Altered States (Part I)

Recently, Michael Pollan’s new book, “How to Change Your Mind,” has provoked a flurry of interest across the country, with articles in the New Yorker, interviews on Fresh Air, and podcasts with Tim Ferris and others. In it, he reports on some new research with psychedelics, including their use in healing PTSD, anxiety, and addiction.

The implications for the mental health field are rich and promising, but his explanation of how psychedelics work – by damping down the “default mode network” – has far more important implications. Simply put, normal, daily reality is the altered state, and psychedelic experiences open a window into what is actually our natural mind, a broader, deeper, and more holistic way of perceiving and experiencing the world.

According to Pollan, our default mode network is a group of structures that connect the cortex, our thinking brain, to parts of the brain where emotion and memory reside. This network is the home of self-reflection and rumination, the autobiographical self who tells stories about who we are, who we want to (or should) be, and it filters and incorporates new information into that narrative.

Simply put, this network and its stories make up our ego. These stories often limit our openness to information that doesn’t fit the narrative, and in many cases, can be outright destructive. And psychedelics, rather than increase brain activity, actually decrease it in a specific way – they take the editor and censor – the default mode network – offline. In doing that, new stories, perceptions, or commitments – ones that are broader and more liberating — can arise.

Come back to reality? It’s the worst altered state I’ve ever been in.”
– Lily Tomlin

Though the media blitz of Pollan’s book tour has brought this to the forefront of our attention, this information is not new. This fundamental idea, that normal daily reality — consensual reality – is inauthentic, illusory, limiting, or damaging is a common theme in almost every Wisdom tradition on earth, and it’s at the heart of a great many systems of psychological growth as well.

For example, in 1968 I was introduced to the shamanistic world of Carlos Castaneda, whose teacher, Don Juan, often used psychedelic substances in Carlos’s training. In one notable passage, Don Juan referred to our two minds, saying, “One is our true mind, the product of all our life experiences, the one that rarely speaks because it has been defeated and relegated to obscurity. The other — the mind we use daily for everything we do — is a foreign installation.”

Similarly, almost every spiritual tradition relies on metaphors to describe the movement from daily ego consciousness to another state that cannot be described directly or rationally. These metaphors – from sleepwalking to awakening… from imprisonment to liberation…from separation (or exile) to oneness or home – all imply that what we take as normal is a watered down, fragmented, or illusory state that we need to transcend or grow out of to realize our full potential.

Freud once said, “the price of civilization is neurosis,” meaning that acculturation and domestication must inevitably suppress and control the impulses and natural inclinations of its citizens. Think of it – for two and a half million years people evolved in small wandering bands of 40-100 people. In those small communities, one’s gifts, talents, and longings could be met, nurtured and responded to. The community changed in response to its members.

Then, 10,000 years ago, agriculture develops. Permanent settlements of thousands soon follow, and individuals must be turned into farmers, soldiers, bookkeepers, and laborers… their individuality sacrificed to fit the needs of the larger system. The larger the disconnection between the available or acceptable roles and one’s innate inclinations, the greater the neurosis. The mind we use daily for everything we do has become a foreign installation.

Accepting that we have two minds — one civilized and the other natural — is one thing, but the next question becomes, “What do we do about it?” Answering that questions brings to mind a well-known story of an old Cherokee man talking to his grandson about the battle that goes on inside each of us:

He says, “My son, the great battle is between two wolves inside us all.
– “One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.
– “The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.”

The grandson thinks about it for a while, then asks his Grandfather, “Which wolf wins?”

His Grandfather simply replies, “The one you feed.”

In next month’s post I plan to address that question – “Which one are we feeding?” If we accept there are alternate realities – one ego-based that’s installed or inherited from the system, and one natural or wild… one indigenous or primal and one domesticated – then to which, right now, are we pledging allegiance? Given that, how can we create a life that feeds our soul?” Good questions, I think, and well-worth considering.

(To hear Michael Pollan being interviewed by Tim Ferris, click Here.)