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It is well-known in clinical psychopharmacology that a good ques- tionnaire is more sensitive than any biological factor in assessing drug effects. In other words, a well-designed rating scale is better than mea- surements of blood pressure, heart rate, or hormone levels in distinguishing doses of a drug, or different types of drugs, from each other. I hoped that the HRS would follow in that tradition, and this it did without difficulty. We were better able to separate responses to various doses of DMT, or the effects of combining DMT with other drugs, using HRS scores than by measuring changes in any biological variable, including all the cardio- vascular and blood hormone data. However. it also validated the wisdom and strength of the Buddhist approach to mental states. Clifford Qualls, Ph.D., the Research Center biostatisticitan, and | grouped together HRS questions using the “clinical cluster” or skandha method and compared this method of analysis to a large number of alter- native purely statistical models. The Abhidharma’s technique was as good as, if not superior to, ones developed solely upon mathematical consider- ations. Since the computer-derived classification of results was no better than the clinieal cluster one, and since using the skandhas made more sense intuitively, the Buddhist classification system won out. Other groups have since used the HRS and confirmed its usefulness in measuring other Buddhism also helped me make sense of people’s DMT sessions. Its far- reaching perspective includes all experiences: spiritual, near-death, and even n nonmaterial or invisible realms. However, I did come up against two serious limitations in my lack of Buddhist education. How was I to respond to a volunteer who spoke as if she or he just had undergone a drug-induced spiritual experience? Was it a “real” enlight- enment or not? As detailed in chapter 16, “Mystical States,” these sessions certainly left me feeling as if something deeply profound had happened. And there was no question on the volunteers’ part that they had under- gone the deepest and most profound experience of their lives. However, it was beyond my training and expertise to determine the validity or 300 * TAKING PAUSE The results were remarkable. altered states of consciousness, drug-induced and otherwise.*