administered a placebo or varying doses of
psilocybin. The proportion of participants
who reported having a mystical experience
was greater among those who received the
psychedelic and even more so among those
who got a higher dose. That much you might
expect. What is perhaps surprising is that those
who received psilocybin reported improved
mood and more positive attitudes and
behaviours, and that those benefits persisted
for 14 months after receiving the drug.Thinking of you
What makes self-transcendent experiences
so beneficial? At first blush, you might think
it would be unsettling, even terrifying, to
suddenly lose your sense of self. Indeed,
many people report that intense transcendent
experiences are “psychologically challenging
and difficult”, according to Yaden. For that
reason, clinical trials aimed at inducing these
states are done under close supervision.
But there is ample evidence from clinical
psychology to demonstrate that excessive
self-focus can have negative effects – it is a
hallmark of depression, for instance – which
could explain why reducing that focus, even
temporarily, can be helpful.
We have also learned a bit about
what happens in the brain during self-
transcendence. Imaging studies have
repeatedly captured activation of the frontal
lobe, part of the brain involved in attention and
emotion, and reduced activity in the parietal
lobe, which may be associated with the loss
of the sense of self, says Andrew Newberg, a
neuroscientist at Thomas Jefferson University
Hospital in Pennsylvania. The default mode5 March 2022 | New Scientist | 45>Our understanding of the phenomenon
has come on a bit since then. In a 2017 paper
outlining different kinds of self-transcendent
experience, David Yaden, a psychologist also
at Johns Hopkins, defined them as “transient
mental states of decreased self-salience and
increased feelings of connectedness” – those
moments when self-referential thoughts fade
away such that you feel deeply at one with
other people or your surroundings. Astronauts
gazing back at Earth from outer space, for
example, report feeling overwhelming
emotion and a deep sense of oneness with
humankind. Others report similar experiences
during religious awakenings, near-death
experiences, supernatural encounters, or
the birth of a child.
But as Yaden makes clear, self-transcendent
experiences exist on a spectrum of intensity:
there are the most intense episodes, when your
sense of self dissolves entirely, and there are
less-intense versions such as the awe you feel
when immersed in nature or the peace and
feelings of well-being people report during
mindfulness meditation.
In pretty much every case, these experiences
appear to be good for us. A series of studies
published in 2015, for instance, found that
people exposed to awe-inducing stimuli such
as towering Tasmanian eucalyptus trees or
sweeping panoramic videos of mountains
and forests were significantly more likely to
report feeling less self-centred and to act more
generously in a simulation than those exposed
to control stimuli that didn’t induce awe.
At the other end of the spectrum are the
overwhelming feelings of transcendence
induced in Griffiths’s study on mystical
experiences, in which 18 healthy adults wereA
FEW years ago, psychiatrist Roland
Griffiths published the results of some
intriguing work with people facing
imminent death. His team wanted to see if it
was possible to reduce anxiety and depression
in people diagnosed with terminal cancer
by inducing an intense self-transcendent
experience, in which a person’s sense of
self temporarily falls away.
Fifty-one people received two doses of the
psychedelic psilocybin, previously shown
experimentally by Griffiths and others to
reliably induce what they call “mystical-type”
experiences. Five weeks after the first dose,
63 per cent of them had a clinically significant
reduction in depression symptoms and 51 per
cent saw a reduction in anxiety symptoms. Five
months later, many still had fewer symptoms.
Frederick Barrett, part of Griffiths’s team
at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland,
says it isn’t clear that the therapeutic effect
was entirely down to the transcendent
experience. But “a lot of people believe that
is the case”, he adds, “and I’m one of them”.
If he is right, it is a striking example of
how self-transcendent experiences, though
temporary, can provide a lasting boost to
well-being. And they don’t have to be the
intense experiences induced by psychedelics.
Just staring in awe at magnificent trees or
concentrating intensely on a challenging task
also seem to have the capacity to make you
happier, less stressed and kinder to others.
Now, some researchers are developing
brain stimulation techniques that could
induce self-transcendence, or at least
accelerate the positive effects of mindfulness
and meditation. So, should we all be seeking
to lose ourselves more often? And if so, what
is the best way to do it?
Self-transcendence is nothing new.
Religious rituals and other cultural practices
aiming to induce it have been part of the
human experience throughout recorded
history, and probably before. As something
approaching a scientific discipline, however,
the idea can be traced to 19th-century
psychologist William James, who did
experiments on himself to induce self-
transcendent states. “We can experience union
with something larger than ourselves and in
that union find our greatest peace,” he wrote.
“ There is ample evidence from
clinical psychology that excessive
self-focus can have negative effects”