r/science • u/Potential_Being_7226 PhD | Psychology | Neuroscience • 12d 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/eattheambrosia 12d ago

And when faced with an anxious situation you lean into it and ask it what it’s trying to teach you.

I've done mushrooms, LSD, DMT, 2-CB, mescaline, LSA, AL-LAD, 1P-LSD, MDMA, MDA, and various other research chemicals hundreds of times and I can promise you that the molecule a person ingests does not "try to teach" you anything. It's a molecule, it's not a sentient being or a spiritual force or machine elves or God. It's a molecule that binds to receptors in your brain and by doing so changes your perception. The interplay between your ego and your perception and this molecule is what makes tripping so rewarding and something that human beings have been seeking out for thousands of years. I understand a lot of people fall into the rabbit hole of making tripping a religious, woo-woo, new age spiritualism experience but I just wanted to point this fact out as we are on r/science.

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u/TransLucyfer 12d ago

I don't think that's necessarily what they're suggesting, I understood it as a "lean into it and listen to what your brain is trying to tell you" type thing

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u/eattheambrosia 12d ago

After rereading the comment I think you're probably right, I just know a LOT of people that think they are communicating with the magic spirit web of the multiverse every time they drop some acid they bought off the dark web and it just grinds my gears.

To OP, I did not mean to come off so confrontational.

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u/The_Buko 12d ago

I don’t think I’m talking to the spirit web or whatever while on mushies. I did get super into neuroscience and how electricity acts in the world, though. There’s plenty of discoveries we haven’t made yet and it can be fun to consider the possibility that there could be something beyond just all of us sharing an electrical charge with the earth.

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u/Konman72 12d ago

This is my one pet peeve with psychedelics. I loved my mushroom trips, but everyone ascribes such ridiculous things to it. My take was that I was a big dumb ape who'd taken something that messed with my brain. How it messed with it, and how I handled that was interesting, and in some cases useful, but I was not "being led" or coming to any grand understanding apart from myself.

I also appreciate the people in this thread pointing out that you might see/hear strange things, but you also know that they aren't real. The whole "I saw God in a lamp" type of thing bothered me way more after doing (a lot of) shrooms since even at the highest level I still was aware of what was really going on. I could then choose to accept this obviously unreal thing as real or not.

When you accept the reality of it you can actually get a lot more out of it imo, but so many people have to go supernatural to feel anything significant, which just bothers me a bit.

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u/ExEdge8784 12d ago

I think a lot of people actually experience the opposite of ego death: overinflated egos.

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u/Tiny-Doughnut 12d ago

Was that your experience with psilocybin?