Are people really using AI to ‘sit’ with them while they trip on psychedelics?
“Some people believe chatbots like ChatGPT can provide an affordable alternative to in-person psychedelic-assisted therapy. Many experts say it’s a bad idea.
Peter sat alone in his bedroom as the first waves of euphoria coursed through his body like an electrical current. He was in darkness, save for the soft blue light of the screen glowing from his lap. Then he started to feel pangs of panic. He picked up his phone and typed a message to ChatGPT. “I took too much,” he wrote.
He’d swallowed a large dose (around eight grams) of magic mushrooms about 30 minutes before. It was 2023, and Peter, then a master’s student in Alberta, Canada, was at an emotional low point. His cat had died recently, and he’d lost his job. Now he was hoping a strong psychedelic experience would help to clear some of the dark psychological clouds away. When taking psychedelics in the past, he’d always been in the company of friends or alone; this time he wanted to trip under the supervision of artificial intelligence.
Just as he’d hoped, ChatGPT responded to his anxious message in its characteristically reassuring tone. “I’m sorry to hear you’re feeling overwhelmed,” it wrote. “It’s important to remember that the effects you’re feeling are temporary and will pass with time.” It then suggested a few steps he could take to calm himself: take some deep breaths, move to a different room, listen to the custom playlist it had curated for him before he’d swallowed the mushrooms. (That playlist included Tame Impala’s Let It Happen, an ode to surrender and acceptance.)
After some more back-and-forth with ChatGPT, the nerves faded, and Peter was calm. “I feel good,” Peter typed to the chatbot. “I feel really at peace.”
A growing number of people are using AI chatbots as “trip sitters”—a phrase that traditionally refers to a sober person tasked with monitoring someone who’s under the influence of a psychedelic—and sharing their experiences online. It’s a potent blend of two cultural trends: using AI for therapy and using psychedelics to alleviate mental-health problems. But this is a potentially dangerous psychological cocktail, according to experts. While it’s far cheaper than in-person psychedelic therapy, it can go badly awry.”
The above is an excerpt from an article in the MIT Technology Review which was published today. The title pulled me in with curiosity, and as I read it, it just felt all sorts of wrong. I get it, I come from the technology space for the last 15 years. I am intrigued with the opportunities around AI, but to leverage it during such a powerful transformational experience - is just not a good idea in any regard.
Let’s first consider the energetic field in which you move into which speaks directly to the ineffable dimension of the psilocybin experience. While words can only point to it, many seasoned psychonauts and healers describe the energetic field of a psilocybin journey as a shift into a more expansive, connected, and nonlinear state of consciousness. Having devices turned on, like a phone or accessing a laptop would surely affect that experience.
And, if you enter this experience for healing and personal transformation, then going inward best supports that process. Going inward means that one would typically wear an eye mask or covering to eliminate any external stimuli so you are only left with what comes up in your own mind. Part of this process allows for the quieting of the Default Mode Network, and if you are focused externally, this may not necessarily occur and cause you to start thinking and writing stories. Being focused externally, if unintentional, is a typical way to distract yourself from going deep and doing the work. So, imagine sitting there engaging with an electronic device, typing questions, and reading responses - you are really not putting yourself in the best opportunity for the healing you are seeking. You are still in the thinking mind.
Part of the role of a facilitator or trip sitter, is to hold space for you. This was explored in a recent article entitled “Only as much work as you’ve done yourself.” ChatGPT is definitely not filling this support role of holding space. The human connection is needed to feel witnessed and know that you are safe, in set and setting. Besides, if for some reason medical attention is needed, or something happens while you are under, I definitely don’t see ChatGPT taking action to ensure your safety.
Also, while under the influence, if a challenging experience arises, you may want to connect with your facilitator for support such as a hug, hand hold or even the opportunity to be provided a re-frame or a gentle re-direct of inviting you to go back inwards. In the MIT article it expressed how ChatGPT was providing feedback, as opposed to a re-direct which is asserting opinion or feedback not based on your own curiosity or discovery through the experience. If we are preventing ourselves from being able to identify our patterns, blocks and self-limiting beliefs and waiting to be given answers from ChatGPT - then why do this experience at all.
Another big one is the somatic experience. If you are sitting there engaged with ChatGPT, and in the thinking mind, you likely will not allow yourself to have a somatic experience. Emotions, trauma and the like are stuck energies in the body that can be unlocked while under a psychedelic experience - but not if you are thinking, typing and engaging. For the experience to really open and achieve the many benefits, it is necessary to get into your body and feel. Feel it and work with the energy. Some things you can’t just work through in thought alone.
If you are truly focused on personal transformation, put yourself in the best position of support and success. Use a facilitator or tripsitter for support. Psychedelics have been incorporated into healing since before the times of the Pharaohs in Egypt and I can tell you they didn’t have ChatGPT. Learn from indigenous knowledge and ensure that you move into such an experience with a sound “set and setting” and not looking outward leveraging technology.