Do you feel like the way you think about the world or yourself is permanent? Or that your personality is set because “that’s just the way you are?”

It turns it that this isn’t actually the case. Here’s why…

Meditation and LSD

I remember when I was studying nutrition back in the mid-2000s. One of my classmates told me that every morning upon waking she’d spend 20 minutes meditating.

At that time, this seemed strange to me. I’d barely heard of meditation and I probably characterised it as “hippyish” or “alternative” and at the far end of the spectrum of those labels.

She was the first person I’d met who ever mentioned they meditated.

But now, more than a decade on, meditation is everywhere. It’s hit the mainstream and is still increasing in popularity and awareness. With nearly every one of my clients, at some point, we’ll talk about meditation as a helpful self-care practice.

In the later part of the 2000s, I remember listening to a podcast with Ray Peat. He was talking about LSD and how it’s associated with the counterculture of the 1960s. But despite this association, during the 50s and 60s, there was plenty of research showing its benefits for a range of issues, from addiction to depression.

Kind of like with meditation, I’d never heard of LSD talked about in these terms. And even if it had shown some promise for these conditions, given the preconceptions around it, it seemed unlikely its status would change.

But fast forward to today and LSD, along with other psychedelics like psilocybin (the active ingredients in “magic mushrooms”) and DMT (the active ingredient in ayahuasca), are enjoying a renaissance in research and positive attention.

Michael Pollan, the esteemed health writer best known for his work around food and nutrition, recently wrote a book called How To Change Your Mind. It looks at the current state of knowledge on psychedelics and could be instrumental in helping to bring them to the mainstream.

So why am I mentioning the two seemingly unconnected endeavours of sitting down and doing 10 minutes on Headspace versus spending 10 hours tripping on LSD while listening to Philip Glass?

Well one of the things that does connect them is the default mode network.

Default Mode Network

The default mode network is a collection of areas in the brain. When we are enthralled in a task or in a “flow” state, the network shuts down. But as soon as we finish what we are doing, the default mode network comes online.

This is why, when you decide to have some quiet time and sit still, your mind doesn’t go blank.

It starts thinking, analysing and narrating.

It begins replaying memories.

It reflects on your emotional state and how you view yourself.

It ruminates on morality, values, judgments and the thoughts and feeling of others.

When you supposedly “stop thinking,” your mind lights up and attempts to connect the dots and make sense of this world.

This is important. We wouldn’t be the humans we are and have been able to achieve what we have without it. Creativity, scientific breakthroughs, our ability to be compassionate, reflective and grow as humans are in large part because of the default mode network.

But despite its many benefits, it has its downsides (which I’ll explain below).

Much of the renewed research on psychedelics thus far has been looking at helping mental illness or issues around thinking and the mind.

Before Pollan’s recent book, he’d written a long piece for The New Yorker called The Trip Treatment, which focused on using psychedelics in end-stage cancer patients to deal with their fear of death.

Depression, anxiety, smoking cessation; these are also areas that psychedelics are showing positive results in treating.

And again, the thing that connects them is the default mode network.

Neuroplasticity and habit formation

In neuroscience there is a theory known as the Hebbian theory. In oversimplified terms, when you have a thought, it is because of neurons in your brain firing. The more times that you have that thought (or the more intense an experience is); the quicker that brain gets at firing those neurons.

There’s a saying that you might have heard that summarises this theory, which is “cells that fire together, wire together”.

We are able to learn and get better at a task or a thought because the more times we do it, the more this pathway wires together and makes this pattern easier to follow.

Now, this is fantastic when you are a child and you’re learning to walk or read. Or as an adult, if you take up playing the piano or drawing or you want to get better at public speaking. Or simply, learning to do anything. Repetition builds competency, at least in part because of cells firing and wiring together.

But when we looking at habits or thought patterns that we don’t want, then this is a problem. Because it becomes very difficult to break, to the point of people feeling like “this is how I am”.

And the reason why we feel like “this is me” is because pathways have been activated so many times that the feelings and thought patterns feel cemented.

So how do psychedelics fit into this?

Psychedelics appear to work in two ways. First, they quiet down the default mode network. This can be to such an extent where people experience “ego dissolution”. In layman’s terms, the default mode network is affected in such a way that people lose their sense of self.

The second way that they work is by changing connections within the default mode network. Habitual thoughts or habits are like a well-worn path. They happen repeatedly because the brain instinctively follows this well traversed and obvious route.

But psychedelics appear to cover over old paths and create new ones. So when the trip experience is over and someone is put in a situation that would have previously triggered a destructive thought or behaviour, they now think differently.

So how does meditation fit in?

Meditation actually has a similar impact on the default mode network, albeit in a gentler way.

Personally, I’m a sporadic and inexperienced meditator. So much of the benefits of meditation I know about in theory, rather than having experienced them myself.

But one of the big things that I have noticed is how thoughts think themselves.

Most of the time it feels like we are the thinker. That the constant narrating of our life is intentional and that there is this “self” that is us and that we are doing the thinking.

But through meditation, you see that thoughts naturally arise themselves. Rather than being the thinker, we are merely the witness.

Our self-identity is largely based on these habitual thoughts and when we truly experience that they are naturally occurring, there can be the same experience of “ego dissolution” as experienced during a psychedelic experience.

So meditation can lead to similar altering of the default mode network. Although it should be noted that it takes an experienced meditator, possibly someone who has done their “10,000 hours,” to reach this stage.

Why Is This Important?

Currently, it’s still illegal in most places to use psychedelics (unless you’re a participant in a research trial on them). Very few people will put enough time into meditation to reach the point of having their sense of self dissolve.

But despite this, there is much we can take from this research and apply to our everyday life.

The view we have of ourselves is an illusion. It’s simply the grooves that have been most dugout in the default mode network. This means that it’s malleable rather than permanent.

You are not your thoughts. The thoughts we have occur because of a combination of biology, physiology, life experiences and learned behaviour. And again, this is changeable.

So much of the work I do with clients is in this area. Doing exercises and activities that help to show them that the negative talk, the poor self-image and the destructive behaviours aren’t permanent.

It wouldn’t surprise me if in the next decade psychedelics become a wonder drug, used by both the “sick” and the “well” as a way to alter how they see and experience the world.

But until this becomes a reality, there is plenty we can do through meditation or simply by paying attention to our thoughts and our mind.