As the Ayahuasca ceremony deepened, Gogolewski felt himself pulled to the brink of death, but also felt an encouragement to just let go and jump, he says. Dr. Dave Rabin, Ph.D., a psychiatrist and neuroscientist who studies psychedelics and trauma, believes the disappearance of language in psychedelic states is not a glitch—it’s the point. Michael Valdez, MD, a neurologist, addiction specialist, and medical director of Detox California, agrees that altered states reshape how language functions, but from a different angle. He has spent years trying to find better ways to describe what he experienced in that psychedelic ceremony—and still can’t. “I’m just going to spend the rest of my life trying to figure out better words,” Gogolewski says.