Frontiers in Psychology
September 4, 2018
Raphaël Millière, Robin Carhart‐Harris, Leor Roseman et al.
402 citations
Both meditation and psychedelic drugs like psilocybin and LSD can disrupt the sense of self, but these disruptions are not uniform. Meditation traditions aim to dissolve the self through altered states, while psychedelics produce drug-induced ego dissolution via serotonin receptor agonism. The authors argue that self-consciousness is a multidimensional construct, with narrative aspects (autobiographical memory, self-related thoughts) and embodied aspects (multisensory processes) being differently affected by each. They caution against conflating temporary self-loss with long-term selflessness as a trait, though preliminary evidence suggests possible correlations. The article calls for nuanced understanding of these phenomena.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
May 23, 2017
Raphaël Millière
216 citations
High doses of hallucinogenic drugs can produce a profound alteration of self-experience known as drug-induced ego dissolution (DIED), where the sense of self dissolves and boundaries between self and world disappear. Three classes of drugs induce this: classical psychedelics, dissociative anesthetics, and kappa opioid receptor agonists. Neuroimaging of DIED may reveal neural correlates of the self, but results must be interpreted cautiously—they may show necessary but not sufficient conditions for selfhood. The phenomenon likely disrupts the minimal or embodied self, a basic sense of self rooted in multimodal sensory integration, consistent with Bayesian models of phenomenal selfhood. DIED challenges philosophical views that consciousness always involves self-awareness and suggests ordinary experience includes a minimal self-awareness that fades during ego dissolution.
Philosophy and the Mind Sciences
March 24, 2020
Raphaël Millière
47 citations
Some states of consciousness may lack self-consciousness entirely. The author distinguishes six common notions of self-consciousness and argues that none is necessary for consciousness, because for each there exist conscious states where it is plausibly absent. Such states are at least partially selfless. Preliminary empirical evidence suggests some conscious states may lack all six forms, making them totally selfless—lacking every way one could be self-conscious. The author addresses four objections to the possibility and reportability of such totally selfless states.
June 4, 2023
Timo Torsten Schmidt, Cyril Costines, Enzo Tagliazucchi et al.
2 citations
preprint
The Altered Xperience Project (AXP) is an open citizen science initiative that systematically collects data on subjective experiences from consciousness-manipulating techniques, including psychoactive substances and non-pharmacological methods. A proof-of-principle dataset (v1.0) includes data collected through May 2022, with most gathered between October 3 and 13, 2022. The dataset covers low, medium, and high doses of alcohol, cannabis, NMDA, and psilocybin. Participants were recruited internationally via social media by the citizen science group El gato y la Caja, and participation was incentivized with an infographic comparing individual data to others. The data is publicly available on the Open Science Framework.
Neuroscience of consciousness
January 1, 2026
James W Sanders, Raphaël Millière, Ema Demšar et al.
The psychedelic compound DMT induces highly immersive experiences that often include encounters with seemingly sentient presences. Using micro-phenomenology, immersion under DMT was characterized as a structured continuum from subtle to gross forms. Twenty-three participants received 20 mg intravenous DMT during fMRI-EEG, followed by detailed interviews. Analysis yielded 125 phenomenological categories describing structural dimensions like sensory faculties, spatial organization, and self-world configuration. Bodily effects typically preceded visual and auditory ones, and perceived presences emerged only after multisensory integration and 3D spatial characteristics had developed, illustrating a hierarchical relationship between subtle and gross immersion. Perceived presences varied widely in sensory modality, semantic complexity, and relational mode, showing immersion as a dynamic, constructive process.