Serendipity, the Brain and the Heart: Episode 2 in my Account of Traveling West in a Van while Writing a Book about Psychedelics and Elderhood

This trip has been rich with natural beauty and wonder – 360 degree sunsets and a ring-side seat for the totality of the solar eclipse.

But there has also been plenty of serendipity – things that caught my eye at auspicious moments, like this miniature antler and piece of hand-tooled flint.

So it felt serendipitous when, just as I’ve been writing about psychedelic-induced mystical experiences, I received a post about a new study that is, at least tangentially, related.

For science, the kind of peak experiences of love, joy, unity and spiritual meaning that are often, but not only, a feature of a psychedelic experience, are an anomaly. Questionnaires can quantify and validate experiences like rapture after the fact. But what is the source of this unifying love energy that seems to be part of the human experience, yet defies measurement?

Until recently, researchers have focused on the brain to understand these profound experiences. But in a new post from, The Trip Report by Beckley Waves, Zach Haigney describes a recent study that suggests  it’s not just the brain, but the electrical connectivity in every cell in our body that might be engaged in what we consider to be mental processes.

To prove his theory, Dr. Michael Levin at Tufts University taught a behavior to a caterpillar, then observed how, after its entire being, including its brain, turned to liquid and metamorphosized, the memory of that learned behavior was retained by the emergent butterfly.

Personally, I’m less interested in the physiological origins of spiritual experiences, nor am I convinced that, in our troubled world, the most salient lessons from psychedelics are going to come from science.

In fact, in my very unscientific, but otherwise informed opinion, if you’re looking to understand mystical experiences in general, and their positive potential in our world, I’d rely less on the brain and more on the heart.

Or maybe a combination of the two? In “The Relaxed Mind”, Dza Kilung Rinpoche describes how in Buddhism, “there are really two minds – the mind of the brain and the mind of the heart.”

“The mind of the brain.. can make calculations and so on. But..the brain-mind is commanded by the heart-mind… which is concerned more with feelings – especially with love and compassion. Cheer, delight and inspiration – as well as wisdom – are of the heart-mind.”

My own psychedelically-enabled mystical experiences have always been clearly centered in my chest. They have literally felt like my heart was exploding – unable to contain the immensity of joy and beauty.

Considering where the brain-mind has led, maybe we just need to give freer rein to the heart-mind and see where that takes us.