*The Default Mode Network activates when we’re not focused externally—leading to introspection, but also rumination.*

The Default Mode Network (DMN) is a part of the brain that lights up when you're not focused on the outside world—when you're daydreaming, rehashing a conversation, imagining the future, or spiraling over the past.
In other words, it's the network behind that constant narration in your head.

It’s responsible for self-referential thinking—thinking that points back to our idea of self: how we process who we are, what we’ve been through, and where we’re going. It’s not a bad thing. In fact, it’s important for identity, memory, and empathy.
But when it’s overactive or stuck, it can turn inward reflection into rumination, anxiety, self-judgment, and depression.

The DMN and the Self

Research has shown that excessive DMN activity correlates with a number of psychiatric conditions:

Depression (persistent self-criticism and hopelessness)
Anxiety (future-oriented catastrophizing)
PTSD (intrusive replays of the past)

It’s not that thinking about yourself is bad—it’s that getting stuck in the same loops hijacks your attention, your emotional regulation, your clarity and bandwidth.

Psychodynamic Therapy and the DMN

Psychodynamic therapy focuses on making the unconscious conscious—bringing hidden patterns, defenses, and emotional conflicts into awareness. The tip of the iceberg is our conscious awareness, all the rest— the unconscious. Most of what we do is driven by what’s under the deep dark waters of the mind.

A 2023 study showed that patients undergoing long-term psychodynamic therapy demonstrated measurable changes in DMN connectivity, particularly in those with trauma and personality vulnerabilities (Annals of General Psychiatry, 2023).
The take home: Insight-oriented work (psychodynamic therapy for instance) can actually reshape the resting brain, creating more space between thought and automatic reaction.

The Zen Parallel

*Zen practice aims not to suppress thought—but to disidentify from it.*

In Zen, suffering is seen as arising from delusion—false narratives, reactive identity patterns, attachments we cling to as “self.”
Zazen (seated meditation) doesn’t aim to fix, control or avoid these thoughts— but to see through them.
As practice deepens, thoughts arise and pass like clouds—until the sense of “I” that creates a false narrative becomes less sticky, less loud.

Modern neuroscience now shows that during deep meditation and samadhi, DMN activity decreases significantly.
Samadhi is often described as a unified, aware state—where the usual mental clutter fades, but clarity and presence remain.
This isn’t mysticism—it’s the physiology of letting go.
What Zen has called “no-self” for centuries, neuroscience rediscovered and now describes as a downshift in the brain’s default storytelling mode.

And what’s most striking?
Recent neuroscientific findings show that all perception is filtered through narrative (Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 2020).
Even the simplest sensory input—what you see, hear, feel—is interpreted and shaped into and by story. Perception is not simply what we see.
As Dr. Jordan Peterson has highlighted, the human mind is a meaning-making machine.
We don’t just perceive—we narrate. Constantly.

This is exactly what Zen masters like Bodhidharma and Dōgen taught centuries ago.
Their teachings weren’t philosophical abstractions—they were practical interventions, learned through painstaking experience and observation.
They saw that we don’t just suffer from events—we suffer from the stories we spin about them and ourselves.
Their remedy? Sit still. Drop the story. Watch the mind loosen its grip.
Modern MRI scans now show that doing so literally shifts brain function out of the DMN and into presence. (How about that to blow up the narrative of societal “advancement” based on time).

Psychedelics and the DMN

*Psilocybin alters DMN activity—offering a temporary break in rigid self-narrative loops.*

Psychedelic-assisted therapy has been making headlines lately for its impact on severe depression, addiction, and trauma. And for good reason- the results (at least for psilocybin so far) may potentially be nothing less than profound (and as a physician I don’t use that descriptor lightly).
One of the clearest findings? Psychedelics like psilocybin quiet the DMN.
The result is often described as “ego dissolution”—a temporary collapse of the “me story” that usually dominates awareness. This briefly opens a door where many patients report a new ability to approach old patterns with fresh perspective and emotional flexibility(PNAS, 2012 – Carhart-Harris et al.). Although the door opens only briefly and temporarily, in psilocybin it seems that this produces long-lasting improvement of depression (even with just a single dose).

This isn’t a magic bullet—but it’s compelling evidence that the path out of suffering involves loosening the grip of the narrator and possibly the delusions and attachments we collect unknowingly over time.

Practical Applications

Mindfulness & Meditation
Daily practice—especially forms like “anchor breathing”, Anapanasati, Shikantaza or Zazen—can train the mind to step out of the DMN and return to present-moment awareness.
Insight-Based Therapy (Psychodynamic Therapy)
Working with unconscious emotional patterns not only supports psychological growth—it may also restructure the very circuits that underlie chronic reactivity.
Psychedelic Work (in the right setting)
For some, this offers a dramatic shift in self-referential processing—but it must be done carefully, with professional support, and never as a shortcut.

Final Thought

*The mind becomes a mirror. A forge. A place of transformation.*

The DMN is where the self constructs its narrative—but also where it gets stuck. It’s how we can get in our own way.
Your mind is a tool. When it’s running on autopilot it tells the same story over and over and continues to feed our suffering.
But when we take charge to train it, gain clarity, and interrupt the narrative—it becomes something else:

A mirror. A forge. A gateway to something quieter, deeper, more powerful and free.

Brian Mendenhall, D.O.

Integrative Psychiatrist

Getting Out of Your Own Way: How the Default Mode Network Shapes Suffering—and Freedom