People who microdosed psilocybin on their own reported loosening of mental structures, such as less intense thoughts and a more tangential stream of consciousness, along with increased sensitivity to external stimuli that could make mundane activities more interesting or lead to sensory overload. Flexible cognition increased while stable cognition decreased, and some ego-dystonic contents emerged. The experience was appraised more positively in highly structured environments. Momentary assessments and retrospective interviews gave different accounts, highlighting the need for systematic mixed methods studies to characterize the lived experience of low-dose psilocybin.
Ruminations are persistent, repetitive, distressing thoughts about negative events and moods, linked to psychiatric disorders and suicidality. This study provides a detailed description of ruminating from a lifeworld perspective, using micro-phenomenological interviews with 51 participants (107 interviews, 79 episodes). Ruminating is an epistemic practice driven by a need to resolve uncertainty after a collapse of commonsense understanding, leading to intellectualization and detachment from embodied responses. It involves paralysis, emptiness, and problematic relationships with knowledge. Rather than a maladaptive thought pattern, ruminating constitutes a complex lifeworld, suggesting a reconceptualization from a unified symptom to a system of interrelated altered experiences.