Health & Fitness
Meditation; for some it's an endeavour, for some it's a fashion. For me, and for most, it’s understanding the fundamental nature of being human.Psychedelics comes from the Greek words "psyche" meaning "mind" or "consciousness" and "delos" meaning "clear, visible". In other words, psychedelics means mind-revealing or mind-manifesting.Both psychedelics and meditation exert huge changes in consciousness, perception and cognition. What is strikingly similar about these two seemingly different modalities is that of the alterations in self-referential processing regions of the brain.The Default Mode Network, or the DMN, is a network of brain regions that primarily includes the medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, and the inferior parietal lobe, and is responsible for self-reference; referring to traits and descriptions of oneself, theory of mind; thinking about the thoughts of others and what they are thinking, mental imagery, emotion’s of one’s self, reflecting on one’s emotional state and also what is called the autobiographical self.Links:Mind Body PlantsMind Medicine AustraliaMind Medicine (Podcast)Research noted in this podcast:Psilocybin-assisted mindfulness training modulates self-consciousness and brain default mode network connectivity with lasting effectsPsychedelics, Meditation, and Self-ConsciousnessPsilocybin-occasioned mystical-type experience in combination with meditation and other spiritual practices produces enduring positive changes in psychological functioning and in trait measures of prosocial attitudes and behaviorsDepression, Mindfulness, and Psilocybin: Possible Complementary Effects of Mindfulness Meditation and Psilocybin in the Treatment of Depression. A Review