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This episode explores how and why psychedelics, like psilocybin, are capable of making our minds more plastic and malleable. Research on Psilocybin has found that the drug de-synchronizes the Default Mode Network (DMN). 

The DMN is a brain network that becomes active when we are day-dreaming, when our mind wanders. I think of the DMN as the producer of our conceptual mind. It creates our concept of a Self, our ego. It concerns itself with how we relate to and are perceived by others.  It is the part of the brain, therefore, that is egocentric, selfish and greedy; the region that causes us to worry about social status and to feel competitive with others' it is the area of the brain that causes self-doubt and self-criticism. The DMN is the part of the brain that makes us neurotic or even psychotic. 

So, getting the DMN to shut up is a good thing in and of itself.  Researchers who are studying the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics are finding that a psychedelic trip quiets the DMN and makes it more receptive to replacing negative and maladaptive thoughts with healthier ones.   

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