Priming

Priming occurs when an individual's expectation of a stimulus taints the experience of a stimulus. For example, exposing someone to the word "yellow" will evoke a faster response to the word "banana" than it would to unrelated words like "television." Because yellow and banana are more closely linked in memory, people respond faster when the second word is presented.

Figure 1. Coffer Ambiguous Figure - 16 squares aligned horizontally.

Another example is this picture to the right that contains 16 squares aligning horizontally called the Coffer Ambiguous Figure (See Figure 1). Which would also show 16 circles aligned horizontally if you head this statement the other way around (click the link for an explanation).

Psychedelic Priming

When people take a psychedelic a neuroplastic state develops suggestivity increases and the user can be nudged via priming in a positive direction. This can be used by therapists in a clinical setting administering psychedelics by utilising the Pygmalion effect, which is a psychological phenomenon in which high expectations lead to improved performance in a given area.

Psychedelic Repriming

A tragedy of the War on Drugs is that psychedelics have been erroneously labelled as all bad. As there is a potential for difficult, challenging material to arise and present itself to the psyche this priming can make thing worse so this must primarily be addressed. One way to effectively do this is to reprogram oneself from the hullabaloo surrounding the War on Drugs and start to absorb the more rigorous, referenced scientific information about psychedelics presented on this site.

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References