Hacking the Ecstatic
The Ecstatic Spectrum Experiences Have Long-Term Permanent Psychological Benefits
Notes by Natalie Ola
3 min read · 12.7.2025
STER—Selfless, Timeless, Effortless, Richness
Across the boards, whenever mapping cloud nine, how do these experiences make me feel?
Selfless
Our sense of self goes away. Why? Because the prefrontal cortex deactivates and the DMN (Default Mode Network) shuts down.
Timeless
All of these experiences are timeless. Why? Because time is calculated all around the prefrontal cortex, so in all of these experiences it shuts down and we can no longer separate present from past from future and we are plunged in the deep now.
Effortless
All of these experiences are effortless. Effortless effort, right? This means that if you are on the spiritual side—you are being moved by forces beyond your control; and if you are on a high-performance side and you are in flow states—it’s effortless effort and every action flows seamlessly, effortlessly, perfectly from the last. Take your pick.
Richness
All of the states are information rich. Why? Because all of the chemicals produced by these states surround the brain’s information processing machinery and jack it up. Which is why we feel like we have access to this information and experiences that we don’t normally get access to.
Last part of the book is on open questions and mystery—where does the information come from? Because all of this neurobiology can explain 90 to 95 % of what’s going on. But there’s 5% of the big question mark.
Hacking the Ecstatic
There are 3 different approaches to hacking the ecstatic spectrum: psychedelics, flow, and meditation.
Healing Timeline
PTSD, same true with anxiety, because this is a scale and a spectrum—to produce complete remission or reduce the need for medication:
- MDMA or psilocybin to go at PTSD—1-2 therapy sessions
- Surfing (produces tremendous amount of flow) plus talk therapy—5 weeks
- Mantra meditation plus therapy—4 weeks
Creativity Boost
Same thing on a high performance side. 3 different approaches to boost creativity:
- Microdosing—1-2 sessions, up to 200%
- Flow, induced—in flow the boost of creativity some 400-700%
- 3 open monitoring meditations was enough to increase fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration—these are fundamental creative skills
Ecstatic Spectrum
There’s an ecstatic spectrum: flow states, states of awe, meditative states, contemplative states, psychedelic states, technologically mediated states, sexually provoked states, all the tantras, mystical states; even, check it out, the experience you have at transformative festivals.
Going to Burning Man—this was research done at Oxford—produces the same changes in your brain as doing psychedelics, or being in flow, or having a meditative practice. Similar changes in the brain.
So all of these techniques, under the hood, are neurobiologically very similar; they do similar things to our brain.
They produce similar experiences, the experiences of STER, and long-term they are psychologically real; they have long-term permanent psychological benefits.
Now certainly in psychedelic experiences we’re getting way way more serotonin than would show up in flow; and in flow we’re getting way way more dopamine than would ever show up in meditation.
But roughly these are similar experiences, and because they are similar experiences there’s phenomenology of the ecstatic—like rebirthing and healing addictions, etc. etc.—all of them are increases in the brain functions.
As Jamie Wheal pointed it out, altered states lead to altered traits. And this explains why consciousness hacking is going mainstream.
Reference:
Steven Kotler. Session 5 Hacking the Ecstatic. Mapping Cloud Nine: Neuroscience, Flow, and the Upper Possibility Space of Human Experience. Audiobook. 1.10.2022.
