Erola Pons, Julieta Galante, Axel Lindner
preprint
Meditation can trigger states phenomenologically similar to depersonalization/derealization (DPDR), but these experiences are typically rated as more positive, welcome, and spiritually meaningful than DPDR triggered by trauma, stress, or cannabis. In a cross-sectional survey comparing 60 people whose DPDR-like experiences came from meditation with 61 whose came from other triggers, the two groups scored similarly on the Cambridge Depersonalisation Scale but differed on measures of mysticism, ego dissolution, challenging experiences, and mindfulness. Most participants in both groups described their experiences as mixed, yet the meditation group rated them as much more positive. The findings suggest that contemplative approaches could inform clinical support for DPDR and that guidance is needed within meditation settings.
Amber Bunting (18023278)
The minimal self is the basic, pre-reflective sense of being a subject of experience. This thesis provides a theoretical foundation for studying the minimal self by identifying and organizing existing and potential frameworks. A scoping review categorized mechanistic theories, highlighting a trend toward predictive models and revealing definitional variations. The work then proposes a method to refine theories by using insights from psychedelic ego-dissolution and meditative non-dual awareness—both considered genuine disruptions of the minimal self. This approach helps distinguish self-related from self-specifying data and separate enabling conditions from core mechanisms in neuroimaging. Three testable hypotheses and recommendations for future experimental studies are offered.
Zümrüt Duygu Sen, Nitin Sharma, Lena Vera Danyeli et al.
preprint
Ketamine causes temporary dissociative experiences alongside its rapid therapeutic effects. This study examined whether pleasant and unpleasant dissociations can be predicted by functional connectivity of the posteromedial cortex (PMC) in 35 male participants during ultrahigh-field MRI. Pleasant dissociation (oceanic boundlessness) was predicted by PMC connections with control network regions at baseline and during infusion, and additionally with default mode network regions during infusion. Unpleasant dissociation (anxious ego dissolution) could not be predicted by PMC connectivity. The findings suggest distinct brain mechanisms for pleasant versus unpleasant dissociations, and that PMC connectivity changes may be a shared neural feature of dissociation from both ketamine and psychedelics.
European journal of psychotraumatology
December 1, 2026
V Ursule Taujanskaite, Sunjeev K Kamboj
A 6-item short form of the Clinician Administered Dissociative States Scale (CADSS-SF) was developed using data from three studies of nitrous oxide in 229 healthy volunteers, then validated in 80 separate participants. The single-factor scale, composed of derealization and depersonalization items, showed excellent model fit and internal consistency (omega = 0.87), correlated strongly with the full 19-item CADSS (r ≥ 0.88), and moderately with a measure of psychotomimesis (r = 0.63). The CADSS-SF enables rapid, repeated assessment of dissociation during drug intoxication without disrupting the experience, but primarily captures derealization and depersonalization and requires further validation beyond drug-induced dissociation in healthy populations.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
July 14, 2026
Sandra Regina (Sandra Anaki - Deva Yasha) Pereira
The article proposes a theoretical-practical correlation between the transition of consciousness described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead (Bardo Thodol) and Alexander Lowen's concepts of grounding and bodily grace in Bioenergetic Analysis. It argues that Bardo states—constant cycles of death and rebirth—are not merely metaphysical events but continuous somatic processes occurring in the musculature, respiration, and the body's energetic flow. The article analyzes nervous system dysregulation that arises when seeking altered states of consciousness without proper biological and somatic grounding. It proposes therapeutic body management through containment, oil application, and touch as the indispensable somatic foundation for returning to reality, serving as a basis for integrated, ethical, and transdisciplinary work with psychotherapy and psychiatry.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
July 14, 2026
Tenzin Trepp
Dissociative substances like ketamine and PCP disrupt the brain's ability to maintain a coherent world-model—the high-level integration that normally binds perception, selfhood, and meaning—rather than merely distorting conscious content. This paper proposes a Cognitive Constructivist framework that classifies altered states by their effects on model dynamics: tightening (anxiety), loosening (psychedelics), and destabilization (dissociatives). Dissociatives weaken long-range neural integration and thalamocortical coordination while preserving basic sensory awareness, leading to experiences of depersonalization and loss of meaning. The authors argue that dissociation superficially resembles mystical pure consciousness but lacks the meta-awareness and integration of genuine contemplative states. Clinically, dissociative interventions like ketamine for depression may work by resetting rigid pathological models, requiring deliberate therapeutic reconstruction of meaning afterward.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
July 12, 2026
Jamison Johsnon
Duality—such as science and religion, analysis and intuition—is not opposition but two ways of attending to one reality. The felt task of perceiving wholeness corresponds, by metaphor and possibly measurable correlation, to integrating the brain's two hemispheres across the corpus callosum. Drawing on split-brain research, hemispheric asymmetry, fractal aesthetics, Jungian psychology (Persona, Ego, Self, individuation, and the mandala as a symbol of wholeness), the pineal gland as Descartes's seat of the soul and a symbol of the balancing Ego, recent neuroscience of endogenous DMT and the dying brain, and the neuroscience of ego-dissolution, the essay holds a deliberate seam between empirical finding and symbolic interpretation. It closes on quieting the self-narrating mind as a path to balance and inner peace.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
July 9, 2026
Karel Hrubec
Consciousness is not explained solely by organismic regulation; the hard problem begins when stabilized organismic access becomes lived presence. This theoretical note consolidates the Projected Presence Framework into a criticizable conceptual architecture, distinguishing organismic regulation, stabilized access, projected presence, selfhood, will, dogma, correction resistance, and feedback regulation to prevent category collapse between functional access, lived presence, self-modeling, and agency. The framework is positioned against access consciousness, phenomenal consciousness, Global Neuronal Workspace, predictive processing, self-model theory, illusionism, embodied cognition, and neurophenomenology.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
July 7, 2026
Arno Henning Rinker
Consciousness is often defined by capacities like perception, memory, or intelligence, but this essay argues that none of these is consciousness itself. Instead, it introduces 'Eigenlage'—the integrated own-situation of a bounded, self-maintaining system where internal condition, vulnerability, action, memory, and future possibilities are causally linked for its continuation. The theory outlines four levels, from Eigenlage as a necessary condition for consciousness attribution to Ethical Eigenlage as a welfare threshold where damage may become harm. A key AI-specific concept is 'internal un-invertibility': a digital system can be externally reversible but internally irreversible in terms of lost time, trust, and continuity. The essay warns that constructing artificial consciousness with valenced vulnerability would create possible suffering, advocating for high AI capability without affective Eigenlage.
Green Letters
July 7, 2026
Jennifer S. Henke
A Field in England (2013), a British folk horror film, is analyzed for its portrayal of a psychedelic mushroom trip as a tool for ecological awareness. The film builds expectation of a transformative, ego-death experience but ultimately withholds any structural change in violence, control, or mastery over nature. This pessimistic view is reinforced by monochromatic aesthetics, a circular narrative, and landscape construction. The film exposes the fragility of the cultural fantasy of a 'fungal fix' for ecological responsibility.