Relation between Psychedelic and Transcendental Experiences
International Journal of Psychological Studies November 1, 2022 Frederick Travis
Psychedelic experiences and transcendental experiences during meditation are fundamentally different across five dimensions: EEG patterns (gamma vs alpha), brain blood-flow (decreased vs higher frontal), content of experience (intense mental/emotional vs content-free self-awareness), mechanism of action (influenced by set and setting vs transcending them), and therapeutic application. Therefore, equating the two or using findings from one to justify the other is inaccurate. Both areas merit careful research, but their results should not be superficially combined.