- Shrooms, LSD, and even deep breathing techniques
can cause you to hallucinate.
New science shows exactly what is happening in your brain
and how it can unlock a key to your consciousness.
Scientists have administered psychedelics to volunteers
and scan their brain
using functional magnetic resonance imaging
and magnetoencephalography
and found decreased blood flow to the default mode network.
The default mode network is made up
of the medial prefrontal cortex,
the posterior cingulate cortex,
the inferior parietal lobule, the lateral temporal cortex,
the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex,
and the hippocampal formation.
This network keeps your brain working efficiently.
It's evolved to filter out the vast amount
of information coming to your brain
by predicting what you need
and getting rid of what you don't.
If you are met with a new situation,
your default mode network will use past experiences
to make quick decisions using less energy.
It creates the human capacity for self reflection,
planning the future, worrying, and reason.
It is where the brain creates the story
of who you are as an individual.
Common psychedelics such as psilocin
or lysergic acid diethylamide are all tryptamines.
So as serotonin, which is found naturally in your body.
These are organic compounds
with a ring of six atoms attached to another with five atoms
which all have a high affinity
for a receptor found in the outermost layer
of your brain called the 5-HT2A receptor.
Here, we have the serotonin in your body
and here we have LSD.
The tryptamine core scaffold of the LSD molecule
is similar to that of the serotonin in your body.
It is attached to an ergoline scaffold connected
to a diethylamide substituent.
Here we see because of its similar shape to serotonin,
the LSD molecule binding to your 5-HT2A receptor.
And due to its chemical composition, it will bind
for longer than serotonin ever would naturally in your body.
When psychedelics bind to the 5-HT2A receptor,
a cascade of cellular biology
causes the default mode network to decrease.
This leads to ego dissolution, aka feeling less separation
from others and from nature itself.
In fact, FMRI scans of those on psychedelics is similar
to experienced meditators
who can effectively turn off their default mode network
and temporarily vanish their ego.
Other times when the default mode network is decreased
is during deep prayer, overwhelming experiences of awe,
for example, looking at the Grand Canyon,
or even near death experiences.
A decrease in the default mode network
can come with hallucinations, but why?
On the left is a visual depiction of the neural networks
in the brain of someone given a placebo pill.
On the right is a visual depiction of the neural networks
in the brain of someone tripping on psilocybin.
With decreased action from the default mode network,
your brain is no longer working efficiently.
It now has to make sense of increased information
and starts filling in the blanks with hallucinations
and altered perceptions in order to cope.
Living plants might start to grow faces.
The brain will never stop trying to make sense of the world,
but now it is using new parts of the brain.
In fact, people who are colorblind report being able
to see certain colors for the first time
while on psychedelics.
A child's brain is actually similar
to an adult brain on psychedelics.
As an adult, you have learned through experiences
and pruned your neurons to deal efficiently
based on past experiences.
For kids, most experiences are new.
When they encounter a situation,
their brain is not efficient,
looking more like this graph on the right
than this graph on the left.
This explains their curiosity, slower processing,
obsession with nature, and why they're better than adults
at some intelligence tasks involving creativity,
or just straight up why kids act like they're on drugs.
Existential distress and a fear of dying
usually means an overactive default mode network.
Obsessive self-reflection,
a fear of losing consciousness or the ego.
This is why in recent years,
psychedelic therapy has become a popular treatment
for terminal illness and coping with end of life fear.
Addiction can be related to the story you have built
about yourself, leading to some promising studies
using psychedelic therapy to decrease addiction
to smoking or alcohol.
Indigenous Americans have long used the psychedelic peyote
to treat the alcoholism introduced by colonizers
and plagued communities since the genocide
from white Europeans.
Studies that use hallucinogens as therapeutic tools
have professionals who lead the trip
and place importance on the set and setting.
The stakes are high when letting this much information
into the brain and can lead to a bad trip.
But one thing is for certain,
hallucinogens are helping us understand how the brain works,
learn more about the human consciousness
and our potential therapies
for a variety of mental illnesses.
Links to all of the resources for this video are below.
I encourage you to read.
I think this year has been for me,
at least about dealing with mortality
and reading research and studies
on human consciousness has helped me.
Also, I'll put a link below to our podcast Sidenote
where we take controversial subjects
and study the science behind them.
And finally, make sure you're subscribed
for more weekly science videos, peace.