Salvia divinorum induces body awareness changes comparable to metamorphic symptoms in the Alice in Wonderland syndrome

Jan M Keppel Hesselink

doi:10.15761/csrr.1000119

Abstract

Salvia divinorum induces body awareness changes comparable to metamorphic symptoms in the Alice in Wonderland syndrome

Highlights

Following the synthesis of LSD by Albert Hoffmann in 1938, the pharmaceutical company Sandoz introduced the compound as a commercial drug under the trade-name ‘Delysid’ for various psychiatric indications in 1947, and psychiatrists started using it to better understand the mind of the schizophrenic patient.We discovered that Salvinorin A (methyl (2S,4aR,6aR,7R,9S,10aS,10bR)9-acetyloxy-2-(furan-3-yl)-6a,10b-dimethyl-4,10-dioxo-2,4a,5,6,7,8,9,10aoctahydro-1H-benzo[f]isochromene-7-carboxylate), a strong psychedelic diterpene in Salvia divinorum (SD), might be of use in better understanding the genesis of aura’s in migraine, but especially the metamorphic symptoms of the Alice in Wonderland syndrome
We discovered that Salvinorin A (methyl (2S,4aR,6aR,7R,9S,10aS,10bR)9-acetyloxy-2-(furan-3-yl)-6a,10b-dimethyl-4,10-dioxo-2,4a,5,6,7,8,9,10aoctahydro-1H-benzo[f]isochromene-7-carboxylate), a strong psychedelic diterpene in SD, might be of use in better understanding the genesis of aura’s in migraine, but especially the metamorphic symptoms of the Alice in Wonderland syndrome
Due to modern psychophysiology research related to our body schema, its perceived modifications as in the phantom phenomena and morphisms, it is hypothised that our central nervous system supports the normal body-awareness, based on the sensomotoric cortical homunculus, and support a more primitive and global neural representation that is responsible for mapping the body schema and the space around it as well, the so called ‘peripersonal space’ [25]

Summary

Introduction

Following the synthesis of LSD by Albert Hoffmann in 1938, the pharmaceutical company Sandoz introduced the compound as a commercial drug under the trade-name ‘Delysid’ for various psychiatric indications in 1947, and psychiatrists started using it to better understand the mind of the schizophrenic patient. For a cluster of certain SD effects, the focus of this paper, we introduce the term ‘metamorphic’, from ‘morph’ (meaning form), and ‘meta’ (meaning change) These metamorphic experiences induced by SD are extremely haptic, interfering with and redefining our body schema, and we suggest referring to these haptic effects as metamorphemes. The SD effects are remarkably similar to the metamorphemes reported in the Alice in Wonderland syndrome, and the genesis of the changing haptic sensations of the body follows a pattern which points to cortical spreading depression in the somatosensory areas of our cortex. Haptic sensations are those relating to the sense of touch and proprioception, as in the sense of the relative position and shape of one’s own parts of the body. We will especially focus on these specific haptic experiences related to a changed awareness of our body and the impressive metamorphic changes in the perceived body schema up to the vanishing of all bodily sensations in the light of modern neuropsychology and related to the aura symptom in migraine, and to the symptoms occurring in the Alice in Wonderland syndrome

Body schema in the Alice in wonderland syndrome

Haptic and body morphing experiences after the use of SD

Pharmacology of Salvinorin A

Discussion