Integrating the ineffable: a social phenomenological analysis of the psychedelic experience

There has been a renewed and growing interest in psychedelic drugs in the 21st century. Drawing on social-phenomenology, cognitive sociology, and ‘set and setting’ theory, I delineate how individuals use socially defined frameworks of understanding to attribute meaning to psychedelic experiences. These frameworks refer to the ‘ready-made’ schemes that structure subjective experience of objects, people, and a variety of other phenomena. Hence, I investigate how experiences with psychedelic drugs are meaningfully integrated into everyday understandings of reality. The main question guiding this thesis is: How do users of psychedelic drugs reconcile the experience with everyday waking consciousness and social reality? I attempt to answer this question in three phases that will 1) describe the quality of the psychedelic experience, 2) identify how individuals integrate the experience into everyday life, and 3) outline what these experiences can tell us about the social construction of everyday reality in the United States. This study uses conventional and directed content analysis of accounts originally collected between the years 1960-1964 as part of the Harvard Psilocybin Project. Specifically, I analyze over 200 narrative reports from 100 individuals collected from the Timothy Leary Papers archival collection held at the New York Public Library. These reports recount experiences with psilocybin, mescaline, and LSD. Using this data to describe the character of psychedelic experiences, how individuals integrate these experiences into everyday life, and what constitutes valid knowledge in the United States, I hope to ‘demystify’ the psychedelic experience and generate more useful ways of thinking about psychoactive substances.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Delaware

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Neitzke-Spruill, Logan

DOI

https://doi.org/10.58088/dyjg-0344

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:udspace.udel.edu:19716/26111