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Psychedelics take us to a higher state of consciousness, or do they? In this talk, Dr. Mediano argues that while states of diminished consciousness (such as non-dream sleep or anaesthesia) are associated with lower levels of both entropy and integrated information in the brain, this relationship between these two key indicators of consciousness breaks down under psychedelics. Instead, drugs like LSD and DMT cause a unique type of brain state with higher entropy yet lower integrated information. Combining insights from cutting-edge theories like IIT, Dr. Mediano explores how psychedelic phenomenology could arise from this unique combination of brain state properties. He argues that psychedelics don’t just take us to a “higher” level of consciousness, but to a completely different kind of conscious state altogether.
