Chasing academic chimeras in the pursuit of exceptional experiences

2025 as the year of dream temples, salamanders, psychedelics and sawing children in half..

I’ve finally found some time between winding down work, festive family activities, and revving back up again to reflect on 2025 work-wise. It was a year of some significant landmarks and changes that I have not had much time to announce.. so much for Subtacking my way through 2025.

One such achievement is that after what seems like an aeon at the coal face of academia I have finally been promoted to (full) professor; an enigmatic pole star on the career ladder guiding the way over so many years, and one that has been hard earned, subterraneanly yearned, and painfully learned as an exercise in persistence and patience with what can seem like the glacially slow institutional pace of the academy - with the constant thawing out and melting of one’s motivations and drive amid overload and burnout across three decades.

The real eschatological light at the end of the tunnel, or driving telos of all academics, of course, is not some lofty title or accolades, but the constant pursuit of one’s intellectual intrigues and obsessions - the problems we wish to solve or at least better understand, and the niche recesses of reality we wish to illuminate. Mine has been one that many might find too ‘other’ to be of much use, and possibly too quant and impractical, and that is the pursuit of a deeper understanding of the anomalies of consciousness, and those sojourns beyond time and space, beyond our objective comprehension, and engaged with some subjective mystery, magic or the sublime. Wishing to both acknowledge the transdisciplinary nature of this pursuit and to showcase the existence of a long neglected subject matter I have therefore chosen to be named as (I think the first ever) Professor of Exceptional Experience, rather than merely a professor of psychology or some derivation thereof, making a very conscious nod towards the concept of exceptional human experiences.

Simultaneous, to the the new title, I have also taken up a research-only role for the next few years, having been awarded the position of Perrott-Warrick Senior Researcher - an old, obscure and prestigious award administered to just two or three scholars every decade or so through Trinity College, Cambridge, for the specific and sole pursuit of parapsychological research. The project will explore the largely overlooked area of dream precognition, using well controlled experimental protocols, and be the first such study to specifically use groups of lucid dreamers to do so, and it will also help unpack some of the unique psychological qualities that this practice can unlock.

In assuming this new role I have, after almost three decades of near continuous HE teaching roles, now relinquished my lecturing duties at both the University of Greenwich and the Alef Trust for the time being, although I am still supervising some PhD students. This includes passing on my leadership of the Psychology of Exceptional Human Experience undergraduate module that I began in 2009, now in the capable hands of Agnese Venskus and my brilliant ex-PhD student Pascal Michael. I am deeply indebted to the thousands of students I have taught over the years for everything they have also taught me, and for being willing and open to explore the mysteries of consciousness without prejudice. This has been a real honour.

In concert with the research role I have now also launched the Psychedelic and Exceptional Experience Lab (PEEL), to specifically explore the weirder side of human experience, alongside a growing number of fantastic colleagues at the University of Greenwich, such as Martha Newson, Pascal Michael, Iryana Mosina, etc, and collaborators elsewhere, including co-researchers of the Challenging Psychedelic Experience Project including mighty substacker Jules Evans, and Prof Oliver Robinson, Dr Ros McAlpine, Eirini Argyri, and many others

The new lab will be seeking to expand its current activities, attract funding, and collaborate more broadly on studies exploring the far flung antipodes of the mind. Please do get in touch if you have projects you would like to see researched, can fund, or wish to team up with us on.

In reflection, 2025 has been a year of transition and growth, but has also been one of continued activities. In many ways it has been a relatively quiet year, and in giving only 35 external invited lectures I have almost halved my usual annual quota, in an effort to slow down the pace of travel and work a little. Although, I have also given over a dozen seperate interviews for print media (including, BBC, Wired, Vice, Salon, Popular Mechanics, The Observer, Daily Mail, Double Blind, and IFLScience) and 4 BBC Radio 4 shows, as well as numerous podcasts and forthcoming documentaries.

I’ve also been lucky enough to co-author several published papers too with many great scholars, all on psychedelics, with one paper led by emerging early career academic Eirini Argyri on ‘ontological shock’ that was selected by PLOS One editors from among tens of thousands this year as a stand out paper in medicine. Not all efforts immediately materialise however, and a 30,000-word book proposal and sample of writing exploring the psychedelic bridge between the shamanic and the scientific has been widely reviewed and praised by several major publishers, but still awaits a deal…

There’s lot more besides, but in an ever accelerating pace of life, I am increasingly appreciating.. slowing down.. and making time for important activities outside of work, and in giving over enough time to continue to equally co-parent my amazing daughter, and, in doing so, accidentally becoming the doula and carer of 23 baby axolotls (most of which have thankfully been rehomed) - a species of epically regenerative salamander which has only 300 in number living still in the wild. Also I have greatly appreciated spending more time in nature, and in the ongoing (and very slow) project of building a dream temple in our ancient woodlands in the High Weald, rekindling some of the ancient traditions of healing and the origins of Western medicine.

The last week of 2025 also randomly and unexpectedly unlocked a new sub-personality in me too, when, with a day’s warning I stepped up to the challenge of creating and performing as that dark and most gory magician, Rainbow Unicorn Pony, for the kids’ open mic day at our community house, and produced (convincing) bloody severed limbs and extremities, made two people temporarily disappear, and got to saw my daughter in half with a large two-handed timber saw.. and put her back together again. This might actually develop into a whole new career angle… though probably not.

In any case, here’s to 2026 and whatever magic it may bring. It’s an ill wind that blows no minds.