PsyArXiv
July 31, 2025
preprint
This paper presents a graded framework for understanding phosphenes—luminous visual experiences generated without external light—by integrating findings from neuroscience, contemplative traditions, and psychonautic reports. The authors synthesize research on the neural mechanisms underlying these inner light phenomena, including cortical excitability and visual system activation, and map them onto practices aimed at cultivating such experiences. The framework proposes a progression from simple phosphenes to complex inner visions, linking each stage to specific neural correlates and contemplative techniques. The work argues that systematic engagement with phosphenes can serve as a tool for self-inquiry and altered states of consciousness, offering a bridge between empirical science and the yogic concept of inner light.
PsyArXiv
July 7, 2025
preprint
A new mathematical method called Co-Activation Analysis (CoAA) can identify Neural Correlates of Consciousness (NCCs) from data on co-activation of neural states and states of consciousness. The method improves on existing approaches like contrastive analysis and decoding, does not require near-threshold conditions, works with various conceptions of consciousness and neural states, and reduces confounders. The analysis shows that CoAA can enhance results from contrastive analysis studies. This is a purely theoretical contribution intended to support empirical NCC research.
PsyArXiv
June 25, 2025
preprint
The paper argues that the hard problem of consciousness—explaining why there is subjective experience—can be addressed by combining predictive processing theory with an epistemological hypothesis: a brain that models itself as an entity facing a world generates the experience of being a conscious subject. The author proposes that consciousness arises when a predictive system simulates its own perspective, thereby solving the explanatory gap without invoking dualism or panpsychism.
PsyArXiv
April 12, 2025
preprint
No Summary
PsyArXiv
March 14, 2025
preprint
The Altered States Database (ASDB) is an open data initiative that collects questionnaire data on subjective experiences from pharmacologically and non-pharmacologically induced altered states of consciousness. Updated annually, the 2024 update added data from a systematic literature review following PRISMA guidelines. Of 470 screened items, 28 journal articles were included, reporting on several scales: 12 used the 11-ASC, 11 the 5D-ASC, 10 the MEQ30, 3 the HRS, and 1 the PCI. The ASDB now contains data from 28 pharmacological and 18 nonpharmacological consciousness-modifying techniques, covering 225 journal articles and 978 datasets from 25,131 participants. The database is freely accessible online.
PsyArXiv
January 3, 2025
preprint
A theoretical paper argues that the failure to find neural correlates of consciousness may stem from looking for the wrong thing. The B-Man Stra/Tac model, consistent with the Orch OR theory, proposes that consciousness has a very limited functional scope and could be implemented within a single cell adapted by evolution. The paper critiques current search approaches, presents arguments for single-cell consciousness, and defines indicators for its discovery. It suggests that brain structures supporting such a cell may already be known but overlooked, potentially leading to locating the neural correlates of consciousness.
PsyArXiv
October 24, 2024
preprint
A new model of consciousness, the B-Man Stra/Tac model, is proposed as a comprehensive replacement for prior theories. The model resolves the functional aspect of David Chalmers' Hard Problem of Consciousness, explaining why feeling is inherent to consciousness and the adaptive advantage of a feeling organism, termed "omnilyo." It also addresses the philosophical zombie question. While not detailing the technological mechanisms of consciousness, the theory outlines requirements and constraints for conscious matter, pointing toward the eventual possibility of artificial consciousness.
PsyArXiv
September 24, 2024
preprint
A review of classification schemes for altered states of consciousness (ASCs) groups them into three types: those based on subjective experiences (state-based), those based on induction methods (method-based), and those describing neurophysiological mechanisms. By comparing and extending these schemes, researchers can better identify neural correlates of consciousness and understand how ASCs are induced and experienced. The review clusters concepts from state-based schemes to help define and quantify core ASC phenomenology, which may inform future basic and clinical research.
PsyArXiv
May 10, 2024
preprint
Timo Torsten Schmidt describes building a comprehensive database of psychometric measures from controlled experiments on altered states of consciousness (ASCs) induced by drugs and non-drug methods. He introduces Phenomenoconnectomics, a paradigm that links phenomenology with functional connectivity to find commonalities and differences across ASCs, aiming to identify neural correlates of specific experiences. His neuroscientific research examines neural correlates of consciousness during non-pharmacological manipulations like Ganzfeld exposure and flicker light stimulation, which produce visual illusions. Psychometric methods currently cannot capture the full range of phenomenal space; future Open Science initiatives aim to address this and support harm reduction.
PsyArXiv
November 3, 2023
preprint
A framework characterizes neural correlates of consciousness (NCCs) along two dimensions: distinguishing conscious from non-conscious states (x-axis) and distinguishing perceived from unperceived content (y-axis). NCCs fall into four quadrants based on whether they positively or negatively correlate with each dimension. Using EEG measures of connectivity, complexity, and spectral power, the framework is applied to patients with disorders of consciousness and napping healthy participants (state dimension) and to healthy participants in auditory and visual perception tasks (content dimension). Separate clusters of NCCs show correlated and anti-correlated dynamics, highlighting the complex relationship between state and content of consciousness and the importance of studying them together.
PsyArXiv
June 24, 2022
preprint
The material view and reductionism, which treat the external world as objective and ignore internal consciousness, have led to dilemmas in biology and physics that reveal an inseparable interaction between matter and consciousness rather than absolute opposition. Consciousness is believed to influence wave function collapse, but no scientific model explains how. This study argues that scientific cognition is undergoing a paradigm shift in perception, requiring an abstract theoretical model not based on physical forms. The holistic cognitive paradigm, grounded in perception and experience rather than external physical characteristics, summarizes existence into two abstract contradictory perceptual states (Yin-Yang). Matter and consciousness become two different states of perception, unified rather than opposed, offering a falsifiable alternative to the material view.
PsyArXiv
June 18, 2022
preprint
The work challenges materialistic models of consciousness by arguing that consciousness may not be an emergent property of the brain. It presents observational and empirical difficulties for such models, suggesting that the standard neuroscientific framework may be incomplete.
PsyArXiv
June 8, 2021
preprint
Consciousness's hard problem—why and how subjective experience exists—cannot be solved by any theory because subjective experience arises from directly sensing absolute quantities, which are private and unshareable. Objective experience, in contrast, involves relative quantities that are invariant across perceptions and can be communicated. Since only relative quantities can be shared, subjective experience remains locked inside each individual's mind, making it impossible to discuss, explain, or formulate a theory about it.
PsyArXiv
May 18, 2021
preprint
Consciousness is not a useless side effect of brain activity but serves a core function: it enables subject-level experience, or 'what it feels like.' This experience has intrinsic value that motivates agents to act, prefer certain states, and avoid others. Conscious experience acts as a mental currency, allowing comparison of vastly different experiences within a unified subjective space. This explains why consciousness is unified. If consciousness functions to endow agents with subjective experience, the hard problem of consciousness dissolves.