Frontiers in psychology
January 1, 2020
Aviva Berkovich-Ohana, Yair Dor-Ziderman, Fynn-Mathis Trautwein et al.
101 citations
Neurophenomenology integrates first-person (subjective) and third-person (objective) approaches to the mind. This practical guide outlines theoretical principles, the importance of phenomenological training, and the utility of cooperating with meditators as skilled participants. First-person accounts range from thick to thin phenomenology, highlighting a tension in naturalizing phenomenology. A typology of bridges creates mutual constraints between approaches. The paper demonstrates a decade of neurophenomenological studies investigating the sense of self, focusing on its embodied and minimal aspects accessed via dissolution of sense-of-boundaries, revealing the multi-dimensionality and flexibility of embodied selfhood.
Brain sciences
June 21, 2021
Ohad Nave, Fynn-Mathis Trautwein, Yochai Ataria et al.
91 citations
A fundamental aspect of the sense of self is its pre-reflective dimension, which specifies the self as a bounded and embodied knower and agent. Deep meditative states involving global dissolution of the sense of self offer a promising path for investigating this elusive feature. A comprehensive phenomenological inquiry into meditative self-boundary alteration systematically characterized induced states by changes in six experiential features: sense of location, agency, first-person perspective, attention, body sensations, and affective valence, along with their interaction with meditative technique and overall degree of dissolution. Quantitative analyses highlighted a unitary dimension of boundary dissolution.
The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience
June 26, 2024
Fynn-Mathis Trautwein, Yoav Schweitzer, Yair Dor-Ziderman et al.
27 citations
Long-term meditators can intentionally reduce the sense of being an embodied self, and this change is linked to decreased high-beta brain activity in the posterior medial cortex. In a study of 46 experienced meditators (19 female, 27 male) who underwent magnetoencephalographic monitoring, those who reported radical disruptions of embodied self-experience—such as loss of agency and a localized first-person perspective—showed the strongest neural reductions. These neural changes correlated with lifetime meditation experience and interview-based reports of experiential shifts, but not with standard self-report questionnaires. The findings suggest that posterior medial cortex oscillations are central to supporting the embodied sense of self.
April 18, 2021
Ohad Nave, Fynn‐mathis Trautwein, Yochai Ataria et al.
16 citations
preprint
The pre-reflective sense of self, a tacit and constant feature of consciousness that frames the self as a bounded and embodied agent, is difficult to study empirically. Deep meditative states that dissolve this sense of self offer a path for investigation. In a phenomenological study, meditative self-boundary alteration was characterized by changes in six experiential features: sense of location, agency, first-person perspective, attention, body sensations, and affective valence. Quantitative analyses revealed a unitary dimension of boundary dissolution. Passive meditative gestures of “letting go,” which reduce attentional engagement and sense of agency, drove the depth of dissolution. These findings support an enactive approach linking the pre-reflective self to sensorimotor activity and attention-demanding processes.
Neuroscience of consciousness
January 1, 2025
Yair Dor-Ziderman, Yoav Schweitzer, Ohad Nave et al.
10 citations
Meditators' brains show acceptance rather than denial when processing death-related stimuli linked to the self, as measured by a magnetoencephalogram visual mismatch-response (vMMR) paradigm. This neural shift corresponds with increased self-reported well-being and is associated with positively valenced experiences of self-dissolution during meditation. The findings suggest that the brain's defensive response to mortality is not fixed but can be reduced through insight meditation grounded in mindful awareness, which trains acceptance of impermanence. The results also indicate that addressing mortality concerns is important when interventions may disrupt self-consciousness.
Brain sciences
November 26, 2024
Yoav Schweitzer, Fynn-Mathis Trautwein, Yair Dor-Ziderman et al.
7 citations
Long-term meditators show enhanced low-level prosocial capacities, including better emotion recognition and reduced outgroup bias, compared to non-meditators. A neural index of self-boundary flexibility, measured via high beta deactivation, remained stable over a year and negatively correlated with recognizing negative emotions, suggesting a link to reduced social threat perception. The study involved 44 long-term meditators and 53 controls. These findings connect the neural correlates of self-boundary flexibility to prosociality, supporting the idea that flexing self-boundaries through meditation may enhance prosocial traits.
February 13, 2023
Fynn‐mathis Trautwein, Yoav Schweitzer, Yair Dor‐ziderman et al.
3 citations
preprint
Long-term meditators can intentionally reduce their sense of being an embodied agent, and this change corresponds to specific brain activity reductions. In a preregistered study, 46 experienced meditators (19 female, 27 male) used advanced meditation techniques to attenuate their embodied self-experience while undergoing magnetoencephalography. Those who reported radical disruptions—such as losing a sense of agency or a localized first-person perspective—showed reduced high-beta-band oscillations in the posterior medial cortices (PMC). These neural changes correlated with lifetime meditation experience and interview-based reports, but not with standard self-report questionnaires. The findings show that combining first-person methods with neuroscience can reveal how the brain supports the embodied sense of self.
October 1, 2025
Daniel Andrew Atad, Pedro A. M. Mediano, Fynn‐mathis Trautwein et al.
1 citation
preprint
The sense of being a bounded self can be attenuated or dissolved while awareness remains. Analyzing magnetoencephalography data from 46 long-term meditators, the study found that both meditation conditions (self-boundary dissolution and maintenance) increased broadband entropy rate and directed information transfer compared to rest, driven mainly by high-frequency activity. Localized reductions in information transfer from the anterior cingulate to posterior cingulate and in high-beta entropy rate in sensorimotor and posterior-medial cortices differentiated the two meditation conditions. Reduced orbitofrontal cortex entropy rate and reduced information transfer from occipital, cingulate, limbic, and subcortical areas correlated strongly with self-boundary dissolution phenomenology. Together with a previously reported neural correlate of reduced high-beta power in the posterior-medial cortex, these two neural correlates explained over half the variance in phenomenological dissolution scores (R² = 0.52).