Default mode network Before & Now

[northape]

I've been pondering the topic of the default mode network (DMN) and got an idea that it's a changing structure. It's a kind of obvious statement, but what I mean is that the way the DMN functions now may be very different from how it worked in our ancestors. I feel like we're moving closer into straitjacket territory compared to a more open representation of reality. I came up with a few factors that may have played a role here.

First, we're becoming more and more domesticated compared to our former wild counterparts. Domestication by itself creates a fixed structure for us to fill. We exchanged our natural survival abilities for comfort. You can look into this topic yourself. Our ancestors used a lot more of their body's capacity, from immunity to visual acuity. They needed to navigate a vast environment with a lot of unknown factors.

Furthermore, given our new ability to grow food, we changed our natural nomadic diet. The gut is the second brain, and everyone who has worked with oral brews long enough would know that its influence is enormous. I think that many of the modern diseases came with our food. The MAO system seems to be very active in modern humans. It's like a loss of innocence; we became more shielded from the external world, even on a biological level.

I'm not saying that it's a bad development, but it's a change from our original design. I remember reading that even our language worked differently before and people did hear a voice from above. It feels like we lived in a world where our right hemisphere played a much bigger role before, and now the left one dominates. That's why our DMN shifts into a more constricted mode. The notion of Kali Yuga may be just that: a natural oscillation between our two hemispheres over a long period of time and an according change to the DMN.

What do you think about my crazy idea?

 

[TheGreenPhantom]

I think people need to get out into the forest more... the beach... the mountains... score some fresh air... get away from electronic gadgetry and the nonsense that comes through it. There's a way to live in "both worlds," but that's probably just an intellectual construct for your typical city dweller.

Buildings, cars, computers, air conditioning – these are all barriers against the natural environment. Most people never recognize the cage they've been born into and will throw a fit if dragged out from it. The earth is something to be controlled and subdued, not be a part of. Right?

Personally, I need to get out into nature and be alone for mental health reasons, and find those who don't to be rather curious – like a dog that prefers their crate to being outdoors. But hey – stay in your crates, guys! For me, solitude in the natural environment is the best medicine!

 

[CosmicRiver]

I agree with your idea even if i had never thought about diet's role but of agriculture's role.
With agriculture we weren't just part of the natural world but we started acting upon it and so we had to develop a "me" vs "outer world" mental structure, an overactive DMN, along with conceptual thinking, written symbolic language, future- and past-oriented thinking, hierarchy and so on.

I think that all of this happened even before agriculture, when we explored other environments that were not suitable for us (Central-Northern Europe for example) and had to adapt to these colder and harsher environments by acting upon the environment, and so we needed the same "me" vs "outer world" structure. It has been discovered that many mental issues linked to an overactive DMN are related to a higher percentage of Neanderthal DNA.
Maybe this happened several times in several human species and places, as it's the case for agriculture.

Once i was thinking about the story of original sin and how it all started from eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and how it could mean that when we started applying conceptual thinking we were exiled from the original world. We stopped perceiving the world as it is and started living in a mental representation of the world. And this myth comes from one of the birthplaces of agriculture.

 

[northape]

For me, solitude in the natural environment is the best medicine!

I hear you and I feel the same, actually. Although it's very cold where I live right now, and a lot of the time I'd rather be inside, I try to force myself to go out and enjoy the weather

Once i was thinking about the story of original sin and how it all started from eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and how it could mean that when we started applying conceptual thinking we were exiled from the original world. We stopped perceiving the world as it is and started living in a mental representation of the world. And this myth comes from one of the birthplaces of agriculture.

I have a similar view on agriculture and the mental representation of the world. Perhaps even our spiritual traditions have roots in the attempt to reconnect us to reality.
It seems that the process which created this representation just keeps on growing. How many people are living through their gadgets today? It would be a second level of abstraction, imo.

At this point, plant medicines are a necessity. Yes, meditation and spiritual techniques work, but most of the time we're too far gone. Many people see no value in spiritual endeavors. Psychedelics can show us the light within and connect us to Nature. I'm quite dull myself and would be gone without them. Perhaps they are not the solution, but they could surely be a part of it.

Furthermore, I still think that Earth's position in the cosmos plays a big role here. If my idea is correct, we'll see a subtle shift in people in the next few hundred years.
The whole fall from grace could be a project of a much higher order and originate in the stars. Maybe I've gone too far myself here

All the best

 

[TheGreenPhantom]

I hear you and I feel the same, actually. Although it's very cold where I live right now, and a lot of the time I'd rather be inside, I try to force myself to go out and enjoy the weather

I think I most clearly felt my DMN when I went to a tropical place that my ancestors hail from during Christmas. Everything inside of me started screaming "What the hell are you doing way up north‽‽‽‽"

(It was like I was a Huskey from Mexico who went on a trip to Alaska....)

 

[northape]

I think I most clearly felt my DMN when I went to a tropical place that my ancestors hail from during Christmas. Everything inside of me started screaming "What the hell are you doing way up north‽‽‽‽"

(It was like I was a Huskey from Mexico who went on a trip to Alaska....)

Yeah, it is hard to live up North. I am learning more and more about it each year. We humans need warmth and sunlight to thrive. All civilizations are located in warm zones.
I would not rank our modern Western civilization and Europe very highly. It is so dysfunctional that we would be better off living at a lower latitude near the equator, but with a much healthier ecosystem.

Once again, if we are on a cosmic downward spiral right now and the DMN is hyperactive, then it is kind of obvious why we created this kind of society. I pray that it starts to move in the other direction on a global scale, and humans start to see other possibilities.

 

[yatyas314]

I've been pondering the topic of the default mode network (DMN) and got an idea that it's a changing structure. It's a kind of obvious statement, but what I mean is that the way the DMN functions now may be very different from how it worked in our ancestors. I feel like we're moving closer into straitjacket territory compared to a more open representation of reality. I came up with a few factors that may have played a role here.

First, we're becoming more and more domesticated compared to our former wild counterparts. Domestication by itself creates a fixed structure for us to fill. We exchanged our natural survival abilities for comfort. You can look into this topic yourself. Our ancestors used a lot more of their body's capacity, from immunity to visual acuity. They needed to navigate a vast environment with a lot of unknown factors.

Furthermore, given our new ability to grow food, we changed our natural nomadic diet. The gut is the second brain, and everyone who has worked with oral brews long enough would know that its influence is enormous. I think that many of the modern diseases came with our food. The MAO system seems to be very active in modern humans. It's like a loss of innocence; we became more shielded from the external world, even on a biological level.

What do you think about my crazy idea?

I don't think its crazy, one note I would add is the age of information has changed our DMN more than anything. I have been wrestling with an idea lately of an information diet. We all watch what we eat and put into our bodies yet we do not use the same filter when it comes to what we put in our minds. I find myself becoming more attune to things (feelings/energy) that I didn't know existed or existed but didnt know how to read the signal. When I flood dose with DMT or Psilo I am looking for all of it to be stripped away to be in tune with my more primal self and consequently that's where the healing happens because there is nothing else in those moments. I agree that our environment with creature comforts and abundance of food and safety has changed our nature but we have the opportunity to get back to basics with these amazing tools extracted from plants.
Y

 

[CosmicRiver]

At this point, plant medicines are a necessity. Yes, meditation and spiritual techniques work, but most of the time we're too far gone. Many people see no value in spiritual endeavors. Psychedelics can show us the light within and connect us to Nature. I'm quite dull myself and would be gone without them. Perhaps they are not the solution, but they could surely be a part of it.

Yesterday i read this and during the night i participated to a meditation session with a group of people. The person who guided the session had a rational approach to vipassana and i thought "maybe i should guide a session too with a less rational approach ...but how?". I kinda realized that it's very difficult to guide people to that state of mind without prior psychedelic experiences. So to stay on topic it's like we have this overly rational/conceptual mind, an overactive DMN compared to our ancestors or to different people/cultures, and so without the help of plant teachers, at least as a priming experience, it's difficult to get in touch with our base state, our natural state. Is this in tune with what you said?

Furthermore, I still think that Earth's position in the cosmos plays a big role here. If my idea is correct, we'll see a subtle shift in people in the next few hundred years.
The whole fall from grace could be a project of a much higher order and originate in the stars. Maybe I've gone too far myself here

All the best

It's incredible how these are common themes in human cultures. A friend of mine was into Incaic myths and he gave me some books on native Peruvian culture. It was written that there are these 500-year long cosmic cycles of light and darkness according to the position of celestial bodies and the "battle" between cosmic forces and the last one was from ~1500 to ~2000 with a transitional period starting since then. Also the myth about how humans used to live for hundreds of years and then their lifespan decreased, which i take it as a metaphor, is apparently part of Incaic culture, but it's also in Dzogchen myths and in the Genesis.

I think I most clearly felt my DMN when I went to a tropical place that my ancestors hail from during Christmas. Everything inside of me started screaming "What the hell are you doing way up north‽‽‽‽"

(It was like I was a Huskey from Mexico who went on a trip to Alaska....)

Yeah, it is hard to live up North. I am learning more and more about it each year. We humans need warmth and sunlight to thrive. All civilizations are located in warm zones.
I would not rank our modern Western civilization and Europe very highly. It is so dysfunctional that we would be better off living at a lower latitude near the equator, but with a much healthier ecosystem.

I feel this too... i'm actually really really worried about the upcoming winter. To stay on topic with what you northape said previously about living through their representation and gadgets i had this thought that people enjoy winter because of christmas, cozy home time, movies, tv series, no air conditioning needed and so on, but for people like us who enjoy being outside in nature and maybe don't enjoy that much those other things it's really difficult to live in an environment that is not for us. But at the same time there have been humans before the modern era that lived in temperate or even polar zones without gadgets and such so i don't know if i'm just projecting.

 

[northape]

Yesterday i read this and during the night i participated to a meditation session with a group of people. The person who guided the session had a rational approach to vipassana and i thought "maybe i should guide a session too with a less rational approach ...but how?". I kinda realized that it's very difficult to guide people to that state of mind without prior psychedelic experiences. So to stay on topic it's like we have this overly rational/conceptual mind, an overactive DMN compared to our ancestors or to different people/cultures, and so without the help of plant teachers, at least as a priming experience, it's difficult to get in touch with our base state, our natural state. Is this in tune with what you said?

It's very much in tune. I remember paying only once to a meditation teacher. He taught in my mother tongue and was from the Dzogchen community of Namkhai Norbu. One day a question about ayahuasca and psychedelics came up, and he shared his views on it. He had never used anything but just spouted popular, biased nonsense. It put me off right away. If we are practicing and developing awareness and are taught to think for ourselves, why the bias? People just follow a cultural narrative without examining it, and spiritual communities are no exception. I'd say the guy could have benefited from a psychedelic journey and a more open approach to everything. So I don't really know how deep they go.

Relying on plant medicine as the only path forward would be a mistake, but using it skillfully is very beneficial. That's my view on it after over a decade of use.

It's incredible how these are common themes in human cultures. A friend of mine was into Incaic myths and he gave me some books on native Peruvian culture. It was written that there are these 500-year long cosmic cycles of light and darkness according to the position of celestial bodies and the "battle" between cosmic forces and the last one was from ~1500 to ~2000 with a transitional period starting since then. Also the myth about how humans used to live for hundreds of years and then their lifespan decreased, which i take it as a metaphor, is apparently part of Incaic culture, but it's also in Dzogchen myths and in the Genesis.

I don't know about our long lifespan being a myth. It comes up in many old stories and correlates with the Satya Yuga, or golden age. Even in our own times, there are stories of saints who lived for centuries. Old spiritual technologies might have given people more control over their bodies and the aging process. One thing is certain: the farther you go, the more sophisticated spiritual science becomes. Most of the techniques were also inherited from older times.

I feel this too... i'm actually really really worried about the upcoming winter. To stay on topic with what you northape said previously about living through their representation and gadgets i had this thought that people enjoy winter because of christmas, cozy home time, movies, tv series, no air conditioning needed and so on, but for people like us who enjoy being outside in nature and maybe don't enjoy that much those other things it's really difficult to live in an environment that is not for us. But at the same time there have been humans before the modern era that lived in temperate or even polar zones without gadgets and such so i don't know if i'm just projecting.

Here in the North, it's very tough. Summer here is nonexistent, and winters are long, dark, and cold. People love Christmas in this place because of the holidays without work. Furthermore, they become so light-deprived that all the candles and lighting become a necessity. The lack of warmth is mitigated by a superficial, hearty attitude. That's the bitter truth of it.

I wouldn't say that humans ever truly thrived in the North. Before modern times, they never had the level of culture that India or Egypt produced.

 

[Pumpy]

Breakdown of consciousness in the bicameral mind Julian Jaynes --- came up in this thread i think

 

[blig-blug]

Climate extremes are tough in general. I really like the sun and sunlight, a lack of sunlight lowers my mood to the point I use a special lamp during the winter. But I must admit I may prefer that to the summer, particularly when it gets so hot you can't sleep properly, and there's nowhere to hide from it. I think I would gladly exchange some more sunlight for a cooler summer. If I lived in northern Sweden instead of Spain, I can imagine it would be the opposite!

 

[northape]

Climate extremes are tough in general. I really like the sun and sunlight, a lack of sunlight lowers my mood to the point I use a special lamp during the winter. But I must admit I may prefer that to the summer, particularly when it gets so hot you can't sleep properly, and there's nowhere to hide from it. I think I would gladly exchange some more sunlight for a cooler summer. If I lived in northern Sweden instead of Spain, I can imagine it would be the opposite!

It is the lack of light that gets to you in the end. Winters are brutal here, and you need to live here to understand. I would advise anyone to stay away from the North, apart from a tourist visit in the summer. You will be healthier for it. Summers are divine, and you would enjoy it a lot

 

[GTRm8]

The hemispheric balance you mentioned is a bit trickier. Evolution didn’t set up a strict left‑right seesaw that flips every few thousand years. What does happen is that cultural practices...reading, tool use, digital screens -> push the left hemisphere into the spotlight.
The right side still handles spatial navigation, social nuance, and the kind of big‑picture, self‑referential thinking that the DMN loves. Modern life just gives the left side more rehearsal, so the DMN can look a little more “constricted.” It’s not a mythic cycle like Kali Yuga, but it is a real, gradual re‑weighting‑of‑attention.

What’s encouraging is that the DMN is plastic. Studies with hunter‑gatherer groups show richer, more expansive DMN connectivity compared with urban dwellers, but mindfulness training, time in nature, or even a diet boost in fiber can bring some of that flexibility back. So while we’ve certainly moved into a more “straitjacketed” mode compared with our ancestors, it’s not a permanent lock‑in.

Bottom line: your intuition about domestication, diet, and cultural shifts nudging the DMN in a new direction is on solid ground. The more mystical framing...hemispheric swings tied to ages or cosmic cycles, remains an intriguing metaphor, but the science points to gradual, reversible changes driven by lifestyle.

Cheers

 

[northape]

The hemispheric balance you mentioned is a bit trickier. Evolution didn’t set up a strict left‑right seesaw that flips every few thousand years. What does happen is that cultural practices...reading, tool use, digital screens -> push the left hemisphere into the spotlight.
The right side still handles spatial navigation, social nuance, and the kind of big‑picture, self‑referential thinking that the DMN loves. Modern life just gives the left side more rehearsal, so the DMN can look a little more “constricted.” It’s not a mythic cycle like Kali Yuga, but it is a real, gradual re‑weighting‑of‑attention.

What’s encouraging is that the DMN is plastic. Studies with hunter‑gatherer groups show richer, more expansive DMN connectivity compared with urban dwellers, but mindfulness training, time in nature, or even a diet boost in fiber can bring some of that flexibility back. So while we’ve certainly moved into a more “straitjacketed” mode compared with our ancestors, it’s not a permanent lock‑in.

Bottom line: your intuition about domestication, diet, and cultural shifts nudging the DMN in a new direction is on solid ground. The more mystical framing...hemispheric swings tied to ages or cosmic cycles, remains an intriguing metaphor, but the science points to gradual, reversible changes driven by lifestyle.

Cheers

Thanks for your opinion.

 

[northape]

Breakdown of consciousness in the bicameral mind Julian Jaynes --- came up in this thread i think

Can you expand on it a bit more? Thank you.

 

[blig-blug]

Can you expand on it a bit more? Thank you.

I think he means that this idea:

people did hear a voice from above

Was first defended by Jaynes in the book "Breakdown of consciousness in the bicameral mind".

 

[northape]

I think he means that this idea:

Was first defended by Jaynes in the book "Breakdown of consciousness in the bicameral mind".

Thanks for the clarification. I heard about it on YouTube and never bothered to check the original writing

 

[blig-blug]

Actually, the title is: The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
I haven't read it either, but I should, it sounds thought-provoking.

 

[Jamie01]

How would this factor into the subject of the thread?…also how different groups of people can make use of light in northern regions? What about diet?

More research is examining how we carry the 'genetic legacy' of extinct human species

Neanderthal genes have been linked with our immune systems and COVID-19 response, while Denisovan genes may help adapt to high altitudes.

www.pbs.org

 

[northape]

How would this factor into the subject of the thread?…also how different groups of people can make use of light in northern regions? What about diet?

More research is examining how we carry the 'genetic legacy' of extinct human species

Neanderthal genes have been linked with our immune systems and COVID-19 response, while Denisovan genes may help adapt to high altitudes.

www.pbs.org

I think there are even studies suggesting that our Neanderthal genes influenced the DMN. When it comes to the light, I use some extra lighting similar to @blig-blug.
Vitamin D3 is a must for SAD symptoms. I would be lost without an occasional medicine ceremony, too. The social aspect plays a big part, and good, human, hearty warmth is always appreciated.