As a vet with PTSD who went through legal clinical trials, I’ve lived inside that rewiring. The data points to sustained downregulation in the default mode network, a pattern researchers like Robin Carhart-Harris have been tracking for years. Basically, the brain’s self-referential chatter goes quiet. When that happens, the walls between "me" and "everything else" start to feel porous. I’ve felt it. I’ve also sat with it through years of daily meditation, watching that quiet space expand long after the compounds left my system. It’s like the nervous system finally remembers how to breathe.

But here’s where I push back on the pure materialist reading. Just because we can map the neural correlates doesn’t mean we’ve captured the phenomenon. Carl Jung argued that the psyche operates on symbolic and archetypal levels that resist pure reductionism. When I hit those states, I’m not just experiencing gamma synchronization or connectivity shifts. I’m navigating The Moon territory—instinct, shadow, the subconscious bleeding into conscious awareness. The fMRI shows the highway; it doesn’t show the landscape you’re driving through.

I think this data is huge for destigmatizing responsible access. If we can show reproducible markers of ego dissolution and network flexibility, maybe we can finally push past the bureaucratic gatekeeping that keeps legitimate therapy out of reach. But we gotta be careful not to let the map become the territory. The brain scans prove the mechanism, not the meaning. Meaning is what you bring back, piece by piece, during the long hours behind the wheel.

What’s your take on the intersection of hard neuroscience and actual mystical experience? Does seeing the wiring make the magic feel less real, or does it just give us a better compass?