46 | New Scientist | 5 March 2022
network, an interconnected set of brain
regions thought to be involved in imagination,
daydreaming and perspective taking, also
tends to be quietened during meditation and
transcendent experiences. “It’s probably a very
complex set of interactions that are occurring
and, to some extent, that can’t be a surprise
because of the sort of richness and diversity
of these experiences,” says Newberg.
Whatever is going on inside our brains, the
evidence suggests that we might all benefit
from losing ourselves more often. For most
people, psychedelics aren’t really an option.
There is an ongoing revolution in their use
for clinical therapy. In recent years, trials have
demonstrated that drugs including MDMA,
LSD and psilocybin can successfully reduce
symptoms from a range of disorders from
major depressive disorder and anxiety to
chronic pain and post-traumatic stress
disorder. However, while psychedelics
induce intense transcendence more reliably
than anything else, they remain illegal for
recreational use in most countries.
Fortunately, there are other options. For
low-intensity transcendent experiences,
you can seek awe in nature. Or you can find
activities that put you into a flow state, in
which you become “completely absorbed
in a highly rewarding activity”, says Richard
Huskey at the University of California, Davis.
Over the years, studies have shown that
experiencing flow can variously help to
prevent work-related depression and
burnout, build resilience and improve
well-being. A 2020 study on people being
quarantined due to covid-19, for instance,
found that those who engaged in activities
that induced a flow state had significantlystate by engaging in activities in which they
are highly skilled, but that are also challenging.
Helpfully, people are generally pretty accurate
at guessing what might bring on this state, says
Huskey. “I can make a good inference that I’m
probably not going to flow when snowboarding
down a really easy run on the mountain, but I
might feel it on a more difficult run.”
However, all such transcendent experiences,
from flow states to mystical episodes induced
by psychedelic drugs, are fleeting. Surely it
would be better for us to get longer-lasting,
or at least more habitual, self-transcendence.
That brings us to mindfulness, typically
defined as paying attention, on purpose,
to the present moment.
For Jay Sanguinetti, a neuroscientist at the
University of Arizona Center for Consciousness
Studies, mindfulness may actually be a longer-
term mental state. He views it as a sort of
default state formed by habitual daily
experiences and emotional responses. All
day your brain is processing information
and deciding how to act and respond, he says.
“Sometimes that default state can tip into
negative emotion, that’s depression. It can tip
into anxiety, that’s anxiety disorder. So some
people’s default state can become a problem.”
Part of mindfulness training, he says, is to
habitually change your thought processes
about your body and the world around you
so that default experience shifts towards a
happier and more-balanced state of mind.
One mindfulness-based practice, known as
equanimity training, involves viewing a series
of emotionally triggering images. Participants
track their response to each image, and if the
response is negative, seek to redirect their
attention to the task of viewing images.
“That is changing how you’re emotionally
present in the world, and people tend to feel
better because they’re letting go of their
triggers,” says Sanguinetti. In these days of
pandemic and climate crisis, he adds, the
ability to resist the sense of threat such
scenarios pose may allow people to feel
better on a day-to-day basis.
The problem is that when it comes
to mindfulness, as with other forms of
meditation, it can take years to perfect
the techniques and get all the benefits.
For instance, one study found that peopleSHUT
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EJCTOPORISPsilocybin, the active
ingredient in magic
mushrooms, may induce
self-transcendence“ The goal with transcranial focused
ultrasound is to boost the positive
effects of meditation”
improved well-being compared with those
who didn’t experience flow.
Huskey says early work suggests flow leads
to increased activity in brain regions involved
in focus and decreased activation of brain
regions associated with self-referential
thinking and negative intrusive thoughts.
“One potential reason flow might be useful for
experiencing well-being is it can distract us
from difficult things,” he says. “It essentially
refocuses our attention away from negative
thoughts and focuses them instead on
something that’s intrinsically rewarding.”
Or perhaps a flow state simply injects periods
of “really intensely rewarding, intensely
gratifying experiences” into our everyday
life, he says, which in turn translates into
higher levels of overall well-being.
What we know is that people induce a flow