Functional neuroimaging of psychedelic experience: An overview of psychological and neural effects and their relevance to research on creativity, daydreaming, and dreaming

TL;DR

This paper reviews functional neuroimaging studies of psychedelics, exploring their psychological and neural effects and their relevance to understanding creativity, daydreaming, and dreaming.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of neuroimaging findings on psychedelics and links these effects to broader cognitive processes like creativity and dreaming.

Findings

Psychedelics significantly alter brain activity patterns.

Neuroimaging reveals shared neural mechanisms with daydreaming and dreaming.

Psychedelic effects have implications for understanding creativity.

Abstract

Humans have employed an incredible variety of plant-derived substances over the millennia in order to alter consciousness and perception. Among the innumerable narcotics, analgesics, 'ordeal' drugs, and other psychoactive substances discovered and used in ritualistic contexts by cultures around the world, one class in particular stands out not only for its radical psychological effects, but also for the highly charged political and legal atmosphere that has surrounded it since its widespread adoption about 50 years ago: so-called psychedelic substances. We review functional neuroimaging investigations of the neural correlates of the psychedelic experience, and highlight relationships with the psychological and neural bases of creativity, daydreaming, and dreaming.