The Psychedelic Frontier, Jan. 22

Q: I keep reading about psychedelics in terms of brain chemistry, serotonin receptors, neuroplasticity, default mode networks. While I appreciate the science, something feels missing when I try to understand my own experiences purely through this lens. During my journeys, I feel like I’m traveling somewhere real, encountering genuine intelligence, receiving teachings that seem to come from beyond my own mind. How do I make sense of the profound “realness” of these experiences when science suggests it’s all happening in my brain?

Your question touches on one of the most profound mysteries in consciousness exploration. You’re absolutely right that something essential gets lost when we reduce these extraordinary experiences to mere neurochemical events. While I deeply respect the scientific approach, it’s given us invaluable insights into safety, therapeutic applications, and mechanisms of action, it represents only one lens through which to understand this vast territory of human experience.

When you describe feeling like you’re “traveling somewhere real,” you’re touching into what many wisdom traditions call cosmo-visions. Entire worldviews that recognize multiple planes of reality existing simultaneously with our ordinary waking consciousness. These aren’t primitive superstitions, but sophisticated understandings of consciousness that have guided human spiritual development for millennia.

From my own journey work and sitting as support for undress of people on their own journeys, I’ve come to understand psychedelic experiences as authentic visits to other planes of reality. Yes, there are measurable brain changes occurring, but what if those changes are simply the biological correlates of consciousness interfacing with dimensions that normally remain hidden from our everyday awareness? The brain might be more like a radio receiver than the source of the transmission.

In these otherworldly realms, we encounter what feels like genuine intelligence, plant spirits, entities, archetypal beings, or simply a vast, loving consciousness that seems to permeate everything. These encounters often carry teachings that feel impossibly wise, coming from sources clearly beyond our personal knowledge or imagination. The rules of these spaces operate differently: time becomes fluid, love becomes a tangible force, and communication happens through direct transmission rather than words.

What strikes me most profoundly is how these journeys consistently guide us back to our authentic self and eternal soul. Beneath the layers of conditioning, trauma, and social programming, we discover something unchanging and luminous, a core essence that feels both deeply personal and universally connected. This isn’t psychological insight alone; it’s a remembering of who we truly are beyond our temporary human identity.

The messages embedded in these realms often center on themes that transcend individual healing: our interconnectedness with all life, the illusion of separation, the primacy of love, and our responsibility as conscious beings in an evolving universe. These aren’t abstract concepts but lived, felt experiences that reorganize our understanding from the inside out.

I’ve watched too many people try to squeeze their experiences into purely materialist explanations, and something vital dies in the translation. The mystery, the reverence, the sense of participating in something sacred, these elements are not mere byproducts but essential aspects of the healing itself.

Yet here’s what feels most important to share: there is no single “correct” way to understand these experiences. Some find deep meaning in seeing them as neurological phenomena. Others, like myself, feel called to honor them as genuine spiritual encounters. Many find truth in both perspectives simultaneously.

What matters is finding a framework that touches your heart and supports your ongoing relationship with this work. Trust your direct experience over anyone else’s theoretical framework. Including mine.

I encourage you to explore different cosmologies and see what resonates. Study how indigenous cultures understand plant medicine journeys. Read about mystical traditions that recognize multiple planes of consciousness. Investigate modern theories about consciousness that go beyond reductionist materialism. But most importantly, sit quietly with your own experiences and let them teach you what they mean.

The psychedelic realms are vast enough to accommodate multiple interpretations without contradiction. Perhaps the most honest answer is that these experiences are simultaneously neurological events, spiritual encounters, psychological processes, and something else entirely that we don’t yet have words for.

Trust the intelligence of your own journey. The medicines will show you what you need to understand, in the way you most need to receive it. Your direct experience is the most reliable guide, more trustworthy than any external authority, including the well-meaning voice behind this column.

The mystery remains mysterious, and perhaps that’s exactly as it should be. In honoring both the science and the sacred, we create space for transformation that touches every dimension of our being.

Questions are encouraged to be sent to mary@myco.vision and free 30-minute consultations for further discussions can be made through her website https://myco.vision

This article appears in the Source January 22, 2026.