What happens to the brain during consciousness-ending meditation? | Psyche Ideas

Self-transcendence is among the central features of spiritual experience, and it turns out that the loss of self has a neural signature. There is a set of linked structures in the brain that are more active whenever we are processing events from an egocentric point of view—thinking about what I want, what I need to do next, or what other people thi

One of the most interesting things about a psychedelic experience is that it sharpens one’s sensitivity to one’s own mental states, especially in the days immediately following. The usual seamlessness of consciousness is disturbed in such a way as to make any given state—mind wandering, focused attention, rumination—both more salient and somewhat e

But what both deep meditation and psychedelic experiences teach us is the ability to see how much of that self—that ego—is constructed.

In spite of the vivid experiences reported by psilocybin participants, the researchers commented, “We observed no increases in CBF or BOLD signal in any region.”20 (CBF stands for “cerebral blood flow,” and BOLD stands for “blood-oxygen level dependent imaging.”)