Alex Jinich-Diamant
preprint
Mystical states induced by psychedelics, meditation, or fasting all converge on the same brain state: a transient near-critical regime. Serotonergic psychedelics relax top-down priors by sensitizing layer 5 pyramidal neurons; open-monitoring meditation elevates cortical entropy through altered thalamocortical connectivity; caloric restriction destabilizes the default mode network by attenuating metabolic support for high-level attractors. The depth of the mystical state, not the method of induction, predicts lasting therapeutic benefit, suggesting conscious experience itself is the mechanistic agent of change. This framework proposes that near-critical dynamics may allow field-theoretic and quantum-coherent contributions to consciousness to become detectable.
Anne Monnier, Lena Adel, Guillaume Dumas
preprint
Neurophenomenology, which combines first-person experience with third-person neurobehavioral data, is extended to address intersubjective and social dimensions of lived experience. The article clarifies three meanings of 'generative'—generative phenomenology, generative passages, and generative models—and proposes updating the approach by moving from individual to multiple-person phenomenology, including measures of multimodal interpersonal synchrony, and using computational tools to integrate viewpoints without endorsing computationalism. Clinical relevance is illustrated through case studies in autism (interactive dyads) and family therapy (multiple members), showing translational potential.
Yixiao Sun, Zhihao Ma • 1 citation
preprint
Phenomenal consciousness (self-focused awareness, measured as agency) and access consciousness (meaning in life) relate differently to emotions in females and males. In females, phenomenal consciousness is more closely tied to emotions; in males, access consciousness is. Specifically, females with higher agency are more prone to disgust, while males with greater meaning in life are less likely to experience disgust. These sex-differentiated links may inform understanding of emotion regulation and coping strategies for external risks.
Ágota Vass, Gábor Csukly, Kinga Farkas • 16 citations
preprint
Autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia share a disturbance in the minimal sense of self—a basic, pre-reflective awareness of being a subject of experience. This common feature cuts across diagnostic boundaries and may help explain overlapping symptoms. The authors propose a framework linking neural, cognitive, and phenomenological levels to study this self-disturbance. They argue that the neural correlates of minimal selfhood can be more reliably identified during meditation than during rest, because meditation amplifies present-focused inward attention while reducing reflective mind-wandering. This approach aligns with efforts to find biomarkers for psychopathology and to move beyond traditional diagnostic categories toward a model that takes self-experience seriously.
Qeios • Milad Olfat
Merleau-Ponty's innovation is treating the body as existence or ontology, rejecting the separation of thought and body. He opposed mechanical psychology and two forms of absolutism—absolute Christianity and absolute Marxism—by introducing perception to connect consciousness and objectivity. Following Cezanne, he rejected dualism, integrating soul and body, sight and action. He emphasized the body's role in emotional perception and believed in a unified subject or Gestalt rather than isolated emotion or consciousness. His phenomenology extracts hypotheses humans make about themselves and their world. Time, for him, rises in human beings, who live in a continuum moving toward the future while reflecting on past experiences.
Bernard Crespi, Nancy Yang, Sam Doesburg
preprint
The human brain does not contain a single region or network dedicated to spiritual or religious thought. Instead, religious and spiritual cognition may arise from the widespread effects of a specific receptor, the HT2A receptor, which influences perception, emotion, and cognition across many brain areas. The hypothesis is supported by integrating fMRI and lesion studies with data on HT2A receptor distribution, activation in psychedelic experiences, psychiatric conditions, and stress. If true, understanding the neuroscience of spirituality will require studying how adaptive and hyperactivated HT2A receptor signaling interacts with predictive coding and other brain systems.
Anney Roy
A systematic review of controlled trials on the Ganzfeld experiment, which uses dim light and static sound to create a uniform perceptual field, found that only four such studies were conducted between 2000 and 2022. The review confirms that alpha brainwave interactions are involved in hallucination-like imagery during Ganzfeld stimulation. The authors highlight a significant gap in research on Ganzfeld-induced altered states of consciousness.
Preprints.org • Ranjeet Kumar Verma
preprint
A dialogue between Advaita Vedanta's non-dualistic consciousness and quantum physics suggests that both challenge materialist views of reality. Advaita holds that consciousness (Brahman) is the fundamental reality and the material world is illusion (Maya). Quantum phenomena such as wave-particle duality, non-locality, and the observer effect resonate with this view, implying reality is interconnected, probabilistic, and observer-dependent. The paper proposes that quantum physics may offer a scientific framework supporting Advaita's claim that consciousness is the substratum of reality, and examines how the observer effect aligns with the Advaitic principle that reality is shaped by consciousness. This contributes to philosophy of mind and science by proposing a unified, non-dual model of consciousness.
Zoran Josipovic • 8 citations
Consciousness-as-such, or nondual awareness, is fundamentally different from the contents of awareness and levels of arousal. Its essential property is non-representational reflexivity, making it a unique kind that cannot be reduced to any contents, functions, or states, including the indeterminate substrate. This theoretical paper outlines an expanded map of consciousness that includes the indeterminate substrate and nondual awareness alongside well-known contents and arousal levels. The author further discusses a previous hypothesis on the precuneus network for nondual awareness in relation to non-representational reflexivity and other neural correlates.
Zoran Josipovic, Vladimir Miskovic • 2 citations
Minimal phenomenal experiences (MPEs), episodes of greatly reduced phenomenal content and arousal, have been proposed as examples of consciousness-as-such. This paper argues that consciousness-as-such is better understood as a unique kind of non-conceptual, non-propositional, nondual awareness that is non-representational. The authors suggest that the standard two-dimensional model of consciousness—arousal level plus phenomenal content—cannot adequately capture this awareness. They propose that consciousness-as-such, and consciousness more broadly, should be studied as a distinct phenomenon.