Self, Me and I in the repertoire of spontaneously occurring altered states of Selfhood: eight neurophenomenological case study reports

Fingelkurts, Andrew A.; Fingelkurts, Alexander A.; Kallio-Tamminen, Tarja

doi:10.1007/s11571-021-09719-5

Cited by 11 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 216 publications

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“…Using different induction methods such as psychedelics and other drugs, meditation, or flotation-REST [ 44 , 51 , 52 ], researchers have started to study altered states of consciousness and the underlying physiological systems dynamics. To sum up our study with exceptionally experienced meditators, our results are in accordance with the knowledge of other psychological or pharmacological induction types of altered states of consciousness where in peak states, subjective time and self are temporarily changed, reduced, or even lost [ 3 , 4 , 53 , 54 , 55 ]. That is, we show the same phenomenon in a quantitative way with the psychological induction technique of meditation, resulting in a joint modulation of the experience of self and of time.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Changes in Subjective Time and Self during Meditation

Gutiérrez

Schmidt

Meißner

et al. 2022

Biology

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This study examined the effects of meditative states in experienced meditators on present-moment awareness, subjective time, and self-awareness while assessing meditation-induced changes in heart-rate variability and breathing rate. A sample of 22 experienced meditators who practiced meditation techniques stressing awareness of the present moment (average 20 years of practice) filled out subjective scales pertaining to sense of time and the bodily self and accomplished a metronome task as an operationalization of present-moment awareness before and after a 20 min meditation session (experimental condition) and a 20 min reading session (control condition) according to a within-subject design. A mixed pattern of increased sympathetic and parasympathetic activity was found during meditation regarding heart-rate measures. Breathing intervals were prolonged during meditation. Participants perceived their body boundaries as less salient during meditation than while reading the story; they also felt time passed more quickly and they paid less attention to time during meditation. No significant differences between conditions became apparent for the metronome task. This is probably the first quantitative study to show how the experience of time during a meditation session is altered together with the sense of the bodily self.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Changes in Subjective Time and Self during Meditation

Gutiérrez

Schmidt

Meißner

et al. 2022

Biology

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“…In addition, beta decreases were seen in the primary sensory and motor regions, insula, and right supplementary motor area (SMA). Likewise, Fingelkurts et al. (2022) found that a decrease in electroencephalography (EEG) synchrony in bilateral posterior DMN areas correlated with an experience of expanding self-boundaries.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Nonlinear brain correlates of trait self-boundarylessness

Lindström

Goldin

Mårtensson

et al. 2023

Neuroscience of Consciousness

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Alterations of the sense of self induced by meditation include an increased sense of boundarylessness. In this study, we investigated behavioural and functional magnetic resonance imaging correlates of trait self-boundarylessness during resting state and the performance of two experimental tasks. We found that boundarylessness correlated with greater self-endorsement of words related to fluidity and with longer response times in a math task. Boundarylessness also correlated negatively with brain activity in the posterior cingulate cortex/precuneus during mind-wandering compared to a task targeting a minimal sense of self. Interestingly, boundarylessness showed quadratic relations to several measures. Participants reporting low or high boundarylessness, as compared to those in between, showed higher functional connectivity within the default mode network during rest, less brain activity in the medial prefrontal cortex during self-referential word processing, and less self-endorsement of words related to constancy. We relate these results to our previous findings of a quadratic relation between boundarylessness and the sense of perspectival ownership of experience. Additionally, an instruction to direct attention to the centre of experience elicited brain activation similar to that of meditation onset, including increases in anterior precentral gyrus and anterior insula and decreases in default mode network areas, for both non-meditators and experienced meditators.

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“…By the same token, it has been documented that the functional integrity changes (indexed by qEEG operational synchrony measure) in the triad of SRN OMs predictably follow the changes in the phenomenology of self during different neuropsychopathologies like, for example, depression [56], post-traumatic stress disorder [57], or brain damage [58] and also during different altered states of Selfhood [59]. It is important to keep in mind that SRN does not exist in isolation and interacts with other brain networks.…”

Section: Neurophysiological Model Of Experiential Selfhoodmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Summarising, these three Selfhood aspects are complementary rather than opposed to one another [44,45,59], whereas the integration of dynamics of three SRN OMs that support the triad of Selfhood aspects enables nonreductive intertwining of these aspects (witnessing observer, representational-emotional agency, and reflective agency), resulting in a coherent substantiation of the singular, complex phenomenal pattern-a Selfhood [1,12].…”

Section: Neurophenomenology Of Three Selfhood Aspectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contemplating on the Nature of Selfhood in DoC Patients: Neurophenomenological Perspective

Fingelkurts¹,

Fingelkurts²

2023

J. Integr. Neurosci.

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Medical well-regarded policy recommendations for patients with disorders of consciousness (DoC) are almost exclusively relied on behavioural examination and evaluation of higher-order cognition, and largely disregard the patients' self. This is so because practically establishing the presence of self-awareness or Selfhood is even more challenging than evaluating the presence of consciousness. At the same time, establishing the potential (actual physical possibility) of Selfhood in DoC patients is crucialy important from clinical, ethical, and moral standpoints because Selfhood is the most central and private evidence of being an independent and free agent that unites intention, embodiment, executive functions, attention, general intelligence, emotions and other components within the intra-subjective frame (first-person givenness). The importance of Selfhood is supported further by the observation that rebooting of self-awareness is the first step to recovery after brain damage. It seems that complex experiential Selfhood can be plausibly conceptualized within the Operational Architectonics (OA) of brain-mind functioning and reliably measured by quantitative electroencephalogram (qEEG) operational synchrony.Keywords: disorders of consciousness (DoC); selfhood; self-consciousness; quantitative electroencephalogram (qEEG); first-person givenness; operational synchrony; brain; vegetative state (VS); minimally conscious state (MCS); unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (UWS)

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Self, Me and I in the repertoire of spontaneously occurring altered states of Selfhood: eight neurophenomenological case study reports

Cited by 11 publications

References 216 publications

Changes in Subjective Time and Self during Meditation

Changes in Subjective Time and Self during Meditation

Nonlinear brain correlates of trait self-boundarylessness

Contemplating on the Nature of Selfhood in DoC Patients: Neurophenomenological Perspective

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