WHAT IS A PHARMACEUTICAL AUTOPSYCHOGNOSIA SESSION?

§1. The procedure for a pharmaceutical autopsychognosia session, i.e. a deep psychotherapy session with psychedelic drugs is mainly an exercise in memory, since the basic Pharmacodynamic action of the psychedelic drug Ketamine, in doses of between 0.6 and 1.5 mg per kg of body weight, is to reactivate memory traces from the recent and distant past.

§2. A theoretical effort to understand the mechanism by which memory traces operate: Any experience on the part of an R - the excitation of his body by any stimuli whatever - consists of a total of various forms of energy (e.g. optical, acoustic, mechanical, electromagnetic, etc.) which excite his body. The result is various subjective experiences which are characterised by senses, feelings, emotions, thoughts, motor reactions, etc. The R has the ability to recall a specific past experience, through the operation of the memory. The bioneurophysio-logical process which results in the function of the memory is un known, but even without any experimental proof, we can accept that each particular experience, i.e. the total stimuli which constitute the experience in question, leaves specific traces of memory which are retained in the R's body and that the reactivation of these memory traces causes the experience which generated. them to be recalled or re-lived. That is, a specific experience can be relived more fully through reactivation of the memory traces of the feelings, emotions, thoughts, sense and motor reactions which accompanied the experience in question. Under these conditions, the reliving of the experience takes place with emotional and physical synchronisation and leaves the R without the least doubt that what he relived was real.

However, it must be understood that the reliving of events from the past during pharmaceutical autopsychognosia sessions is not always a clear-cut, transparent process. The reliving of events does not always happen with emotional and physical synchronisation, in a manifest and obvious way. Often the events of the past and psychological questionings become perceptible through symbolic images. In one case, the R, as an observer and not as himself, observed the reliving of an experience, since it was strongly psychotraumatic to him; the R refused to relive the experience himself and preferred to watch it as a spectator. Of course in such a case no clinical cure is possible.

In certain patients, doses of 0.8 to 1.5 mg per kg of body weight can cause the simultaneous reactivation of many memory traces from different times resulting in a state of confusion. This type of reaction was handled by reducing the dosage of Ketamine in the following session.

§3. Along general lines, it can be said that the way in which the past is relived during autopsychognosia sessions depends on many factors. They include:

•    The degree of experience on the part of the psychiatrist permitting him to regulate the dosage of the psychedelic drug according to the progress of previous sessions.

•    The psychiatrist must adopt the principle that in patient psychiatrist relations, the primary role is played by the patient while the psychiatrist plays the role of supporting doctor. This means that the psychiatrist is NOT the all-knowing psychoanalyst who provides an intellectual interpretation of the causes of a patient's mental disturbance and psychological questionings. The interpretation in question is the exclusive responsibility of the patient himself, who will become emotionally aware - either directly by himself or indirectly through the appropriate questions by the supporting psychiatrist - of the cause and development mechanism of his illness and unhealthy behaviour.

•    From the degree of the R's emotional awareness that he is resisting and that on an unconscious level he is suppressing the favourable progress of the sessions because of his various fears, the most customary of which are:

(a) The fear of reliving a deeply psychotraumatic and fearproducing experience.

(b) The fear that the Sessions will change his personality to such a degree that the people he loves will stop loving him. However strange it may seem, some patients react adversely to their improved condition and present an anti-session tactic, i.e. a tactic of rejecting the sessions. A typical example is the following:

A young man of 19 years old who was presenting highly satisfactory emotional realisations as to the cause of his homosexual behaviour, after the 5th session, took part in a free discussion with another five patients about the progress of their sessions. During the discussions he spoke enthusiastically about the amazing - as he described them - realisations they had produced. You will understand how I felt when, at the end of the free discussion, he approached me aggressively and said: "I'm tired of you! ... you've been driving me crazy with the womb... with the embryos that are rejected... with the sessions... with everything". Forty-eight hours later he confessed that when he felt as though his improvement was leading him to heterosexual activity, he panicked. On an unconscious level, the idea of having sex with a woman terrified him, generating in him the feeling of an imminent, terrible death.

§4. The necessary condition for the success of a Session is that:

• The R neutralise his unconscious reaction against reliving his agonisingly painful rejecting past.

•    That he neutralise his resistance against externalising any thoughts, fantasies or emotions to the supporting doctor. Before being given the psychedelic drug, the R is on an everyday level of awareness which, interalia, is characterised by: (1) The subjective feeling-awareness of his existential identity. (2) The subjective feeling-awareness of his physical identity. (3) The subjective feeling-awareness of the unity of his existential identity with his body. Observation: there are people who are under the impression that their body is something foreign which does not belong to them and which they do not control.

(4) The subjective feeling-awareness of the ordinary external environment, i.e. the perception-assessment of the biological significance of the stimuli which excite the R. But we have observed that the process in question, when analysed more deeply, is mainly a memory process since the stimuli of the present have the ability to reactivate the memory traces of experiences from the past.

Observation: The everyday level of awareness is differentiated by certain factors among which are (a) sleep, (b) mental or physical illness, (c) head injury, concussion, (d) meditation, (e) sessions with psychedelic drugs, (f) long, deep breaths, repeated frequently, (g) various stimuli from the external environment which affect the R emotionally, etc.

Note: Autopsychognosia experiences argue in favour of the hypothesis that R's awareness of his existential identity results from the operation of a form of matter the quality of which is inconceivable to the human mind and which is enclosed within the R's body as long as he is alive. 34

§5. After the administration of the psychedelic drug, it is possible that the following changes and differentiations may be observed in the R's everyday awareness of life:

• Increased ability to perceive and evaluate stimuli from the present external environment.

• Increased ability to engage in self-examination, self-observation and self-criticism.

• Severance of communication between the existential identity and the everyday external environment and:

(a) reliving, with emotional and physical synchronisation, the various experiences of the past, e.g. experiences from childhood, infancy, expulsion-birth, intrauterine life, ancestors on the genealogical chart, and/or

(b) experience of transcendental experiences in relation to the cosmic space or in relation to the creation and origin of the matter that constitutes the R's body (matter retains the memory of its origin and of the various phases of its growth) 35 .

§6. The progress of a session with the psychedelic drug Ketamine (in doses of 0.6-1.5 mg per kg of weight) usually has three phases.

First phase: Starts about three to five minutes after the injection. The existential identity has cut off its communication with the everyday external environment, has been detached from the body and is moving within "another world".

Note: In sessions with psychedelic drugs, some Rs have re ported feeling their existential identity being detached from their bodies but remaining in the space of the everyday external environment and watching, as an observer, their discussions with the supporting doctor.

For each R, this "other world" is a subjective experience which he is capable of describing only in part, since the human vocabulary is very poor and inadequate to describe such experiences. In other words, it is impossible for people to understand from descriptions what exactly an autopsychognosia session is unless they themselves go through this process. Generally speaking, it can be said that during a session with psychedelic drugs, the R recalls/relives events, feelings, thoughts, fantasies and symbolic images from the recent and distant past which have constituted the causes of his mental disturbance. The supporting doctor must know that (as mentioned above), there are two types of recalling/reliving: In the first type, the recalling/reliving of the psychotraumatic events takes place with physical and emotional synchronisation, i.e. the R literally relives the past 36. It should be emphasised that this type of reliving leads to a reduction in the intensity of the mental disturbance in daily life. In the second type, the recalling/reliving of the psychotraumatic events takes place in the form of symbolic images which the R watches as an observer, but without participating emotionally. The reason is easy to understand: the R is afraid and resists reliving the painful psychotraumatic experience which is terrifying and agonising. Of course, in this case the intensity of the mental disturbance remains unchanged in daily life. This first phase lasts for about 45-120 minutes. Throughout the first phase, the supporting doctor should remain silent. Only in the event that the patient asks for help in dealing with the terror that overcomes him should the supporter take the R's hand.   If the R asks for the session to be discontinued, 50 mg of Sparine or 25 mg of Chloropromazine is administered intramuscularly; if the patient is intensely excited for two hours, then we end the session.

Second phase, the phase of realisations: During this phase, the R returns gradually to the level of everyday awareness. Frequently there is a sudden change in the R between the first and second phases, i.e. the pharmacodynamic action of Keta mine begins working in the psychic sphere. The sudden change between the first and second phase takes place either automatically or with an effort by a "co-operative" patient. The result is to increase the unconscious material which he becomes aware of and the further deepening of his understanding of his psychological problems.

During the second phase, the supporting doctor reminds the R of certain phrases the latter has uttered during the first phase and encourages him to recall and comment on them. In this way, the patient can become aware of the primary motives for his feelings-emotions and behaviour. The experience of the supporting doctor will help only in selecting appropriate phrases from the many spoken by the R during the Session and which will constitute the spark triggering profound realisations. Here it should be stressed that the supporting doctor simply repeats the same words used by the patient. The supporting doctor neither uses other words nor expresses his own opinions nor gives his own interpretation about the content of the session.

Third phase: In this phase, the patient has fully returned to the level of conscious daily life. It is recommended that he re main lying down and if he can, he should sleep. If he feels nauseous, he should remain in a horizontal position and refrain from drinking water.

34 ((Beyond the boundaries of the womb , A Cosmological Hypotheses))

35 «The Knowledge of the Womb» p.142,§21

36«The Knowledge of the Womb», Part I, Excerpts from and summaries of histories and pharmaceutical autopsychognosia sessions