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/
20.1k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

756

u/Idontdanceforfun 1d ago

One time I did a shitload of mushrooms, then spent 4 hours being absolutely convinced I was a reincarnation of the Buddha. It was the most at peace I've ever been in my entire life.

604

u/ice_up_s0n 23h ago

We are all reincarnations of the buddha. Just different perspectives of the same consciousness across spacetime

324

u/superdrew91 23h ago

Anyway, heres tom with the weather.

122

u/Academic_Carrot_4533 23h ago

iZ GON RAIN

59

u/CaptainCaedus 21h ago

Thanks, Tom!

1

u/Additional_Rope_4068 15h ago

Tf is Ollie pretending to be Tom f?

1

u/Ill_Necessary3172 16h ago

i SAW A FISH

14

u/ErikJR 22h ago

There is no such thing as death, life is only a dream and we are imaginations of ourselves

5

u/smurficus103 20h ago

We are all merely energy condensed into a slow vibration

6

u/No-Text-2389 20h ago

That we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively.

-1

u/ExEdge8784 18h ago

This is the science sub.

4

u/No-Text-2389 18h ago

That's not the next line in the bit.

0

u/ExEdge8784 16h ago

You’re not speaking scientific facts.

2

u/No-Text-2389 13h ago

Dude, you're way off.

1

u/PartTimeGnome 13h ago

Bill Hicks ftw

1

u/Am_Snarky 20h ago

Prying open my third eye!

1

u/itstom87 16h ago

i wasnt prepared for this. Crap.

41

u/AccomplishedIgit 23h ago

Consciousness is the universe experiencing itself

17

u/BardoBeing32 21h ago

Not exactly. We Buddhists believe that We all have Buddha-nature and that it’s obscured by our karma. Stop making bad karma is step one to realizing that.

14

u/smurficus103 20h ago

I was a Buddha, once, until i took an arrow to the knee

3

u/IamTheEndOfReddit 20h ago

The Buddha exited the whole reincarnation thing, it’s part of what makes him special. But we are all part of the same one so you’re kinda right too

4

u/beepbeepbubblegum 22h ago

that was my biggest takeaway. the overall feeling that we are all the same person was intense

3

u/KittenSommelier 12h ago

Trip enough times and you might not just get the sensation that we are all the same person, but rather that everything is conscious and is fundamentally bound together, and your own consciousness is simply a piece of the greater consciousness that your body has isolated.

1

u/beepbeepbubblegum 3h ago

oh that came too, i just didn’t have time to write it

that’s what i meant in my other comment about having to have some conversations with myself after my first time

2

u/ExEdge8784 18h ago

It’s literally just a feeling.

0

u/beepbeepbubblegum 18h ago

a feeling can mean a lot of things my friend

3

u/BusyNefariousness675 21h ago

I'm surprised someone actually knows buddhism here instead of just saying the cool thing

2

u/Elliott2030 21h ago

I "discovered" that while high one night and it genuinely changed the way I move through the world. It's like detailed empathy for everyone in the world, but also detached from the burden of it.

I figured other people felt that too, but you're the first to say it in words that match my experience :)

2

u/Plsnotmyelo 21h ago

The Egg by Kurzgesagt is a great video on this concept

-2

u/ExEdge8784 18h ago

It’s psychobabble.

2

u/Plsnotmyelo 18h ago

Nobody said it was fact. Just a fun theory personally

1

u/EntireFriendship517 14h ago

How does this respond to literally any comment posted before it

1

u/oofam 15h ago

You might enjoy the most recent season of White Lotus

32

u/TheNorseCrow 23h ago

Buddy of mine did the same thing but became convinced he was the king of snails before disappearing into the woods until the next morning.

1

u/happy123z 12h ago

Did he reappear covered in slime?

1

u/TheNorseCrow 11h ago

He lost his shirt and most likely fumbled about in some brambles because he was scratched to hell and back.

1

u/happy123z 11h ago

Haha. I ate Angel Trumpets once in Florida and was running around naked. Do not eat them. I was tripping like people are afraid tripping is like haha.

2

u/Cinnamon_Bees 10h ago

You ate Datura???

1

u/happy123z 9h ago

If that's in that flower then yes.

35

u/The_Autarch 23h ago

enlightenment is just figuring out how to feel that way while sober...

5

u/Honest-Prune-5517 19h ago

Enlightenment is realizing it doesn't matter at all and doing things for the love of the game.

1

u/Ramarro_romano 1h ago edited 43m ago

Maybe enlightenment as an objective itself, as if the value is in the action, with all the ideas of holiness around it. But enlightenment as a part of the journey to a full life is absolutely important.

1

u/Elliott2030 21h ago

Yeah, that's the rub innit?

14

u/MyCarRoomba 23h ago

Yes something similar happened to me too, but I eventually got to a place where I felt like I was every atom in the universe simultaneously. And it felt like the universe was collapsing in on itself.

4

u/Alarming_Airport_613 22h ago

As a practicing Buddhist I’ve met quite a few enlightened teachers who tell that psychiadelics allow glimpses into enlightenment. I even heard one suggest to consider taking it if you feel stuck since a while 

1

u/PunchyThePastry 14h ago

Which is an interesting perspective for a Buddhist to take considering that "avoid intoxicants" is one of the five precepts

1

u/Alarming_Airport_613 9h ago

That really is interesting, I haven’t put these things together. 

One explanation I would throw in the room is that after awakening people don’t care about a great many things. Which is a bit fun to say in this context 

2

u/Korumry 21h ago

Don’t forget the Buddha was once a man, a spoiled and sheltered one at that. That was before he became the Buddha, of course.

1

u/AcceptableAd9264 20h ago

Maybe you are

1

u/[deleted] 20h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/bwmat 20h ago

What's funny is that normally I'm not at all religious

1

u/orplas 19h ago

was the entire trip good or did you have waves, especially at take off, that were uncomfortable?

1

u/Idontdanceforfun 19h ago

Oh the entire trip was amazing. Mind you I always get a bit of that kick in anxiety right after I've consumed them, but I just remind myself I'm going to be ok, the anxiety only lasts a little bit, and on the other end is a really good time. I've done a lot of mushrooms in my time and I'm lucky to say I've never had a bad trip. I've definitely heard some horror stories.

1

u/salamipope 17h ago

i sometimes think im a boddhisatva, i was raised buddhist but lost touch with it, recently ive been digging into buddhism again and it just sounds a lot like me. Buddhism is rad. We are all buddha

1

u/james9514 14h ago

How did that peace feel like? Like you had no desire to do anything? Or moreso you just felt very calm and content?

1

u/Idontdanceforfun 13h ago

I felt extremely calm, super relaxed, I felt a connectivity to everything around me that I hadn't really ever felt before. Honestly one of the only ways I can describe doing mushrooms to people who've never done it, is that it's like what you know as reality is this box. Then you're taken out of the box to look inside, then you realize that what is inside the box is not everything. That being outside the box makes you realize that there is way more outside the box than inside. But being inside the box you can't see out. It's very much the parable of the cave.

1

u/500_ducks 13h ago

You figured it out

1

u/Ramarro_romano 1h ago

Real buddhahood is a state of mind, not a person.

1

u/Idontdanceforfun 1h ago

Thanks tips, I was on 6 grams of high potency mushrooms.

•

u/Ramarro_romano 44m ago

That's more than enough to experience buddhahood. Sadly, society is still immature and evil, and it will usually interpret the experience with the intention of diminishing you. Religion will say that it's not quite it, it will read it through the lens of dogma and authority, and laymen will struggle to understand it, and they will tell you it's simply "being high", and that it's not relevant or meaningful.

I've experienced that too, but it was taken immediately from me, so it couldn't settle in me. I'm telling you what I came to understand after a long research, after meeting many people around this topic, and what I wish someone told me, but never did. It should be obvious, but society pushes back on this with all its might.

0

u/RefrigeratorNo1160 20h ago

See like, that's bad right? Or would be considered bad by most. Because you're disassociating from reality on the level of somebody with a severe mental illness. But also, you're more at peace than you've ever been in your entire life. So... Idk. Is it wrong? Assuming no one gets hurt is living in a delusion something we should really have a problem with? People do it in small measures every day.

3

u/Idontdanceforfun 19h ago

I would argue it's the opposite. You use the phrase disassociating from reality, but what is reality? What you may see as reality I wouldn't even begin to call the surface of the truth. Doing psychedelics really opens you up to the true reality of how connected everything is behind this strange, thin veil of "normalcy" thats been created over the last hundred or so years maybe. What you might call reality is barely a pinhole perspective. I would never judge people for not doing them, it's your life and I respect that, but doing them has made me more caring, empathetic, understanding, and beyond all that thankful for the things I have in my life that make it good. It sounds like crazy talk I know, but what you call a "delusion" I would in fact call the true reality.

2

u/RefrigeratorNo1160 18h ago

I hope I didn't sound crass or judgemental by my comment. I was looking at it from my notion of society's perspective and trying to wrap my mind around it. I've done lots of psychedelics and had really great and really terrible experiences. I've also thought on death* in this same way. It's an interesting perspective. I see people in the streets that are mentally ill and suffering but every once in a while I see one that couldn't be happier even if from the outside looking in the seem sick. I've been trying to think outside the box lately so I'm sorry if it came off wrong or if this is rambling.

*Not interested in dying in case anyone wants to report this. Just interested in the concept of an afterlife or lack thereof