Since I was young, I have been intrigued by altered states of consciousness, such as out-of-body experiences, paranormal phenomena and religious visions. I studied psychology and neuroscience to gain a better understanding of how these experiences come about. And in my scientific career, I have focused on the question of why some people are more prone to having these experiences than others.
Naturally, when I came across psychedelic science a couple of years ago, this field also sparked my academic interest. Here was an opportunity to study people who had a psychedelic experience and who claimed to have had a glimpse of ultimate reality. I started to research psychedelic experiences at Leiden University and founded the PRSM lab – a group of scientists from different academic backgrounds who study psychedelic, religious, spiritual and mystical experiences.
