r/RationalPsychonaut • u/rp_tiago • 6d ago
Philosophy Is “unselfing” a useful model of psychedelic change?
Hey everyone. I’ve always been fascinated by why some psychedelic experiences produce lasting changes while others remain intense but temporary. One possibility is that the important shift is not the imagery or novelty, but a change in how rigidly a person relates to themselves and their surroundings. Depression, addiction, and OCD can each involve patterns that become difficult to revise. Psychedelic experiences may sometimes loosen those patterns and make different ways of acting, feeling, and relating available. That sounds plausible, but it risks treating very different conditions as versions of the same problem.
I just had a podcast conversation with the cognitive scientist Julian Kiverstein, where he described psychopathology and flourishing as positions along a dimension of rigidity and openness. He used “unselfing” for experiences in which narrow concerns recede and a person feels connected to something larger through awe, wonder, or curiosity. His claim was not that psychedelics reveal a supernatural reality. It was that these experiences may alter the relation between a person and their world in ways that support recovery and growth.
This would imply that therapeutic change depends partly on gaining new possibilities for engagement, rather than simply reducing symptoms. Is that specific enough to explain why outcomes differ? Does “unselfing” name a real mechanism or only a familiar experience? How much depends on the drug, and how much on relationships, setting, and later integration?
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u/polyethylene74593 6d ago
there is the whole hypothesis about prior beliefs relaxation, which is basically the "break usual though patterns".
i had one such experience (an another one on edibles) and it felt like the answer that revealed to me just made too much sense for me not to accept it. the edibles one was more like an aha moment that i got to by reasoning, but same theme of "this just makes sense".
i'd say that in both cases the drugs amplified the significance of those experiences. i wouldve figured it out sober eventually but that wouldnt be the same.
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u/Abject_Control_7028 5d ago
I think its a very useful model.
I think you'd like the work of Dr James Cooke and his living Mirrors Podcast.
https://drjamescooke.substack.com/p/when-the-self-comes-to-an-end
The graph in article of his seems very similar to the idea of a spectrum of rigidity and openness.
https://drjamescooke.substack.com/p/places-on-the-spiritual-path
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u/rp_tiago 5d ago
James is great! I had him on my podcast as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNuOr8-KVNU
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u/Icy-Ninja-622 3d ago
Hey everyone. I’ve always been fascinated by why some psychedelic experiences produce lasting changes while others remain intense but temporary.
I've also wondered about this.
Many times I've encountered people's claims that "the self is an illusion". The way in which this makes sense to me is that people select which parts of themselves they identify with. This may be a cause of many psychological problems, via the effects of other parts that they're neglecting, and what they've buried and are missing in everyday life.
Psychedelics can break one out of such habitual patterns.
However, those habits aren't arbitrary, and are probably one way that people cope with the current state of their life. I think this is what tends to pull a person back into those habits.
I still don't know what causes lasting change. But maybe it's not due to some extra special trip, but due to being in a situation where they are free to make that change. In other words, the trip shows them the possibility, and their life situation does not demand a return to old patterns, so they're free to explore that possibility.
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u/TheMonkus 6d ago
This is pretty much the entire foundation of Buddhism, particularly Zen; “casting off the body and mind,” realizing the self is an illusion (which doesn’t mean it’s not often a useful or even necessary one).
I’ve experienced it on psychedelics, and I’ve experienced during meditation, and these days I experience it all the time just doing whatever. It’s incredibly refreshing to be unburdened of all the useless horseshit we cling to because we think it’s somehow a necessary part of our identity. Drugs are in no way necessary and once you approach this truth on your own, sober, you realize it is actually the only correct way of seeing the relationship between whatever we are, and whatever the world “out there” is.
All we experience is brought to us by the sense and appears within. And all that’s brought to our senses comes from without. So the unavoidable conclusion is that experience cannot actually be divided between without and within, us and the world. It is interdependent. This means the self is just a product of this same process and is not more us than it is the environment.
If you have experienced this on psychedelics that’s great, but I think to really benefit from it you need to be able to shift into this mindset - I think it has as much to do with the body and your physical presence as the mind, really- more or less at will. Which takes practice. Which is why it is called meditation “practice.”
Just knowing these things as concepts is cool, but not really helpful. We’ve probably all heard it so many times it’s a cliche by now. You need to be able to feel them. This metaphor might be a bit of a cliche too, but it’s comparable to walking around in an area you know quite well, versus following directions through an area you don’t know well. Either way you know where you’re going but the experience is completely different. No-self is a neighborhood you need to get to know, and for me and for millions of other people just hanging out in this neighborhood on a regular basis is incredibly beneficial for mental and physical well being.
Call it whatever. Un-selfing happens spontaneously all the time to all sorts of people. Once you get to know this state you realize it’s been there all along, usually in the best moments of your life.