Do spiritually enlightened people have different kinds of brain activity?

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I don’t think you can point to a pattern of thought and say, “that’s the enlightenment pattern!” Enlightenment does change your brain, but the changes are way subtler than you’d find in, say, psychopathy or autism.

Which is a good thing, if spirituality actually made large-scale changes to your brain like that, then that would make you less human. Enlightenment is something you do to yourself, not something that just happens to you.

But while the actual physical changes are subtle, enlightenment changes one’s subjective experience in some very intense ways. The ego doesn’t die, but it recedes into the background. Ego death is a specific neurological phenomenon that is often confused for enlightenment.

Pre-enlightenment, the ego is often the primary voice inside the head, so the person identifies with that voice and what it wants. But the ego is just a set of wants and desires and thought patterns that we are get programmed with. In other words, just one part of your brain.

Spirituality involves progressively loosening the ego’s hold on identity. As you do this, other parts of the brain get recruited to serve as that “identified with” part. Ego is selfish, base. Other parts think in different ways.

When you’re enlightened, the mind is whole and operates like a full orchestra. The ego might be the brass in this orchestra. There are few of them, because only a few are needed as they are so loud. But since ego is needy, it wants to run the show. And it can, horns are really loud.

Identity becomes loose, you are less likely to identify as a body, or even a mind. Loss of any of it does not appear particularly concerning.