Andy Letcher - Lost for words: are psychedelic experiences actually ineffable?

Ineffability, the assertion that a psychedelic experience cannot be adequately communicated in words, has become a standard diagnostic measurement in modern psychedelic research. Through established scales and questionnaires, states of consciousness are often quantified by their perceived indescribability. This reductionist approach limits the nuance required to understand subjective psychedelic phenomenology and mirrors outdated western philosophical frameworks concerning mystical experience. Researchers should move away from imposing predefined categories onto informants, instead prioritizing ethnographic methods, such as allowing people to describe their experiences using their own language, and by considering prosody and non-verbal cues. This approach reveals a richer, more diverse spectrum of experience, countering the overly simplistic focus on ineffability alone.