Enlightenment, Attention Span and Myelin : Why Psychedelics can't replace Meditation

[4201]

If you are like me and had many insights and awakenings on psychedelics, you might also struggle with integrating those in your daily life. This integration struggle is an area of spirituality where psychedelic benefits are quite limited since you simply cannot be on psychedelics all the time. For this task, meditation seems to be the key. We've seen other members of the forum go the full meditation route, for instance Consilience who seemed to have great success with his 2 hour meditation habit for a year. (Big congrats!)

Both meditation and psychedelics have their merit and their benefits yet it is clear to me that real growth really happens with meditation. Psychedelics can be helpful to undo blocages which otherwise would prevent the formation of a good meditation habit, but they won't achieve the effect of meditation by themselves. Said like this however, this is just an opinion which can be contradicted by anyone. The point of this post to analyze our biology to try and figure out what is being "done" through meditation and why it is necessary for permanent enlightenment.

First let's talk about attention span. Low attention span seems to be a growing problem in our society. Social medias (but also some T.V. shows like sponge bob) are literally adapting our brain to change our focus very rapidely. This is in no way a disease but simply a consequence of the body adapting to what it is being used for. Myopia is a similar problem, if you use you eyes to look at things which are close they will specialize for things that are close. Millions if not billions of brains right now are adapting to conditions that are not appropriate for happy lives. The conditions your brain experience on social medias and T.V. shows are different from the life conditions one has to go through to have a successful career and dating life.

Yet, compared to myopia, low attention span is harder to "see". If I remove my glasses everything is blurry but when it comes to low attention span, it is purely behavioral. How do you know whether you actually have low attention span or if it is just a belief? Is there an actual measurable and physical property to low attention span?

I obviously cannot answer this question with any amount of certainty or proof but here's a theory:

In order for your body to operate at its maximum speed and efficiency, it uses myelin sheathing. Those are fatty tissues that protect the nerve cells and also accelerate the communication going through it. There are myelin sheathing through out your body but there are also some in the brain. Since your brain is in constant evolution, they can't be everywhere. When you learn something new, new connections are made and those new connections are not myelin coated, but old ones you've been having repeatedly for years probably are. If you get really good at a sport like baseball, throwing the ball will basically become an automatism. You don't need to think about how you do it, you just do it and you do it fast.

This feature of the body is extremely useful, yet it can backfire. Low attention span T.V. shows and social medias basically train you to change your source of attention very rapidely when things happen. You get really good at being reactive and you get really quick at doing it too... Years later, the part of the brain that endlessly switches your area of focus is probably myelin coated, unfortunately.

I believe that when we sit in meditation and expand an effort focusing on something, we actually are battling against that myelin coating. Those myelin sheaths are definitely not permanent though as otherwise enlightenment (or even changing your mind, or learning) would be totally impossible. But the only way to retrain the body is to use the body in the desired way to use it : basically not reacting to thoughts and things. This cannot be shortcut by psychedelics. Psychedelics do in fact create new connections but if those new connections do not get used, they are only temporary. If psychedelics could destroy myelin coating they would be deeply impairing to their users and we wouldn't recommend them. After all probably 99.99% of your myelin coating is great, the problematic one is likely a super small fraction.

All of this however is just a theory but interesting articles seem to go in its favor. For instance "Can dysregulated myelination be linked to ADHD pathogenesis and persistence?"  managed to associate DNA of ADHD to genes which are involved with myelination. Here another study link ADHD to myelin: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajmg.1302?casa_token=iqIeIlYgTVkAAAAA%3A1QkAx7AX1RzTbwpUmYK7YshsirZ0ZNG03v7KfE-L9C4q3xjz7rYtVs2_4FKZf_IYZkt3u5rKC1Sszlw

You shouldn't make the mistake to think "enlightenment is defined by genetics" though. One could indeed have genetics that made them use more myelination and thus be more prone to ADHD (and difficulty meditating). But myelin formation does not define your behavior. Note that even if you are one of those, this doesn't mean you can't fix your attention span, it just means your brain make myelin easier. Focus on what you want and your brain will add myelin sheathing to the good habits you create!

Anyway, that's all I've got. Hope this was useful to anyone. If you have counter arguments, counter studies or simply anything to say feel free to say it! I mostly did this for myself as I was interested in understanding what was attention span and why I can't have infinite attention span by simply letting go the the idea "that I have low attention span". Sure you should let go of this idea, but the myelin coating in your brain is as real as your body. I think this helps set proper expectations in term of progress in meditation and integration.

Edited November 5, 2021 by 4201

[itachi uchiha]

Shanmugan reached enlightment within 10 years using oshos method

[4201]

After tripping on shrooms, I'd like to summarize the main point of this article : the importance of meditation. 

But it also came with the wrong assumption that psychedelics somehow hurt your meditation habit. Both are beneficial and there's no point in a debate or comparison. 

Edited November 6, 2021 by 4201

[Consilience]

@4201 Just now seeing this post, thank you so much for the shoutout 

Really interesting ideas proposed here! Of course this all would need to be tested in a lab setting to verify but it seems like extremely sound logic. More generally, this idea that psychedelics create the new pathways but those pathways need reinforcement seems to match my experience as well. 

Thank you so much for the write up, high quality post