LSD Mimics a Baby's Brain

So let's think. What is it like to be a baby? What's it like to be a child? Our emotions go up and down. We might be in a sort of happy, sort of ecstatic state one minute, giggling, finding everything funny and silly - similar things happen on psychedelics - and then the next minute there's a sudden shift and we're bawling our eyes out, you know? Similar kind of emotional sensitivities and hyper-imaginative processes occur with a psychedelic.

Also something quite intriguing is that sense of wonder, that sense of awe that you certainly see with psychedelics. Sometimes it's framed in a sort of mystical or spiritual way. But it's interesting if you look at some literature, particularly someone like William Wordsworth who talks about the infant state as being a kind of heavenly state where we're sort of closer to what you would call God, in a way.

[...]

Certain patterns, certain configurations in the brain can become overly reinforced. And some of the range of brain activity becomes sort of narrowed and limited. If you have these very debilitating disorders, then perhaps you could introduce something like LSD, which works to introduce a kind of window of plasticity or malleability - conditions for change, essentially - to try and sort of dismantle these entrenched patterns.

Notes:

Folksonomies: cognition plasticity

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Your Brain On LSD Looks A Lot Like A Baby's

Electronic/World Wide Web>Internet Article: Carhart-Harris, Robin (April 17, 2016), Your Brain On LSD Looks A Lot Like A Baby's, Retrieved on 2016-05-30

Source Material [www.npr.org]

Folksonomies: mind neurology

Triples

30 MAY 2016

Infant Brains and Free Association

How Brains Grow Into Bodies > Comparison > LSD Mimics a Baby's Brain
If the effects of LSD mimic infant brains, then it is likely due to the free associations the drug allows. This can also be created through Mindfulness Meditation and the practice of "Beginner's Mind."