Frontiers in psychiatry
January 1, 2025
Human-Friedrich Unterrainer
4 citations
Using the Icarus myth as a metaphor, this essay argues that addiction represents a distorted pursuit of transcendence—the human desire to go beyond ordinary limits. Addiction, a chronic disorder involving compulsive substance use or behavior, offers only fleeting euphoria and perpetuates dependency, unlike healthy transcendence achieved through practices like meditation. Concepts such as Sigmund Freud's oceanic feelings and Abraham Maslow's peak experiences parallel the addict's search for unity, but addiction undermines genuine fulfillment. Spirituality plays a key role in both the development of addiction and recovery, reconnecting individuals to meaning and purpose. Neuroscientific insights point to ancient brain regions like the periaqueductal grey as underlying the drive for transcendence. The essay advocates for addiction therapy that balances the desire for transcendence with sustainable growth, avoiding Icarus's fatal extremes.
Frontiers in psychology
January 1, 2025
Sarah Straßnig, Tobias Herzl, Afrodita Latifi et al.
3 citations
Oceanic feelings—experiences of boundlessness, unity, or fragmentation—can foster spiritual experiences but also contribute to psychosis proneness. In a survey of 480 non-clinical adults, positive oceanic feelings were strongly linked to increased connectedness and general religiosity, while negative oceanic feelings showed weak to moderate associations with schizotypy and personality organization. Personality organization fully mediated the relationship between negative oceanic feelings and both schizotypy and general religiosity, and partially mediated the link with connectedness. Positive oceanic feelings enhanced religiosity and connectedness independently of personality organization. Strengthening personality organization may protect against destabilizing effects of negative oceanic experiences, informing psychotherapy and spiritual counseling.
Front Hum Neurosci
August 11, 2025
Human-Friedrich Unterrainer
1 citation
Oceanic states of consciousness, marked by ego dissolution, unity, and timelessness, are examined through existential neuroscience, blending psychoanalysis, existentialism, affective neuroscience, and psychedelic research. The paper contrasts Freud's view of the oceanic feeling as regressive with Jung's transformative perspective, using examples like van Gogh and Artaud to show how these states can spark visionary insight or psychological disintegration. Neuroscientific models, such as REBUS theory and Default Mode Network studies, indicate ego dissolution involves flexible brain reorganization, not dysfunction. The Peri-Aqueductal Gray is highlighted as a neural hub linking primal affect with mystical awareness. Existential thinkers frame these states as moments of rupture and potential authenticity. The paper proposes oceanic states as affectively charged boundary experiences requiring contextual integration, offering insight into selfhood and transformation.
Frontiers in psychology
January 1, 2026
Human-Friedrich Unterrainer
Altered states of consciousness, ranging from psychotic disintegration to mystical union, often involve oceanic affectivity—experiences of ego dissolution, boundlessness, and affective merging. Such states can be induced by psychedelics, trauma, meditation, or compulsive addictive cycles. While oceanic states may temporarily relieve psychic pain, they can reinforce a regressive return to early undifferentiated states, bypassing affect and symbolic integration. From a neuropsychodynamic perspective, addiction functions as a failed form of transcendence, an attempt to escape internal fragmentation. Neuroscientifically, these states involve alterations in the default mode network, limbic dysregulation, reduced top-down control, and increased neural entropy, potentially loosening rigid ego structures and facilitating unconscious material. The paper integrates psychodynamic theory with neuroscientific findings to conceptualize addiction as a neuropsychodynamic attempt to restore internal cohesion, offering therapeutic implications.