HOW PSYCHEDELICS OPEN THE MIND: QUIETING THE DEFAULT MODE NETWORK
Hi. Welcome back to the Flourish as You Age Podcast. I’m Michael C. Patterson and I’m delighted that you have joined me. I’ve been exploring how we can flourish as we age and have recently become intrigued by the concept of the Entropic Mind, and how it might help us think about managing our minds.
The Entropic Mind hypothesis suggests that our minds operate within a continuum of conscious states that swing from stability and even rigidity on one end to flexibility and even chaos on the other. Our minds work best when they are in a sweet spot in-between the two extremes - a point of criticality - a critical point where our mind is highly flexible and can easily flip from one mental state to another.
So, how do we find that sweet spot? The first step is to become more aware of the fact that our minds operate along this entropic continuum and to identify any personal trends. Do you tend to be more structured in your thinking or are your thoughts more random and disorganized? Where is your mind right now?
If you have identified that you tend to operate at one extreme of the entropic continuum or the other - if you spend little time in the middle near the point of criticality - if you find it hard to switch from one mode of consciousness to another - then you can resolve to do some mental management. You can decide to work on balancing your mind and finding more flexibility within your conscious states.
When our minds get stuck at the organized and inflexible side of the continuum, we need to find ways to move back to the middle ground, back to a balanced state where we can more easily activate an open and flexible state of mind. At times, this course-correction seems to require a radical jolt to the the system. To break the bonds of rigidity at times requires a journey into chaos. In this episode I’d like to focus on escaping from the prison of mental inflexibility by transporting our mind all the way to the chaotic end of the continuum. Going from one extreme to the other.
Neuroscientist Robin Carhart-Harris, who developed the Entropic Mind hypothesis, is known for his research on the therapeutic use of psychedelics. Psychedelics are proving effective at helping people pull free from serious psychological disorders that trap the mind at the fixed and rigid end of the entropy continuum. And it turns out that many of the psychopathological states that torment us have this mental characteristic of fixity and rigidity.
Carhart-Harris characterizes this state as one of “Canalization.” The term suggests, quite graphically, that the trajectory of thoughts and feelings becomes radically restricted and contained within a very narrow canal, like a ship passing through the Panama Canal. There aren’t a lot of options, once in the canal. You can’t go left, you can’t go right. You can’t back up.
This appears to be what happens to the activation of neuronal networks associated with maladaptive behaviors. They get stuck in one restricted pattern. The firing follows one canal, as it were, and no other. This restriction is a kind of survival technique; a protective response. It helps people cope with mental trauma, with emotional distress and its associated dysphoria.
Conditions like PTSD, obsessive-compulsive order and depression are characterized by the inability to stop thinking maladaptive thoughts. The maladaptive thought patterns (I’m a failure, a fraud, no one loves me, I’m not worthy of love) have become canalized. The mind just automatically goes to those self-destructive thoughts. The canalized mind can’t prevent the constant recall of painful memories that reinforce the trauma.
Once stuck in self-destructive channels of obsessive thought, it is extremely hard to escape. What is one to do?
The canalized neural systems need a radical jolt to weaken the restrictive connections, to loosen the maladaptive synaptic links.
Psychedelic drugs seem to reliably transport fixed, canalized minds into the exact opposite mode - from ultra-restriction to ultra-flexibility. Psychedelics take the mind on a transient but powerful journey into chaotic randomness. The bonds that bind canalized neural networks loosen their grip. The walls that define our individual Perception Boxes are blasted open. Our perceptions, sensations, thoughts, concepts, feelings, memories, imaginations, and ruminations are all set free to run riot through our mind.
The psychedelic trip zooms our mind toward the extreme chaotic end of the entropic continuum. Then when the trip is over, when the drugs wear off, two things seem to have happened. First, the bonds of habit, ritual and routine that had previously shaped our thinking are less automatic. Our mind no longer slides, automatically into the canalized end of the entropic continuum, but functions more in the middle ground, closer to the point of criticality.
And second, the point of criticality seems to have moved away from the canalized end of the continuum and resides closer to the flexible end. Our mind becomes less rigid and structured and is more flexible and creative - more workable. We become more open-minded and more receptive to new ideas, facts, and experiences. This opens he door to continued learning, growth and development.
So, perhaps we should all run out and give our minds a little tune-up with a guided trip on psilocybin. But, of course, most of us are not going to pursue that route. But, even without direct experience of a trip on LSD or psilocybin, we can all learn something about mind management by listening to what researchers and users are learning about expanded states of consciousness.
Psychedelics most certainly are taking advantage of brain plasticity, the ability of our mind to rewire itself. Psychedelics seem to cause great bursts of plastic change across broad swaths the brain.
Psychedelics desynchronize important brain regions, disrupting normal, ritualized triggering of neuronal pathways. This disruption has been found to occur primarily in the areas of the brain that make up the Default Mode Network (DMN for short).
This is important because the DMN is the part of the brain that produces our sense of self and is concerned with how we relate as social beings. The DMN is the part of the brain that generates the stories we tell about ourselves. It is the part of the brain that creates the largely false idea that we have a stable and fixed personality that cannot change.
The DMN is the source, in other words, of our ego, and consequently of our ego-centrism, our self-absorption and also of our alienation and loneliness. It is the source of our inflated sense of self as well as the source of our self-criticism and self-loathing. It’s pretty much the part of our brain that drives us crazy.
So when we recognize that these self-critical ideas have become fixed and stable - when the functional connections that activate these negative thoughts are highly synchronized and canalized - we can set ourselves the goal of destabilize them. A positive way to manage our minds is to destabilize these malevolent thought patterns.
This is just what researchers observe in the brains of people tripping on psychedelics. The DMN becomes desynchronized. So using psychedelics in a controlled and guided setting can help de-canalize our mind.
Now, can we do the same thing without drugs?
When Buddhist philosophers talk about quieting the monkey mind, I’m pretty sure they are talking about the same thing, about quieting the DMN. When they talk about recognizing that the self is an illusion, I believe they mean that our ego, which is fabricated by our DMN, should be recognized for what it is - nothing but a story. A fabrication. A feeble attempt by our conceptual mind to characterize and simplify what is an endlessly complex and changeable process of being and becoming. When psychologists use techniques like cognitive behavioral therapy to help us overcome our self-criticism and self-doubts, they are helping us to ignore the insane ramblings of the DMN and to re-write the narrative construction of our self-image.
So in the case of psychedelics, it is possible to use a drug to loosen up the brain to make it more plastic and malleable. In this case, the drug rips the mind out of a fixed state and zooms it into extreme flexibility, even chaos. Fortunately the effects of psychedelics wear off after a time and the brain restabilizes, but it finds its stability closer to the point of criticality, closer to a point of balance on the border line between the two extremes of order and chaos, novelty and routine. A point that enables maximum flexibility.
As you go about your day, you might think about where you are on the entropic continuum. When do you follow fairly rigid routines and rituals? When are your thoughts and actions random and disorganized? Do you get stuck in one of the extremes or are you able to switch gracefully from one mental state to another? Is your mind where you want it to be? Or, does it need a little management and retraining?
Until next time. Be well and flourish as you age.
