Consciousness and cognition
December 1, 2015
Yochai Ataria, Yair Dor-Ziderman, Aviva Berkovich-Ohana
158 citations
Based on detailed self-reports from a long-term mindfulness practitioner with about 20,000 hours of meditation experience, the sense of boundaries (SB) can shift through three stages: default, dissolving, and disappearing. During these shifts, seven overlapping categories change, including senses of internal versus external, time, location, self, agency, ownership, and the first-person perspective. Two categories—the touching/touched structure and bodily feelings—persist even when the SB disappears entirely. The findings suggest that the sense of boundaries is not a single, fixed experience but a composite of multiple, separable dimensions that can be altered through meditative practice.
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.
Neuroscience of consciousness
January 1, 2016
Yair Dor-Ziderman, Yochai Ataria, Stephen Fulder et al.
100 citations
The sense of being a self separate from the world can vary in intensity, is linked to specific brain activity, and can be altered through meditation. A long-term meditation practitioner deliberately produced three mental states with different degrees of self-boundary experience while undergoing magnetoencephalography. The results were partly confirmed in ten other experienced meditators. Right-lateralized beta oscillations in the temporo-parietal junction, which supports the unity of self and body, and in the medial parietal cortex, a key self-representation area, were implicated. The graded, flexible nature of self-specific processes may have clinical relevance for people with disturbed self-boundaries.
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.
Journal of trauma & dissociation : the official journal of the International Society for the Study of Dissociation (ISSD)
January 1, 2014
Yochai Ataria
19 citations
Dissociation during trauma is a strong predictor of posttraumatic stress disorder, yet its fundamental aspects remain poorly understood. This article argues that applying the phenomenological structure of time and the phenomenological description of the self—including the minimal self, sense of ownership, sense of agency, and sense of self—can improve understanding of dissociation during trauma, both at its occurrence and in any ensuing symptoms. The phenomenological approach, which focuses on the bodily level of experience, particularly the body as experienced from within, enables deeper insight into the traumatic experience. This improved understanding may facilitate the development of better treatments.
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.
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.