A trained Mongolian shamanic practitioner self-induced a trance state without external sensory stimulation while undergoing quantitative EEG mapping and LORETA source imaging. The shamanic state of consciousness involved a shift from the normally dominant left analytical to the right experiential mode of self-experience, and from anterior prefrontal to posterior somatosensory mode. These neurophysiological changes may help explain brain networks underlying the autobiographical self, the boundary between self and others, and dissociative, psychotic, and transpersonal experiences. The findings offer a basis for integrating Western and traditional healing approaches.
A trans-materialist information-theoretical framework is proposed to account for conscious experience, from ordinary embodied modes to altered states such as near-death experiences (NDEs). The approach extends the Bohmian model to treat brain and mind as a unified quantum/classical system governed by implicate informational dynamics, resolving the Cartesian gap. Consciousness, personal identity, and free will are characterized as informational processes spanning classical matter/energy and quantum fields. Reports of veridical information obtained during NDEs are reviewed, suggesting that consciousness and self-identity may persist as coherent informational patterns (CIPs) without a functioning brain. The framework is also proposed as a clinical tool for alleviating existential death anxiety.