Self unbound: ego dissolution in psychedelic experience

Psychedelic-induced ego dissolution—where the sense of being a distinct self disappears—is best explained by predictive processing models of self-awareness. Self-awareness arises from hierarchical predictive models that posit a stable, enduring entity to which representations are bound. The self-model functions as a useful Cartesian fiction: a false representation of a simple substance that integrates cognitive processing across levels and domains. Unlike narrative accounts, this self-model has a robust cognitive function, but it does not qualify as a real self. Ego dissolution reveals the self-model's binding role in cognition, yet the self itself does not exist.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Users of psychedelic drugs often report that their sense of being a self or 'I' distinct from the rest of the world has diminished or altogether dissolved. Neuroscientific study of such 'ego dissolution' experiences offers a window onto the nature of self-awareness. We argue that ego dissolution is best explained by an account that explains self-awareness as resulting from the integrated functioning of hierarchical predictive models which posit the existence of a stable and unchanging entity to which representations are bound. Combining recent work on the 'integrative self' and the phenomenon of self-binding with predictive processing principles yields an explanation of ego dissolution according to which self-representation is a useful Cartesian fiction: an ultimately false representation of a simple and enduring substance to which attributes are bound which serves to integrate and unify cognitive processing across levels and domains. The self-model is not a mere narrative posit, as some have suggested; it has a more robust and ubiquitous cognitive function than that. But this does not mean, as others have claimed, that the self-model has the right attributes to qualify as a self. It performs some of the right kinds of functions, but it is not the right kind of entity. Ego dissolution experiences reveal that the self-model plays an important binding function in cognitive processing, but the self does not exist.