Psychedelics, Yagé, and the Reorganization of Tensional Selves

FESBE 2026, states of consciousness, neuroplasticity, EEG, and fNIRS

Before speaking about psychedelics, we need to return to the body with responsibility. Breathing. Chest. Jaw. Memories. Fears. Beliefs. Belonging. No state of consciousness happens outside a body, outside a history, or outside a territory.

FESBE 2026 opens space for this theme by including discussions on psychedelics in neuroscience, states of consciousness, neurobiology, biological rhythms, mental health, and experimental methods. This allows BrainLatam2026 to approach the subject seriously: not as a trend or magical promise, but as a scientific field that requires ethics, method, safety, and materiality.

In the BrainLatam2026 language, Yagé should not be reduced to a substance. Yagé is an avatar for thinking about mode-shifting, applied metacognition, and the reorganization of constructs. It helps us ask: when can a rigid tensional self stop repeating Stone and Scissors — automatic reaction and rigid control — and enter Paper, meaning Fruition with metacognition?

Recent psychedelic science points to neuroplasticity, psychological flexibility, reorganization of brain patterns, shifts in rigid beliefs, and changes in self-perception. Current reviews discuss that therapeutic effects may involve not only pharmacological changes, but also deep subjective experiences, emotion, meaning, and interpersonal reconnection.

This is where Tensional Selves enter. Many forms of suffering appear when a person continues to sustain characters that the body can no longer harmonize: the self that must be strong, the self that must obey, the self that must win, the self that must have faith without doubt, the self that must preserve the “perfect family,” the self that must perform success. These characters are memories in action. They are bodily, affective, cognitive, and social patterns recruited to do — not necessarily to be.

Psychedelics, in controlled scientific contexts, have been studied as possible destabilizers of rigid patterns. A 2023 article proposes the idea of “pattern breaking,” connecting psychedelics with complex systems, the entropic brain, and the relaxation of rigid beliefs. This speaks directly to BrainLatam2026: perhaps certain expanded states allow social characters to be observed as constructions, not as destiny.

But this must be clear: this discussion is not an encouragement to use psychedelics. Psychedelics involve risks, require legal, ethical, clinical, and scientific contexts, and should not be treated as simple solutions. For BrainLatam2026, the point is not to romanticize substances. The point is to rigorously study how states of consciousness may reorganize perception, memory, body, and belonging.

EEG is important because it allows us to observe fast brain dynamics: oscillations, vigilance states, attentional changes, sensory integration, and electrical activity during altered states. Studies with ayahuasca and EEG have already attempted to detect changes in brain activity using machine learning and complex networks, showing that there is measurable neurophysiological materiality in this field.

fNIRS/NIRS enters through another path. As a portable technology more compatible with naturalistic contexts, it may help investigate cortical hemodynamic changes, especially in prefrontal regions related to regulation, decision-making, cognitive control, and emotional integration. Recent work suggests that fNIRS may open new opportunities for studying psychedelics and brain activity in less restricted conditions than classical neuroimaging.

The BrainLatam2026 question could be:

when can an expanded state of consciousness reorganize rigid tensional selves without erasing the body-territory?

A possible experimental design, always within approved ethical and legal contexts, could compare people before and after a clinically or legally authorized ritual intervention, measuring:

• EEG for oscillations and temporal dynamics;

• fNIRS for prefrontal activity;

• HRV/RMSSD for autonomic regulation;

• breathing for bodily rhythm;

• GSR for emotional activation;

• EMG for muscular tension;

• phenomenological interviews;

• scales of psychological flexibility, belonging, and meaning.

Here, Yagé would be the central lens. Iam would help understand subjective experience, emotion, and identity. Tekoha would observe the internal state of the body: fear, openness, comfort, nausea, safety, care, or threat. APUS would ask whether territory sustains or disorganizes the experience. Math/Hep would prevent confusion between poetry and evidence: one hypothesis at a time, one measure at a time, one conclusion within what the data allow.

The decolonial critique is indispensable. Global science often studies substances associated with Indigenous and Amazonian knowledge, but does not always recognize territory, ancestry, communal care, ritual language, coloniality, and inequality. Yagé, for BrainLatam2026, cannot be extracted only as a molecule. It must also be thought of as body-territory, history, culture, belonging, and responsibility.

At the same time, BrainLatam2026 must avoid the opposite mistake: turning tradition into unmeasured assertion. The path is double: respect Indigenous knowledge and demand science with evidence. Neither chemical reductionism nor uncritical romanticization.

This theme also connects with DREX Cidadão. If many bodies live in Zone 3 due to economic insecurity, symbolic violence, exhausting work, and performative belonging, the reorganization of tensional selves cannot depend only on individual therapies. Territory, food, care, time, school, health, culture, and minimal safety are also necessary. Without citizen metabolism, society demands individual healing from wounds it continues to produce.

In the end, Psychedelics, Yagé, and the Reorganization of Tensional Selves is an invitation to study states of consciousness without naivety. The body can shift modes. Memory can stop sustaining rigid characters. Perception can reorganize itself. But this only becomes serious knowledge when we unite ethics, territory, method, care, and evidence.

The final question remains:

what happens when the body realizes it no longer needs to sustain the character it learned to be?

Recent References Supporting This Text

1. Hipólito et al. (2023) — propose a complex systems approach to psychedelics, discussing “pattern breaking,” the entropic brain, and relaxation of rigid beliefs.

2. Alves et al. (2022) — EEG, machine learning, and complex networks study investigating brain changes associated with ayahuasca.

3. Scholkmann & Vollenweider (2022) — discuss opportunities for fNIRS neuroimaging in psychedelic research and its potential to investigate changes in brain activity.

4. Cardone et al. (2024) — review on psychedelics and disorders of consciousness, discussing brain complexity and altered states.

5. Chaves et al. (2024) — review on DMT and ayahuasca, highlighting specific features of these states, including intense internal imagery and deep subjective experiences.

6. Kishon et al. (2025) — discuss psychedelic therapy by integrating neuroplasticity, subjective experience, emotion, self-perception, and interpersonal connection.

7. Weiss et al. (2025) — review on psychedelics and neuroplasticity, addressing molecular, cellular, and behavioral mechanisms.

8. Agnorelli et al. (2025) — review on neuroplasticity and classical/non-classical psychedelics, relating rapid and lasting effects to plastic changes in the nervous system.