Sublime

Robin Carhart-Harris and colleagues have argued that the Freudian primary process is characterised by high levels of entropy. The primal, infant brain state is disorganised; however, as the infant matures, organisation is the inevitable by-product of a system in which free energy is minimised. The ensuing (low entropy) 'structure' that emerges equa

Specially trained psychiatrists and psychologists are now administering hallucinogens and other potent psychotropic agents (psilocybin, ketamine, ecstasy) as mental health remedies. Administering limited doses (one to three) of psychedelics interspersed with multiple sessions of talk therapy over many weeks has become the modern equivalent of shama

One common observation is that psychedelics destabilize longrange cortical communication patterns and reduce activity in the posterior cingulate cortex and precuneus in the posterior regions of the neocortex. This is the compatible with our knowledge of the brains of people trained in mindfulness. It appears that the less these midline structures a

Melanie Boly, a neurologist and neuroscientist at the Medical School of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, is painstakingly collecting EEG data from long-term Buddhist meditators during a state known as pure presence, an experience with no self, no discursive thoughts, and no perceptual content except for a luminous expanse, an empty mirror. Att

Shortly after Carhart-Harris published his results in a 2012 paper in PNAS (“Neural Correlates of the Psychedelic State as Determined by fMRI Studies with Psilocybin” ), Judson Brewer, a researcher at Yale who was using fMRI to study the brains of experienced meditators, noticed that his scans and Robin’s looked remarkably alike. The transcendence

Another consistent finding is a slight increase in the complexity of EEG and MEG signals during the psychedelic experience. It is not clear whether this is a consequence of enhanced causal interactions within the neocortex or more chaotic activity.