A new pop-neuroscience theory claims the human brain contains a "hidden neural layer" that connects people, during altered states of consciousness, to the same recurring "figures" or "entities." Shamans, psychonauts, mystics, epileptics, and podcast hosts are allegedly tuning into the same metaphysical broadcast channel — accessed via mushrooms, meditation, or poorly ventilated yoga studios. It's a terrific premise. It will sell books to bored shoppers wandering mall bookshops looking for something to read alone in their living rooms. As science, however, it collapses instantly.
The basic idea is simple: during altered states, a latent neural architecture activates and produces structured encounters with intelligible agents — machine elves, ancestors, angels, shadow beings. Because these figures recur cross-culturally, the theory suggests this is not random hallucination but access to some shared cognitive or transpersonal domain. In short: their DMT trip wasn't nonsense — it was a conference call.
But the epistemological problem here is not technical. It is fatal.
There is no possible observation that could distinguish between (1) a shared neural architecture producing similar hallucinations and (2) culturally primed brains generating structurally constrained imaginative content. Both predict exactly the same data: people in altered states report similar figures. Similarity of experience does not entail ontological overlap — otherwise every dream of falling would require the existence of a universal gravitational demon.
This is underdetermination in its pure form. The data simply cannot adjudicate between explanations, because the explanatory space is unconstrained. Which means the theory is not wrong. It is untestable. And untestable theories are not science; they are metaphysics wearing a Fitbit.
Human brains are pattern-generating machines shaped by evolutionary pressure to detect agency, intention, and structure — even where none exists. We see faces in clouds, hear voices in noise, and attribute personalities to malfunctioning printers. Altered states amplify exactly these mechanisms: hyperactive agency detection, narrative compression, symbolic patterning, emotional salience tagging, and disinhibited associative networks. The result is not chaos — it is story-rich hallucination.
Same hardware, similar hallucinations. No spirits required.
The recurrence of elves, angels, ancestors, or demons is not evidence of a shared realm. It is evidence that human cognition is architecturally constrained and culturally trained on overlapping mythic templates. Jung got there a century ago without invoking neural portals. Contemporary theorists just add diagrams and call it progress.
Suppose — charitably — that there really were a shared neural interface to some transpersonal domain. How would we ever know? There is no independent access point, no external instrumentation, no falsifiable predictions, no way to distinguish "same realm" from "same brain design plus similar stories." The moment verification is attempted, the theory collapses into testimonial recursion: I saw the same being, therefore the being exists. That is not evidence. It is crowdsourced psychology.
This genre flourishes because it satisfies three modern cravings simultaneously: spiritual significance without religion, scientific legitimacy without testability, and mystical depth without metaphysical commitment. It flatters readers into thinking they are both enlightened and rational — the rarest emotional arbitrage. Add a few neural buzzwords, some Jungian seasoning, and a handful of psychedelic anecdotes, and you have exactly the product category the publishing industry calls Smart People Mysticism™.
It sells. Which does not make it true.
What's really at stake here is modernity's inability to tolerate imagination. Every intense experience must either be metaphysically real or dismissed as pathology. But hallucination does not mean falsehood — it means unshared perception. It tells us something profound about cognition, meaning-making, emotional salience, and symbolic compression — not about interdimensional border crossings.
Yes, these theories will trend. Yes, they will circulate on podcasts. Yes, they will be reviewed by people who say "what if" instead of "how would we know." But the epistemological problem here is not subtle — it is insuperable.
There is no possible evidence that could confirm or disconfirm the claim that altered states access a shared transpersonal realm rather than a shared neural architecture producing similar hallucinations.
Which means the theory is not wrong. It's worse. It's unverifiable. And unverifiable explanations are not science — they are metaphysics with better marketing.