Holy Fucking Shit, Dude. I Totally Understand EVERYTHING Now

— OK. I’ve been waiting for this study for years. Now we’re halfway home! I’ve had a hypothesis since my undergrad days that there was a distinct set of neural mechanisms responsible for the “Aha!” experience, and the linked study seems to show that. NEXT, they need to put people on LSD in the MRI (there are probably many good reasons NOT to do this, but bear with me). The hypothesis is that the LSD and other hallucinogens sometimes randomly trigger the “Aha!” experience for folks under their sway. Because there is no particular representational content leading to the “Aha!,” our ever integrative brain just seizes on what ever we happen to be paying attention to, and presents it to us as if THAT is the content of a profound realization. Of course, it rarely makes sense, but we’re subjectively sure that we’re really on to something, because we are having the experience we generally only have in the event of a real breakthrough. Hence statements like: “Have you ever really THOUGHT about your skin, man? I mean, REALLY? It’s like, dude, the ANSWER. Skin, man, I mean, holy shit. Skin.” Or “the moon” or “tree branches” or “blades of grass” or whatever. They can all be experienced alongside an “Aha!” but get integrated by the narrative mind (see Gazzaniga) as the content of insight.