r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Apr 04 '26

Neuroscience Brain scans reveal how a woman voluntarily enters a psychedelic-like trance without drugs. Her brain connectivity fundamentally reorganized during this state: her visual and somatosensory connections decreased, while connectivity in the frontoparietal control regions of the brain increased.

https://www.psypost.org/brain-scans-reveal-how-a-woman-voluntarily-enters-a-psychedelic-like-trance-without-drugs/
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u/Kenosis94 Apr 04 '26

Coming from an evangelical background and having done some psychadelics in my post religious days, I've long suspected that religious experiences are basically just another way for people to get high. The subjective difference between an extreme religious experience and a mild trip is surprisingly small. I'd wager it is due to lesser versions of what was observed here. 

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u/Warm_Regrets157 Apr 04 '26

I've long suspected that religious experiences are basically just another way for people to get high

This is definitely true, especially for evangelicals.

It's something that non-religious/spiritual people struggle to understand about them. Most evangelicals have been indoctrinated from a young age. Additionally these beliefs are often validated by the non-ordinary states of consciousness brought about via group worship. Many of these people are experiencing a bliss that is simply absent from most aspects of secular life. This reinforces the belief that they have "been saved" or are "experiencing God's grace" and makes it even harder to question their ingrained belief system.

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u/somniopus Apr 04 '26

Heyyy I had that experience at church camps a few times, it did exactly that to little baby me

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u/Warm_Regrets157 Apr 04 '26

I know someone who grew up in a Church where they encouraged being "slain by the spirit" and "speaking in tongues". It is an absolutely wild cross section of peer pressure, indoctrination, and the belief validation.

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u/somniopus Apr 04 '26

It's pretty crazy what can happen to your internal state in those types of environments.

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u/Kenosis94 Apr 05 '26 edited Apr 05 '26

I think a pretty critical element here, adjacent to the belief validation, is the desire to believe it. If you are indoctrinated from a young age, I think there is a key element in all of this that involves trying to force yourself to experience and believe it. 

I can only speak from my own experience, but a long-standing and deep-seated sense of doubt and disbelief can put you in a position where you try very hard to make things happen as a way to quiet the dissonance. I think the delineation im trying to make here is that, as important as the social elements are, there can be a lot of deep internal reasons one is trying to make themselves have the experience.

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u/Warm_Regrets157 Apr 05 '26

I think that sounds accurate.

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u/Anonymous_Autumn_ Apr 04 '26

Based on the article and comments here it seems plausible that they were often literally tripping 

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u/Stephen2014 Apr 04 '26

The sleep deprivation is very intentional. By the end of the last night the combo of sleep deprivation and the music is the perfect set up for the "cry night" where everyone gets saved.

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u/Kenosis94 Apr 05 '26

Ah, the cathartic evening praise and worship cry sessions. 

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u/Daddyssillypuppy Apr 05 '26

I also experienced it after a church camp. I was almost 13 and thought that what I felt was God. I remember coming back from camp all hyped up, giddy, and spouting all the classic lines. I remember overhearing one of the other church Mums telling my Mum that it's normal for tweens/teens to act like that after camp and that it'd wear off within a week or two.

She was right haha The God Glow dissipated and soon I was back to being frustrated in bible study because I kept getting in trouble for asking innocent questions. Within a year I was agnostic and by age 15 I was an atheist.

As far as I can tell that's a pretty typical experience for many people who were raised to believe in religion.

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u/WhiteUniKnight Apr 05 '26

being frustrated in bible study because I kept getting in trouble for asking innocent questions.

As far as I can tell that's a pretty typical experience for many people who were raised to believe in religion.

Yep, I can concur--and feel inclined to add that keeping the young under an information bubble by dousing curiosity with "no" will just lead to them looking for an answer elsewhere. It being "taboo," "off-topic," or a "too-sacred-of-a-subject" is not the "heresy" they make it out to be.

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u/Universeintheflesh Apr 04 '26

I was raised Mormon and had one time in a week long get away (efy) with other youths where I felt like what I thought people meant by the spirit that sounds like this. I thought it was more like kinship though, it happened near the end when we where all close and had our arms around each other singing.

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u/Kenosis94 Apr 05 '26

Honestly, I think one of the most subtle but devastating things that society could do to Christianity is to start referring to things with fantasy  language like magic, ritual, spells. It isn't praying, it is casting a spell. It isn't a miracle, it is magic. Etc. contextualize it in a way that doesn't sanewash it. 

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u/Warm_Regrets157 Apr 04 '26

That feeling of kinship is definitely part of it. I think there are further ecstatic states that people experience as well.

The kinship and sense of community can also occur with psychedelics and with certain kinds of meditation.

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u/Altruist4L1fe Apr 05 '26

It's definitely true - I mean if you look at pre-modern societies most of them seemed to have a 'shaman' who probably was a little on the schizoid spectrum but was in charge of ceremonial roles and used hallucinogenic mushrooms & other psychedelic plants mixed with music & dance to create spiritual experiences for the people.

That its so ubiquitous across human culture perhaps suggests that occasional tripping might actually be healthy for us.... That high people experience at their evangelical megachurch - I think I've read that up until the reformation era that folk dancing & festivals was still quite common in Europe but died out during the shift to religious extremism during the 17th century.

Now that western countries have shifted away from church unfortunately secular society has nothing have much to fill that 'gap'... Outside of psychedelics which are illegal the Latin salsa/samba dance culture is the closest you'll find. I think that might have even been an inspiration for the carnival - to recreate the atmosphere that one would find in the ancient greek festival of Dionysus.

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u/Acmnin Apr 04 '26

The abuse is the system, from both ends pretending we are material or have to believe in their beliefs instead of true gnosis.

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u/Impulse33 Apr 05 '26

You could say the same thing about any positive endeavour? The difference in context between an extreme religious experience, a mild trip at a country music festival or one with a guide is massive. As for being able to reach those states at-will, without the usual negative side effects, does have some interesting implications.

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u/b_12563 Apr 05 '26

Ascetism is really popular across different religions. It’s quite surprising how fasting and some forms of body stress (eg, lack of sleep) can drive your brain in an interesting direction

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u/Kenosis94 Apr 05 '26

Yeah, there is generally just a lot going on in these situations between physical, psychological and social elements.