A hopeful alternative to contemporary left-wing identitarianism is offered by the fundamental qualities of the psychedelic experience—heightened affective intensity, ego disorganization, and a sense of cosmic interconnectedness. Building on Wendy Brown's concept of 'wounded attachment,' the obsessive defense of bounded marginalized identities paradoxically masks a desire to commune freely across differences. The animated films Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) and Across the Spider-Verse (2023) use Spider-Man's 'webbing' as a visual theory of attachment across infinite differences. By fracturing Spider-Man's ego across time and space, the multiverse becomes a psychedelic figure for conceiving differences as an endless web of relations between dimensions, not rigid identities.
The beneficial effects of psychedelic medicines such as LSD, psilocybin, and MDMA—including reduced anxiety and depression and feelings of interconnectedness—are linked to how individuals interpret their affective and visceral experiences during use. This special issue argues that the transformative potential of the current psychedelic renaissance lies in cultural analysis of these experiences. While cautioning against viewing psychedelics as cure-alls, the collected essays explore how psychedelic experience, as a lived and embodied event shaped by personal context, can cultivate cognitive skills and affective orientations needed to reframe responses to global crises like climate change and mental health. The term “imaginaries” captures the diverse perspectives on psychedelic experience beyond the laboratory.