PsyArXiv
February 23, 2021
21 citations
preprint
A new approach called computational phenomenology uses generative modeling techniques from computational neuroscience to study conscious experience. The paper reviews efforts to naturalize phenomenology, addresses philosophical objections, and explains how generative models can simulate the inferential processes underlying specific types of lived experience. This differs from prior uses of generative modeling for consciousness by focusing on modeling the interpretive process that best accounts for particular phenomenal experiences.
PsyArXiv
November 17, 2020
17 citations
preprint
A unifying account of deconstructive meditation under the predictive processing view is offered. The brain makes predictions based on past experience, and deconstructive meditation disengages anticipatory processes, gradually reducing counterfactual temporally deep cognition until all conceptual processing falls away, unveiling a state of pure awareness. Three main styles of meditation (focused attention, open monitoring, and non-dual) are placed on a single continuum, where each technique relinquishes increasingly engrained habits of prediction, including the predicted self. This deconstruction can permit certain insights by making these processes available to introspection. The framework is consistent with empirical and (neuro)phenomenological evidence and illuminates the top-down plasticity of the predictive mind.
PsyArXiv
June 10, 2020
11 citations
preprint
This theoretical paper proposes a computational model of mental action—the deliberate control of one's own thoughts and attention—by combining insights from phenomenology and active inference. The authors develop a deep-parametric active inference framework to simulate meta-awareness and attentional control, showing how agents can learn to monitor and regulate their own cognitive processes. The model suggests that meta-awareness emerges from hierarchical inference about attentional states, enabling flexible control of attention. This work bridges phenomenological philosophy and computational neuroscience, offering a formal account of how conscious agents can intentionally shape their own mental activity.
PsyArXiv
October 17, 2023
9 citations
preprint
About 16% of people who used psychedelics in naturalistic settings experienced a clinically meaningful decline in psychological well-being four weeks later. Those with a prior personality disorder diagnosis were disproportionately affected, making up 31% of negative responders and facing more than a four-fold elevated risk of adverse psychological responses. The findings suggest that personality disorders may heighten vulnerability to negative outcomes from psychedelic use, highlighting the need for careful screening and robust psychological support.
PsyArXiv
April 13, 2023
9 citations
preprint
A within-subjects, placebo-controlled study tested a novel method of administering N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) by combining a bolus injection with a constant-rate infusion to extend the experience to 30 minutes. The method effectively maintained stable and tolerable subjective effects over the infusion period. Anxiety ratings remained low, and heart rate habituated within 15 minutes, indicating psychological and physiological safety. Plasma DMT concentrations increased consistently starting ten minutes into administration, while psychological effects plateaued, suggesting acute psychological tolerance to DMT. These findings demonstrate the safety and effectiveness of continuous intravenous DMT administration for basic and clinical research.
PsyArXiv
May 14, 2025
4 citations
preprint
Under DMT, immersive experiences and perceived presences follow a consistent structural pattern: bodily sensations arise first, then visual and auditory elements, and only after multisensory integration and 3D spatial characteristics develop do perceived sentient presences emerge. Micro-phenomenological interviews with 23 participants who received intravenous DMT (20mg) during fMRI-EEG recordings identified 125 phenomenological categories structuring immersion, including modal sensory dimensions, amodal feelings, self/world configurations, and social engagement modes. Perceived presences varied in sensory manifestation, semantic complexity, and social interaction modes. The findings advance understanding of non-ordinary states of consciousness and support future neurophenomenological research.
PsyArXiv
October 20, 2024
4 citations
preprint
Archetypes, as described by Carl Jung, can be understood through modern neuroscience. The article proposes that archetypes arise from a three-part interaction: subcortical systems provide an affective core, altered states like those induced by psychedelics generate archetypal imagery, and higher cortical areas encode archetypal stories. The Free Energy Principle and Predictive Processing are used as foundational frameworks. Archetypes may be transmitted socially, forming a collective unconscious through learning and attunement. The work offers testable hypotheses about the neurological bases of archetypes, aiming to bridge Jungian psychology with neuroscience and encourage empirical investigation.
PsyArXiv
June 11, 2024
4 citations
preprint
A review of recent advances in neurophenomenology, a research program that rigorously examines subjective experience using first-person methods inspired by phenomenology and contemplative practices. The review covers three areas: new multidimensional tools for capturing dynamic changes in consciousness during meditation; empirical studies using experienced meditators to deconstruct aversive and self-related processes, revealing markers for pain regulation, self-dissolution, and acceptance of mortality; and a deep computational neurophenomenology framework that uses deep parametric active inference to naturalize phenomenology. These innovations suggest that mutual constraints among phenomenological, computational, and neurophysiological domains can contribute to an integrated understanding of mental illness and its treatment.
PsyArXiv
June 30, 2022
4 citations
preprint
A single psychedelic experience can increase non-physicalist beliefs, including dualism, paranormal/spiritual beliefs, and consciousness in both mammals and non-mammals, with medium to large effects. Belief in superstition changed negligibly. The percentage of participants identifying as a believer in a higher power or ultimate reality rose from 29% before the experience to 59% after. Greater mystical experience during the session was linked to larger belief changes. These shifts remained largely stable an average of 8.4 years later.
PsyArXiv
June 9, 2025
3 citations
preprint
Psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) is no more effective than open-label traditional antidepressants (tADs) for major depression when both treatments are compared under similarly unblinded conditions. A meta-analysis of 8 PAT trials (548 patients) and 16 open-label tAD studies (9,751 patients) found no significant difference in patient improvement on the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, with a slight trend favoring tADs. Open-label tADs outperformed blinded tADs, but the same blinding effect was not seen in PAT. The findings suggest that the apparent benefits of PAT may be partly due to patients knowing they are receiving an active treatment, challenging claims of its superior efficacy.
PsyArXiv
February 23, 2025
3 citations
preprint
Psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) is a complex, multi-component intervention, yet most clinical trials evaluate it as a simple pharmaceutical treatment, limiting real-world validity. This position piece advocates applying the UK Medical Research Council's complex intervention framework to PAT, emphasizing theory of change, structured development, context, and stakeholder input. Pragmatic randomized controlled trials, informed by the PRECIS-2 tool, are proposed to align trial designs with real-world healthcare settings. The authors contrast drug-centric and psychotherapy-augmented views of PAT's efficacy, and recommend integrating qualitative data, adaptive designs, and comparative effectiveness research. A pluralistic evidentiary model is suggested to advance psychedelic medicine while avoiding past developmental pitfalls.
PsyArXiv
December 29, 2024
3 citations
preprint
DMT reliably produces profound experiences of immersion in other worlds and encounters with seemingly autonomous presences, but the lived qualities and unfolding of these experiences remain poorly understood. Micro-phenomenological interviews with twenty-three healthy participants who received DMT during fMRI scanning revealed rich dimensions of immersive experience—from multisensory engagement to radical reconfigurations of self and world—and illuminated varied ways presences can be seen, felt, or otherwise sensed. The analysis identified structural features and temporal dynamics, particularly the layering of sensory effects followed by spatial, self-related, and social effects, extending beyond traditional constructs like ego dissolution or mystical experience. This mapping advances understanding of DMT's effects and conscious experience, inviting comparisons with meditation, lucid dreaming, and presence phenomena in lab-induced hallucinations or Parkinson's disease.
PsyArXiv
August 21, 2023
3 citations
preprint
The brains of mindfulness meditators exhibit an acceptance of death that predicts positively-valenced meditative self-dissolution experiences.
PsyArXiv
May 24, 2022
3 citations
preprint
Blinding in medical trials is meant to distribute expectancy effects evenly across treatment arms, but it often fails. Using computational modeling, this work shows that weak blinding combined with positive treatment expectancy can create an 'activated expectancy bias' (AEB), which inflates treatment effect estimates and can produce false positive findings. To address this, the authors introduce the Correct Guess Rate Curve (CGRC), a statistical tool that estimates what a perfectly blinded trial would have found from imperfectly blinded data. Re-analyzing a self-blinding psychedelic microdose trial, they find that observed placebo-microdose differences are susceptible to AEB and may be false positives, suggesting microdosing acts as an active placebo. The results underscore the difference between trials with a placebo control group and genuinely placebo-controlled trials.
PsyArXiv
November 7, 2023
2 citations
preprint
A woman in her early thirties with depression, anxiety, and sleep disorders from childhood trauma microdosed Amanita muscaria mushrooms over 3.5 months following a dream's advice. Using an intuition-based, gradually declining dosing scheme, her symptoms significantly decreased without adverse effects. Blood tests showed no abnormalities and a slight improvement in liver function, possibly from reduced sugar addiction and muscimol's hepatoprotective effect. These findings align with existing literature on psycholytic dosing.
PsyArXiv
October 6, 2021
2 citations
preprint
Enactivism, a leading approach in the philosophy of perception, is metaphysically ambiguous because it claims to avoid both idealism and realism while incorporating elements of each. An earlier attempt to resolve this ambiguity fused enactivism with phenomenology and the mathematical concept of symmetry breaking, but this solution is not entirely successful. Adding a multi-level, non-reductive metaphysics, such as Informational Structural Realism, is proposed. On this view, perception involves causal transfers of information at different levels within a hierarchy of meaningful structures that constitute physical reality. Phenomenologists may use 'perception' metaphorically across all levels, though realists need not.
PsyArXiv
June 25, 2021
2 citations
preprint
Psychedelic use can shift metaphysical beliefs away from materialism and toward panpsychism and fatalism, and these changes persist for at least six months. In a large prospective online survey, participants reported significant belief changes after using psychedelics, with shifts linked to the extent of past use and improved mental health. The belief shifts were moderated by baseline impressionability and mediated by perceived emotional synchrony with others during the experience. Findings were confirmed in an independent controlled clinical trial, suggesting psychedelics causally influence metaphysical beliefs.
PsyArXiv
April 23, 2021
2 citations
preprint
Consciousness research faces the challenge of combining subjective experience with objective neural data. Francisco Varela pioneered empirical approaches that bridge these sources. His neurophenomenological framework integrates first-person reports with neural measures, and his team discovered gamma-band phase synchronization as a neural marker of perceptual awareness. Varela also contributed to the study of time consciousness by combining subjective reports with neural measures. This review outlines key conceptual distinctions and philosophical challenges in consciousness research, highlighting Varela's non-reductive, comprehensive methodology.
PsyArXiv
September 4, 2025
1 citation
preprint
Classic psychedelic drugs such as psilocybin, LSD, and ayahuasca are being explored as treatments for many health conditions, but predicting how individuals will respond is difficult. Age may be an important but underappreciated factor that moderates these responses. Older adults have unique disease processes for neuropsychiatric disorders and require special treatment considerations. Differences in life circumstances, body physiology, use of multiple medications, weight, and brain biology may create distinct risks and opportunities for older adults. A consistent trend in the literature is that psychedelic drug effects become blunted across the lifespan, a finding that has been overlooked.
PsyArXiv
April 13, 2025
1 citation
preprint
During the transition from wakefulness to sleep, unusual bodily sensations and out-of-body experiences can be induced. A high-density EEG and neurophenomenology approach reveals specific brain activity patterns associated with these phenomena, suggesting that the brain's altered state during sleep onset may facilitate such experiences.
PsyArXiv
December 4, 2024
1 citation
preprint
Psychedelics show potential for treating depression and PTSD. Current psychedelic-assisted therapy typically uses a non-directive approach with minimal therapist guidance. Clinical outcomes could improve by explicitly guiding participants to address specific symptoms. This paper proposes a variant of Daoist meditation—the outer dissolving technique in the water method—as a framework for guiding participants. The technique helps notice and release bodily tensions or blockages linked to repressed emotions. Practicing it during preparatory, integration, and acute phases of therapy may foster deeper insights into somatic manifestations of psychiatric conditions and empower emotional release. Daoist meditation is a promising adjunct to psychedelic-assisted therapy.
PsyArXiv
October 8, 2024
1 citation
preprint
Lucid dreaming involves awareness of dreaming, but the degree of awareness and control varies among individuals. Analyzing data from 344 participants recruited mainly from online lucid dreaming communities, multiple regression analysis showed that lucid dreaming frequency and knowledge about lucid dreaming significantly predict lucid dreaming skills. Meta-awareness was also suggested as a predictor but did not remain significant after adjusting for multiple comparisons. A small correlation emerged between sleep paralysis and lucid dreaming frequency, but no significant link with induction techniques. Community differences appeared in age, dream recall, technique use, and beliefs. The most used induction techniques were WBTB, MILD, and WILD.
PsyArXiv
February 13, 2024
1 citation
preprint
A new 9-item scale called the Imperial Psychedelic Predictor Scale (IPPS) predicts key features of the acute psychedelic experience. Analyzing four independent datasets (two online surveys with 741 and 836 participants, and two controlled administration studies with 30 and 28 participants), the scale showed good internal consistency and three factors: set, rapport, and intention. The IPPS significantly predicted mystical, challenging, and emotional breakthrough experiences. In one controlled dataset, set and rapport explained 40% of variance in mystical experience, and set alone explained 16% of variance in challenging experience. In another, rapport explained 9% of variance in emotional breakthrough. The scale may improve safety and therapeutic outcomes by forecasting response variability.
PsyArXiv
May 3, 2023
1 citation
preprint
Radically enactive (RE) accounts of perception directly oppose representationalist theories, including predictive processing (PP) approaches that retain some representational commitments. This chapter evaluates which framework better explains a class of perceptual illusions, such as the Müller-Lyer illusion, where what we see fails to update based on what we know. Two prominent PP attempts—one conservative, one radical—are reviewed and rejected as inadequate. Instead, the authors propose a simpler RE explanation: basic perceiving consists of contentless, non-inferential habits that precede and underlie contentful perceptual judgment. This account elegantly explains the full pattern of responses to such illusions.
PsyArXiv
January 9, 2023
1 citation
preprint
Perception is the primary way humans access the external world, and its nature is explored by both scientists and philosophers. Philosophers ask fundamental questions about whether senses represent the world in comparable ways, how much of the environment can be perceived at once, which aspects are objective or subjective, and what counts as perceptual. While these fields often proceed independently, a new research focus reunites them by putting long-standing philosophical questions to empirical test. This work directly tests philosophical conjectures or thought experiments in the laboratory, such that the experiments would not have proceeded without prior philosophical discussion. The review explores themes from these successful interactions and suggests further philosophical questions amenable to empirical approaches.