The big shift in treatment-resistant depression research is moving away from the monoamine hypothesis. SSRIs just boost serotonin, which is like trying to fix a cracked foundation by painting the walls. New data points to psychedelics working by disrupting the Default Mode Network (DMN). If you aren't familiar, the DMN is that brain network active when you're ruminating, worrying, or replaying the same old stories about yourself. Robin Carhart-Harris has been championing the "entropic brain" theory for a while, arguing that psychedelics increase neural entropy, effectively rebooting the system rather than just tweaking chemical levels.

This resonates deeply with my own spiral. I think a lot of depression, especially the kind that resists standard meds, is trapped in a rigid DMN loop. It's the ego holding on for dear life. In Jungian terms, we're talking about the persona becoming so calcified it strangles the psyche. Psychedelics don't just lift the mood; they destabilize the narrative.

It's literally The Tower in the Tarot. Not the gentle transition of The Hermit, but the lightning bolt that shatters the false structure. You can't have the alchemical "rebirth" without the destruction of the old vessel. The DMN is that vessel. When it goes offline, the boundaries of the self blur, and new pathways can form. That's where the healing happens.

Living in Vermont, everything feels a bit dormant in the winter, and that matches the feeling of a high-entropy state sometimes—waiting for the new growth. I've been experimenting with crystal grids not just for "energy" but as a way to ground myself after intense dream work, trying to reintegrate the self after the DMN comes back online. It's like the reintegration phase in therapy. The disruption is the easy part; rebuilding a healthier DMN is the work.

I use divination a lot, and I feel like the goal is to quiet the DMN's chatter to hear something else. Psychedelics just force that silence chemically. Does anyone else connect this to their practice, or am I reaching for patterns?