Note: The author of this piece is neither endorsing nor condemning the use of psychedelics. <\/p>\n
Let\u2019s have a pop quiz! You are dropped into a mysterious location, and you must figure out where you are. You look around and observe the following: Some people around you are zoned out, motionless, and occasionally giggling at random intervals. Others are frantically running around with a crazed look in their eyes. Finally, you see a person on the ground screaming and crying about some unintelligible concern.<\/p>\n
Who are you looking at? Where are you? Is it:
\nA.\tChildren at a daycare center
\nB.\tCollege students tripping on acid at an EDM concert<\/p>\n
If you answered A, then you are correct. If you answered B, then you are also correct. This quiz highlights a humorous, albeit strange phenomenon: young children act like they are constantly tripping on acid, and psychedelics reduce adults to childlike states. While the relevance of this observation will soon be clear, let us first turn to a tangentially related point \u2013 psychedelic users consistently report emotional extremes in their \u201ctrips.\u201d These experiences range from blissful euphoria to hellish despair. Because psychedelics produce such emotional reactions, it becomes relevant to examine them alongside Lisa Barrett\u2019s constructivist account of emotions. Psychedelics inevitably result in extreme emotional reactions \u2013 could we use these substances to master our emotions?<\/p>\n
Barrett suggests a healthy emotional life has two components: a well-managed body budget and high emotional intelligence (175). Indeed, these two areas are not independent \u2013 on the contrary, they interact in a feedback loop. If we increase our emotional intelligence by learning new emotional concepts, we can more precisely use these concepts to better predict our needs (176). Although high emotional granularity and a well-regulated body budget do not ostensibly conflict, Barrett offers seemingly contradictory strategies to develop and improve each component. For higher emotional granularity, Barrett suggests that we must gain new experiences and learn new languages. In this way, emotional granularity requires us to refine our emotional skills over time. Conversely, for a well-regulated body budget, Barrett recommends \u201cdeconstructing the self\u201d to release and recontextualize our emotional realities. It is within these two strategies where we locate the puzzle \u2013 Barrett thinks we must \u201cbe a collector of experiences\u201d while simultaneously deconstructing the very concept which categorizes and orients these experiences. To locate this puzzle within her examples, Barrett describes children as instances of low emotional granularity while also using them as models for deconstructing the self. It is difficult to conceptualize how we cultivate an emotional maturity alongside a childlikeness. In this blog, I will use psychedelics to resolve this puzzle. In How To Change Your Mind, Michael Pollan explains how psychedelics provide access to childlike modes of consciousness \u2013 these altered states help deconstruct the self while also refining our emotional experiences. Through psychedelics, we can resolve the puzzle in Barrett\u2019s text \u2013 it is possible to both see the world through a childlike lens while also possessing a mature and developed emotional repertoire.<\/p>\n
Before I expand on Barrett\u2019s view of the self, I will first explore her strategies for developing high emotional granularity. Barrett argues that we construct emotions with concepts \u2013 in order to perceive and experience an emotion, we must first have the concept (143). Thus, we understand emotional granularity through the range and specificity of the emotional concepts we possess. While someone with low emotional granularity might feel \u201chappy,\u201d someone with a rich emotional repertoire might interpret their experience as \u201csatisfied,\u201d \u201cblissful,\u201d or \u201cgrateful\u201d (181). The more concepts we acquire, the more tools we possess to construct our experiences with nuance and precision. Since we can experience new emotions by learning new concepts, Barrett suggests we travel, read books, learn new languages, and interact with unfamiliar cultures to acquire these concepts (180). In a sense, Barrett suggests that this emotional granularity must come with age. As we get older, we have new experiences which enable us to gain these new emotions. This suggests that we can only understand her suggestion by maintaining a concept of the self. In this way, I will define the self as the ultimate concept which unifies our experiences over time. Certainly, this is an overly simplified conception of the self \u2013 however, I want to avoid the metaphysical and epistemological questions and instead focus on the self\u2019s role in emotional granularity. Regardless of our exact conception of the self, it seems largely uncontroversial to suggest that we need some underlying concept which can categorize our experiences, form new concepts, and predict future behavior. Indeed, this definition aligns closely with Barrett who explains that we construct the self with \u201cthe same predictive core systems that construct emotions\u201d (192). Under this definition, we can only develop the self over time. This explains why Barrett uses children as examples of low emotional granularity. Since children have had fewer experiences as opposed to adults, they have less refined emotional concepts. In other words, high emotional granularity requires a more developed concept of the self \u2013 namely, something which can use these new emotional concepts to more precisely interact with the world. Therefore, Barrett implicitly suggests that we must develop the self over time in order to increase our emotional granularity.<\/p>\n
This conclusion is not controversial independently, but it becomes puzzling when positioned alongside her strategies for maintaining a well-balanced body budget. Although Barrett offers multiple strategies for a healthy body budget, she suggests that \u201cdeconstructing the self offers a new inspiration for how to become the master of emotions\u201d (192). Since the self is merely a concept, it can be deconstructed when it does not helpfully predict our reality. For example, Barrett suggests that we can categorize feelings like pounding heartbeats and sweaty hands as purely physical sensations not associated to some underlying self (192). Instead of saying, \u201cI am anxious because my heart is pounding,\u201d we can recontextualize it and instead say, \u201cthe heart is pounding\u201d without linking it to anxiety and the self (192). If we merely observe feelings instead of identifying with them, then we can more easily release and recontextualize otherwise \u201cnegative\u201d sensations. As opposed to her previous example with emotional granularity, she mentions that children have this ability to let feelings and sensations pass without linking them to a concept of the self (193). In this way, we can look to young children for a model of what it looks like to deconstruct the self \u2013 we must return to a time before our predictive patterns were ingrained. Even if we only stay within Barrett\u2019s examples, we can highlight the tension \u2013 we must \u201cgrow up\u201d to increase our emotional granularity, yet we must also return to a childlike state to deconstruct the self and maintain a healthy body budget.<\/p>\n
In How to Change Your Mind, Michael Pollan helps resolve this tension by articulating two distinct modes of consciousness we observe in adults and children. We observe \u201cspotlight consciousness,\u201d also known as \u201cego consciousness,\u201d in adults (Pollan 325). Spotlight consciousness \u201cgives adults the ability to narrowly focus attention on a goal\u201d (325). This conception aligns with Barrett\u2019s definition \u2013 the self is a constructed concept which allows us to accomplish goals (Barrett 191). On the contrary, children experience \u201clantern consciousness\u201d which allows them to \u201ctake in information from virtually anywhere in [their] field of awareness\u201d (Pollan 325). In other words, we might understand lantern consciousness as \u201cexpansive\u201d and spotlight consciousness as \u201cnarrow\u201d (326). As we get older, we have careers, relationships, and money to navigate \u2013 a narrow, self-oriented consciousness allows us to juggle these areas of our life. Conversely, children do not have these same worries \u2013 they are free to discover, learn, and absorb the surrounding world. A childlike mode of consciousness is good for \u201cexploring rather than exploiting\u201d (327). Pollan explains how psychedelics allow adults to access the lantern consciousness \u2013 psychedelics provide a shortcut to \u201cdissolve the ego\u201d and return to a state of exploration and wonder (390). Pollan suggests that \u201cif you want to understand what an expanded consciousness looks like, all you have to do is have tea with a four-year-old \u2026 or drop a tab of LSD\u201d (328).<\/p>\n
Now that we understand the different modes of consciousness, we can reconcile the puzzle within Barrett. Since high emotional granularity requires us to gain new goals and concepts, it is likely something best refined through spotlight consciousness. Additionally, this explains why children typically do not have high emotional granularity \u2013 they do not have a developed concept of the self to gain new experiences and learn new emotional concepts. Conversely, lantern consciousness helps deconstruct the self in order to have a well-managed body budget. Since psychedelics allow adults to quickly access this mode of consciousness, these drugs might offer a way to recontextualize emotional experiences. Psychedelics might give adults a much-needed change in perspective \u2013 they could allow users to playfully interact with the world without the overbearing and goal-oriented concept of the self. In this way, we could have both high emotional granularity in some moments and a deconstructed self in other moments \u2013 we could use our refined emotional repertoire while occasionally reverting back to a childlike state. Although psychedelics are not the only way to implement Barrett\u2019s strategies for mastering emotions, they might provide a helpful starting point for adults to understand the value of both expansive and narrow modes of consciousness.<\/p>\n
To conclude, let\u2019s have one final pop quiz. Who should we try to emulate?
\nA.\tA Toddler
\nB.\tAn old, weary traveler with a deep emotional repertoire<\/p>\n
If you were paying attention, then you know the answer is both A and B. If you do not believe me, then maybe you need to have tea with a four-year-old \u2026 or drop a tab of LSD.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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