November 30, 2020
Adam Safron, Arthur Juliani, Nicco Reggente et al.
44 citations
preprint
Psychedelics may both relax and strengthen beliefs depending on the dose and brain system involved. The REBUS model holds that 5-HT2a receptor activation relaxes prior expectations, enabling new perspectives. This paper proposes that at very high levels of 5-HT2a agonism, opposite effects can occur—termed SEBUS—where synchronous neural activity strengthens beliefs, enhancing meaning-making, hallucinations, and even delusional thinking. The ALBUS framework integrates these opposing effects across the dose-response curve, suggesting psychedelic experiences resemble waking dream states with varying lucidity. The authors provide neurophenomenological models of perceptual synthesis, dreaming, and episodic memory to support this view.
Neuroscience of consciousness
January 1, 2025
Adam Safron, Arthur Juliani, Nicco Reggente et al.
13 citations
Psychedelics profoundly impact brain and mind by altering belief systems. The REBUS model proposes that 5-HT2a receptor agonism relaxes prior expectations, enabling new perspectives. An alternative but compatible view, ALBUS (Altered Beliefs Under Psychedelics), suggests that at very high levels of 5-HT2a agonism, opposite effects may occur—synchronous neural activity becomes more powerful, leading to strengthened beliefs (SEBUS). These strengthened beliefs align with enhanced meaning-making in psychedelic therapy, hallucinations, and delusional thinking. ALBUS proposes that the balance between REBUS and SEBUS effects varies across the dose-response curve. Psychedelic experiences are described as waking dream states with varying lucidity, involving mechanisms of conscious perceptual synthesis, dreaming, and episodic memory.
Proceedings of the AAAI Symposium Series
May 18, 2026
Adam Safron, Victoria Klimaj, Zahra Sheikhbahaee
The Human Consciousness Hypothesis (HCH) and Integrated World Modeling Theory (IWMT) converge on a view of consciousness as a process of building coherent, probabilistic world models. HCH defines consciousness through three principles: Genesis (an early learning algorithm), Coherence (maximizing representational consistency), and Second-Order Perception (meta-awareness). IWMT proposes that phenomenal consciousness is the feeling of being a spatiotemporally coherent generative model for an embodied agent. Mechanistically, IWMT identifies self-organizing harmonic modes (SOHMs) as neural complexes that perform Bayesian inference, generating conscious experience as maximum a posteriori estimates of sensory states. This architecture implies consciousness could potentially be realized in artificial systems with appropriate recurrent dynamics and embodied grounding.