Pardon me for introducing what may be perceived as some irrationality into this thread, but "Tonight, for your edification, and amusement"  I would like to offer some thoughts that I have evolved over the last 20 years of experience with altered mind states that might fly in the face of the current Neurochemical trends.
Some time ago (in the early 90's) I spent quite a bit of time reading up the then-current theories of mechanisms of psychedelic substance actions, I pondered Serotonin agonists, selective reuptake inhibitors and many of the theories of the day regarding "brain function".
Unlike most peoples initial reasoning (very little) before deciding to try mind altering chemicals, I was doing my best by researching to make sure I wasnt about to do anything that could be definitely called monumentally ignorant or stupid.
After spending a good 6 months first reading and absorbing as much as I could find in the early days of the internet, much of the information when taken in context of the whole field, gave me the feeling that the researchers seemed a lot like the pre-periodic table chemists must have felt - recording, cataloging, making endless notes on "substance x when subjected to action y in the prescence of environment Z causes A, B and C to happen", with very little understanding of why, or what A B C meant in terms of actual effect when applied to an entire brain as a whole system.
One comment I read was that each generation of "psychologists" have done their best to understand brain function by comparing it to the most complicated machine system that they know of at that time.
The Greeks believed mood and temperament to be controlled by the "four humours", bile (black and yellow), choler and blood. The personality was determined by the ratio mix of these substances. Melancholic, Phlegmatic etc
In the late 1800's it was steam engines with freudian "build up of pressure", "Blowing off steam", "Sublimation of Urges" and so on...
In the early-to-mid 1900, the new electrical paradigm was applied with nervous systems being "Wires", Nerve "sensors", the brain being a "switching system", Muscle "actuators" and the Frankenstein "electricity bring dead flesh to life" story. Axons, Dendrites and Synapses appeared to be the "new hotness"
In the mid-to-late '1900's, as our chemical engineering prowess developed, neurologists and psychiatrists started pushing the electro-chemical model of the brain, throwing neurotransmitters, histamines and receptors into the pot as well. complicating things further.
Now, with our computer technology, Neural Networks, Fuzzy Logic, and Chaos mathematical principles such as recombinant and emergent behaviour are being jiggled about trying to fit the old gray matter's methods.
Each generation makes its best guess, only for their analogy to be understood as being hopelessly naive by later "better educated" researchers..
It seems to me, that despite centuries of unending speculation, we *still* havent got a very good handle on just how that cubic foot of puzzlingly enigmatic flesh does its thing. I wonder what the *next* model will be ?
Some question whether it is even possible (philosophically) for any intelligence to understand its own method of function. In order to build a watch, you need watchmakers tools and what watch could understand their application and use ?
My own education is in the area of Electronics, and naturally it occured to me that the brain could possibly be a form of biological "Antenna" - receiving the signals from a form of bio-field not yet fully recognised.
Some (some admittedly fringe, but others reasonably well performed from what I have read) research supports this. eg.
Two colonies of genetically near-twin mice were kept on different islands - Over a period of months, one group were trained to navigate mazes, the ones on the other island were not. After some time, it was shown that the untrained mice twins, when exposed to mazes for their first time, solved them in far shorter time than a control group of mice without the tight genetic relation to the remote "taught" mice could. Apparently, learning/information was being passed between the genetically similair mice somehow without any known form of communication taking place.
This experiment was advanced as a point of support for the many "supernatural" communication that is well-known between Human Twins - feeling each others pains, pleasures and so on across huge distances.
Other things I have read about Spiders knowing how to spin-webs, mosquitos knowing how to fly and other "innate" complex behaviours that seem to improbable to be able to be contained purely within the limited chemical storage of DNA and other physical biogenetic transmission methods.
It seems quite likely to me, that there is some form of *presently imperceptible* "field" generated by living things - perhaps a similair phenomenon to the fuzzy "morphogenetic field" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphogenetic_fields - concept, but based on cognition generated waves rather than biological form differentiation..
A "Noosphere" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noosphere - of a sort, although that term has been used by too many mystics for my liking, having undesired connotations and history of quackery.
While this may seem like hopeful whistling in the dark, the mathematical principles of simple rules producing inctricate emergent behaviours are reasonably well understood.
Why then, can there not be something like an underlying "patterning force" driving the organisation of matter into ever-complexifying forms ?
A simple magnet underneath a piece of paper will create amazing patterns in iron filings on the surface of the paper due to the invisible magnetic fields. The Mandelbrot Set - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandelbrot_set - when derived and illuminated by the power of our gigahertz computers produce Fractal patterns that appear, move and flex in rhythms that are quite familair to any connosieurs of the psychedelic experience.
Also, many forms of historic traditional native art suggest their knowledge and appreciation of there being *recursive* patterns to reality that only appear when perception is broadened beyond the mundane.
The swirl in your coffee cup is exactly the same structure as the swirl of the stars in the galaxy. The human circulatory system, the veins of a leaf, the structure of a tree, and a bolt of lightning all follow the same basic branching pattern.
Do these similarities not suggest to you the existence of emergent patterns derived from underlying forces ? It would seem so to me..
Some might call it "God", but that usually implies a human ego attached in a painfully immature Human self-centered fashion and I dont think that is the case.
As Arthur C Clarke once said.. "The rash assertion that 'God made man in His own image' is ticking like a time bomb at the foundation of many faiths, and as the hierarchy of the universe is disclosed to us, we may have to recognize this chilling truth: if there are any gods whose chief concern is man, they cannot be very important gods."
Perhaps the Star Wars concept of "The Force" is more applicable to the concept I am trying to convey here.. a non-ego based field associated with all living things - or to Quote Obi-Wan "It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together."
It is most likely *not* a bearded guy with a list of rules for us to follow in life if we want admission to his cool place afterwards.
Soooooo.. (back to the original point after that *rather large* philosophical discourse).
If as I suspect, the Human brain is more of bio-antenna for whatever such a force may turn out to be, then..
For humans to be intensely studying the interplay of neuro-chemicals within the structure of the brain, and theorising as to their operation, relationships, and cause and effects strikes me as being as entertainly futile as pre-radio engineers studying the molecular metal structure and surging electrical currents of a Television Antenna, wondering why sometimes the signals look like *this* (The Late Show), sometimes like *that* (The News), and sometimes like the *other* (perhaps a cartoon or simply static) - The answers are not *in* the Antenna guys.. they are many miles away at the studio sending the signals. You just arent going to find Oprah hiding amongst the atoms.
They seem to me to be peering at the intricacies of the fractal structures, without really thinking about what formatitive forces, equations or rules might have given rise to those structures in the first place. And as many will know, one can zoom in on a Fractal *Forever*, endlessly finding new levels of detail.. The closer you look, the more you will find. Ad Infinitum..
But, the simple mechanical alteration of an Antennas physical construction will majorly affect its Bandwidth (frequency reception range), Directionality, Gain Factor and other characteristics, determining quite sharply just what it will and wont receive.
Applying psychedelic drugs to the brain is simply altering the Antenna of the mind, and hence "changing the channel" (or possibly tuning the bandpass filters) causing reception of different bio-field "programs" than one normally perceives.
The whole Neuro research industry seems to me to have somewhere along the way gotten distracted by and stuck chasing its own tail and hasnt yet figured out why its objective seems to constantly elude its grasp. Perhaps they need to look *around* a bit more, and maybe even behind them, instead of plodding forward chasing the carrot 
I think its time to put away the Electron Microscopes, get out the "Macro-scopes" (so to speak) and start looking broadly across the present field of results for the equivalent of "The Periodic Table" for Neurochem instead (or at least before) delving ever-deeper into the rabbit hole as the neuro/psych guys seem to be doing.
Some food for thought anyway.. What do you think ?
(apart from the thought that I think (and type) too much
respecfully
Deep Child.
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this thread!
Even though I don't have much experience with Psychedelics, that was really interesting.
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