Our readership continues to grow, and people continue to buy me coffee cacti. I’m genuinely touched by this as well as the messages of support I’ve gotten. I know money isn’t everything, but if I can write stuff that resonates enough for people to make a contribution, especially when I have less than a hundred subscribers, I figure I must be doing something right.

In this issue:

• Can psychedelics change mental imagery?

• Did PAT just get more accessible in Australia?

• If symbols don’t have meaning do they have to stay that way?

• Why do we need to know about opioid overdose?

For all this, plus some blatant self-promotion and an event that’s gone under the radar, read on!

Table of Contents

1. Industry Insights:

   1. Psychedelics, diversity, and surviving the pandemi …

   2. Medibank, Incannex and the non-profit that shall n …

2. Philosophical Brief: Asemic Languages and Referenc …

3. Consultancy Corner: Opioid Overdose

   1. Learn the symptoms of opioid overdose:

4. Other News: EGA!

5. Bonus Event: Using Plants As Medicine

Industry Insights:

Psychedelics, diversity, and surviving the pandemic

Psychedelic research was a mixed bag this fortnight. There were some papers that were great, some that replicated what we already knew, and some that, in my opinion, reflected poorly on the journals that published them. These are what I felt was worth reading:

Rebecchi, 2025 is what I think is possibly the most interesting paper of the past fortnight. It documents the case of autistic woman with aphantasia (the absence of mental imagery), and how she developed the capacity for vastly increased visualisation after relatively little use of psychedelics. Yes, it’s a one off case, so we can’t infer too much, but it’s exciting to consider that the ability to visualise mental images may not be as static as previously thought. The author of this paper also deserves praise for their excellent discussions around language use, and their efforts to not represent the subject’s cognitive difference as an inherent deficit.

Lancelotta et al, 2025, found that ‘psychedelic experiences may positively impact mental health and facilitate identity exploration in LGBTQIA+ individuals.’ Importantly, this research addresses a notable gap in the literature because it focuses on the experiences of gender and sexual minorities in naturalistic settings. (One more nail in the ‘clinical only’ coffin!)

Bălăeţ et al 2025 confirms what many of us suspected: people who used psychedelics and cannabis over 2020-2022 showed improvement in areas such as depression, anxiety and overall mental health. Interestingly (but not a huge surprise) people who used other drugs, including cannabis by itself, did not experience these same improvements.