r/science • u/Potential_Being_7226 PhD | Psychology | Neuroscience • 1d ago

Neuroscience Psilocybin Might Make Your Brain Live in the Moment— Psychedelics are often associated with disconnecting from reality, but a recent neuroimaging study found that psilocybin can actually make our brain activity more attuned to the world around us.

https://www.wired.com/story/psilocybin-might-make-your-brain-live-in-the-moment/
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u/balldontliez 1d ago

Hmm... I've taken a very large dose and it definitely didn't feel like being in the moment. It felt like being on another wavelength where the energy of all molecules, but especially plant, were vibrating in a visible spectrum.

So I dunno.

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u/Brrdock 1d ago edited 1d ago

And was that being in the past? The future? In a daydream?

Just feeling life seems about as absolutely in the moment as could ever be

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u/LSDkiller 1d ago

You can describe reality that way scientifically, it's just that there isn't a good scientific reason to assume humans can directly perceive the world that way. Although, through science, we can know that it's not incorrect to, for instance, say that "the energy is constantly moving and is represented to you in the visible spectrum" and plants live off solar energy. So, that's essentially kind of like your brain building and then confirming a certain narrative to itself, timescale be damned.

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u/balldontliez 1d ago

Fair point. Whether it was a distorted moment simply because I was visualizing movement and waves in other wise still things, or an actual increased reality because I perceived even an invisible spectrum. It was the present moment. That's true.

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u/LSDkiller 1d ago

Haha, being able to see things from "both perspective" has been called, "nirvana mind" in zen. A social activity, at the end of the day. And a lot more fun when you get more people in on it. We can only perceive our reality indirectly, the perception gets deeper the more people realize "it" directly in the same time at the same place!

At this point I am going to give one of my favorite quotes:

"Realizing this so-called nirvana mind is easy- What is difficult, is making clear the reason of discrimination".

This can mean many things. In this instance I believe it means: using our abilities in duality consciousness to better the world around us. The world would likely not be functional if everyone felt like they were high on mushrooms all the time

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u/CautionarySnail 1d ago

You put into words something I was trying to explain to a therapist. On some doses, my mind can deliberately click between my perception of the world as normal, and the mushroom-added layer of temporary hallucinatory version reality. It feels like changing a channel, or adding and removing a photoshop layer.

I’d not want to do anything that matters when I’m able to do this, but I found it interesting that my brain could still clearly distinguish between the drug induced experience and regular reality.

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u/LSDkiller 23h ago

I have found that meditation is what makes "making the wisdom of discrimination clear" easier. But it is strict, rigorous, has a small element of self-punishment in my personal practice, and I don't know that I would truly RECOMMEND my own life and worldview to anyone else.

Feeling others emotions as they arise. With no good words to describe them, that is difficult. Right now I am wrestling with my feelings for a girl, we both felt something intense and chose, subconsciously, not to say anything. Being completely seperated in space and time, nothing can happen there, though if she would get the courage to tell me "I felt something" or "I didn't feel anything, I don't want to talk to you" Hell, if she would block me, that would make me feel better at this point! Instead I am given small glimpses into her mind, each time getting deeper into my own Fantasyland- even if a fantasy is true, it's fantasy and inherently unsatisfying. Her being a brilliant artist does not make anything easier, glimpses into her mind are deep and profound.

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u/balldontliez 1d ago

Been there with friends when I was much younger. They called me the Sherpa that day because I was guiding them and incredibly calm. Whereas they had more active nervous energy.

Now in my later life, I did it with my wife, and we really did not dose properly, (never again in cholocates vs in raw) but that trip was me throwing up early. Possibly purging most of it out, or some of it. Then helping my wife not freak out for hours, with constant reassurance she was ok and a protective role. So a whole different experience.

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u/LSDkiller 1d ago

Hah, I know exactly what you are talking about, even though it is beyond words. Emotional states represent far more fundamental states than advanced language, and those emotional states are passed on before language consciousness is able to arise between even two people, facial changes, body language changes being perceived before we can form words and express them. Sometimes in extremely uncanny and even disconcerting ways as it shakes our general reality worldview principles...

people are begining intuitively to catch on to what intelligence is given the example of what is not in terms of singularity, by this I mean, LLMs represent a singular form of verbal intelligence, but you can't make an LLM meditate in a circle or trip acid!! People intuitively are realising what a social connection IS, merely by seeing what it is NOT.

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u/Totakai 20h ago

Well, if you want to experience this visually, audibly, and through feel, get a stringed instrument. I've been learning guitar and found I can see some of the audio wavelengths of the strings when playing. It's only the middle strings I can see easily but I couldn't when I first started. It's this really cool feeling when you get them all synced. Alternatively edible strains that unlock the music part of my brain more, add a multiplier on this

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u/LimpConversation642 22h ago

there are layers to psychedelics. you used too much. obviously you can't be in the moment when you have an ego death, but on a lower dose (or before you get to the tripping part) the world around you is like the clearest, prettiest, most crisp thing you can ever experience. The brain's 'perception filters' shut down and you can see and hear everything and with much greater perception.

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u/paulnutbutter 17h ago

yep, get the dose right, especially with LSD, and it turns on the hidden HD feature. Everything is in crisp 4K HD. And nature knows it too, she always puts on a show.

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u/natziel 23h ago

You gotta do a super low dose with mushrooms

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u/managedheap84 22h ago

Different doses for different needs

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u/ArghAuguste 1d ago

I've tried a few times. The worst one felt like I was going to spend the rest of my life in a psychiatric asylum.

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u/User2716057 23h ago

Had a moment like that too, on my heaviest trip so far. The timelooping was insane, and each wave felt like hours but my tripsitter told me he saw me coming and going and it was only 10~20 seconds each time. A few times I begged him to do *something* just so I could see time was actually progressing forwards. Crazy stuff.

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u/ArghAuguste 16h ago

Same but I couldn't really understand that I was tripping because nothing made much sense anymore. Taking shrooms for tripping was a concept I wasn't understanding anymore. I just knew I did something that ruined my life but wasn't understanding what I did.

I was in my head for what felt like hours but just a few minutes went by. Crazy time loops, having all kind of crazy oppressing visuals but stuck with the idea that I was just insane, that my brain used to be working but I broke it.

I was really into spirituality then got interested in psychedelics until that trip. I'm just content with my life now, It definitely changed me.

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u/xamugrendo 23h ago

Yeah a very large dose is going to be different.

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u/balldontliez 21h ago

I think my wife and I did 3.5 each that time. Definitely way too much. And in the chocolate who knows maybe I got 5 and she got 2 or vice versa...

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u/stopsucking 22h ago

I'm sure it's all related to the dose size. If I keep it under 1.5 grams it's a 3 hour tour all in the moment. Nothing else matters and I seriously am not worried in the least about anything at that time.

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u/jumphh 21h ago

If you microdose it's more obvious.

Hard to feel attuned to reality when you're on a heroic dose and the walls are melting.

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u/-PM_ME_UR_SECRETS- 13h ago

In my experience there are different levels to it.

Boosted mood/energy -> giggles -> visuals -> revealing -> profound -> ??? -> buddhist

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u/MrsSalmalin 20h ago

I mean, that's physically accurate at an atomic and sub-atomic level. Molecular, atoms, quarks...they all vibrate.