How to Change Your Mind

After decades of being shunned, psychedelics have slowly made their way back into official medical trials. Researchers are now repeating experiments, that already back in the 50ies+60ies showed the positive effect of psychedelics for people dealing with addiction, depression and death anxieties. Hadn't it been for Leary, the whole field probably wouldn't have been illegitimized and tabooed. In a need for rebranding, the field now reorients itself in the direction of “psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy”. It's not about the wild-hallucinatory-color-trip, it's about the long-lasting effects on your brain that a temporary loosening of your ego-structures can have.

When our default mode network becomes too rigid, it shows itself in too heavily ego-focused behavior. If we're backwards-focused this results in depression, if future-focused it represents in anxiety. Neuroimaging of the effects of psychedelics (and heavy meditation) on the brain shows decreased activity in the region that represents the default mode network. It's a state of hyper mindfulness, that allows for more connections across all areas of the brain, which is not unsimilar to the entropy-rich brains of young children. It's a window of mental flexibility, neuroplasticity, that allows for a “reboot”, a rewriting of too rigid mental models.

I found the historical and political section of the book slightly too long, but I really enjoyed all the insights into the neuroscience, the current medical trials, and especially Pollan's own trip experiences. He does a good job of describing all the fears and concerns an outsider would have, planning and undergoing a first trip.