Decreased activity in the default mode network is correlated with a decreased sense of self
Most of us consider Identity view as an unshakable given, as real as anything we know, and as the foundation of our life as conscious human beings. One of Dr. Robert Carhart-Harris’s first experiments with psychedelics was that the steepest drops in default mode network activity correlated with his volunteers’ subjective experience of “ego dissolution.” (“I existed only as an idea or concept,” one volunteer reported. Recalled another, “I didn’t know where I ended and my surroundings began.”) The more precipitous the drop-off in blood flow and oxygen consumption in the default mode network, the more likely a volunteer was to report the loss of a sense of self. The transcendence of self reported by expert meditators showed up on fMRIs as a quieting of the default mode network. It appears that when activity in the default mode network falls off precipitously, the ego temporarily vanishes. The psychedelic experience of “non-duality” suggests that consciousness survives the disappearance of the self, that it is not so indispensable as we—and it—like to think.
References
- Pollan, Micheal. (2018). How to Change Your Mind Chapter 5. The Neuroscience of Your Brain on Psychedelics (Location 4158). New York, NY: Penguin Random House.
Metadata
Type:🔴 Tags: Biology / Neuroscience / Anatomy / Neuroanatomy / Physiology / Neurophysiology Status:☀️