I keep coming back to this idea.
That the brain changes.
Not metaphorically. Actually changes.
It responds to what we repeat, what we fear, what we practice, what we avoid, what we survive, and what we begin to see differently.
That is neuroplasticity.
And it is one of the reasons I find psilocybin so interesting.
Not because I think everyone needs to become a new person. I actually think there is too much emphasis on transformation.
Sometimes we do not need to transform.
Sometimes we need enough distance from our usual way of thinking to realize that what feels permanent may simply be familiar.
We become very good at being ourselves.
The same reactions.
The same stories.
The same defenses.
The same conclusions about who we are and why we are the way we are.
After enough years, these patterns can feel almost factual.
But the brain is still learning.
Still adapting.
Still capable of doing something differently.
Psilocybin appears to temporarily change the way different parts of the brain communicate. Researchers are interested in whether this period of increased flexibility may make certain patterns of thought less rigid for a time.
I think that is much more interesting than saying it "rewires your brain."
There is something almost inelegant about that phrase.
As if we are machines in need of repair.
I prefer to think of it as creating some room.
A little space around an old belief.
A little less certainty.
A chance to look at something you have known for years and see that perhaps you have only known one version of it.
That matters when we carry old wounds.
Not because a psychedelic experience erases what happened.
It doesn't.
But there is a difference between remembering something and continuing to organize your entire life around it.
There is a difference between knowing why you built a defense and realizing you may not need it anymore.
There is a difference between understanding yourself and being imprisoned by that understanding.
This is where I think the work becomes interesting.
Not in chasing a breakthrough.
Not in trying to manufacture some enormous spiritual event.
In noticing.
What softened?
What became less convincing?
What suddenly looked different?
What did you understand without having to explain it?
And then, what happens when you go home?
Because that part matters too.
The experience may be extraordinary, but eventually you are back in your kitchen. Your phone is ringing. Someone irritates you. The old thought returns.
And there it is.
The familiar path.
Only now, perhaps, it is not the only path.
That is the part of neuroplasticity I find hopeful.
Not the promise that we can erase who we have been.
The possibility that we are still capable of becoming less governed by it.
Maybe that is enough.
To discover that there is more movement in us than we thought.
More choice.
More curiosity.
More than one way through.
Tracy Jones · Private Psilocybin Facilitation + Retreats · Bend, Oregon