Recently I came across a very interesting book by Michael Pollan, How to Change Your Mind, and a documentary based on the content of the book. It offers the author’s study and investigation on some psychoactive chemicals as a professional writer and journalist. The book and the documentary, especially the documentary, holds an agressive propaganda, which might be agreed or disagreed by the audience. Except for its political purpose, this work focuses on some controversial knowledge at first hand, which is quite valuable in the context of psychology and cognitive science in my opinion.

Grow’n Pains

In the book, the author has explained his motivation on “stirring things up” in his already successful life. It starts by introducing a concept called “Default Mode Network” (DMN), which is the default mode that neuron networks operate in a brain. The term is used to describe the complicated bioelectical activities in brains, which make the preference of selecting and processing information without awareness. In other words, if we think a brain as a black box that takes all kinds of signals as inputs, its default operating mode, a.k.a DMN, is a filter to help the brain select incoming information before any high level process kicks in. For example, if we take a look at a photo of a tree, some details may get our attention immediately, while some other details will be ignored. This preference of attention at first glance varies from person to person, because every person has a unique DMN.

People grow over time, so do their DMNs. The nutrition that a mind uses to evolve its DMN is information, which is already filtered by DMN itself to a certain degree. If you have some knowledge on signal processing, this may remind you on how self stimulation of a system happens. Even if a DMN only holds a tiny little preference on information selection at the beginning, since the DMN will be continuously reinforced with filtered information, the level of preference could be drastically amplified as it accumulates. It is a self stimulating and locking mechanism similar to the learning process, but since it happens unconsciously in human brains, it is more difficult to manage. There’s a saying that people get more and more stubborn over time. If that is true, maybe the existence of DMN is the cause.

In other words, while we are getting mentally matured, we are also building our own mental jails at the same time. A mind will gradually become its own jail with a small window that only allows preferred information to get in because of DMN. This casts a shadow of pessimism on the journey of life with growth. Is this process inevitable? Or is there anything that we can do about it? That’s the main reason for Michael, the author, to try some unusual approaches to find a way out.

Up in the Air

A human brain is a very delicate system, so it is actually easier to mess things up than to keep things organized there. As the name of DMN itself indicates, default mode network, it is the default or idle mode a brain operates when there’s nothing else to do. Messing around with the default mode of a brain could be as simple as changing the frequency of breathing. Once DMN is deactivated, the mind will be disarmed with its front end filter and thus become more susceptible to incoming information, but only temporarily. Once such external forces are removed, their effects will also disappear, and the brain will balance back to the default mode again. To achieve a more permanent change in DMN with long term effects on the mind, the driving force to support changes on DMN has to come from within.

So what is this “driving force for the mind from within”? This is a topic that has already been studied extensively in psychology. The short answer is some kind of experience, a special one that is meaningful to the individual. The difficulty here is to tell what kind of special experience is needed exactly to inflict the specific change to the DMN as well as the mind, and if it is possible, how to make it happen. But the author does have some guts to leave these critical concerns to his tour guides for the journey ahead, and just “go for it”: disarm his mind, let the experience happen, and see where he will land afterwards.

The book then starts to get into details about the author visiting various tour guides and telling about changes in his mind after each trip. Regardless of the effectiveness, all the processes that he went through share a common pattern, which is also the formula for changing a mind that the author has summarized for us:

• The DMN of an individual is deactivated temporarily as the initialization.
• A significant experience happens while the individual is in the susceptible state.
• The individual rests to let the mind get back to equilibrium with the newly acquired memory about the experience.

Does it work, in the mist of all these uncertainties?

I Will Follow You into the Dark

Let’s talk about this “special experience” that seems to play a crucial role in author’s mind changing experiment. It is usually described as “mystical” or “spiritual”.

Human minds are capable of having spiritual experiences, regardless of the fact whether the origin of those experiences has any materialized interference with the physical world or not. It is a feature, or functionality, of human brains, which could be triggered by certain conditions such as chemical compounds, rituals, or pressures in life.

It is hard to tell why our brains have such functionality, and it is surprising to see that experiences from different individuals share a lot in common. According to Michael’s investigation, those being interviewed often describe feelings of “losing the sense of existence while being connected to some vast greatness”. From the perspective of Jungian psychology, this could be an indication of realizing personal unconsciousness and collective unconsciousness. A large number of interviewees describe this specific feeling as one of the most significant events that they have ever experienced in their lives, which then becomes the source of healing, enlightenment, and inspiration to their minds. That’s a very strong statement and thus draws my attention.

Based on Michael’s narration about himself and his interviewees, they have experienced ego dissolution. From Jungian perspective, the ego is the gate between the consciousness and unconsciousness of a mind, and also maintains the sense of being oneself. If it stops working, conscious and unconscious contexts will get mixed up in the mind. Forgotten memories return from back of the head, suppressed thoughts get unlocked, and the mind is able to notice and see them from a different view. Once things settle down again, those moving pieces from unconsciousness are now re-integrated, and the mind is changed by knowing a little bit more about itself. Technically this process is very similar to a healing dream, but with more depth and intensity.

Another potential impact of ego dissolution, if such experience is strong enough, is that completely losing the sense of being oneself means experiencing dying, even if it is just a totally subjective illusion. Death is definitely a significant event to an individual. If a person feels the inevitable, but survives from the existential crisis, it won’t be very surprising to see this experience being valued as the most significant event in lifetime and leaving a permanent mark on the mind. Though significant, the ego dissolution experience described in the book is probably missing some panic ingredient comparing to a real life threatening situation, otherwise it shall be more likely to become a trauma instead of a positive impact. Anyway, having a chance to experience dying without being dead seems to be very effective on making permanent changes to the mind, and it is confirmed by the author as well.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

At the end of the journey, Michael seems to be happy about his findings on changing his mind. The formula works successfully for him as well as many other interviewees he met. But he also admits that the value of such experience actually comes from his life. The experience only acts as a media for him to reconnect to himself without being biased by his DMN. Without all the accumulation in the previous 50 years of his life, he wouldn’t be able to benefit much from this inner exploration.

A very strong point that Michael has made in the book is the potential therapeutical value of this formula, and related psychoactive substance. Research works have shown that with the help of the psychoactive substance, psychiartrists are able to approach patients much more efficiently, making it easier to conduct mental therapies to help patients live their lives. However, even if I ignore the risk of abusing, I can’t help being skeptical about all the bright hopes that Michael is picturing on this part.

A human mind is a stateful system with memories, which means its current state does not come from nowhere, but associates with the context and approach that have led to the state. A complete set of states of a mind, or personality, is supported by collections of beliefs, opinions, attitudes, etc. On a lower level those are all supported by pieces of memories and thoughts in the reality. The reality with all experiences of happiness, sadness, and struggles that come with it is at the core of life, which is the context being attached to every piece of memory. Being in the reality and knowing that is the basis for experiences to have practical meanings. It matters, because it’s real.

If a shortcut were made available to get significant experiences without actually living through events in the reality, the context to support the significance of such experiences will be somehow compromised. If this approach is taken to “implant” experiences to a mind as a treatment, will the significance be spoiled by unconscious rejection, since the mind knows “it’s not real”?

But significant experiences in life are precious and rare. It is common for an individual to feel something missing in life. For some, it could cause suffering with all kinds of problems. Having synthesized experiences as an elixir versus continuing the struggle with the risk of not having a cure for good, which is a better choice? What will be taken as the price for the synthesized cure?

Life hacks seem to be attempting, but maybe the idea of hacking a life is somehow against living a life. Is time with effort a complexity that we can remove, or want to remove from life? Replacing some supporting pillars of a mind with stems of some kind of mushroom and knowing that, will it still stand? I find these questions very hard to answer.