Consciousness and Cognition
May 1, 2021
Anna Ciaunica, Axel Constant, Hubert Preissl et al.
99 citations
Perceptual experiences are shaped by prior events, as argued by Predictive Processing and Active Inference frameworks. This paper examines how such experiences begin before birth, within the womb. A key but often neglected point is that humans develop inside another human body, a universal experience. The authors focus on the emergence of minimal selfhood in utero as a process of co-embodiment and co-homeostasis, emphasizing their interdependence. They conclude by discussing implications for debates on conscious experience, the minimal self, and social cognition.
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences
June 6, 2020
Anna Ciaunica, J. C. Charlton, Harry Farmer
78 citations
Depersonalization Disorder (DPD) alters the transparency of basic embodied pre-reflective self-consciousness and impairs the ability to flexibly switch between reflective and pre-reflective facets of self-awareness. The condition involves detachment from self, body, and world (derealization), with impaired processing of bodily signals. First-hand reports describe a fracture between an observing and an observed self, similar to self-detachment in certain Buddhist meditative practices. These alterations reveal the normally tacit transparency of pre-reflective self-consciousness, like a crack in transparent glass showing an unnoticed window.
Consciousness and Cognition
April 28, 2022
Anna Ciaunica, Anil K. Seth, Jakub Limanowski et al.
76 citations
Depersonalisation disorder may arise when the brain fails to modulate sensory precision, leading to a loss of the normal sense of control over one's own perceptions and actions. The paper proposes that individuals with depersonalisation adopt the hypothesis that they are embodied perceivers who are not in control of their perception, while still recognizing that the controlling agent is themselves. This account uses predictive processing to explain the phenomenology of depersonalisation, including the feeling of being detached from one's own thoughts and actions. The analysis suggests specific psychophysical and physiological abnormalities that could underlie these experiences.
March 13, 2022
Anna Ciaunica, Adam Safron
8 citations
preprint
Humans across cultures have intentionally sought to lose or escape their ordinary self, radically changing how they perceive themselves and the world. This paper contrasts the feeling of losing familiarity with one's self and body in depersonalisation experiences with similar changes induced by psychedelics and meditation, using the Active Inference Framework. The authors suggest that controlled alteration of prior expectations can flexibly modulate self- and world models, allowing individuals to leave behind habitual perceptual rigidities and open to new ways of integrating information. In contrast, depersonalisation involves an uncontrolled, rigid disintegration of habitual self-models, leaving a person feeling stuck in their mind and potentially leading to adverse clinical outcomes.
Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006)
June 1, 2025
Francesca Ferroni, Edoardo Arcuri, Martina Ardizzi et al.
7 citations
Depersonalisation (DP) involves a distressing feeling of being detached from oneself and a flattened sense of time. This study examined how DP experiences affect perception of peripersonal space (the space near the body) and time. Using an audio-tactile task, no difference in peripersonal space perception was found between people with high versus low DP experiences. A mental time travel task revealed that individuals with high DP experiences performed worse overall at locating events in time relative to their present reference point, while those with low DP experiences showed significant variation in performance for past events. The findings link altered self-awareness to disrupted egocentric spatiotemporal perception.
Scientific Reports
March 13, 2024
Matt P D Gwyther, Bigna Lenggenhager, Jennifer Windt et al.
3 citations
People with stronger depersonalisation traits—feeling detached from their own body—report more frequent dreams from an outside-observer perspective and more dreams with distinct or altered bodily sensations, along with more nightmares and higher dream recall. They also show weaker body boundaries and less trust in internal bodily signals while awake. These findings suggest that dreaming does not provide a temporary escape from depersonalisation symptoms; instead, the dream state mirrors the waking disruptions in sense of self and body.
March 30, 2023
Valeria Becattini, Anna Ciaunica
preprint
Deep meditative states often involve reports of 'selfless' experiences, but the body's homeostatic self-regulation continues to operate, maintaining essential self-related information processing for survival. The term 'losing the self' is misleading; what is lost is a particular ordinary mental model of the self in relation to the body and world, not the embodied experience itself. The body remains a living self-organizing system, becoming sensorily attenuated and 'transparent' yet central. Enhanced connectedness with this transparent body may produce feelings of 'oceanic boundlessness' or an 'unlimited body.' The explicit feeling of a selfless mind is tacitly accompanied by an implicit feeling of an unlimited body. True self-loss only occurs with death.
arXiv.org
January 28, 2026
E. J. Bekkers, Anna Ciaunica
The paper argues that an AI which perfectly mimics human emotion and begs not to be unplugged is not a conscious subject, only a functional mimic. The authors propose Biological Idealism, a framework holding that conscious experiences are fundamental and that autopoietic life is their necessary physical signature. They contend that computational functionalism, which underpins many AI consciousness theories, erodes moral standing criteria. The real moral concern, they claim, is not granting AI rights but preventing humans from becoming zombie-like. The paper urges a shift from speculative machine rights to protecting human conscious life.
arXiv Preprint Archive
September 22, 2024
Michael Timothy Bennett, Sean Welsh, Anna Ciaunica
Taking the naturally selected, embodied organism as a starting point, the authors provide a formalism describing how biological systems self-organise to hierarchically interpret unlabelled sensory information according to valence. Such interpretations imply behavioural policies differentiated only by the qualitative aspect of information processing. Natural selection favours systems that intervene to achieve homeostatic and reproductive goals, and quality arises to link cause to affect to motivate interventions. Access consciousness at the human level requires hierarchically modelling the self, the world/others, and the self as modelled by others, which requires phenomenal consciousness. Phenomenal without access consciousness is likely common, but the reverse is implausible. The proposal lays a foundation for a formal science of consciousness.
Philosophical Perspectives on Psychedelic Psychiatry
September 13, 2024
Anna Ciaunica, Adam Safron
The feeling of losing familiarity with oneself and one's body, as occurs in depersonalization and during psychedelic experiences, can be understood through active inference. Psychedelic experiences may involve radically altered prior expectations, allowing flexible modulation of self- and world models and enabling individuals to leave behind perceptual rigidities that keep them stuck in behavioral patterns. In contrast, depersonalization may involve lower control in acquiring new self- and world models, leading to rigid disintegration of habitual self-experiences and a feeling of being stuck in one's mind.
Scientific Reports
March 10, 2022
Anna Ciaunica, Luke McEllin, Julian Kiverstein et al.
During the COVID-19 lockdown, increased use of digital media and online social meetings correlated with higher feelings of depersonalisation—a sense of being detached from oneself, one's body, or the world. In a worldwide online study of 622 participants, those reporting more depersonalisation also reported enhanced vividness of negative emotions compared to positive ones. People whose lives were more affected by lockdown experienced depersonalisation more frequently. The findings suggest potential risks of overly sedentary, hyper-digitalised lifestyles that may induce feelings of living in one's 'head', disconnected from the body, self, and world.
Consciousness and Cognition
January 5, 2021
Anna Ciaunica, Axel Constant, H. Preissl et al.
preprint
The paper argues that the development of a minimal sense of self begins before birth, within the womb, through the processes of co-embodiment and co-homeostasis with the gestating parent. The authors contend that this prenatal period is a crucial, yet overlooked, aspect of the Predictive Processing and Active Inference framework, which holds that perceptions are shaped by prior experiences. They propose that the universal human experience of being carried and growing within another body fundamentally shapes the emergence of minimal selfhood and has implications for debates on consciousness, the self, and social cognition.
Veronika Alekseeva, Anna Ciaunica
preprint
The sense of self is constructed through the dynamic, rhythmic coupling between bodily movements and actions in the world. Using Predictive Processing and Active Inference, the authors argue that predictable bodily signals like heartbeats, breathing, and walking are normally attenuated—processed in the background—to maintain a coherent self. Depersonalisation Disorder illustrates a failure of this attenuation, causing feelings of unreality and self-loss. Balancing which sensory information to ignore and which to prioritize is vital for finite living systems. Therapy should address the relationship between self, movement, and action in the physical and social world, not just the individual.
Lara Maister, Anna Ciaunica
preprint
People with depersonalization feel detached from themselves, their bodies, and others. This study provides the first evidence that depersonalization symptoms are linked to impairments in how individuals picture their own face in visual memory. Those with more frequent and intense symptoms had less accurate self-face representations, yet paradoxically showed higher precision and informational content, suggesting they represent a distinct but inaccurate facial identity as themselves. Independent raters judged these self-face images as visibly more emotionless and younger-looking, features tied to anomalous memory experiences. Interoceptive sensibility played a role in both self-face accuracy and depersonalization symptoms, highlighting connections between internal bodily awareness, external self-perception, and memory.