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.
Clinical Neurophysiology
September 21, 2011
Aviva Berkovich‐ohana, Joseph Glicksohn, Abraham Goldstein
309 citations
No Summary
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
October 6, 2017
Joseph Glicksohn, Aviva Berkovich‐ohana, Federica Mauro et al.
38 citations
Exposure to a monotonous sensory environment can alter time perception and subjective experience. Participants spent 20 minutes in a whole-body altered sensory chamber with white and colored light, relaxing with eyes closed. Before entering, they completed a time-production task; one group repeated it inside the chamber, another after exiting. The main effect of the sensory environment was a change in the intercept of the psychophysical function when produced time was plotted against target duration on a log-log scale. For participants reporting a marked change in time experience, such as the sensation of time disappearing, their time-production data could not be linearized on a log-log plot, suggesting a possible break in the psychophysical function.
Mindfulness
August 1, 2024
Aviva Berkovich‐ohana, Kirk Warren Brown, Shaun Gallagher et al.
22 citations
A selfless state of consciousness, reported for centuries in wisdom traditions, involves both temporary and lasting conditions. In psychology, the healthy self is typically emphasized, and the idea of selfless modes is sometimes dismissed, hindering empirical progress. This paper offers an interdisciplinary conceptual discussion grounded in the pattern theory of self (PTS), which views the self as a complex pattern of dynamically related processes. It proposes that meditative practices induce a reorganization of the self-pattern, enabling temporary or persistent selfless experience. The authors present a heuristic model, the pattern theory of selflessness (PTSL), with six nonlinear transformations: consolidating and integrating the self-pattern; cultivating concentration and present-moment awareness; cultivating mindful awareness; self-deconstruction states; self-flexibility; and self-liberation as a trait. This integrative view advances understanding of non-self experience and guides empirical research.
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.
Psychology of Consciousness Theory Research and Practice
June 12, 2025
Etzel Cardeña, Aviva Berkovich‐ohana, Katja Valli et al.
11 citations
A multidisciplinary, international group used taxonomic principles and a modified Delphi method to create a taxonomy of altered states of consciousness based on central phenomenological features. They identified eight distinct states, some with subcategories: proto and transitional, delirium, minimal to no awareness, experiential detachment, enhanced physicality, altered identity, imaginary/fantasy/visionary, and unity/mystical. The authors hope this taxonomy will foster conceptual clarity and stimulate research across specializations, helping reveal what is common and different across triggers and antecedents of altered states, and encouraging phenomenological, psychological, cultural, and neuroscientific understanding.
June 28, 2023
Daniel Andrew Atad, Pedro A. M. Mediano, Fernando E. Rosas et al.
11 citations
preprint
Meditation appears to increase the complexity of neural activity during practice, compared to resting or mind-wandering, but experienced meditators show lower baseline complexity as a lasting trait. This systematic review of studies on neural complexity in meditation examined different measurement approaches, short-term state effects, and long-term trait effects across meditation styles. The findings converge on a pattern where the meditative state enhances neural complexity, while trait effects in seasoned practitioners show reduced baseline complexity relative to novices and non-meditators. The review provides a framework to guide future research.
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.
July 28, 2024
Jonathan David, Aviva Berkovich‐ohana, Yair Dor‐ziderman
2 citations
preprint
People who have used ayahuasca multiple times show less fear of death, less avoidant behavior around death, and greater acceptance of death compared to non-users. A cross-sectional study of 54 ayahuasca veterans and 53 non-users found that these differences were explained not by personality, mindfulness, or beliefs about an afterlife, but by acceptance of impermanence—the recognition that all things change and pass away. Within the ayahuasca group, the degree of ego dissolution experienced during past ayahuasca sessions predicted how much they accepted impermanence, while how often they drank ayahuasca did not. The findings suggest that directly cultivating acceptance of impermanence could help manage existential anxiety.
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).
June 21, 2026
Jonathan David, Aviva Berkovich‐ohana, Yair Dor‐ziderman et al.
preprint
Ayahuasca use among ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) Jews is adapted to Jewish contexts, with ceremonies modified to fit religious norms. Motivations for use are primarily therapeutic. Acute experiences include Jewish and Jewish mystical visionary content. Longer-term effects include strengthened belief, connection to Judaism, and changes in religious practice. Religious tensions arise from ayahuasca's perceived foreignness, concerns about idolatry, mixed-gender participation, and competing authority structures. Strategies to address these tensions include medicalization, making the set, setting, and experience religiously permissible ("koshering"), and framing ceremonies as liminal spaces. The findings highlight psychedelics' contextual flexibility and diffusion into understudied populations.
Psychopharmacology
November 10, 2025
Yair Dor‐ziderman, Jonathan David, Aviva Berkovich‐ohana
Preliminary evidence suggests that ayahuasca can change how people think about and feel toward death at conscious levels, but automatic, unconscious perceptual processes that deny death remain unaffected.
November 18, 2024
Yair Dor‐ziderman, Jonathan David, Aviva Berkovich‐ohana
preprint
Ayahuasca veterans' brains show automatic, unconscious denial of death when processing self-related death stimuli, measured via magnetoencephalogram (MEG), while their conscious self-reports indicate less fear of death than the general population and experienced meditators. The neurophysiological marker of death denial correlated with lower self-reported death acceptance, reduced accessibility to death-related thoughts, and greater life satisfaction, suggesting an adaptive role. Despite psychedelic-induced changes in conscious attitudes toward mortality, unconscious cognitive processes underlying mortality avoidance remain intact, limiting the transformative efficacy of psychedelics on deep-seated death denial.