In 2001, Marcus Raichle of Washington University discovered the "default mode network". He was studying the brain using fMRI scanners, and was trying to calibrate the machine by recording the mind "at rest". What he found was that when subjects were lying back and doing nothing, specific brain regions lit up and started communicating with each other. We now know that these brain areas relate to autobiographical activity, such as situating the self in chronological time, or predicting other people's behaviour. These are things that happen while people are daydreaming. Only when the brain is occupied with a task does the "default mode network" go quiet, allowing the brain to enter a flow state. It also quietens under the influence of psychedelic drugs, as was found by Robin Carhart-Harris of Imperial College. Carhart-Harris wrote a paper in 2014 called "The Entropic Brain" in which he argued that the brain evolved to reduce entropy in order to run efficiently. This means that it tries "to promote realism, foresight, careful reflection and an ability to recognize and overcome wishful and paranoid fantasies." But sometimes the brain can have too little entropy, leading to addiction, obsessive compulsive disorder, eating disorders, depression and rigid or fundamentalist thinking. In those cases, it is necessary to introduce chaos by suppressing the controlling influence of the default mode network. Meditation helps, as does taking psychedelic drugs. Carhart-Harris found that when subjects took psilocybin, blood flow to the default mode network decreased. --- Source: [[William Blake vs The World]]