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| Credit: Nankou Oronain |
For some reaason, I can´t let this go...
That’s an excellent and profound question — it touches on neuroscience, consciousness studies, and even philosophy of mind.
🔍 Short Answer:
Mystical experiences often feel deeply meaningful not despite certain brain functions being diminished, but because of it. When parts of the brain involved in filtering, controlling, or separating experience shut down, the mind can enter a hyper-integrated, emotionally charged, and holistically unified state — which the person then experiences as meaningful, transcendent, or revelatory.
🧠 What Happens in the Brain During Mystical Experiences?
Studies using fMRI, EEG, and psychedelic neuroimaging show consistent patterns:
1. Reduced Activity in the Default Mode Network (DMN)
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The DMN governs your sense of self, ego, and narrative continuity.
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When it "quiets down" (through meditation, psychedelics, near-death states), people report:
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Loss of self-boundaries ("ego dissolution")
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A sense of unity with the universe or God
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Timelessness
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2. Reduced Filtering and Inhibition
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Normally, the brain filters out vast amounts of sensory and emotional information to prevent overload.
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In mystical states, this filter is relaxed, allowing:
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Heightened perception
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Novel associations and metaphors
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Emotional intensity and interconnectedness
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As Aldous Huxley proposed, the brain may function as a "reducing valve" — filtering out raw reality so we can function. Mystical experiences might occur when the valve is loosened.
3. Increased Cross-Talk Between Brain Regions
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Particularly between emotion (limbic system), perception (visual/auditory cortex), and cognition.
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This can create hyper-meaningful symbolic experiences: hearing a sound that carries cosmic significance, or seeing light and interpreting it as divine presence.
🧬 Why Does It Feel So Meaningful?
✅ Emotion + Integration = Meaning
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The emotional brain (amygdala, limbic system) is often highly active.
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Because the logical, self-critical, or skeptical faculties are dampened, you don’t question what’s happening — you accept it as truth.
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The experience feels like direct knowing or unmediated insight — not just an idea, but a full-body truth.
🧩 Chaos vs Order
It might seem that shutting off brain regions would lead to chaos. But:
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The brain is highly self-organizing. When certain constraints are removed (like the ego or language filters), it may reorganize around emotional salience, symbolic imagery, or archetypes.
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Think of it like a jazz improvisation: less control, more emergent order.
🌌 Mysticism as a Mode of Consciousness
Mystical experiences aren’t just random — they’re alternative cognitive states:
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Not disordered, but differently ordered
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Often have themes of unity, awe, interconnectedness, and meaning
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May be evolutionarily adaptive: helping with coping, transformation, and social bonding
Even William James noted in The Varieties of Religious Experience that such states feel more real than ordinary consciousness to the person undergoing them.
🔄 Summary
When the usual filters and sense of self fall away, the brain doesn’t collapse into chaos — it can enter a deeply coherent, emotionally intense, and unified mode of being. That’s what makes mystical experiences feel powerful and meaningful, not incoherent.
Would you like a diagram or chart of which brain areas are active/inactive during mystical states?
Here’s a chart summarizing what happens in the brain during mystical experiences — including which regions are deactivated or hyperactivated, and how this contributes to the sense of transcendence, unity, and deep meaning.
🧠 Brain Activity in Mystical States
| Brain Region / Network | Activity Level | Function | Effect on Experience |
|---|---|---|---|
| Default Mode Network (DMN) - Medial Prefrontal Cortex - Posterior Cingulate Cortex | 🔻 Decreased | Ego, narrative self, time perception | Ego-dissolution, timelessness, loss of boundaries |
| Parietal Lobes (esp. right side) | 🔻 Decreased | Spatial awareness, body orientation | Feeling of oneness with the universe, loss of physical self |
| Temporal Lobes | 🔺 Increased or erratic | Language, memory, religious imagery | Intense emotional visions, auditory phenomena, “divine” voices |
| Limbic System - Amygdala - Hippocampus | 🔺 Increased | Emotion, memory encoding | Awe, fear, love, life-changing significance |
| Thalamus | 🔻 Decreased gating/filtering | Sensory relay/filter | Flood of sensory input, synesthesia, vivid inner visuals |
| Prefrontal Cortex (esp. Dorsolateral) | 🔻 Decreased | Rational control, inhibition | Reduced skepticism, heightened openness to "meaning" |
| Visual and Auditory Cortex | 🔺 Increased | Perception | Vivid inner visuals (e.g., light beings, tunnels), perceived “hearing” of voices or music |
| Insular Cortex | 🔺 Increased | Interoception, emotional salience | Deep bodily awareness, connection to internal states, empathy |
🌀 Key Patterns
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🔻 Reduced control: Less filtering, ego, and inhibition.
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🔺 Increased emotional/sensory richness: More openness, symbolism, and vividness.
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🔄 Cross-network integration: Normally separate brain regions communicate more freely, producing novel associations and felt insight.
🧘♀️ Triggered by:
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Deep meditation or prayer
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Psychedelics (psilocybin, LSD, DMT)
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Near-death experiences
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Intense stress or trauma
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Spontaneous "peak experiences"
📌 Summary Insight:
Mystical experiences are not merely chaos. Instead, they arise when cognitive control is loosened, allowing emotion, perception, and self-awareness to reconfigure in a way that feels deeply meaningful, even sacred.
Would you like this information turned into a visual diagram (e.g., labeled brain map or infographic)?
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