Please re-write this letter of support from my supervisor, so that it instead becomes an application letter (1 page). It is for an application for the Heffter Research Institute researcher travel grant. The conference I am to use the grant for is ASSC26 (association for the scientific study of consciousness). I will present some of my original research there - I will also paste below the abstract for my presentation.


Letter of support——
This letter confirms my support of James Sanders’ application for your early career investigator grant program. James has been working with the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London, under my supervision, since early 2022. During this time James has assisted with data collection in the lab and in the field, focusing primarily on the phenomenological (especially qualitative) aspects of our research. He has also worked on analysing the collected data. 
James’ accepted talk, ‘Towards a micro-phenomenology of the intravenous DMT experience’ is the culmination of James’ contributions over this past year, featuring not only new insights into the little-understood phenomenology of DMT experience, but also novel methods in the study of non-ordinary consciousness that he has contributed greatly to developing. This research is the first ever application of the micro-phenomenological analysis method to psychedelic interview data, and the results of this analysis will be used in a forthcoming neuro-phenomenological analysis of the first ever combined fMRI/EEG imaging study of psychedelic experience (for which the preceding neurobiological results of the same study were recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences [PNAS]).
The debate over whether subjective experience is necessary for transformative outcomes in psychedelic assisted psychotherapy is currently at the forefront of the psychedelic research field, and so this work is timely. It is our hope that this presentation at ASSC26 will contribute to, and enrich this debate by not only elucidating the specific subjective effects, but also inspiring better phenomenological methods in the study of non-ordinary states. ASSC is attended by some of the most influential researchers and philosophers in the study of consciousness, many with an interest in how non-ordinary consciousness can inform our understanding of ordinary consciousness, and so it is an ideal forum for disseminating this work. A preliminary version of these same results were presented by James to a psychedelic-specific audience in a poster at the Interdisciplinary Conference on Psychedelic Research (ICPR) in September 2022.
Because James’ PhD program has not yet commenced (expected commencement: fall 2023), it is outside the established policies for the Centre for Psychedelic Research to fund James’ attendance at the conference. We hope that the generosity of the Heffter Research Institute will make James’ attendance possible. James’ demonstrated passion and tenacity as a researcher leave me no doubt that he would use this opportunity to its fullest.

Presentation abstract——
Title:
Towards a micro-phenomenology of the intravenous DMT state
Introduction: 
When administered in the lab, the 5-HT2A receptor agonist N, N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) radically alters the subjective character of experience. However, scientific understanding of DMT experiences in a lab setting is limited by the shortcomings of commonly used phenomenological methods. Specifically, phenomenological models based on self-report questionnaire methods typically do not typically capture the temporal dynamics of experience, instead averaging subjective properties over the entire experience. Qualitative methods, such as thematic or content analysis, suffer this same limitation. The micro-phenomenology (MP) interview and analysis method is well suited to address this lack of granularity in psychedelic phenomenology, modelling experience richly on both the synchronic (within-moment) and diachronic (between-moments) dimensions.
Methods: 
This qualitative study is the first to apply both the MP interview and analysis method to psychedelic data. 25 participants were intravenously dosed with 20 mg of DMT fumarate in a lab setting while undergoing combined EEG and fMRI. MP interviews about the experience were performed upon return to a baseline state. A micro-phenomenological analysis protocol was applied, including novel adaptations developed to accommodate the particularities of non-ordinary experience. Synchronic and diachronic categories were extracted and used to compare and cluster similar experiences.
Results: 
A hierarchical taxonomy of categories on both the synchronic and diachronic dimensions is proposed, along with descriptions and observed frequencies of the phenomenological clusters that emerged. 
Discussion: 
In line with Varela’s ‘neurophenomenological’ research programme, further work on this project will statistically validate the phenomenological clusters identified here against the corresponding fMRI and EEG data. Additionally, the present study can be seen as the first step in a micro-phenomenological pipeline, starting here with a comprehensive look at entire DMT experiences, before narrowing down in further work to study component experiences (e.g.: the experience of presences that seem to have their own minds, colloquially referred to as ‘DMT entities’) at the micro-phenomenological level.