Marcus Raichle's group identified the network in 2001: medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate, precuneus, and lateral parietal regions that activate at rest and deactivate during external tasks. Its documented portfolio is self-reference, autobiographical memory, future simulation, and social cognition. Brewer et al. (2011) found experienced meditators show decreased DMN connectivity; Carhart-Harris et al. (2012, 2016) found psilocybin and LSD disintegrate DMN integrity in proportion to reported ego dissolution.
The folk reading wires the DMN straight into Huxley's reducing valve and the filter thesis: the brain as a constriction of consciousness, the DMN as the specific faucet, constructing a separate 'me' to keep the biological avatar alive. Suppress the faucet, per this reading, and the sense of separation vanishes while awareness persists, exactly what meditators and trippers report.
The claim, from the simulation and prison-planet literature: the DMN is the interface's account manager, the process that keeps the avatar identified with its character, and its documented suppression by psilocybin is why the compounds were scheduled in the first place, the narrative runs, they patch the wall.
If the self is a network's output, what is left when the network powers down?