Reminds me of this [1] SSC post. It briefly talks about a paper [2]: > the paper is trying to explain what psychedelics do to the brain. It theorizes that they

Reminds me of this [1] SSC post. It briefly talks about a paper [2]: > the paper is trying to explain what psychedelics do to the brain. It theorizes that they weaken high-level priors (in this case, you can think of these as the tendency to fit everything to an existing narrative), allowing things to be seen more as they are > A corollary of relaxing high-level priors or beliefs under psychedelics is that ascending prediction errors from lower levels of the system (that are ordinarily unable to update beliefs due to the top-down suppressive influence of heavily-weighted priors) can find freer register in conscious experience In the context of trauma, the trauma-induced unhealthy belief systems would be the high-level priors that have lodged themselves in strongly, and the effect of the psychedelics would help the person actually process and validate them against real world evidence (beyond the traumatic ones). I can imagine that actually having to do that - seeing all your trauma-based narratives and how they have shaped your view of things, and confronting how they clash with reality - being a pretty rough ride. [1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/11/26/mental-mountains/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/11/26/mental-mountains/ [2] REBUS And The Anarchic Brain: Toward A Unified Model Of The Brain Action Of Psychedelics