The Default Space Theory (DST) of consciousness claims that consciousness arises from bioelectric oscillations across brain and body which become time-locked to form an internal three-dimensionalized “default space” which continuously simulates external reality. Within this frame, we assert that fast rhythms created corticothalamically with the thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN) can become...
The Default Space Theory (DST) of consciousness holds that conscious experience arises from synchronized physiological and neural oscillations that construct an internal three-dimensional "default space" approximating the body's position in the external world.Here we propose the Thalamic Oscillatory Integration Theory (TOIT), a conjectural extension of DST to spatial orientation and postural...
In 2018 my colleague and I asked five questions that neuroscience had not answered -how subjective experience relates to the physical world, how perception is so fast, how distributed processing yields one experience, why we sleep, and how emotions are regulated -and argued that the Default Space Model supplied insight into each.Eight years on, two of those answers require correction, one has...
The Default Space Theory (DST) of consciousness holds that conscious experience arises from synchronized physiological and neural oscillations that construct an internal three-dimensional “default space” approximating the body’s position in the external world. This paper is a conjectural extension of DST to spatial orientation and postural balance. We propose that fast gamma-band oscillations...
Understanding the neural basis of conscious perception is one of science's great unanswered questions.The Default Space Theory (DST) of mind proposes that consciousness results from an internally generated three-dimensional "default space" that the brain projects, rather than a direct mirroring of the external world [1].In this model, the brain creates a virtual reality of experience composed...
How do reflexes operate so quickly with so much multimodal information on the environment? How might unconscious processes help reveal the nature of consciousness? The Default Space Theory of Consciousness (DST) offers a novel way to interpret these questions by describing how sensory inputs, cognitive functions, emotional states, and unconscious processes are integrated by a single unified...
How does the integrated and unified conscious experience arise from the vastly distributed activities of the nervous system? How is the information from the many cones of the retina bound with information coming from the cochlea to create the association of sounds with objects in visual space? In this perspective article, we assert a novel viewpoint on the "binding problem" in which we explain...
Bioelectric oscillations occur throughout the nervous system of nearly all animals, revealed to play an important role in various aspects of cognitive activity such as information processing and feature binding. Modern research into this dynamic and intrinsic bioelectric activity of neural cells continues to raise questions regarding their role in consciousness and cognition. In this...
The default space model is a unified theory of consciousness that posits the brain and body together form the foundation of conscious experience that exists as a three dimensional internally generated simulation of reality termed the 3D dynamic default space. We have explored and developed the model in many publications and journals with a variety of academic specialties and its scope and...
In order to produce insight to the current state of consciousness research, we provide a review of some of the more preeminent models of consciousness via a comparison of these theories with a novel holistic model. The main goal of this review is to present the advantages in theoretical power of an embodied cognition, metastable model of consciousness manifest in the Default Space Theory by...
Sleep is a quiescent behavioral state during which complex homeostatic functions essential to health and well-being occur. Insomnia is a very common psychiatric disorder leading to a myriad of detrimental effects including loss of concentration, memory, and performance as well as disease. Current pharmaceutical treatments can be expensive, impairing, unhealthy, and habit-forming. Relaxation...
Aside from the nature of consciousness itself, there are still many unsolved problems in the neurosciences. Despite the vast and quickly growing body of work in this field, we still find ourselves perplexed at seemingly simple qualities of our mental being such as why we need to sleep. The neurosciences are at least beginning to take a hold on these mysteries and are working toward solving...
Our experiences with the external world are possible mainly through vision, hearing, taste, touch, and smell providing us a sense of reality. How the brain is able to seamlessly integrate stimuli from our external and internal world into our sense of reality has yet to be adequately explained in the literature. We have previously proposed a three-dimensional unified model of consciousness that...
The Global Workspace Theory and Information Integration Theory are two of the most currently accepted consciousness models; however, these models do not address many aspects of conscious experience. We compare these models to our previously proposed consciousness model in which the thalamus fills-in processed sensory information from corticothalamic feedback loops within a proposed 3D default...
Recent findings illustrate how changes in consciousness accommodated by neural correlates and plasticity of the brain advance a model of perceptual change as a function of meditative practice.During the mindbody response neural correlates of changing awareness illustrate how the autonomic nervous system shifts from a sympathetic dominant to a parasympathetic dominant state.Expansion of...