bioRxiv Preprint Server
June 30, 2026
Mihir Nath, Nicco Reggente, Neil W. Bailey et al.
preprint
Across contemplative traditions, depper states of meditation are described as states of heightened clarity, vividness, and stillness of mind, yet what this clarity corresponds to in the brain has remained difficult to specify. The functional signal-to-noise ratio (f-SNR) framework frames mental clarity as a measurable property of neural signals: the degree to which brain activity tracks the...
arXiv Preprint Archive
June 29, 2026
Ruben Laukkonen
Meditation is quintessentially associated with a clear mind. This paper proposes that diverse findings in the science of meditation can be mapped onto a single, empirically tractable construct: functional signal-to-noise ratio in the brain, or f-SNR. Signal denotes neural variance that tracks the goal-relevant causes of sensory input, while noise denotes residual activity, including irrelevant...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
June 2, 2026
Ambra Pogliani, Alexandra Zachary, Lena Hall et al.
preprint
Insight is commonly studied in laboratory paradigms as a sudden shift in understanding accompanied by characteristic “Aha!” experiences. However, such paradigms may not capture the full phenomenological range of insight as it occurs in naturalistic contexts. This study compared the phenomenology of insight across four contexts—psychedelic experiences, everyday-life insights, Compound Remote...
January 7, 2026
Gregory Pope, C. Timmermann, W. Trender et al.
Psychedelics have shown potential in treating a range of mental health conditions, yet far less is known about their impact on creativity. This study examined three components of creativity-divergent thinking, cognitive reflection, and insight in a large sample (N = 5,905) from the Great British Intelligence Test. We compared performance between individuals with past psychedelic use and those...
Philosophical Psychology
2026
Juensung J. Kim, Kadi Tulver, Jaan Aru et al.
1 citation
We argue that the powerful transformative effects of mystical-type experiences can be understood using the same machinery that underlies insight problem solving, and that both mystical experiences and insight are species of a genus of “realization experiences”: experiences wherein some phenomenon or piece of information becomes suddenly experienced as real or true. Specifically, we argue that...
Artificial General Intelligence
2026
Ruben Laukkonen, Fionn Inglis, Shamil Chandaria et al.
1 citation
As artificial intelligence (AI) improves, current alignment strategies may falter in the face of unpredictable self-improvement and the sheer complexity of AI. Rather than trying to control behavior, we show how four principles from contemplative traditions can help intrinsically align (super) intelligence. First, mindfulness enables self-monitoring and recalibration of emergent subgoals....
arXiv (Cornell University)
November 26, 2025
Jonas Mago, Josh Brahinsky, Mark Miller et al.
Criticality describes a regime between order and chaos that supports flexible yet stable information processing. Here we examine whether neural dynamics can be volitionally shifted toward criticality through the self-regulation of attention. We examined ten experienced practitioners of meditation during a 10-day retreat, comparing refined states of meditative absorption, called the jhanas, to...
bioRxiv
September 25, 2025
Jakub Vohryzek, Edmundo Lopez-Sola, Winson F.z. Yang et al.
preprint
Advanced meditation offers a powerful lens for investigating consciousness and for understanding how sustained training may contribute to human flourishing. In the spirit of neurophenomenology, we combine first-person reports with model-free empirical analyses and formal whole-brain modeling to investigate the mechanisms underlying advanced meditative states and minimal phenomenal experience...
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
September 1, 2025
Ruben Laukkonen, Karl Friston, Shamil Chandaria
17 citations
Can active inference model consciousness? We offer three conditions implying that it can. The first condition is the simulation of a world model, which determines what can be known or acted upon; namely an epistemic field. The second is inferential competition to enter the world model. Only the inferences that coherently reduce long-term uncertainty win, evincing a selection for consciousness...
July 21, 2025
Jonas Mago, Shamil Chandaria, Mark Miller et al.
preprint
Minimal Phenomenal Experiences (MPEs) represent states of consciousness reduced to their most fundamental elements, posing a unique challenge and opportunity for modeling consciousness. This paper introduces a novel computational framework based on Bayesian and active inference to model MPEs. We propose that MPEs arise when precision weighting shifts predominantly to the lower levels of a...
July 7, 2025
Vismay Agrawal, Ruben Laukkonen
preprint
Meditation has been shown to reduce various forms of suffering and increase well-being. However, its broad effectiveness raises the question: In what way does meditation reduce suffering? We explore this question systematically, proposing that meditation’s effectiveness stems not from addressing specific types of suffering but from dismantling underlying mechanisms that create the conditions...
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
June 1, 2025
Joshua Kugel, Ruben Laukkonen, David B. Yaden et al.
15 citations
Insight - a sudden change in understanding or perspective that feels true or reliable - is a common occurrence during psychedelic experiences, and often considered by clinicians and patients to be central to their therapeutic value. However, their occurrence and role has not been systematically assessed. We reviewed all peer-reviewed studies that published data on insight catalysed by a classic...
Commun Psychol
August 1, 2024
Hugh McGovern, Hilary J Grimmer, Manoj K. Doss et al.
48 citations
Psychedelics are recognised for their potential to re-orient beliefs. We propose a model of how psychedelics can, in some cases, lead to false insights and thus false beliefs. We first review experimental work on laboratory-based false insights and false memories. We then connect this to insights and belief formation under psychedelics using the active inference framework. We propose that...
March 18, 2024
Vismay Agrawal, Ruben Laukkonen
2 citations
preprint
Contemplative practices have been shown to elicit a range of experiences and insights often referred to as "nothingness". However, these encounters are frequently conflated and remain undifferentiated. Here we address this ambiguity and provide a nuanced understanding of two such events: 1) emptiness (lack of inherent existence in experience, i.e., no-thingness) and 2) cessation (“cut” or...
Neuroscience of Consciousness
2024
Ruben Laukkonen, Evan Lewis-Healey, Luca Ghigliotti et al.
The contents of awareness can substantially change without any modification to the external world. Such effects are exemplified in binocular rivalry, where a different stimulus is presented to each eye causing instability in perception. This phenomenon has made binocular rivalry a quintessential method for studying consciousness and the necessary neural correlates for awareness. However, to...
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
October 1, 2023
Ruben Laukkonen, Margaret Webb, Carola Salvi et al.
Perhaps it is no accident that insight moments accompany some of humanity's most important discoveries in science, medicine, and art. Here we propose that feelings of insight play a central role in (heuristically) selecting an idea from the stream of consciousness by capturing attention and eliciting a sense of intuitive confidence permitting fast action under uncertainty. The mechanisms...
Neuropsychologia
September 28, 2023
Avijit Chowdhury, Remko Van Lutterveld, Ruben Laukkonen et al.
54 citations
Investigation of advanced mindfulness meditation "cessation" experiences using EEG spectral analysis in an intensively sampled case study.
Progress in Brain Research
2023
Ruben Laukkonen, Matthew D. Sacchet, Henk Barendregt et al.
56 citations
Absence of consciousness can occur due to a concussion, anesthetization, intoxication, epileptic seizure, or other fainting/syncope episode caused by lack of blood flow to the brain. However, some meditation practitioners also report that it is possible to undergo a total absence of consciousness during meditation, lasting up to 7 days, and that these "cessations" can be consistently induced....
Consciousness and Cognition
September 1, 2022
Hilary J Grimmer, Ruben Laukkonen, Anna Freydenzon et al.
6 citations
The FIAT paradigm (Grimmer et al., 2021) is a novel method of eliciting 'Aha' moments for incorrect solutions to anagrams in the laboratory, i.e. false insights. There exist many documented reports of psychotic symptoms accompanying strong feelings of 'Aha!' (Feyaerts, Henriksen, Vanheule, Myin-Germeys, & Sass, 2021; Mishara, 2010; Tulver, Kaup, Laukkonen, & Aru, 2021), suggesting that the...
November 26, 2021
Kadi Tulver, Karl Kristjan Kaup, Ruben Laukkonen et al.
16 citations
preprint
Occasionally, a solution or idea arrives as a sudden understanding - an insight. Insight has been considered an “extra” ingredient of creative thinking and problem-solving. Here we propose that insight is central in seemingly distinct areas of research. Drawing on literature from a variety of fields, we show that besides being commonly studied in problem-solving literature, insight is also a...
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
September 1, 2021
Ruben Laukkonen, Heleen A. Slagter
183 citations
How profoundly can humans change their own minds? In this paper we offer a unifying account of deconstructive meditation under the predictive processing view. We start from simple axioms. First, the brain makes predictions based on past experience, both phylogenetic and ontogenetic. Second, deconstructive meditation brings one closer to the here and now by disengaging anticipatory processes. We...
Cognition & Emotion
August 1, 2021
Ruben Laukkonen, Daniel J Ingledew, Hilary J Grimmer et al.
Insight experiences are sudden, persuasive, and can accompany valuable new ideas in science and art. In this preregistered experiment, we aim to validate a novel visceral and continuous measure of insight problem solving and to test whether real-time and embodied feelings of insight can predict correct solutions. We report several findings. Consistent with recent work, we find a strong positive...
May 19, 2021
Evan Lewis-Healey, Ruben Laukkonen, Michiel van Elk
4 citations
preprint
Objective: Recent clinical trials have demonstrated that psilocybin may have strong antidepressant effects, and may be effective in the treatment of depressive disorders when embedded in a psychotherapeutic protocol (psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy; PAP). However, despite promising results, the mechanism(s) that may be responsible for the antidepressant effects of PAP remain contested. Within...