Scientists Studying Psilocybin Accidentally Prove the Self Is an Illusion
Quartz Magazine
On February 9th, 2018 this startling headline appeared in the online magazine, Quartz. Neuroscientists studying psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient in “magic mushrooms”, discovered that the drug had the ability to suspend “normal” consciousness.
When normal or “self” consciousness was suspended, the idea of being a separate and distinct self that is different from everything else around us disappeared. Self-consciousness was gone. A different kind of consciousness arose which gave test subjects the feeling of universal oneness. Instead of feeling like a separate and isolated self, test subjects felt like a seamless part of everything.
The changes were more than just in their subjective experience. Under psilocybin a different part of the brain became active.
The dmn turned off. Awareness is off. The subject’s brain wave patterns were dramatically different than those of other forms of consciousness.
Quartz put it this way: psilocybin seems to offer some people a route to an alternate view of reality in which they shed the limitations of their individual consciousness and embraced a sense of interconnectedness and universality.
This is exactly what the ancient spiritual traditions of the far east have described for centuries. When ordinary consciousness is suspended, this oceanic experience of oneness rises up and takes its place.
Gone was the sense of having an outer world around them. Gone was the sense that I am a separate self. Gone was the experience of being a distinct “me”. “Me” was obliterated. “Me” no longer existed.
The test subjects reported experiences which are not unknown. Similar descriptions of reality have come down to us from ancient mystical traditions of the Far East. They have referred to these experiences as the Transcendent. Participants described feeling a sense of oneness with all existence. They felt a deep sense of unity, as if they were one with the entire universe. They all felt a sense of peace and ease. Everything was fine just as it is. Nothing needed to be changed. Nothing needed to be improved. Life is perfect just as it is.
A great sense of peace and ease came over them. Perhaps most important, it did not go completely away. After the effects of the drug wore off, the subjects continued to experience a lingering sense of peace and ease.
This was change that really matters. It was profound. It was life-changing. It was life-validating.
