Harry John
Psychedelic experiences often feature a profound ego death: a loss of the usual sense of “I.” One DMT (Dimethyltryptamine) user vividly described this as an explosion of selfhood: “I had my ego exploded in fragments and ‘I’ stopped being ‘me’,” he wrote, feeling himself “rebuilt with every part of the cosmos.” In Freud’s theory, ‘the ego’ is the executive mediator between instinct (the id) and morality (the superego), the personal point of reference relating past, present, and future experiences. In cognitive neuroscience today, the ego can be seen as the ongoing self-model or narrative that stitches our memories, goals, and sensations into a coherent identity. Neuroscientists have identified a particular brain network tightly linked to this self-model known as the ‘Default Mode Network’ (DMN). The DMN is a distributed circuit active when your mind is not focused on the outside world either during rest, daydreaming, self-reflection, or thinking about the past and future. It is essentially the brain’s background mode for self-related thought – when we focus internally rather than on the outside world. Vinod Menon summarises the DMN’s role as creating our “internal narrative,” by integrating memories, language, and concepts into “the construction of a sense of self.” When we stop paying attention to the external environment, the DMN “defaults” to this inward mode (hence its name). In effect, the DMN serves as the mind’s operating system for self-monitoring and introspection. Remarkably, psychedelics like psilocybin and LSD appear to shut down or disintegrate the DMN, producing radical changes in perception and identity. This article explores how disrupting the DMN can dismantle the ordinary self, what users experience during ego death, and why that can have both therapeutic and existentially significant consequences.
The DMN comprises several highly connected “hub” regions in the brain’s midline and parietal cortex. Key nodes include the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC)/precuneus, and parts of the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) such as the angular gyrus. As Letheby and Gerrans describe it, the self is a high-level predictive model that binds attributes of our mind into a unified “I.” Psychedelics unbind these attributes. Rather than layering hallucinations on top of the self, the drug tears apart the scaffolding that normally holds the self-model together. The DMN’s “operating system” is suppressed and the usual owner’s manual of our own identity dissolves.
How do psychedelics produce these dramatic effects on the mind? A study by Carhart-Harris proposed the Entropic Brain Theory as an explanation. The brain at rest normally operates just below a critical tipping point, with the DMN enforcing order and constraining activity. Psychedelics raise the brain’s entropy. In other words, they “flatten” the normal hierarchy of networks and allow more random, unconstrained activity. In Carhart-Harris’s words, a psychedelic state is like a return to an infant brain: “free and unconstrained” with networks that normally work separately now blending. Concretely, when the DMN is suppressed, sensory and emotional networks start to interact more directly. Under LSD visual and auditory regions that normally process inputs independently become highly coupled, so that people literally “see” when they close their eyes. For example, when the parahippocampus (memory and imagery) floods the visual cortex, people report vivid life-like visions of personal memories.
The feeling of ‘dissolution of ego’ is primarily a subjective, ineffable experience. Boundaries between “self” and “world” vanish. Many users report feeling at one with the universe, losing any sense of a separate self. Time can warp. Minutes feel like eternity or vice versa. People have reported living a whole lifetime in just 5 minutes. Psychologically, ego death can be seen as a temporary liberation from our self-referential loops. Under psychedelics, the mind is freed from its normal tethering of every thought to “me.” This can be terrifying (the loss of self) but also enlightening. For example, Johns Hopkins researchers found that mystical-type experiences, often featuring ego loss, reliably predicted long-term increases in well-being and life satisfaction. In one landmark study of psilocybin, 64% of volunteers said the session increased their sense of well-being even 14 months later (versus 39% in controls). Similarly, subjects in depression trials often describe an immediate sense of connectedness and relief. Notably, much research has shown that LSD-induced ego dissolution was linked with greater overall brain connectivity (a “flattening” of the usual network hierarchy) and correlated with reductions in narrative self-processing.
The aftermath of taking psychedelics varies from person to person, yet many see the potential for them to be used beneficially. Some studies even suggest people appear more empathetic, display increased openness, and feel more interconnected after a psychedelic trip. In therapeutic trials, the dissolving of rigid self-concepts appears to allow people to break free from entrenched patterns of negative thoughts like self-criticism or anxiety about the future. For example, patients with life-threatening cancer often describe mystical DMT or psilocybin experiences as profoundly meaningful. Johns Hopkins reports that a single high-dose session gave significant relief of existential distress for months afterwards.In sum, losing the ego in this context often leads to an expanded perspective – one feels their problems are smaller in the grand scheme, and a sense of oneness and compassion can increase.
Medically, it is proving therapeutic for disorders like depression and PTSD. For decades, fMRI studies have found that patients with major depression often have overactive DMN connectivity, especially in circuits linked to rumination and self-critical thought. In fact, some researchers proposed that excessive coupling of the mPFC/PCC in depression may be a neural signature of being “stuck” in one’s thoughts. Psychedelics seem to break this cycle. In treatment-resistant depression trials, a single psilocybin session rapidly lifts mood and can provide relief lasting months. MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD has shown remarkable success, especially in war veterans and first responders. Many veterans describe finally feeling love again or relearning trust after MDMA sessions. There was even psilocybin-assisted therapy that helped many chronic smokers quit smoking potentially by disrupting the DMN loops that underlie cravings.
There are also significant risks with this – the so-called “bad trip.” In some cases, this ego disintegration provokes extreme anxiety or a transient sense of death or insanity. More rarely, hallucinogen persisting perception disorder (HPPD) can occur, in which visual distortions or flashbacks recur long after the drug has worn off. The dangers are greater for individuals predisposed to mental illness in which psychedelics can unmask or trigger psychotic episodes in those with latent schizophrenia or bipolar vulnerability. Even in psychologically stable users, persistent de-personalisation, de-realisation, or post-trip mood volatility may follow if the experience is not properly integrated. In some cases, context amplifies these dangers in which chaotic or unsafe environments heighten confusion and panic. In addition, unregulated substances pose dosing and purity risks, though these issues are not inherent to the psychedelic itself.
Crucially, psychedelics do not literally annihilate the self but rather expose it as a construct. The potential uses of these psychedelics are extremely exciting, though they come with the aforementioned challenges, it will be fascinating to see how they are used in the future of healthcare.
Letheby, Chris, and Philip Gerrans. 2017. “Self Unbound: Ego Dissolution in Psychedelic Experience.” Neuroscience of Consciousness 2017 (1).
Carhart-Harris, Robin L., Robert Leech, Peter J. Hellyer, Murray Shanahan, Amanda Feilding, Enzo Tagliazucchi, Dante R. Chialvo, and David Nutt. 2014. “The Entropic Brain: A Theory of Conscious States Informed by Neuroimaging Research with Psychedelic Drugs.” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 8 (20).
Tagliazucchi, Enzo, Leor Roseman, Mendel Kaelen, Csaba Orban, Suresh D. Muthukumaraswamy, Kevin Murphy, Helmut Laufs, et al. 2016. “Increased Global Functional Connectivity Correlates with LSD-Induced Ego Dissolution.” Current Biology 26 (8): 1043–50.
Petri, G., P. Expert, F. Turkheimer, R. Carhart-Harris, D. Nutt, P. J. Hellyer, and F. Vaccarino. 2014. “Homological Scaffolds of Brain Functional Networks.” Journal of the Royal Society Interface 11 (101): 20140873.
Carhart-Harris, R. L., D. Erritzoe, T. Williams, J. M. Stone, L. J. Reed, A. Colasanti, R. J. Tyacke, et al. 2012. “Neural Correlates of the Psychedelic State as Determined by FMRI Studies with Psilocybin.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109 (6): 2138–43.
Halpern, John H., Arturo G. Lerner, and Torsten Passie. 2016. “A Review of Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder (HPPD) and an Exploratory Study of Subjects Claiming Symptoms of HPPD.” Behavioral Neurobiology of Psychedelic Drugs 36: 333–60.
