This indicates “that the brain does not simply become a random system after psilocybin injection, but instead retains some organizational features, albeit different from the normal state,” the authors write in their paper in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

The findings seem to explain some of the psychological experiences of a psilocybin trip. Linear thinking and planning become extremely difficult, but nonlinear “out of the box” thinking explodes in all directions. By the same token, it can become difficult to tell fantasy apart from reality during a psilocybin trip; but focusing on a certain thought or image — real or imagined — often greatly amplifies that thought’s intensity and vividness.

The authors suggest that effects like these may be rooted in the two connectivity traits they spotted, since the connectivity patterns that rapidly disperse may reflect unorganized thinking, while the stable inter-regional connections may reflect information from one sensory domain “bleeding” into other areas of sensory experience. In fact, the researchers also suggest that synesthesia — the sensory blurring that causes users of psychedelics to experience sounds as colors, for example — may be a result of these connectivity changes too.