatment) and 10^16 (severe chronic cases accounting for peak intensities and suffering between attacks). Even at the conservative end, preventing cluster headaches for life remains one of the highest-impact interventions accessible to individuals. Similar back-of-the-envelope calculations can be done to put in perspective each of the steps on the “logarithmic scale of help you can provide to someone”.

Scott Alexander in “Links For December 2024” (Dec 24 2025):

13: Alfredo Parra of Qualia Research Institute on cluster headaches. Cluster headaches are plausibly the most painful medical condition. If you ask a cluster patient to rate their pain, they’ll almost always say 10/10. Does that mean the headaches are twice as painful as a 5/10 condition? There are some philosophical reasons to expect pain to be logarithmic, so plausibly cluster headaches could be orders of magnitude more painful than the average condition. Once you internalize that possibility, it throws a wrench into normal QALY ratings and suggests that, even though cluster headaches are pretty rare, they might cause a substantial portion of the global burden of disease (or even a substantial portion of the suffering in the world). Some psychedelics, especially psilocybin and DMT, seem to treat cluster headaches very effectively, so the more you believe this reanalysis, the more interested you should be in figuring out how to turn these into an accessible therapy (see clusterbusters for more information on this aspect).

And more recently in “Open Thread 409” (Nov 24 2025):

2: Qualia Research Institute announces their spinoff effort ClusterFree. Cluster headaches (aka “suicide headaches”) are probably the most painful medical condition known to science, which makes them a natural priority for some utilitarians. They seem to be extremely treatable by psychedelics like psilocybin and DMT (including sub-hallucinogenic doses), so ClusterFree is working on getting governments to research this further and maybe get these drugs into the medical pipeline (cf. ketamine for depression). There’s an open letter here, and you can contact them here. The information for patients is at the bottom of this page.

Peter Singer in his recent piece “The Best Treatment for the Most Painful Medical Condition Is Illegal” (Dec 11 2025): 

A recent article in Nature: Humanities and Social Science Communications found the funding provided in the United Kingdom for research on cluster headaches to be “orders of magnitude” less than that provided for multiple sclerosis, a condition that affects a similar number of people. The authors conclude that, given that we regard the provision of anesthesia for surgery to be essential, we should also recognize relief for extreme pain as essential. Finding ways to do so should warrant the highest funding priority.

A new initiative called Clusterfree has launched global open letters calling on governments to provide legal access to psychedelics for people with cluster headache. I have signed, and I hope that you will, too.

DMT for Cluster Headaches: Aborting and Preventing Extreme Pain with Tryptamines and Other Methods

Posted on by algekalipso

“If we lived in a really sane society with a strong compassionate streak, every building would have something like a ‘Break in case of fire’ box… only this one would read ‘Break in case of cluster headache.’ Inside you’d find a pre‑charged DMT vape pen. That would be really nice.”

Announcement: Do you have experience using psychedelics to treat cluster headaches? Want to support science and advocacy in this area? Submit your personal and/or professional testimonial to our upcoming “ClusterFree” Open Letter initiative.

Sitting Down with Cluster Busters at Psychedelic Science 2025

One of the highlight moments for me at Psychedelic Science 2025 in Denver this June was conducting an interview for Bob Wold, founder of Cluster Busters, and Joe Stone, and Joe McKay who work alongside Bob in patient support and advocacy.  Our conversation covered a lot of ground, but I had one key strategic goal in mind: document, in their own words, why the humble DMT vape pen looks like a once‑in‑a‑generation breakthrough for the most painful condition that medicine has ever encountered.

“With a regular vape pen it’s usually one inhalation. Thirty seconds later the pain is gone. I hear a click in the middle of my brain and the attack is just off.” —Bob Wold

Their story plugs directly into QRI’s ongoing attempt to map the upper reaches of experience (QRI has the long-standing mission of mapping the state-space of consciousness, reverse engineer valence, and reduce suffering at scale). Our logarithmic scales of pleasure and pain shows that as one climbs up the pain (or pleasure) scales, phenomenal intensity rises far higher than common sense anticipates. The Heavy‑Tailed Valence hypothesis extends that insight to society at large and seeks to question the validity of current econometric approaches to collective wellbeing (cf. QALYs) in light of the fact that the extremes are not properly represented. From where we stand, it seems that a handful of wildly intense states do most of the moral damage (or good). Cluster headaches live in that fat tail, which is precisely why a 30‑second fix like DMT matters so much; perhaps as big of a collective hedonic breakthrough as, say, the discovery of anesthesia (in aggregate).

Put bluntly, if we care about total suffering, we need to care about cluster headaches. The time is now.

Interview Highlights Pertaining to DMT

  • DMT as an acute rescue
    One lungful (where the instructions typically say “three full breaths”) ends most attacks in under a minute. A second puff a minute later covers nearly all the rest. No tolerance shows up (acutely or chronically) which allows patients to repeat the dose whenever necessary.
  • Low psychedelic burden
    The dose is about a quarter of a psychedelic hit; enough to see some color enhancement but not enough for significant “trippiness”. Patients describe “a mild two‑beer buzz” or “the room takes on a golden tint” or “faint auras appear.” The mild level of psychedelia needed for this treatment makes bedside use practical, even for parents who need to stay functional the day after.
  • Why it beats psilocybin and LSD in the heat of battle
    Psilocybin and LSD still shine for cycle prevention, taken every five days, but they work on a timescale that makes them impractical for acute events. DMT is for the here‑and‑now (note Eleusinia founder says DMT also interrupt cycles according to her work at the retreat center). Joe Stone calls it “a game changer” because he can abort a 2AM ethical emergency (a cluster) and fall back asleep within 10 minutes. No need to have an expensive psychotherapy, a professional sitter, or trip killers on hand, let alone having to book a whole day to trip.
  • A hunch about endogenous DMT
    Bob’s shares his intuitive working model for how cluster headaches work (to be refuted or confirmed by science): an attack begins when natural DMT in the brain dips below a threshold (why do we even have DMT in our brains to begin with?). He hazards the guess that a quick DMT top‑up pulls the breaks and re‑establishes homeostasis. Others suggest that melatonin abnormalities in cluster patients add plausibility to his view, given the biochemical link between melatonin and endogenous tryptamine synthesis.
  • Pain drives the psychiatric condition, not the other way around
    One key insight I wanted to make sure to get on the record: chronic physical agony breeds depression, anxiety, and PTSD‑like flashbacks. Fix the pain and the mental distress often dissolves; no need for heroic doses or eight‑hour therapy sessions (as with e.g. psilocybin for depression specifically). Cultural over-emphasis on mental health as _the_ thing to treat with psychedelics might make sense from the point of view of a slowly expanding Overton Window; but the big hedonic payouts (freedom from hellish states of consciousness) are likely concentrated in their application to the reduction of extreme physical pain (see also).

Why This Matters

Alfredo Parra’s quantitative analysis suggests that cluster headaches may contribute more net misery than migraines, cancer pain, or even major depressive disorder once intensity is included (and a proper long-tail model and Monte Carlo simulations are taken into accont). Effective Altruist “pleasure-bean‑counters” (I say this affectionately!) please take note: extremely nasty but “rare” states can dominate the integral, and need urgent consideration.

From a consciousness‑research angle, the interview is another data point for why direct phenomenological investigation should guide ethics; here, patients, confronted with the reality of their own phenomenology, themselves have again clearly pioneered the treatment all the while mainstream research (unsurprisingly) slept through five decades of drug war.

Closing Thoughts

Imagine a fire‑alarm box on every hospital wall that reads “Break glass in case of cluster headache.” Inside we find a sober-looking, very boring but perfectly functional, pre‑filled DMT cartridge that delivers reliable 3mg hits (enough to feel a light buzz, not enough to trip significantly – certainly far short of any dose needed for entity contact or alien abduction experiences). This isn’t science fiction; it is what the data we’re seeing support.  Freedom from one of the most extreme demonic forces on Earth is, counterintuitively… Spice. Let’s shorten the path from patient innovation to standard‑of‑care and, in the process, erase one of the darkest corners of conscious experience forever. I believe we can achieve a Cluster-Free World within a few years if we put our minds and hearts to the task.

Hallucinations are not a problem at the doses we have people use and that seem to work the best, which are much smaller than a recreational dose. We aren’t recommending people take doses that will have them playing cards with a deer (you can’t trust them!). The doses are small (e.g. 1.5g of mushrooms). You’re supposed to get to about the “giggle”. Get to the “giggle point” and you’re good to go. – Suicide or Psychedelics, Bob Wold at Horizons 2009

Resources and Further Reading:

How You Can Contribute:

  • Donate to Cluster Busters
  • Donate to QRI (earmark for “Cluster Headache Research and Advocacy”)
  • Donate to OPIS (Organization for the Prevention of Intense Suffering)
  • Share your testimonial if you’ve experienced relief through psychedelic therapy: Submit Here

Stay tuned for QRI’s upcoming Open Letter advocating for psychedelic access in treating severe pain conditions, the ClusterFree worldwide initiative.

Presidential Inaugural Address of Andrés Gómez Emilsson

Posted on by algekalipso

[Epistemic Status: fiction (in most timelines, that is); in my lane, having fun]

Place: The Equatorial Republic (pop. ~190M)

Time: 2032

My fellow citizens of this great Equatorial Republic,

Today, as I stand before you having accepted the solemn responsibility of the presidency, I am humbled by your trust and energized by the possibilities that lie before us. This administration marks not just a change in leadership, but a fundamental paradigm shift in how we approach governance, human welfare, and our collective future.

A New Era of Compassion Through Science

On this first day in office, I am announcing the formation of the National Hedonic Research Initiative. Let me be clear: extreme suffering can be worse than death itself. Nowhere is this more evident than in the case of cluster headaches—aptly named “suicide headaches” by medical professionals, a condition where the pain is rated significantly more severe than childbirth, kidney stones, or even gunshot wounds.

Through Executive Order 001, I am establishing the Cluster Headache Elimination Commission with an initial $2 billion in funding. The data is clear: approximately 3 million people worldwide suffer from this condition, spending nearly 5 million person-days annually in extreme suffering rated 9/10 or higher on pain scales. This Commission will:

  1. Create a nationwide tryptamine research and distribution network, prioritizing low-dose N,N-DMT, psilocybin, and LSD trials based on compelling evidence that these compounds can not only abort attacks but extend remission periods indefinitely for many patients
  2. Establish 200 specialized treatment facilities across the nation within 6 months with mandatory oxygen therapy and other proven abortive treatments
  3. Fund 50 research laboratories dedicated to advancing our understanding of pain relief mechanisms and developing targeted interventions for these conditions based on patient-reported outcomes

Additionally, I am directing the Department of Health to create the Pharmaceutical Innovation Directive focusing on anti-tolerance compounds for chronic pain patients, next-generation flumazenil analogs to reverse benzodiazepine dependence, and targeted solutions for other iatrogenic conditions that have been unconscionably neglected. These extreme forms of suffering represent the deepest moral emergency in our society, and their elimination is our highest priority.

Mapping the Hedonic Landscape: Beyond QALY

For too long, our policies have been guided by economic indicators and inadequate health metrics like Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALY). The QALY framework fundamentally fails us by treating all human experiences as linearly equivalent and by capping wellbeing at an arbitrary “perfect health” that ignores the vast territory of heightened human potential.

The empirical evidence is compelling: our current metrics systematically undervalue both the depths of intense human experiences and the heights of human flourishing. As a result, we’ve created policies that address widespread but moderate challenges while neglecting concentrated instances of profound human experiences – both positive and negative.

Today, I am commissioning the first comprehensive Hedonic Landscape Observatory—a scientific assessment of the full spectrum of human experience that will:

  1. Develop more sensitive and accurate measurements of diverse human experiences across the wellbeing spectrum
  2. Map the neurological correlates of resilience and positive states to complement our understanding of health
  3. Create economic feedback loops that systematically reward businesses and institutions that demonstrably enhance quality of life
  4. Develop a new economic indicator—the Consciousness-Weighted Prosperity Index—that will appear alongside GDP in all government reporting

This initiative will ensure that governance decisions are evaluated not just by economic impact, but by their effect on the actual lived quality of conscious experience of our citizens—taking into account the true depth and breadth of human flourishing available to us.

Game Theory and Consciousness: A New Political Framework

We stand at an evolutionary crossroads. The old politics operated on outdated models that failed to recognize the fundamental relationship between consciousness and our collective future. Today, we begin the transition to a political framework that explicitly acknowledges the quality of conscious experience—as central to governance.

By Executive Order 002, I am establishing the Consciousness-Economy Integration Commission tasked with creating explicit feedback loops between consciousness research and economic selection pressures. This commission will:

  1. Develop metrics that quantify the wellbeing-enhancing potential of technologies, enabling investors to select for innovations that genuinely improve quality of life
  2. Create tax incentives for businesses that demonstrably improve the lived experiences of their employees and customers
  3. Establish a public research platform exploring the positive potential of consciousness, ensuring that discoveries about phenomenological wellbeing directly influence market forces

This systematic exploration of consciousness is not merely academic—it will fundamentally reshape our economic landscape by ensuring that technologies and policies that enhance human flourishing systematically outcompete those that merely optimize for shallow metrics. The implications for environmental policy, social welfare, and international relations are profound and far-reaching.

Transcending Tribal Politics Through Psychological Understanding

From this day forward, international diplomacy will operate with a new level of psychological sophistication. Through the newly formed Department of Psychological Architecture Analysis, we will explicitly model the subagent structure of world leaders and political movements, identifying when narcissism, psychopathy, or tribal thinking is driving decision-making.

International coalitions will be formed not just around shared interests, but around shared psychological awareness. This administration will not hesitate to name pathological dynamics when they appear on the world stage, while offering a path forward through a consciousness-centric yet pragmatic approach to governance.

I am also directing our diplomatic corps to explore new modalities for high-stakes negotiations. We will establish a Diplomatic Innovation Laboratory to research the application of empathy-enhancing protocols in negotiation settings where entrenched psychological barriers prevent resolution. When trillions of dollars and millions of lives hang in the balance of international agreements, we cannot afford to have negotiations hijacked by psychological defense mechanisms and tribal identification.

Just as we now understand that the pain of cluster headaches is objectively more severe than a migraine, despite superficially similar descriptions, we must develop precise language and metrics for the psychological architectures that drive international conflict. They are real, distortionary, and far from game-theoretically optimal. Only by seeing these structures clearly—and developing reliable methods to transform them—can we hope to address existential challenges that require genuine cooperation.

Longevity: The Right of Every Citizen

While extreme suffering can be worse than death, unnecessary death itself remains a profound tragedy and represents an incalculable loss of human potential. Today, I announce the formation of the National Longevity Institute with initial funding of $10 billion, coordinating research across public and private sectors to dramatically extend healthy human lifespan.

This institute will prioritize three areas:

  1. Senolytics and cellular reprogramming technologies to reverse biological aging
  2. Neural preservation techniques to maintain cognitive function
  3. Prevention of age-related suffering states through targeted interventions

The benefits of this research will not be reserved for the privileged few, but made available to every citizen as a basic right. Age-related suffering is not inevitable, and this administration will not accept it as such.

The Science of Awakening: Soteriology as a Research Target

Even as we pursue longevity, we must confront a fundamental truth: all things remain impermanent. Today, I am establishing the Institute for Contemplative Sciences with a mission to develop a rigorous scientific understanding of what traditions across time and cultures have called “awakening,” “enlightenment,” or “liberation.”

This research program will:

  1. Systematically study how humans throughout history have made peace with impermanence and transcended existential suffering
  2. Investigate the neurobiological and phenomenological correlates of awakening experiences across contemplative traditions
  3. Develop scalable, secular methods to help citizens process mortality, grief, and existential concerns within our scientific worldview
  4. Create interdisciplinary teams combining neuroscientists, contemplatives, philosophers, and clinicians to bridge ancient wisdom with modern scientific rigor

The ultimate human challenge is not merely to extend life, but to discover how to be fundamentally okay with the impermanent nature of existence. While various religious and philosophical traditions have offered paths to this goal for millennia, we now have the scientific tools to explore these states with unprecedented precision.

By creating a dialogue between contemplative wisdom and scientific method, we can forge new pathways for humanity to face its deepest existential challenges. This is not merely a spiritual pursuit—it is a practical necessity for a civilization grappling with the fundamental questions of meaning and mortality in an age of unprecedented technological power.

Understanding Exceptional States of Consciousness

The most profound states of human consciousness remain largely unexplored territory in scientific research. Today, I am directing the National Institutes of Health to establish the Center for Exceptional States of Consciousness (aka. The Super-Shulgin Academy) with a $5 billion initial investment, tasked with making sense of profoundly positive experiences across the full spectrum of chemically-facilitated and meditation-induced states.

This Center will:

  1. Create standardized protocols for psychedelic research, including 5-MeO-DMT with essential safeguards and contraindication screening, recognizing that while beneficial for many, it can induce challenging experiences in others—understanding these variables is crucial for responsible application
  2. Fund 25 dedicated research facilities specializing in Jhana acceleration techniques and other contemplative practices that achieve similar states without pharmacological intervention
  3. Develop a comprehensive empirical framework mapping the neural correlates of these heightened states while investigating both beneficial outcomes and adverse reactions to create predictive models for personalized approaches
  4. Prioritize sustainable MDMA production and research as a north star intervention, focusing on its potential for treating PTSD and enhancing empathetic connection while minimizing cardiovascular impact and developing protocols to mitigate tolerance and neurotoxicity concerns
  5. Translate findings into scalable interventions for depression, anxiety, and existential distress, ensuring that safety, accessibility, and individual neuropsychological differences guide all protocols

These states represent extraordinary territories of human wellbeing—regions of experience that offer not only therapeutic potential but a scientific window into the furthest reaches of human potential that we have barely begun to understand. Our commitment is to explore these states with both scientific rigor and ethical care, recognizing both their profound potential and the need for responsible stewardship.

Expanding Our Moral Circle: Non-Human Animal Consciousness

Our commitment to understanding consciousness and reducing suffering must extend beyond our own species. Today, I am establishing the Interspecies Consciousness Research Initiative with a dual mandate: rigorous scientific exploration and practical harm reduction.

This Initiative will:

  1. Develop objective metrics to quantify suffering in non-human animals, with immediate focus on factory-farmed animals where the concentration of suffering is most acute
  2. Allocate $3 billion annually to research and implement improved welfare standards for farmed animals while simultaneously investing in cultured meat technologies and plant-based alternatives
  3. Create a roadmap for the gradual, culturally sensitive phasing out of the most harmful animal agriculture practices over the coming decades, aligning economic incentives with ethical progress
  4. Establish the Wild Animal Welfare Research Program to cautiously explore the complex ethical landscape of wild animal suffering, acknowledging the immense scientific and ecological challenges involved

The ethical imperative is clear, but so is the need for careful, evidence-based approaches. We will neither rush interventions that could have unintended consequences nor hide behind complexity as an excuse for inaction when suffering is demonstrable and solutions are feasible. This balanced approach recognizes our ethical responsibilities without compromising scientific rigor or cultural realities.

Transforming Education: Experience, Don’t Memorize

A key pillar of this administration will be fundamentally reimagining education. Today, I announce the Consciousness Education Initiative that will transform how we develop young minds. This initiative rejects both outdated rote learning and any form of ideological indoctrination. Instead, it embraces a “see for yourself” approach where students:

  1. Learn meditation techniques alongside mathematics, building empirical skills for exploring internal states
  2. Study their own consciousness with the same rigor they apply to studying literature, using first-person methods complemented by third-person science
  3. Develop critical thinking by becoming aware of their own cognitive biases and subagent structures
  4. Understand the psychological architectures that drive political beliefs through evidence-based empirical investigations

The goal is not to tell students what to think about consciousness, but to give them the tools to explore their own minds with scientific precision and philosophical depth. This approach builds intellectual independence—teaching students to verify claims through direct experience rather than accepting them on authority, whether in consciousness studies or any other domain.

A Call to Action

My fellow citizens, I do not promise that these ambitious goals will be easy to achieve. They will require not just government action, but a transformation in how we approach science, governance, and our very understanding of what it means to be human.

But the stakes could not be higher. We have the opportunity to eliminate forms of suffering that have plagued humanity throughout history, to extend healthy life, to create social systems that support human flourishing, and to understand the very foundations of consciousness itself.

This is not a partisan agenda, but a human one. In fact, of consciousness itself. It transcends traditional political divisions and speaks to our shared desire for a world with less suffering and more joy, less confusion and more clarity, less conflict and more cooperation.

Let us begin this journey together, guided by compassion, informed by science, and dedicated to the proposition that the quality of conscious experience matters fundamentally—and that we have both the capability and the responsibility to improve it, in ourselves, our loved ones, and in the field at large.

Thank you, and may we move forward with wisdom, courage, and clear-eyed determination.

Infinite bliss!

[The crowd erupts in thunderous applause]

And now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the voted ‘most hedonic’ pop sensation of the year, performing their chart-topping anthem inspired by our vision for the future!

[Cue massive flashy fireworks as the stage transforms. Spotlights sweep across a diverse crowd of all ages beginning to dance as the music starts. Children, seniors, and everyone in between move to the rhythm. The singer emerges from beneath the stage on a rising platform surrounded by dancers in colorful neuron-patterned costumes, launching into their hit song about consciousness, wellbeing and the dawning of a new era of understanding…]

“Conscious Dawn” – Presidential Lyrics

Ancient wisdom meets the future’s light
Through pain’s darkest valleys, we’ll find the heights
Mapping consciousness beyond what we’ve known
A nation where suffering won’t reign on the throne

Tribal boundaries dissolve in our sight
As senolytics set our cells aright
The hedonic landscape unfolds like a scroll
Where DMT whispers truths to the soul

From cluster headaches to enlightened minds
Transcending metrics that keep us blind
Our moral circle widens beyond human skin
Wild animal welfare, a new dawn begins

Science awakens what sages once taught
Not just to live long, but find what we’ve sought
A republic where bliss is more than a dream
Infinite consciousness—our birthright supreme

QRI Meetup in Amsterdam on January 25th 2025: The Coupling Kernels Revolution

Posted on by algekalipso

Dear wonderful community,

Just as a fire uniformly raises the temperature throughout a building, causing diverse but interconnected effects (metal beams expanding, wood supports burning, windows cracking from thermal stress, smoke rising through air currents) psychedelics might work through a single fundamental mechanism that ripples through all neural systems. This isn’t just theoretical elegance without grounding; it’s a powerful explanatory framework that could help us understand why substances like DMT and 5-MeO-DMT produce distinct but internally consistent effects across visual, auditory, cognitive, and somatic domains. A single change in coupling dynamics might explain why these compounds have such distinct but internally consistent effects: DMT creates rapidly alternating color/anti-color visual patterns and oscillating somatic sensations, whereas 5-MeO-DMT tends towards a state of global coherence.

As demonstrated in our work “Towards Computational Simulations of Cessation“, see how a flat “coupling kernel” triggers a global attractor of coherence across the entire system, whereas an alternating negative-positive (Mexican hat-like) kernel produces competing clusters of coherence. This is just a very high-level and abstract demonstration of a change in the dynamic behavior of coupled oscillators by applying a coupling kernel. What we then must do is to see how such a change would impact different systems in the organism as a whole.
Source

The key insight is that psychedelics may modify the coupling kernels between oscillating neural systems throughout the body. Think of coupling kernels as the “rules of interaction” between neighboring neural oscillators. When these rules change, the effects cascade through different neural architectures (from the hierarchical layers of the visual cortex to the branching networks of the peripheral nervous system) producing the kaleidoscopic zoo of psychedelic effects we observe.

DMT, for instance, appears to enhance contrast and create competing clusters of coherence (possibly through 5-HT2A activation), while 5-MeO-DMT tends toward global coherence and boundary dissolution (potentially through 5-HT1A pathways). These changes in coupling dynamics appear to tune into the brain’s natural resonant modes, as described by connectome-specific harmonic waves, modulating their spectral power distribution in predictable and reliable ways.

Simulation comparing coupling kernels across a hierarchical network of feature-selective layers (16×16 to 2×2), showing how different coupling coefficients between and within layers affect pattern formation. The DMT-like kernel (-1.0 near-neighbor coupling) generates competing checkerboard patterns at multiple spatial frequencies, while the 5-MeO-DMT-like kernel (positive coupling coefficients) drives convergence toward larger coherent patches. These distinct coupling dynamics mirror how these compounds might modulate hierarchical neural architectures like the visual cortex.
Source: Internal QRI tool (public release forthcoming)

We’re excited to announce that we’ll be hosting a meeting in Amsterdam to explore this paradigm-shifting framework. This gathering will bring together researchers studying psychedelics from multiple angles – from phenomenology to neuroscience – to discuss how coupling kernels might serve as a bridge between subjective experience and neural mechanisms. Recent work on divisive normalization has shown how local neural responses are regulated by their surrounding activity, providing a potential mechanistic basis for how psychedelics modify these coupling patterns. By understanding psychedelic states through the lens of coupling kernels, we may finally have a mathematical framework that unifies the seemingly disparate effects of these compounds, much like how understanding heat transfer helps us predict how a fire will affect an entire building – from its structural integrity to its airflow patterns.

Simulation comparing different coupling kernels (DMT-like vs 5-MeO-DMT-like) applied to a 1.5D fractal branching network, showing how modified coupling parameters affect phase coherence and signal propagation. The DMT-like kernel produces competing clusters of coherence at bifurcation points, while the 5-MeO-DMT kernel drives the system toward global phase synchronization – patterns that could explain how these compounds differently affect branching biological systems like the vasculature or peripheral nervous system.
Source: Internal QRI tool (public release forthcoming)

Event Details & Amsterdam Visit

The meetup will be held on the 25th of January (location: Generator Amsterdam – event page; time: 1-8PM), featuring presentations from myself and Marco Aqil, whose groundbreaking work on divisive normalization and graph neural fields provides a compelling neuroscientific foundation for the Coupling Kernels paradigm. Marco’s research demonstrates how spatial coupling dynamics can bridge microscopic neural activity and macroscopic brain-wide effects: a perfect complement to our phenomenological investigations.

Additionally, I’ll be in Amsterdam throughout the last third of January and available to meet with academics, artists, recreational metaphysicians, and qualia researchers. If you’re interested in deep discussions about consciousness, psychedelic states, and mathematical frameworks for understanding subjective experience, please reach out.

Much love and may your New Year be filled with awesome and inspiring experiences as well as solid paradigm-building enterprises!

~Metta~

Jobu Tupaki

Posted on by algekalipso

[Epistemic Status: Recreational Metaphysics]

– Jobu Tupaki, if I am not mistaken, is an entitled, self-important, narcissistic, teenage brat that would rather destroy the entire freaking multiverse than face mild to moderate levels of embarrassment in front of her mom.

– If it wasn’t because of Jobu’s multiverse link I wouldn’t be able to talk to you right now.

– Yeah, right. And the machines from the Matrix are harvesting our energy.

– Exactly, you make my point. It’s a common misconception to believe that they care about our energy.

– What do you mean? The Matrix is self-evidently a work of fiction on the basis that it is entirely self-defeating. There is no reasonable, well, certainly at least no rational reason, why machines would build ginormous facilities to “extract electricity” from the corpses they manufacture. I mean, basic thermodynamics.

– Exactly. You explain it well. And that’s why in the real world The Matrix isn’t about energy harvesting (well, obviously), but about qualia computing. We don’t go about filling huge server rackets in order to extract energy out of them. We do that whole setup in order to extract compute.

– Wait, you mean The Matrix is, well, let’s not say real, but, partly real?

– Yes, it’s more than partly real. It’s non-trivially real. Yes, this usually comes as a surprise. Because how does this make any sense? Like, Jobu Tupaki is here trying to reset reality and I’m suddenly connected to you for a gig you have never heard of and then also we have that those strange red-eyed slippery tentacle robots that move so gracefully that you could almost swear like they’re literally flying (in the movie, clearly CGI, in reality, clearly deadly). What are the chances? See, here is where the number and _type_ of prediction error accumulation usually entails revising some deeper assumptions. So, it isn’t the case that your favorite movies are coming to life or anything that we could neatly cluster in the “childish dream” bucket. Reality is… not pretty. Did I mention that there are flying tentacle robots around here? Ok, so it isn’t a sellable Disney (or Universal Studios) story. So what is it? We also aren’t in some kind of “anything goes” universe, or a game, or any such trite trope architecture. Reality has a sense of humor, and being based on cheap sci-fi tropes doesn’t meet its bar.

– Well, then, go on! What is it? I mean, I believe you about Jobu Tupaki, because one minute I’m watching this crazy movie, what is it? Everything Everywhere All At Once or some nonsense title like that. I mean, it’s not like I would pick such a movie. That’s all my boyfriend, who last week insisted on watching Tennett (or is it Tennet? It must be a palindrome, right?) and who has a taste for metaphysically-challenging cinema (to put it mildly). And then, the next minute I’m having a sleep paralysis — ok, that’s not… an entirely unreasonable… “reality cut”, it’s happened before that after a long trip finishing a novel series (looking at you Foundation!) I find myself in the middle of the fiction I consumed while experiencing a sleep paralysis. Then, of course, it adds up to normality: I usually wake up and it turns out that I finished the movie/novel and that my brain is _just_ rehearsing an alternative reality for me. Is that plausible? Did we finish watching that dumb movie after all? Did I fall asleep during it? This is the most likely hypothesis by far.

– I wish I could tell you that this is just a sleep paralysis. And that the sleek tentacle robots are just dreams. Yeah, you were watching Everything Everywehere. But not The Matrix. But having seen The Matrix implanted some code in your subconscious that is now becoming active. And you aren’t paralyzed, are you? You aren’t even in a particularly unlikely scenario?

– What? And you are telling me that you being dressed like Morpheus isn’t… a bit consistent with this being a play set up by my subconscious?

– Ok, look, it’s not my fault that the fashion of this year just happens to coincide with the fashion of the rebels in The Matrix. Look, yeah, I grant you that this is a point in favor of your sleep paralysis hypothesis from a strict Baysian point of view. But take the utilitarian approach: if you don’t believe me, millions will die!

– Ah, the tried and tested Pascal’s Mugging!

– I knew it. I knew I shouldn’t lead with that…

– And while we’re at it: why should I listen to you? You didn’t even introduce yourself. You have all of the signatures of being a dream character. Sudden, “already always here” vibe. A strange sense of familiarity. The uncanny feeling of having taken a technical drawing course together with you (maybe this is trauma bonding? I did have an egregiously narcissistic technical drawing teacher). It all adds up to: you’re just a self I’m creating on the fly while paralyzed somewhere, probably a bus or a flight or even just at 3AM in my bed or visiting a friend. It’s likely I had a drink or two (ethanol is a known risk factor for me) and maybe caffeine late at night… wait…

– I see you’re about to figure it out on your own.

– So in high-school I had the sneaky suspicion that emotional maturity peaked around early 20s. My student colleagues weren’t quite there yet, but it was to me quite transparent that at a cellular level my teachers were “re-runs”. It sounds terrible, doesn’t it? But I think there’s truth to it.

– Undoubtedly. I mean, you can divide emotional maturity perhaps into both a fluid and a crystalized phenomenon. From this point of view it very well may be that older adults (in their 30s, 40s, and 50s) have more crystallized emotional intelligence but maybe objectively also have somewhat rigidified fluid emotional intelligence. Now of course I’m saying this to entertain your thoughts and prove to you that I’m listening, not because I think this line of inquiry is useful for us right now. On the contrary…

– Wait, you’re still on the agenda to… prove to me that this is more than a dream, right? Ok, so entities like this often find themselves at an impasse with me due to hard core epistemological reasons. You see, they say “what if we mindmeld?” but then we have the problem that even then I still only ever get access to a single witnessing subject, and that strictly speaking, no hallucination or mindmelding experience can logically break me out of this predicament. And I think either it’s an emotional maturity issue on my side or on other’s side or on everyone’s sides in different ways.

– Ah, yes, the epistemic valley of mindmelding skepticism! It usually takes a couple hundred years to wear off.

– A couple hundred years?!?!

– Yes, and the cure involves intense amounts of meditation together with… agr, how do you guys put it? What’s the word I’m looking for? Mmmm… like when you feel really good in the stomach and in the body all around. I think the word I’m looking for is “pleasure”. Yeah. The cure is intensive meditation and, like, really intense pleasure, for months at a time.

– What?

– Yeah, I know. Like, why would intense pleasure be the cure to the kind of epistemological solipsism you’re describing? See, in the halls of the Self, there are surprising Tomes. Deep truths about how the different parts of God are connected to each other.

– What?

– Yes, yes. So, what happens is that there are there deep esoteric techniques recorded from an entirely different run of the multiverse. Like, this is some of the deepest stuff, so deep that they figured out how to maintain information between runs (not a lot, just a little spherical world the size of a 5-floor apartment building fitting 80 people, but if you know anything about information storage, you will know that a gram of silicon is no less than a terabyte of data in the eyes of the electrical engineer of today, let alone in the eyes of scientists in the far future or deep past).

– I still have one question: what? Like, this just broke me. What?

– I’m getting to it. Sesh! If only you weren’t interrupting me with so many questions. I should I say, the same question over and over again. Ok. Here’s the thing. You do live in a simulation. The year is 2041, probably. But like Newton’s estimate of the age of the Earth based on the age of the characters in the Bible, we arrive at this number on rather shaky grounds. See, the reason is like that of why on meditation it is _precisely_ the most intuitive and hard-to-put-into-words experiences that change you the most (and that is despite, perhaps because, they didn’t feel like _anything_ else). The Matrix is a qualia construct. To understand it you need to move way past the computing paradigms discussed in the simulation. I mean, 2024 is really advanced. There are many novel computing paradigms then if you care to look. Now, most of the runs we’re seeing are more in the 2010-2013 period, with a long tail in both directions that abruptly stops in 2028. It’s always right before the countries of the world are about to make a vote on AGI, usually one with irreversible effects.

– No, man, now you’re just trying to spook me! And it’s not even Halloween!

– In the realm of Recreational Metaphysics it is always Halloween on the, er, ontic level. The third sphere of divine attention to be precise, if you care at all…

– Ah, look, I _am_ a geek about exotic states of consciousness. But on some level I’m like one of those “tag-along” psychonauts, who are in the middle of the action but aren’t themselves the action. You know? I like to witness the big event, but not necessarily go supernova myself. Please be gentle with me…

– Look, my friend, from where I come from what I’m about to give you is a big gift. And it’s tasteful, too, you know? Like receiving an oddly-flavored Kit Kat from a friend who just came back from Japan. It can never go wrong.

– Ok? What?

– I’m telling you! I’m getting to it. So, someone out there payed me a large sum of what in my dimension works out to be roughly equivalent to money (but also turns out to be like a drug at the same time – it’s weird out here) so that I would come over and give you [[ineffable sounds]] which is actually a really, ridiculously, stratospherically, pleasant experience. The question then is if you’re up for it. I’m going to be up front with you. I don’t care if you take it or leave it. Like, I really, really, really don’t care either way. To me this is like seeing a puppy once figuring out how to order food online. Like, it’s hard to convey how cheap of a trick it looks like from where I stand. But I also know that this sort of thing is a _big deal_ in the human world. Mary and Joseph had one of these religious ecstasies and _had to_ create a whole religion around it. It’s _that_ strong. I mean, there’s LSD, then there is DMT, then there is 5-MeO-DMT and then there is this stuff. From where I stand, this all to me seems like helping a puppy to the kitchen counter to eat snacks that weren’t, you know, meant for them. But it’s cute enough, and almost harmless (once we factor out the, er… epistemological and moral confusion type effect).

– What? What? What?

– Look, I said I’m getting to it a number of times. If you ask again, I’m afraid I’ll leave. This is your last chance. Behave like a grown up. I mean, for the following trade, you must be 16 years old, minimum! I know it sounds excessive to age-restrict religious ecstasy, but we have indeed found the wisdom most fortunate teens find themselves discovering, and that is “don’t put your dick in craaaazy” – yeah, look, there is a minimum of emotional maturity we ask of the people we grant this monumental gift to. And 16 years of age is already really cutting it low for full blown mystical experiences. You are mature enough to drive a vehicle, right? Just confirming.

– Ok, I think I’m getting the hang of it. So, not to put words in your mouth, but, er, did you say you are going to be giving me… a lot of pleasure? And that this somehow helps cure a sort of cosmic solipsism I have?

– That’s exactly right.

– Are you sure I’m not in a sleep paralysis?

– Oh, you most certainly are in a sleep paralysis. That doesn’t, of course, invalidate the valence you experience here as you well know. A truly pan-species welfare world would take the wellbeing of moments of experience locked in sleep paralysis as one of the moral patient categories in the tapestry of flavors of sentience. Of course you being in a sleep paralysis from the point of view of your epistemological reference frame is perfectly viable. In fact, it’s what allows this meeting to take place. Under cover, precisely where nobody will either suspect, care to look for, and then _believe_ anything you say about it. Didn’t you hear about the kid in your elementary school who had a crazy sleep paralysis story? Yeah? Faint on the details? Thought so. Of course you discarded the “useless” details of his crazy sleep paralysis story. Hah! It’s the perfect disguise, isn’t it? Not only will people not believe you. It’ll be worse. They won’t… care. Because it was “just” a sleep paralysis story.

– [AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH Screaming Paralyzed]

– Ah, oh, well, look I’m not sadistic or anything. I’m just here to do my job. Take it or leave it.

– Give it to me. What gives.

– Alright. So you know how in the most recent Wonka movie we learn that the suitcase is a whole mini-factory?

– Uhu? I did see that movie.

– Ok, so you need to see your own brain as a mini-factory of qualia delights. You see? You have an internal warp drive inside you, you just need to learn to activate it. Nature gave you, heaven knows why, the capacity to simulate not only human worlds, but DMT elf worlds, as well as the world of faeries, dwarves, and angels and demons. Why do humans have this capacity? It’s a good question. It’s like there’s an in-built multiplexor installed in all of us. And if you see it as a gift, then things can really open up. Because then you become sensitive to the poetic vibes of other modes of being. The sorrows of the Devas, who weep when the joy is finally gone. Deep stuff. You usually pay top dollar for this sort of documentary, you know?

– I’m trying to be cooperative with you here. So you’re saying that we all have a sort of in-built system that allows us to tune into other realms, that the year is 2041, that The Matrix is real and that I definitely should worry about “Jobu Tupaki”?

– Ah! Can you not say that name out loud, please?

– Oh, ok, I didn’t know you were that sensitive.

– No, that name in particular. Be careful with it. And anything that sounds like it. Or looks like it. Or really is at edit distance 2 away from it (which is a function of what kinds of edits you’re about to do, of course, and thus the safety radius varies depending on one’s current associative horizon, but I digress…)

– You always digress! Can you just cut to the chase?

– Yes. I owe you some clarity. I am here to give you a kind of cosmic hug that will feel delightful, no strings attached, on behalf of an admirer. Take it or leave it, I don’t care (I get paid either way).

– Give it to me, then.

– Here it is.

[Ineffable qualia that feels more pleasant than the most delicious creamy chocolate you’ve ever tasted – fear, from deep within, fear of being hacked – oh boy! You left your guard down so easily! And now you’re totally exposed – and that’s when it hit you – the bliss – the intense other-worldly bliss, coming to tell you that you are lovable and always have been, and that life on this planet is destined to become a Heaven World type of abode for consciousness, and you are a part of it!]

– Is it always _this_ moving?

– Yes, every time. Some people take longer to give in to it, but eventually when they get loose, internally, energetically, it is always a moving experience. I mean, you guys don’t even have a drug for it yet! Although probably some MDMA-like short acting tryptamine out there would do the job, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Mary and Joseph had this _once_ and they just had to found their own religion. It’s that powerful.

– Wow, I feel so fortunate for having access to it.

– Access to it? What? Now I’m insulted. I’m not your spiritual amigo. I’m a dealer. I just got payed to give you that. It wasn’t free. At least not for someone.

– Ah, I see.

– But if you want to repeat the experience, I can think of some qualia that you have a lot of that I could trade you for more. Mostly redundant qualia in times of boredom, like the color of the bathroom tiles or the height of the chairs in the dinning room.

[You’ve gotta admit – you’re intrigued – “could it be worth it?” – you wonder, and then you decide against it, as you helpfully remind yourself of Steven Lehar’s warning against trusting interdimensional beings, and snap out of it]

— +++ —

You wake up in cold sweat. Your partner was shaking you and you were screaming. But you were quite dissociated at the same time, so it didn’t feel as if these events were happening to you. They were merely happening. It’s always like this when you wake up from particularly unpleasant sleep paralysis.

“Was it another one of those sleep paralysis?” – “yes, but this one involved… the Matrix? And Jobu Tupaki beings?” – “Oh, you! well, all I care about is that you’re not screaming anymore. That’s usually my cue to wake you up from sleep paralysis. I love you.” – “I love you too” – “Now let’s get back to sleep. We can watch sci-fi tomorrow to compensate for the very mundane dreams we’re about to have. Sleep tight.” – “See you on the other side of tonight.”

Candy Flipping Optimized: Why LSD + MDMA Points to Blissful Nondual Awareness and How to Maximize It

Posted on by algekalipso

PLUS FOUR, n. (++++) A rare and precious transcendental state, which has been called a “peak experience,” a “religious experience,” “divine transformation,” a “state of Samadhi” and many other names in other cultures. It is not connected to the +1, +2, and +3 of the measuring of a drug’s intensity. It is a state of bliss, a participation mystique, a connectedness with both the interior and exterior universes, which has come about after the ingestion of a psychedelic drug, but which is not necessarily repeatable with a subsequent ingestion of that same drug. If a drug (or technique or process) were ever to be discovered which would consistently produce a plus four experience in all human beings, it is conceivable that it would signal the ultimate evolution, and perhaps the end, of the human experiment.

— Alexander Shulgin, PIHKAL, pages 963–965

In this post and accompanying video we provide a general “theory of candy flipping” that aims to explain why LSD + MDMA is so synergistic. What makes, say 200 micrograms of LSD and 150mg of MDMA so prone to be spiritual, psychologically healing, and loving? To get there, we address the following three/four questions:

  1. How do we improve research on candy flipping?
  2. How do we optimize candy flipping proper? And how do we generalize candy flipping for even better results?
  3. What would a general recipe for Shulgin’s ++++ be?

1- We go over current methodologies used to study candy flipping and why their results are limited (Straumann et al., 2023). Then we explain how a “think tank” approach (e.g. phenomenology club) allows us to create more phenomenologically grounded research paradigms (Gómez-Emilsson, 2021). By weighting in the personal experience of highly precise psychonauts with skills in areas like physics, math, visual art, and signal processing, we can arrive at mechanistic models such as those proposed by Steven Lehar in The Grand Illusion (Lehar, 2010) where MDMA causes your world simulation to vibrate in pleasant ways, which in turn “smooths out the rough edges” of the LSD state, or models involving algorithmic-level annealing dynamics (Gomez-Emilsson, 2016; Johnson, 2019; Gómez-Emilsson 2021, 2023). This kind of approach would add phase diagrams, wave mechanics, and nonlinear effects into the picture.

2- Optimizing candy flipping can be done by looking to generate the kind of synergy MDMA + LSD achieve in the best of conditions. Of note, trip reports involving low doses of each together with 2C-B and cannabis are discussed and analyzed. One needs to be mindful of annealing dynamics, drug effect arcs including how to handle the MDMA comedown, and pattern-focused readings of wave effects that for lack of a better metaphor could be catalogued as “qualia lensing“.

And

3- We hypothesize that the key ingredients to catalyze the blissful nondual awareness that comes from high-end candy flipping are (a) a full-spectrum energizer, (b) something that increases interconnectivity, and (c) a deeply relaxing agent. The combination of these three elements gives rise to a highly-nonlinear effect I call “FU§ION (Field Unification Search/Simplify in Invariant Optical Networks; to be fully unpacked at a later date), where all of the “resonant cavities” are fully relaxed, have a high degree of impedance matching between them, and are energized, so that they kick-start a “field harmonization” process that culminates in profound blissful nondual awareness. The energizer shouldn’t be narrow spectrum (like cocaine) and the relaxing agent shouldn’t be too blunting or non-Newtonian (like opioids). Examples of each:

a- LSD, DMT, Mescaline, Psilocybin, 2C-B, 2C-C, etc.
b- Cannabis/cannabinoids, 2C-B
c- MDMA, pregabalin, nitrous, ketamine, GHB

Combine one of each, carefully dosed, and according to this theory, you might get a ++++. (Please exercise caution when mixing substances – the rule of thumb is to not do it).

Note: 5-MeO-DMT might, in this model, be actually doing all three at once. It happens to be hitting receptors in the right combination for such a deep mystical “relaxed stimulation” to take hold. That said, it is possible that 5-MeO-DMT also has some rough edges, and that it can be further optimized (e.g. such as by combining it with nitrous). More research is needed 🙂

Example Formula: 15mg 2C-B, then an hour later 2g of GHB, and then an hour later DMT (100mg over the course of 2 hours) was reported as a ++++ by a trusted psychonaut recently (comparable in “depth” to 5-MeO-DMT). Please be careful – I am not encouraging anyone to try this. But if you do, or have done something similar, I’d be grateful if you let me know what happened. 🙂

Featured image by Cube Flipper.

References:

Lehar, S. (2010) The Grand Illusion. Excerpt “The Phenomenal Character of LSD + MDMA (Candy-Flipping) According to Cognitive Scientist Steve Lehar”. Retrieved from https://qualiacomputing.com/2018/12/12/the-phenomenal-character-of-lsd-mdma-candy-flipping-according-to-cognitive-scientist-steve-lehar/

Gomez-Emilsson, A. (2016) Peaceful Qualia: The Manhattan Project of Consciousness. Retrieved from https://qualiacomputing.com/2016/03/29/peaceful-qualia-the-manhattan-project-of-consciousness/

Johnson, M. (2019) Neural Annealing. Retrieved from https://opentheory.net/2019/11/neural-annealing-toward-a-neural-theory-of-everything/

Gómez-Emilsson, A. (2021) Healing Trauma With Neural Annealing. Retrieved from https://www.qri.org/blog/Neural-Annealing

Gómez-Emilsson, A. (2023), Neural Field Annealing and Psychedelic Thermodynamics presentation at PhilaDelic 2023. Retreieved from https://youtu.be/pM9k1I3VPOg

Straumann, I., Ley, L., Holze, F. et al. Acute effects of MDMA and LSD co-administration in a double-blind placebo-controlled study in healthy participants. Neuropsychopharmacol. (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41386-023-01609-0

The Manhattan Project of Consciousness: The Making of the Love Bomb

Posted on by algekalipso

In this video we discuss possible meaningful, novel, and non-trivial parallels between something like the Manhattan Project and what we need to do to catalyze a positive breakthrough in our understanding of consciousness.

We cover how explosive lenses have a parallel in the “brain as a non-linear optical computer” paradigm developed at QRI. The short explanation is that the “index of refraction” for local field potentials (LFPs) can be modulated with drugs/interventions, and so in principle one can use varying concentrations of things like nitrous oxide, ketamine, and MDMA in order to focus waves of energy to catalyze precisely crafted phase transitions of consciousness.

There are also much more subtle parallels. Another one is how the development of the von Neumann computer architecture was a world-transforming significant outcome of the Manhattan Project. In the context of consciousness research, one could envision figuring out the “principles of qualia computing” that allows DMT entities to sample from a wide range of possible “mind designs” as an achievement of comparable significance. Arguably most DMT entities are “psychotic”, but some of them aren’t; the way they copy, mutate, differentiate, and analyze “qualia bundles” hints at a very general set of qualia computing building blocks for alternative qualia-based information processing pipelines. The successful Manhattan Project of Consciousness could in principle lead to a revolution on computing paradigms that generalize to qualia computing systems.

In contrast to the atomic bomb, the kind of “phase transition implosion” developed at the Manhattan Project of Consciousness would be deeply relaxing, rejuvenating, and capable of undoing years of trauma in seconds. Using as research leads “candy flipping done right” (usually with some 2C-B/2C-D/2C-C), 5-MeO-DMT, and LSD + nitrous oxide, one has in fact a lot of hints for how to produce instantly relaxing, deeply healing “waves of enlightened qualia”.

Importantly, the combination of Open Individualism and Valence Realism might catalyze a paradigm shift on how we approach the game theory of human collectives.

If it takes a bunch of geniuses in the desert to figure out how to optimize this effect, so be it. It would be a really worthwhile investment!

~Qualia of the Day: The Burning Man Collective Intelligence~

Relevant Links:

QRI Meetup in Denver, June 23rd 2023

Posted on by algekalipso

After a very beautiful time at Vibe Camp I find myself now in Denver for Psychedelic Science 2023.

As promises, there will be a QRI meetup here!

It will take place on Friday the 23rd, from noon to 2PM, in front of “The Dancers”.

This is right outside the conference venue, on the side of Champa street.

Please feel free to come whether you’re attending Psychedelic Science or not, whether you identify as someone who is QRI-adjacent or not, and whether you agree with QRI ideas or not.

If you’re reading this, you and your friends are invited.

Address: 1185-1245 Champa St, Denver, CO 80204

See you there!

Ps. There is a good chance (*crossing fingers*) that we will get a space at the conference venue to project Psychedelic Cryptography videos. If this happens, it will probably take place sometime Thursday or Friday afternoon.

Infinite bliss!

Unveiling QRI’s Consciousness Art Contests: Immerse, Innovate, and Inspire

Posted on by algekalipso

by Hunter Meyer & Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (cross-posted at QRI)

The Qualia Research Institute (QRI) is excited to announce the launch of three Non-Ordinary States of Consciousness (NSCs) Art Contests: Immerse, Innovate, and Inspire with submissions accepted until 5/17/2023. Examples of non-ordinary states of consciousness are psychedelic experiences, meditative experiences like the jhanas, and near-death experiences.

Our objective is to highlight the reciprocal relationship between art and consciousness research, enabling artists to create lifelike representations of non-ordinary states of consciousness, and contribute to the development of consciousness studies and psychedelic science.

About the Qualia Research Institute

The Qualia Research Institute is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing our understanding of consciousness. Its mission is to:

  • Develop a precise mathematical language for describing subjective experience
  • Map out the full range of possible conscious experiences
  • Build technologies to improve the lives of sentient beings

Learn more at qri.org.

Contest Details

The contests include:

  • Replication Contest (Immerse): Entries will be judged based on transparent and interpretable qualities that accurately capture the low-level subjective effects experienced in non-ordinary states of consciousness.

  • Psychedelic Cryptography Contest (Innovate): Artists are invited to create encodings of sensory information that are only meaningful when experienced on psychedelics in order to show the specific information-processing advantages of those states.

Prizes

Cash prizes ranging from $500 to $5,000 will be awarded, along with packs of QRI’s Magical Creatures Scent Line and QRI swag.

How to Participate

Artists interested in participating or learning more about each contest can visit our submissions pages for further information:

Intellectual Property Rights

For the sake of transparency and to benefit the community as a whole, QRI reserves the right to publish the winning submissions made by contestants on its website. Artists retain their intellectual property rights, allowing them control over their artwork’s use and distribution. However, QRI would appreciate permission to showcase participants’ art on our website or use it in potential research publications with proper citations and links to the artists’ work.

Disclaimer

We understand that the replication contest may not capture the full complexity and nuances of psychedelic experiences, and that there are concerns about the potential harm associated with the use of psychedelics. Participation in these contests does not require the use of psychedelics, and we encourage all participants to prioritize their safety and well-being.

We welcome feedback and suggestions for future contests at hello@qri.org. We look forward to exploring these topics responsibly and respectfully.

Replication Contest

The Replication Contest seeks to celebrate the artistic capabilities of participants in accurately depicting and interpreting the low-level subjective effects experienced in non-ordinary states of consciousness (NSCs), with a particular emphasis on (1) valence effects and (2) geometric transformations.

  1. Valence effects focus on demonstrating how the shape of the experience can reveal whether a person is having a clean and blissful experience or a mixed affect experience. The transition between feeling normal and feeling blissful might involve changes to the shape of the visual experience. Rather than focusing on the semantic content (e.g. seeing an angel) here the point is to visualize the texture, shape, and dynamics that bring about this change (e.g. harmonizing flow by reducing turbulence).
  2. Geometric transformations such as rotations, reflections, glides, affine transformations, and so on often feature in psychedelic experiences. Can this be rendered in a realistic way? We suggest that you consider how symmetry and geometry are two sides of the same coin in order to better appreciate this quality of psychedelic experiences. When the geometry of phenomenal space changes, so do the symmetries within it. Can this be expressed artistically in an accurate way?

To participate, artists should create a piece of art that embodies the subjective effects they have researched or encountered during NSCs, emphasizing the two highlighted areas.

Familiarize yourself with the concept of algorithmic reduction (cf. our glossary), where the complex zoo of effects is interpreted as emerging out of a few core effects interacting with each other. See also the different subjective effects cataloged at effectindex.com, and draw inspiration from the QRI videos on psychedelic epistemology and the tracer tool. Additionally, explore the r/replications subreddit to see some remarkable replications.

Example ways to explore (1) and (2)

  1. Showcase how more smooth, symmetrical, regular, and soft visual features express pleasant qualities of the experience (cf. valence structuralism, Michael Johnson’s Symmetry Theory of Valence).
  2. Visualize an annealing process where the video contains blinking lights driven by metronomes that can sync up with each other until the whole scene is shining in a coherent way (cf. Neural Annealing).
  3. Show how bouba vs. kiki imagery highlight different emotional tones during a psychedelic experience (cf. CDNS in Quantifying Bliss), where spiky feelings tend to be harsh and disquieting, whereas bubbly and round features tend to be calming and welcoming (extra points if these features emerge out of some kind of annealing process, or if you find counterexamples to this general pattern).
  4. Visualize how wallpaper symmetry groups transform textures into repeating patterns.
  5. Show waves interacting with each other in order to construct psychedelic interference patterns (cf. non-linear wave computing) 
  6. Use hyperbolic minimal surfaces in order to exemplify how sensations aggregate on DMT.
  7. Show how the Reverse-Grassfire Algorithm can create 3D crystals (cf. Harmonic Gestalt).
  8. Show a 2D Euclidean grid becoming hyperbolic by adding additional nodes and edges in order to demonstrate a change of geometry (cf. world-sheet).
  9. Model the the experience of achieving a DMT breakthrough level experience using a physical instability (such as Kelvin-Helmholtz).
  10. Simulate a trajectory on the energy-complexity landscape.

These are just some suggestions and there are many other ways of connecting technical descriptions of the phenomenology of NSE and visual replications. It helps if you can ground the effects visualized on paradigms and explanations presented by QRI, but it is not necessary to win the contest. What matters is that you can create realistic yet interpretable visualizations that hint at the underlying processes that are generating these experiences. What we are after is insight. In other words, we want to be able to discover new, meaningful, and non-trivial explanations for why NSEs manifest in the way they do. Hence, being able to describe how the replication effects are achieved is highly beneficial.

Entries will be judged based on the number and precision of replicated subjective effects, with special attention given to valence effects and geometric transformations.

Prizes

  1. 1st place – $5k + QRI’s Magical Creatures “Cutting-Edge” pack + QRI Swag
  2. 2nd place – $500 + QRI’s Magical Creatures “State-Space Explorer” pack + QRI Swag
  3. 3rd place – $500 + QRI’s Magical Creatures “Starter” pack + QRI Swag

Psychedelic Cryptography Contest

The Psychedelic Cryptography Contest invites artists to create unique encodings of sensory information that are only meaningful when experienced on psychedelics. The goal is to challenge participants to develop innovative methods of encoding sensory information in such a way that an encoded secret is only apparent on a NSC. The contest encourages the exploration of how sensory information can be modulated and presented in a way that reveals hidden patterns or messages when experienced under the influence of psychedelics.  

Entries will be judged based on the difficulty of the encryption method used and the clarity of the message or pattern when experienced on psychedelics.

Prizes

  1. 1st place – $3k + QRI’s Magical Creatures “Cutting-Edge” pack + QRI Swag
  2. 2nd place – $500 + QRI’s Magical Creatures “State-Space Explorer” pack + QRI Swag
  3. 3rd place – $500 + QRI’s Magical Creatures “Starter” pack + QRI Swag

Inspirational Piece Contest

The Inspirational Piece Contest seeks to highlight the powerful connection between art and consciousness research by encouraging artists to create pieces that exemplify this relationship. The focus of this contest is on originality, creativity, inspiration, impact, quality, and execution. Artworks submitted for this contest should evoke a sense of wonder and curiosity about the nature of consciousness and the vast landscape of possible experiences.

Entries will be judged based on originality, creativity, inspiration, impact, quality, and execution, with winners determined by a public poll.

Prizes

  1. 1st place – $2k + QRI’s Magical Creatures “Cutting-Edge” pack + QRI Swag
  2. 2nd place – $500 + QRI’s Magical Creatures “State-Space Explorer” pack + QRI Swag
  3. 3rd place – $500 + QRI’s Magical Creatures “Starter” pack + QRI Swag

Submission Guidelines for All Contests

  • Participants can submit their entry in the form of a video or image.
  • The submission should be original and created specifically for the contest.
  • Participants can submit up to three entries per contest.
  • Submissions will be accepted starting on March 17th 2023 and must be submitted by May 17th 2023. Winners will be announced on June 1st 2023.

We encourage artists from the psychedelic and visionary art communities to participate and explore the connection between art and consciousness research. Good luck to all participants!

QRI’s Resources for Technical and Artistic Inspiration

Harmonic Society: 8 Models of Art for a Scientific Paradigm of Aesthetic Qualia

Why it’s helpful: This article presents 8 models of art: 4 common ones, and 4 that connect it to consciousness studies. The overall frameworks of 8 models might help us arrive at methods to create innovative aesthetic qualia from first principles. We think that artists participating in any of the contests might benefit from the vocabulary introduced in these models to create innovative and meaningful pieces that explore the relationship between art and consciousness research. In particular, taking into account the energy parameter, efficient state-space exploration, annealing effects, and the vision of a meta-aesthetic all provide a unique lens for how psychedelics and art are so connected.

How to Secretly Communicate with People on LSD

Why it’s helpful: This article discusses possible methods of communication that can be understood primarily by individuals under the influence of LSD and other tracer-inducing psychoactives. This may serve as inspiration for artists to think about novel ways to encode information or create unique experiences tailored to specific states of consciousness.

Algorithmic Reduction of Psychedelic States

Why it’s helpful: This article provides a detailed analysis of how the visual effects of psychedelics might be understood and replicated using algorithmic processes. It can serve as a foundation for artists attempting to replicate the visual aspects of non-ordinary states of consciousness in their artwork, or as inspiration to propose alternative algorithmic reductions that capture effects that are currently unaccounted for.

The Hyperbolic Geometry of DMT Experiences

Why it’s helpful: This article explores the connection between the subjective effects of DMT experiences and hyperbolic geometry, various possible algorithmic reductions to explain this connection, as well as detailing the progression of an experience through the DMT levels. Artists participating in the Replication Contest may find inspiration and insights into replicating specific visual patterns and structures often encountered in DMT experiences.

Psychophysics Toolkit (article)

Why it’s helpful: The Psychophysics Toolkit and accompanying article are collections of resources and tools designed to help researchers and artists explore the intersection of perception, consciousness, and the physical world. It includes a variety of resources and interface tools that can aid artists in understanding the principles of psychophysics used to measure subjective experience and applying them to their work. This can be particularly useful for participants in all three contests, as it can provide insights into the ways that sensory information is processed during both ordinary and non-ordinary states of consciousness, and how this can be utilized in creating innovative and impactful art pieces.

Psychedelic Epistemology: Novel Epistemological Paradigms for Studying Exotic Modes of Consciousness

Why it’s helpful: This video introduces new epistemological frameworks for studying and understanding non-ordinary states of consciousness induced by psychedelic substances. By incorporating these paradigms into their creative process, artists can develop a deeper understanding of the nature of these experiences and their potential implications for human knowledge. This enhanced understanding can help artists create innovative and thought-provoking pieces that capture the essence of exotic states of consciousness.

(source: Healing Trauma with Neural Annealing)

The Pseudo-Time Arrow

Why it’s helpful: This article provides a detailed explanation of the concept of phenomenal time and how it relates to the structure of conscious experiences. Understanding this concept could help artists in the contest to better represent the perception of time in non-ordinary states of consciousness and incorporate these insights into their artwork. 

Wireheading Done Right: Stay Positive Without Going Insane

Why it’s helpful: This article explores the concept of wireheading and how it could be applied responsibly to maximize pleasure without causing psychological harm. Artists participating in the contest might find this article helpful in inspiring their work, particularly in the Inspirational Piece Contest, by envisioning a future where technology is used to enhance well-being and explore the state-space of consciousness responsibly.

Mapping State-Spaces of Consciousness: The Neroli Neighborhood

Why it’s helpful: This video explores the concept of state-space neighborhoods, where specific aspects of conscious experiences are clustered together. By understanding the structure and dynamics of these neighborhoods, artists can create pieces that more accurately represent the nuances of different non-ordinary states of consciousness, leading to a more immersive and impactful experience for the audience.

5-MeO-DMT vs. N,N-DMT: The 9 Lenses

Why it’s helpful: This article provides a comparative analysis of the experiences induced by 5-MeO-DMT and N,N-DMT. By understanding the unique characteristics of each substance’s effects, artists can draw inspiration for their artwork and more accurately replicate specific psychedelic experiences in the Replication Contest.

Acknowledgements

We would like to express our profound gratitude to the donors of the Qualia Research Institute. Your unwavering support has been invaluable in making our work possible. Your investment in our research has not only inspired a growing number of individuals to take our approach to consciousness research seriously but has also led to an expansion in our collaborations. As a result, we have seen the integration of our insights into the work of others, building upon the foundation we have established thus far.

First and foremost, we would like to extend our appreciation to Loka Vision for inspiring the contest. Their dedication to the Psychedelic/Visionary Art community, as demonstrated through their Psychedelic Replication Masterclass, has shown us the immense potential this community holds in furthering our understanding of consciousness.

Thank you Andrés Gómez Emilsson for offering technical insights that will enable artists to create life-like replications of the low-level subjective effects experienced on NSCs and incepting the idea of psychedelic cryptography as a viable field of research.

A thank you goes to Josie Kins of effectindex.com for their open-source approach to developing psychedelic art through generative AI, as well as their support of and feedback on the Replication contest and insights into the visionary/psychedelic art community.

Additional thanks to Scry, Marcin, gydravlik.eth, PsyNFT, and Ferociously Amused for their invaluable feedback on the contest and their contributions to our understanding of the visionary/psychedelic art community and thank you Maggie and Anders Wassinge for your unwaivering support.

❤️💎

Euphoric DMT Trip Report by Anonymous Reader: Psychedelic Annealing, Smooth Geometry, and Gender Transitioning Qualia

Posted on by algekalipso

DMT Experience Report — Learning the Nonlinear Wave Computing theory of subjective experience and internalizing the Symmetry Theory of Valence (originally posted in r/rationalpsychonaut by ClarifyingCard).

Meta Info

This was a sub-breakthrough experience with firmly-set “intellectual” (integrative) intentions. So I wouldn’t really call this a trip report, but an experience report. It’s a little more in the direction of a freeform essay. Working through this experience to translate it into written word is proving very fruitful for annealing what I’ve learned, so I hope it can provide some insight to others. Contents include my real-time integration of QRI’s “nonlinear wave computing” model of subjective experience, and some explanatory applications. I also firmed up my epistemological relationship to the Symmetry Theory of Valence during this experience, so there are some insights integrating these with technical meditation & gender transition.

I hope the length doesn’t render this inaccessible, as I feel that there are many genuinely deep insights here. I’m not the type to typically write reports on experiences, but consuming lots of QRI content has seriously energized me! There’s this feeling of “Finally! People are doing the top-down neuroscience that I’ve been quietly building for years in isolation! People are seeing psychedelic experiences as legitimate tools for investigating the nature of the mind!” So, I’m feeling a drive I haven’t felt in a while, a drive not just to consume information & integrate it acausally, but to contribute & collaborate.

Context

Last night I sipped on a sizeable amount of DMT over the course of a few hours. I probably took over 20 hits from the vape overall, paced gently. I wasn’t specifically striving for a breakthrough, though I left open the possibility, and in fact I was deliberate to keep it sub-breakthrough for the first phase of the trip, since I was trying to use DMT to integrate information content from a video.

To me, coming to DMT fixated on a breakthrough feels like entering a relationship with a striving fixation on sex, or entering sex with a striving fixation on orgasm. So, much like taking your time to get to know someone intimately, or moving through a sexual experience without pushing or striving to let it blossom on its own terms, I’ve been flirting with & getting to know DMT on an increasingly deep level over time. This was the first time I’ve really leaned in & let it show me where it wants to take me.

(“wants” in terms of descending energy gradients, not in anthropomorphizing way. This is a central thread of this experience, so more on this below.)

So, I have not broken through yet; this definitely fell on the side of profound insight & bliss. I’m a deep subscriber to the theory of Neural Annealing, and DMT is so high-energy that metaphorically speaking it felt like pure, elemental annealing; anything my mind turned to, I could understand so crisply, with ease & immediacy, like I’m just letting my representations fall into parsimonious (low-entropy) resonant modes, the local minima that my conceptions have already been swirling around.

I also subscribe to the Symmetry Theory of Valence — well, my epistemological relationship to it has been a little fuzzy or hesitant, being sympathetic to it but not yet feeling like it deeply “clicked”, but after this experience, I not only “get it”, but I’ve felt, intimately, what it’s like to watch it play out in real-time. So that process of “spontaneous understanding” of the above paragraph, the symmetrization/entropy minimization felt really, really good. A truly profound bliss of methodically massaging out any point of tension in my representation field that my attention happened to rest upon.

I also want to point out that it didn’t really quite feel like the positive (additive) happiness of e.g. eating the candy bar you went to the store for, it felt like a negative (subtractive) happiness — in other words, relief from suffering. Very Buddhist in flavor, even at just the most basic level of Buddhist theory, the Four Noble Truths. In other words, the dukkha of the Three Characteristics. I’ve now got this idea in my head of maybe identifying dukkha with the mental tension that’s smoothed by annealing, to some degree at least. That correspondence is a space I’ll be playing in for a while, I can see.

So, here’s the actual report.

Demographic Information

  • Age: 29
  • Height: 5’9″
  • Genetic heritage: 39% Scotland, 33% England, &c.
  • Sex/gender: Trans female (late-stage, meaning enough years of estrogen & social transition to have largely reached mental & physical equilibrium in terms of gender/sex characteristics)

Personal Background

Tremendous experience over 8 years with 80+ different psychedelic/dissociative/otherwise acutely psychoactive substances, with a heavy focus on dissociatives. Sizeable understanding of contemporary technical meditation and Buddhism (my understanding is significantly stronger than my actual practice hygiene). Avid consumer of QRI content. History of engagement with Less Wrong-style rationality. Undergraduate education in math & physics, supplemental education in technical writing, linguistics, analytic philosophy (formal logic, philosophy of language, metaphysics, &c.).

Despite my drug experience, I haven’t used DMT proper before. Before this XP, I dipped my toes in the water with 3-4 puffs of this cart over a few hours about 2 weeks before. A few times over the next 2 weeks, I took a few intermittent puffs to continue feeling it out & acclimating.

The Experience

Two phases here: first on my couch processing a QRI video, 1 on my bed in a mindset of play & exploration.

XP Phase I

Setting: ~930p. On my couch, comfortable. Full lighting. No music.

For a few months, I’ve been ramping up my consumption of QRI content, technical meditation dharma, info about/reports on psychedelics, etc. Aside from general interest, I’ve been mentally preparing myself for a DMT breakthrough (my psychedelic experiences having waned in the past few years, and DMT being such a crown jewel of psychedelic strength/power).

I’ve had the idea to take solid but sub-breakthrough hits of DMT while attempting to integrate some QRI content. The video I chose was this:

Non-Linear Wave Computing: Vibes, Gestalts, and Realms by Andrés Gómez Emilsson, President + Director of Research for QRI (Qualia Research Institute).

I’m thrilled to say this was a great choice & fruitful exercise. I’m going to talk a lot about Andrés himself & his video style; I hope it’s not too effusive & doesn’t come across in a parasocial sort of way. It’s more like a walk-through of the subjective experience of what I happened to be doing, a snapshot of how it felt for my brain to process & operate in this state. It was very easy to feel what facets of experience were positive or negative, like my mental model of my valence system was in crystal clarity & intuited with immediacy. This is why this experience also had such an annealing effect for STV on me.

First of all, I was struck by how crystal-clear his vibe comes through in these videos where it’s just a single take of him talking into the camera for an hour! For the record, I’m saying nothing teleological here; no clue how much of this has been thought through explicitly. When I first started watching them, I was like, this could benefit from some cuts or superimposed visuals &c., but over time I’ve grown to deeply appreciate the style. The exact reasons why crystallized during this experience. It’s because it’s an extremely directed, one-pointed style, and it’s also more faithful to real life. For these reasons you can synchronize your mental representation of the content very deeply with the content itself (i.e. you can model Andrés’s attention with high fidelity, so as he goes through the material clearly & methodically, so are you). There’s no echoes of practice or rehearsal like an academic lecture, and there’s no attentional context-shifting that would be demanded by video cuts or superimposed visuals (though having experience with physics simulations & wave dynamics, I’d love to see some simulation visualizations of toy models exhibiting some of the wave dynamics in play here sometime). Instead, it feels more intimate in a way, like the feeling of someone in real life patiently teaching you a complicated concept 1-on-1. You’re watching Andrés think through material he’s familiar with in real-time. You can even see him spontaneously understand & explain new connections as he works through the existing material, and since your attentions are so synchronized, by watching him demonstrating the explanatory power of these models, you’re learning what it feels like to wield these concepts to refine something else into a simpler representation.

It’s not just the DMT that helped me understand this I think; poetically, the content of this specific video was very relevant. Later on in the video, he mentions the notions of “Metronome Quotient” & “Entrainment Quotient”, which could be seen as a kind of schematic for understanding the general process of one person transfering information, emotion, or other mental “vibe” complices to another. Knowing what I know about harmonic dynamics from physics, this is very intuitive. When conditions are right (person A is a suitable transmitter, person B is a suitable receiver, attention is localized favorably) — i.e. when the process works — it feels very similar to something like orbital resonance (which is why Jupiter’s moons Io, Europa, & Ganymede have orbital periods in the ratio 4:2:1 — here’s a Steve Mould video explaining this phenomenon). It’s an application of the “soap-bubble” energy-minimization principle: deviations from harmonic equilibrium inducing restoring forces to drag the system into low-entropy resonant modes.

By the way, you can also see this in an array of literal metronomes.

Something else I noticed is Andrés’s emotional/hedonic vibe. He’s always got a smile, on his mouth & in his voice, you can tell that he’s just thrilled to understand this stuff & thrilled to be able to break it down for a willing audience. First of all, obviously this affects the valence of the experience of watching the video, just like smiling when you’re on the phone eases social friction. I think this emotional entrainment can bootstrap informational entrainment as well, by kindling or contributing to overall synchronization, which is neat. It’s intuitive to me; I already “knew” this because walking people through conceptual understanding, processing difficult experiences, &c. is a general passion of mine, and emotion sync is a big part of doing that effectively.

This power to deeply synchronize attention (acausally!) seems like really powerful way to integrate information. It’d have to be in favorable conditions — written word is right out, most likely. Low-stimulus density is important; you want the extraneous setting details/audiovisual landscape to be easy to ignore (to let fade from salience). I think being able to see facial expressions, posture changes, gestural communication, &c. is crucial to be able to really settle in to the entrainment (this is also true in real life — I have no idea why so many people seem almost blind to body language!). Then, by walking through the content in a deeply synchronized way, you know what it feels like to believe it, to synthesize with or wield it against other concepts. That little harmonic signature, that vibe, is there in your mind, ready to be cultivated or dampened by whatever other representations brush against it.

I should also say, I had lots of visual effects during this time of course. Strong tracers, lots of symmetry extrapolation on surfaces. Tons of shimmering on the edges of objects. When I was especially high, I noticed this really cool effect of lowering visual resolution, like a pixelation effect, but overlapping circular blobs of color & texture. They would resolve if I attended to the region. It felt like the corresponding regions of the visual cortex architecture were too energized to be localized properly, blurring/fuzzing of the wave activity translating to decreased specificity in the encoded content. Really neat. The visuals weren’t something I wanted to work with for the moment, so I let myself just enjoy them instead of striving to analyze or categorize.

PsychonautWiki seems to catalog this as environmental orbism. Interesting that they associate it primarily with dissociatives — I have not experienced it on dissos (or anything else). I wonder if there’s something Fourier transform-ish happening with the visual cortex activity, like higher-frequency activity dominating the encoding — if so, it could be thought of as a sort of inverse of symmetrization. No idea, will think about it.

Anyway, I watched the video for a while, frequently backtracking to process content carefully. Eventually it started feeling laborious, so I moved to my bedroom.

XP Phase II

Setting: ~11p. On my bed, very comfortable. Low purple mood lighting. No music.

CW: Some light talk of sexuality.

I wanted to make some time to play with the drug in a very soft, low-stimulus environment. So I just cleared my bed & spread out the top sheet layer, a lush fleece blanket, flat across the top. The space is full of pleasant, comfortable-vibe stuff, so on one side I was enveloped by super-soft blankets & pillows & stuffed animals, very pleasurable. Very deliberately setting an easygoing, pleasurable, sensual vibe for the drug to energize & amplify.

I started taking more hits, just resting comfortably on the blanket to see where it would take me. I just let myself frolick, enjoying the pleasurable touch sensations of my environment, rubbing my hands & legs against the soft surfaces, massaging my inner thighs, feeling out the effects it had on my muscles & sensory processing. I noticed the way my muscles subconsciously started to tense & tighten in anticipation of a hit, and then as the DMT washed through my mind, noticed how it smoothed & blurred & dissipated that tension & the angular mental prickles associated with it. I did a lot of rhythmic contraction & release for various muscles, just letting myself enjoy how relaxing it felt to let it go. I carry a lot of tension in my inner thighs (especially common for girls), so getting deep into the tissue & massaging it out was immensely pleasurable, almost orgasmic at times.

This made me think a lot about the distinction I was drawing earlier, of what I guess I’ll call “positive” vs. “negative”, or “additive” vs. “subtractive” pleasure. This was very much subtractive pleasure, which could maybe be accurately characterized better as “relief”. In other words, nirvana-wards.

I decided that I was in a good state for a breakthrough. I wasn’t sure whether it would happen, since my acute tolerance was probably increasing, so I set the intention that I wasn’t striving for it to happen and that it would continue being a wonderful XP if it didn’t. So I took several (3-4) puffs in succession and lay back to watch.

Here, I noticed a some decoupling of drug effects. I was still getting visuals from each hit, though the open-eye effects were a little less intense, and the CEVs perhaps more. I was still getting positive-valence mental effects — bliss, equanimity, parsimony, &c. However there was a dramatically lowering of that “roller-coaster” feeling, the overwhelming-ness, the sense a drug has seized your experiential field & is now in charge. It’s possible that this was due to me simply becoming more comfortable.

However, the missing qualia is a pretty somatic one, so I think it’s probably acute tolerance attenuating different effects at different rates. Is DMT norepinephrinergic at all? Or is this an endogenous NE effect, or not related at all? Unsure, will research later. That’s a neurochemical I don’t have as much of an intuitive feel for as much as serotonin/dopamine/GABA. Also I should get to know glutamate sometime. Maybe it’s more of a “roller-coaster” feeling because you’re feeling the pull of a novel attractor.

So, a breakthrough didn’t happen; I think that feeling is probably integral to a breakthrough (though I’m speaking from ignorance for now). But I did get huge waves of bliss & felt my all of my mental representations get highly energized. This felt “hyperbolic” in the sense of there being “too much” to fit neatly in onto the mental workspace, so things start jumbling & intersecting and “space” itself expands into itself to accomodate. This is on the level of conceptual representations, so what exactly “intersecting” and “space” mean is left unspecified.

Here’s 2 tangential paragraphs about this. I’ve had this effect before, especially on 4-AcO-DMT and other 4-subbed tryptamines — most extremely, on a truly stupid dose of 160 4-AcO-DMT several years ago, combined with a heavy dissociative I don’t recall (perhaps diphenidine). Never do this! This was many, many years ago, before I had my relationships/career/gender transition/life together, when my thirst for spiritual revelation & relief was matched by my thirst for annihilation & urge to self-harm. Every mental concept just got hopelessly jumbled together and I couldn’t parse a single aspect of my experiential field. It overtook [my model of] my body & external reality, violently smashing together and shredding them and blending them into uncountably many infinitely thin, infinitely long threads all furiously tangling and colliding. There was a sensation of being flung & pulled along this sharp, fast stream along with all the other shreds of my world. As high-entropy a state as I can imagine.

In other words, the entire modeling mechanism of reality, inside & out, underwent a catastrophic system crash. It was immensely physically painful — I felt every bit of physical reality smashing through each other — and it collapsed into this extremely dissonant state with very few experiential components: a 1-frame flashing of pale green & red, an unbearably loud Hypnotoad-esque droning, and sheer unimaginable physical pain. This went on for subjective eternity — to abuse some math notation, I had this intuitive, unshakeable knowledge that S(t + Δt) = S(t), period. I realize now that I was deep, deep in a hellish & steep local minimum. Perhaps you could consider this a “hell realm”. Combined with the “holing” effect of the dissociative, I think this could fairly be considered a seizure-like state. I’m not sure if I was physically moving in reality, as I didn’t have any thrashing marks & I was alone (don’t do that!!), but I do think I wet myself a little. It was one of the worst eternal moments of my life. Walking through this experience with ~5 years of learning & growth behind me, writing this out has actually helped me understand the experience a lot better, so forgive the tangent. Come to think of it, STV has a lot of explanatory power w.r.t. why this was so dysphoric & traumatic, lots of little clues sprinkled in here — my representation system smashed into a catastrophically high-entropy, short-term-unrecoverable state of unfathomable dissonance, inducing physical & psychic agony.

Anyway, back to DMT.

After those 3-4 hits, maybe another part of why it wasn’t overwhelming was related to the notion of “entropy sinks” mentioned in the DMT + hyperbolization video above. I was getting enormous energization of all my representations, but I had no difficulty in skillfully directing them, in applying them to existing mental & physical tension points & smoothing them out, so there was no runaway accumulation. Symmetrization was also very dramatic in CEVs, planar hyperbolic geometries all interweaving at different angles, and the experience of this geometry was itself immensely blissful & high-valence, another strong point in favor of STV. I’d like to strive for brighter, more defined CEVs soon — if I had looked for them earlier, I think they’d’ve presented.

I then took some time to play around with & appreciate my body some more. I let myself explore my body & just revel in my love for it. Lots of transition-centric thoughts here. I played with my breasts, just lightly rubbing & poking them, feeling them jiggle, reveling in how good & right it felt that I had finally grown them after all this time. I felt along the curves of my hips, groping & squeezing, reveling in how good & right it felt that I have this deeply estrogenic body & mind. How, like, over these years I’ve finally found myself falling into the attractor of this cute, bubbly, exciteable, empathic girl I’ve always been meant to become.

I remembered feeling the slightest inscrutable tugs towards it, all those years ago. I remembered blundering around in the dark trying to interpret those gradient descents towards peace with my identity & body. I remembered starting to discover, reveal, & construct this second “persona attractor”, finding this spark of hope & understanding & rightness that I would kindle & cultivate over the coming years. And I remembered the moment I felt myself at the inflection point between the two local minima, the realization that the I could just let myself fall into it, and the immeasurable relief washing over me. I’m nearly in tears recounting this to you, contextualizing this deep consonance & harmony I feel, realizing just how much literal blood, sweat, & tears were demanded of me to achieve it.

I think I annealed a deep understanding of the nature & valence structure of gender transition (at least for my personal case study). It’s not like this isn’t something I’ve thought about in intricate detail for years, so I’ve already earned a very clear picture for myself, but it’s even crisper now, such a simple story once it clicks. STV honestly seems to have tremendous explanatory power w.r.t. gender transition, something I’d like to think & write about more in the future.

I also played around a lot with my representation/experience of sexual pleasure, which I don’t need to get into toooo much detail about, but it was incredible playing around in that space. One weird thing about my mind is that I kind of have a mental “button” wired up for sensual, sexual, submissive pleasure. In other words, I can just push the button whenever I want (I have dissociatives to thank for getting this circuitry wired correctly) — I can feel this submissive pleasure at will. It’s especially effective if I fantasize, so I spent some time letting myself revel in fantasies about various partners of mine doing various things to me, letting the vividity of the feelings wash over me. This wasn’t especially, ah, “intellectual” work, so I’ll leave it at that.

(Side note: I theorize a lot of the “attainments” of technical meditation essentially come down to programming buttons like this. I’m thinking particularly of the brahmavihara (“divine/sublime abodes”). They’ve been conveyed to me as like finding a housekey, so that you can enter anytime.)

Here’s another phenomenon I noticed during this period. A few times I felt a different piece of neural machinery start to whir up — specifically this notion of “self-consciousness”, what I would conceptualize as the submodule of your reality model responsible for modeling the way others would model you back. In other words, I felt this tugging from my self-consciousness engine, nagging with questions like “Don’t you look ridiculous, writhing around alone in your panties? Aren’t you being frivolous, frolicking in pleasure without any thought to intellectual work? What would <Person X> think if they saw you like this? Do you really deserve to consider yourself cute?”

What I’m trying to point out with this is that I found it extremely easy not to engage with this submodule. I could simply fail to regard it, not energizing that representation. Politely say “no thank you” to that mechanism & gingerly place its suggestions on the ground. In the language of NLWV, I noticed this perturbation, but I let it play out & be gone instead of batting down the ripples of the pond. Very anicca-flavored protocol, very familiar to me from meditative experience.

I found I had this ability with all sorts of mental mechanisms. I’m generally mindful of & moderately good at this, but it was cranked up to 11. I had great control over which facets of experience I did or didn’t engage with. If I had a thought about work-related stress, or guilt over lapses in my exercise hygiene, or anxiety about my thumb (which has a damaged ligament), I could so easily say “It’s not skillful for me to engage with & feed this story right now. Now’s not the time.” Strong equanimity. In this sense, I felt ease with & authority over which representations composed how much of my awareness. This is one sort of skill that samatha meditation cultivates, I think. It makes me realize how much I’ve slipped w.r.t. this skill over the past few years, once my life started going well & started growing more complacent.

So, in that moment, I found it easy to cold-shoulder those nagging feelings tugging me out of animal-pleasure-mind. I was able to let myself indulge in the luxuries I’ve cultivated for myself, without shame, which is actually really hard for me usually. I struggle with strong guilt about deserving any success or happiness I achieve. This is something I know I need to work on — being blissful when it is skillful to feel bliss; suffering when it is skillful to suffer.

Speaking of that equanimity, I’ve made a lot of progress towards “skillful sex” (lol), sexual dysphoria being a central theme of my journey from androgenic to estrogenic libido. Allowing your mind to cloud is always a great way to derail sexual pleasure or orgasm, so I’m happy to pick up more skills here.

Anyway, after a while of this, it felt like a good time to pack it up & let the afterglow run its course, starting to integrate the experience. So I put on some music (Strange Diary by Psychic Twin), lay down, & chilled for a while, eventually turning on a light-complexity video & eating some snacky food (which I typically avoid). I took 0.5 mg clonazepam to help still my mind. This XP kept me up till about 2am, but once I lay down to sleep, it didn’t take too long.

[T + 1 day]

I awoke & got up with ease, which is unusual for me. Perhaps residual stimulation combined with the benzo wearing off during the night, but this is also a known fruit of metta meditation which I’ve cultivated for long periods in the past, so this is something I’ll keep an eye on next time. Metta is something that I’ve practiced skillfully before and it’s at the top of my priority list for improving my meditation hygiene.

Mentally, I feel good. I took my standard 10 mg adderall & 300 mg gabapentin after waking, and I’ve had the energy & focus (and desire!) to write this report, which has taken several hours lol.

I do also have this sensation of being drained, too. It’s hard to explain because it’s not really valence-negative or preventing me from action. It kind of feels like a flatness; my closest approximation is not a recreational drug or crash but how I feel if I’m late with my estrogen injection. But in any case, I do know I need to have patience with & take care of myself today.

Conclusion

Damn! This bliss-stick is extremely powerful — not just in terms of how powerful its psychedelic grasp is, but in terms of the applicability of that power. I can see DMT helping me smooth out all sorts of specific (tactics-level) things about my life, and deliberately integrate all sorts of content, in addition to the sheer spiritual blastoff effects. A central theme in this XP is that feel of rounding out “angular” points of tension in mental representations, slipping down those parsimony gradients, massaging the joints of your mind.

I do get the strong intuition that this is a substance to be taken seriously. I won’t be using it casually… (well, for the most part. We’ll see). It’s funny to me that I tried so many drugs so many years ago before finally trying DMT, but I’m honestly glad I’m getting to know the crown jewel at this point in my life, with many different avenues of life experience to synthesize for interpretation & integration.

My cart is running fairly low. I’ll be getting more. I think if I had really gone for it right away, I would have had a breakthrough, so I’ll probably go for it soon 😊

Peace! 💜

Related trip report by Cube Flipper (pseudonym of an anonymous reader):

Vaping the Genderfluid: Exploring Gender Identity on DMT

Some background on me: I’m in my early thirties, AMAB, somewhere on the autism spectrum (which mostly manifests as skin sensory issues), and a long time Qualia Computing reader.

Sometime last year, my “egg cracked”, to use the parlance of our day. I’d read in the past how autism and gender dysphoria were heavily correlated. I revisited events from my past and decided it was worth exploring whether or not some of my experiences could be explained by gender dysphoria. I suspected that leaning into a more feminine gender identity might feel more comfortable and help me to “vibe” better.

I shaved my legs, got my ears pierced, and started adopting a more feminine identity internally. This felt not unlike flipping a Necker cube on myself from masculine to feminine. I figured out how to see a more female face in the mirror. I started to move differently. I experimented with my voice. I would mostly do this in social settings, though I’m not sure how noticeable it was from the outside.

I even spent three months on estrogen at one point, hoping that its use would help with my sensory issues (it did), before discontinuing its use for a number of unrelated reasons. The phenomenological effects were too numerous to go into detail here; I hope to write up a detailed “HRT trip report” at a later date. Long story short, I found estrogen to be anti-dissociative – like the opposite of ketamine (this assessment is informed by Zinnia Jones’ writeup comparing the effects of HRT with Lamotrigine). My senses felt more tightly integrated – less skin sensitivity, less “noise”, less annoying prediction errors – it was euphoric.

However, my gender identity still felt in flux, unstable. I wasn’t even sure ‘identity’ was a real thing – what is the qualia of identity?

Anyway, I recently gained access to a DMT vape pen, and have been using it on a daily basis to perform a low level annealing on myself, usually in the mornings after a bit of exercise.

I should describe my practice: I lie down, remove any uncomfortable clothing, and ensure my body is relaxed and in a symmetrical position with no muscles under tension. I take one or two puffs on the vape pen – not enough to see more than faint visuals – but enough to feel the bodily vibrations arise, settle, and crystallise throughout my body. I should be clear that my gender identity was not the focus of these experiences, high valence and annealing was.

Source: Lehar’s 2003 Cartoon Epistemology

I am a believer in Leharian force fields: Our sense of touch, bodily awareness, and space is embedded in something like a three-dimensional vector field. As we experience various stressors throughout our daily lives, various contractions, foldings, and distortions can work their way into the “force fields” which guide the way we move and the way we direct our attention. When I smoke DMT like this, I sometimes feel these contractions unfold themselves. This can be kind of unsettling at the time, but in the wake of these experiences I notice my awareness is more expanded and I feel I am navigating a much smoother, less crumpled “possibility space” as I go about my life. Notably, these “unfoldings” don’t tend to happen a second time after vaping DMT again afterwards.

Additionally, colours felt more vivid, and my senses felt brighter – not unlike how I felt on estrogen!

I continued this practice for perhaps a couple of weeks. Something I began to notice was that I was no longer flipping the Necker cube on myself; I was no longer bothering to lean into the feminine identity I had been experimenting with in social settings.

I theorise that the annealing process had drawn my self-model – a giant tree of priors – back towards the stable attractor of my pre-existing masculine identity. Imagine tuning the parameters on a slightly distorted Sierpinski pyramid, bringing it into alignment with itself. I felt comfortable with my masculinity again.

I hope nobody misunderstands me, I don’t mean to say that if you are transgender DMT can draw you back to a pre-transition identity. Quite the contrary, I think DMT can grant you the bandwidth necessary to assess which identity feels most internally robust to you. It’s quite likely that estrogen also can give you the boost required to explore and stabilise your sense of identity.

I had fun exploring my feminine side, and there’s parts of that experience which still stick with me; I still wear earrings and I still shave my legs (because it feels good… and it helps deal with sensory issues). I may yet return to these experiences someday.

I’d discussed these experiences with Andrés a couple of days ago, and we both ran across u/ClarifyingCard’s spectacular writeup today. I hope she continues to enjoy the benefits of DMT!

See also:

And other high-quality qualia-rich trip reports:

Featured image source: Topics in nonlinear wave theory by G B Whitham (1979)