The most exciting part of these type of studies is the ability to take depressive people and ‘kick’ them out of the cognitive ruts they are in.
Those cognitive ruts are often world-views, thought structures and learned behaviours from childhood or their parents which constantly reinforce that the sufferer is worthless or stupid or unwanted etc.
In those world views, other people are often seen in very negative light - they’re critical, or assholes, or dangerous, or perhaps you’re so needy for love and attention that you endlessly see other people as your savior (and constantly make bad relationships as a result).
The idea that we just need love and kindness and selflessness and we’re all connected maaaan - that’s a childish interpretation. As is the idea that interconnectednesa and empathy falls apart in a realistic adult world of possessions and basic needs.
In the context of mental illness, being able to experience connectedness and heightened empathy might mean seeing other people for who they really are, not who they appear to be in your distorted worldview. It might mean realizing that other people are similar to you and you’re not alone in your struggle, or realizing that you can give support to someone else instead of constantly needing support from them. Sometimes breakthroughs like that take years in therapy, but might be achieved much more quickly using mushrooms.
Hope that helps dissolve the cynicism.
Well... yeah. I mean, imagine you had super critical parents who picked on your every mistake as a child. Now you suffer from social anxiety and feel intense shame and fear in public because you think everyone is constantly criticizing you and talking about you.
Being able to relax and be yourself knowing that most people won’t care either way is a huge step forward.
For some people, I suppose.
For others, a non-trivial point of the work is to learn not to care that other people don't care. It's about improving yourself, changing the relationship you have with the only person you will always be with, regardless of what other people might say, think, or do — that their behavior is entirely about them and has nothing whatsoever to do with you.
And that trying to make their behavior about you is just as much an ego-trap as the more obvious things you'd associate with that notion.
It's pretty remarkable the degree to which a little compassion and self-awareness can take the sting out of other people's lacking those things.
Hence the psychological narrative may be backed by an actual psychiatric, physiochemical change. An actual change, in “reality” - in other words, assuming some form of inflammation is involved in most depressive states...
[1] DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0075426
If you've suffered some mental problems you can even have multiple thoughts in your conscious scope at once or thoughts whirling past so fast you can barely make out what their contents are. You may not even want to think or like these thoughts. Some traumatized people are affected by what they describe as intrusive thoughts that have so much momentum or energy that they greatly modify their consciousness and behavior and emotions, for example cause depression.
The false ego is a tough nut to crack because it has so much invested in thinking it is real and acting out whatever. Whatever the consciousness or your brain or body experiences as you is an accumulation of traits, thought patterns, reactions all layered up to form a somewhat consistent/cohesive/continuous experience.
If you have the drive to look behind the curtain or are interested in altered states of consciousness, you can experience these insights into the nature of consciousness by prolonged daily meditation practice, with or without psychedelics. Eventually with enough awareness you may be able to simply 'step outside' of thoughts or witness thoughts happening and see as they pass through your consciousness without being involved in or affected by them.
Despite all this, you may still want to put that body before someone else and that may be totally ok.
Which all probably sounds like mumbo-jumbo to someone who hasn't traveled the path.
You probably know all this, but I think with further inquiry and experience it is inevitable to come to the conclusion that there is no free will, it's just atoms dancing and vibrating and from that an elaborate interconnected mechanism rises. With no free will there is no doer or you as a person, it is simply the universe unfolding and these bodies are only 'pawns' reacting to stimuli or whatever variables these human biocomputers work on.
Us humans have the capacity for pretty advanced heuristics and we can become aware of the underlying mechanisms and the subconcsious, and through that awareness manipulate the system but that still forgoes any doers. I guess you could say they're revelations and be grateful you stumbled on them in this life.
We need to go deeper.
Of course, it can be very hard to avoid thinking "sure, my model will evolve, but those things will still be there." Our metaphysics is very hard to give up!
In every case, if the proponents dutifully performed their beliefs, that would merely indicate they hold the belief, not that it is true.
Suddenly, they'll care about their well being above others and their eternal connection to everyone else is shattered.