What if pain isn’t just something we feel, but something our brains interpret? And what if changing that interpretation could change our physical experience?

I spent years working in BDSM, an environment where pain, pleasure, fear, anticipation, control, and trust intersect in ways most people never experience firsthand.

And one of the most fascinating things I learned was that pain isn’t nearly as straightforward as we think.

The same physical sensation can be experienced completely differently depending on the context.

Anticipation can intensify a sensation before anything even happens. Fear can make something feel unbearable. Trust, excitement, and a sense of control can change the entire experience.

In BDSM, pain isn’t always experienced as suffering. Under the right circumstances, it can be pleasurable, exciting, cathartic, or simply intense without being distressing.

The sensation is real. But what that sensation means to the person experiencing it can dramatically change how it feels.

That observation has fascinated me for years.

And now some emerging medical research is making me think about it in an entirely different way.

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​What Johns Hopkins Discovered

In February 2026, researchers at Johns Hopkins published a pilot study examining psilocybin, the psychedelic compound in magic mushrooms, in people experiencing persistent symptoms after Lyme disease treatment.

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Twenty participants underwent two supervised psilocybin sessions with psychological support.

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Six months later, researchers reported an average 40% reduction in overall symptom burden, along with improvements in pain, fatigue, sleep, and quality of life.

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That’s remarkable.

Now, before anyone runs off claiming mushrooms cure Lyme disease, that’s not what the study showed.

It was a small, uncontrolled study. We don’t yet know how much improvement came from psilocybin itself, the therapeutic support, expectations, or other factors.

But the results are promising enough to warrant much larger studies.

Researchers have also investigated psilocybin in Parkinson’s disease, with early findings suggesting possible improvements in mood and some motor symptoms.

Again, preliminary. Not a cure.

But these findings raise an intriguing question.

What if our brains have more influence over our physical experience than we’ve traditionally given them credit for?

Your Brain Doesn’t Just Receive Pain. It Helps Create the Experience.​
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Here’s something that surprises many people.

Pain isn’t a direct measurement of physical damage.

Your nervous system processes signals from your body, but your experience of pain is also influenced by memory, expectations, emotions, attention, and whether your brain perceives a situation as threatening.

That’s why two people can experience the same stimulus completely differently.

It’s also why someone can experience significant pain without ongoing tissue damage, or have substantial physical damage without experiencing much pain.

And this is where my experience with BDSM becomes relevant.

I’ve witnessed how dramatically context can change a person’s response to physical sensations.

A sensation that would be unpleasant or alarming in one situation can become something entirely different when it’s anticipated, consensual, controlled, and associated with pleasure.

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The body hasn’t necessarily changed.

The brain’s interpretation has.

And that interpretation matters.

But Can We Go Beyond Perception?

This is the question I find most fascinating.

Can changing how our brains interpret experiences actually influence our physical health?

We already know the brain communicates with the immune system, influences stress hormones, regulates autonomic responses, and participates in processes that affect recovery.

We also know that expectations can influence real physiological responses. The placebo and nocebo effects are examples of this.

That doesn’t mean we can simply believe a disease away.

But it does mean our beliefs, expectations, and perceptions are not biologically irrelevant.

They can influence what happens in our bodies.

Researchers are investigating whether psilocybin might help change entrenched patterns of brain activity and responses to pain and distress.

It’s possible that greater flexibility in those patterns could help people experience relief from symptoms they’ve suffered with for years.

Whether psilocybin also produces meaningful changes in inflammation or other underlying disease processes remains an open question.

And I think that question deserves serious attention.

What If We Have More Influence Than We Realize?​
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My years in BDSM taught me not to automatically equate physical sensation with suffering.

Neuroscience gives us a framework for understanding why.

And emerging psychedelic research is opening new questions about how flexible our nervous systems might be.

I don’t believe this means we can cure ourselves simply by thinking positively. That’s an enormous leap, and it unfairly suggests that people are responsible for illnesses they cannot control.

But I do wonder how many of our experiences are shaped by patterns our brains have learned, and how many of those patterns might be changeable.

Perhaps one of the most important discoveries ahead won’t be that the mind can magically heal the body.

It will be a clearer understanding of how the brain and body influence each other, and how we can use that relationship to reduce suffering and support recovery.

BDSM taught me that pain and suffering are not necessarily the same thing.

Science is making me wonder just how much further that distinction goes.​
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And I think we’re only beginning to understand it.

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Research:

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Johns Hopkins University, Pilot Study of Psilocybin in Patients With Post-Treatment Lyme Disease (2026)

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-38091-9

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Psilocybin Therapy for Mood Dysfunction in Parkinson’s Disease: An Open-Label Pilot Trial (2025)

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-025-02097