Hi there,

What actually changes in the brain when we take psychedelics?

For all the attention psychedelics receive, that question is still surprisingly difficult to answer. We know they can alter perception, loosen our ordinary sense of self, change communication between brain networks and, in some contexts, create a period of unusual psychological flexibility. But no single theory yet explains the whole experience.

Researchers have developed several models. The Entropic Brain hypothesis suggests psychedelic states involve more diverse and less predictable patterns of brain activity, while REBUS proposes that psychedelics loosen the grip of our strongest prior beliefs and expectations. Together, these ideas offer ways of thinking about everything from therapeutic change and ego dissolution to some of the stranger features of psychedelic experience.

DMT is a particularly fascinating case. In an analysis of thousands of naturalistic DMT reports, 45.5% included encounters with apparently autonomous “entities” - beings that can feel shockingly real and independent of the person experiencing them. Dr. Chris Timmermann has spent years studying DMT and consciousness, including recent work examining how the brain might generate these experiences. Whether entities tell us something unusual about the mechanics of perception, the construction of the self, or something harder to explain remains an open question - and a good example of why psychedelic science reaches far beyond simply asking how a drug affects the brain.

These are some of the questions explored in Unlocking the Psychedelic Mind, Dr Chris Timmermann’s 10-week live online course beginning next Tuesday - 29 September. Across the programme he moves from psychedelic neuroscience and therapy through consciousness, REBUS and neural entropy, DMT and 5-MeO-DMT, meditation, creativity and the future of the field.

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