From my Cal Essay in COGSCI 190 - Expanding A Science of Consciousness

Giorgio Samorani appears to reach a related position in his book Animals and Psychedelics. Samorani establishes his central thesis that “drug-induced alteration of consciousness preceded the origin of humans” (Samorani, 2002, p. 78) by noting the pervasiveness of such alterations in animalia and claims that drug-use is best viewed as a primary motivational force in animals that has adaptive evolutionary value. This value may stem from the way drugs can act as depatterning tools that throw consolidated models into disorder by virtue of the way their use “heightens the level of uncertainty and therefore the possibilities of finding new mental pathways, it augments its own entropy”. (Samorani, 2002, p. 79)

Given the observation by Ronald Siegel of “dogs in Hawaii and Mexico deliberately nipping the caps off psilocybin mushrooms and swallowing them”, (Siegel, 2005, p. 68)