Transpersonal Experiences with Psychedelics, Meditation, and Dreaming: Neurobiology of Altered States

I had profound transpersonal experiences with meditation and dreaming. How is it that these altered states of consciousness (ASC) take us down a path of mystical experiences beyond time and space? How is it that our minds sometimes open up to seemingly infinite wisdom and freedom with meditation, dreaming, or psychedelics? Since the beginning of 20th century, western scientists and academics began to focus on psychedelics and the association between the use of these substances and the transpersonal or paranormal experience. There is a broad range of anomalous or potentially peak experiences such as synaesthesia, extra-dimensional percepts, out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences, entity encounters, alien abduction, sleep paralysis, interspecies communication, possession, and psi (telepathy, precognition, and clairvoyance and psychokinesis) (Luke, 2020). ASC seems to be key in the induction of these experiences, and all these experiences may also occur in non-psychedelic states.

Barrett & Griffiths (2017) highlighted an intriguing overlap in neural findings on classic hallucinogens and meditative practices that may trigger mystical experiences. The changes in activity, connectivity, and neural oscillatory processes in the default mode network regions may underlie dimensions of mystical experience. Psilocybin and meditation can be viewed as complementary techniques for the exploration of the nature of mind and self. However, according to Millière et al. (2018), while both meditation and psychedelics may disrupt self-consciousness and underlying neural processes, they suggest that there are important phenomenological differences even between conscious states described as experiences of self-loss. Drug-induced and meditation-induced experiences of “self-loss” are not uniform. For example, temporary cessation of self-referential thought and mental time travel can be induced by meditation and psychedelics, but a temporary loss of access to semantic autobiographical information, resulting in a complete breakdown of one’s personal identity appears to be more specific to psychedelics. Also, meditation practices may inhibit awareness of bodily sensations but psychedelic substances may completely suppress awareness of the body.

The current understanding of the action of psychedelic substances in the brain remains limited. It was Huxley who applied Henri Bergson’s theory of the brain to psychedelics by suggesting that these mind-manifesting drugs override the “reducing valve” of the brain (Huxley, 1954, p. 8), allowing humans access to both psychic and mystical experiences. He suggested that the brain functions more like a reducing valve that shields us from an infinitely larger cosmic input. Carhart-Harris et al. (2012) research support this theory. After the ingestion of psilocybin, it was expected that certain regions of the brain would have more activity, given the overwhelming intenseness of strong psychedelic experiences, however, there was no single brain region that increased in activity, and the brain’s activity was reduced overall.

My personal mediation and dreaming experiences are in line with the insights coming out of the various psychedelic researches. I think future research on this topic could focus on the neural processes and psychometric tools to measure ‘self-loss’ in various altered states of consciousness with an emphasis on connection to transpersonal experiences.