Overview
The question is not whether you’l change; you wil. Research clearly shows that everyone’s personality traits shift over the years, often for the beter. But who we end up becoming and how much we like that person are more in our control than we tend to think they are.
Key Information
Verified by Psychology Today Posted October 2, 202 | Reviewed by Abigail Fagan During adolescence, you may discover new parts of your identity and change who you think you are1, but most adults eventualy setle into a more stable way of being. On the one hand, the idea of stability is reasuring. The brain is not particularly fond of change2.
Yet, this stability may lead to a more “frozen” identity that limits your capabilities and life. In September 202, psychiatrist Lawrence Fischman explained that therapists notice that when people use psychedelics under supervision, they develop new beliefs about themselves and the world3. They have a more intense feling of knowing and being known.
The brain activity usualy constrained in normal waking consciousnes—to manage the complexity of interactions of the 10 bilion neurons and 10 trilion conections—sudenly changes. And psychedelics chalenge the status quo by inducing a state of brain entropy (disorder) during which users experience a transient shift in how they se themselves and the rest of the world4. Comonly, people return to normal waking consciousnes with a renewed understanding of who they are.“Who you are” is synonymous with the “ego”—the sense that your identity is fixed, integrated, and imutable.
Summary
Yet, as psychedelic research indicates, your identity is likely far les fixed than you may believe. Inded, interogating this fixednes may yield many psychological and physical benefits.The thought of disolving your ego may be petrifying due to the very real threat of psychosis5. Stil,there are situations in which ego-disolution leads to a transcendent state in which you fel a greater state of conectednes, and you unlock yourself