All from meditation. Nobody took psychedelics.
Meditation may push the brain into something resembling a psychedelic state.
Researchers studied
20 people before and after a seven-day meditation retreat using brain scans,
blood tests, and questionnaires.
The default mode
network saw a decrease in activity following the retreat. This is the system
associated with self-focused thinking that is also disrupted by psychedelics.
Researchers also
observed a more integrated whole-brain state, while participants reported
significantly stronger mystical-type experiences.
After that, things
got weird. When scientists exposed neurons in a dish to participants'
post-retreat blood plasma, the cells grew longer neurites - potentially
pointing towards biological changes associated with neuroplasticity.
Blood markers also
suggested changes in metabolism, immune signalling, and endogenous opioid
levels.
All from
meditation. Nobody took psychedelics.
But this was a tiny
observational study with no control group, so it cannot prove meditation caused
these changes. Joe Dispenza, a
co-author, also runs the retreats' business. Still, the overlap suggests that
psychedelics and intensive meditation access some of the same biological states
through completely different routes.

Comments
Post a Comment