Neuroscience of Consciousness
2026
James W. Sanders, Raphaël Millière, Ema Demšar et al.
Psychedelic compound N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is renowned for inducing highly immersive experiences, often including encounters with seemingly sentient presences. While such phenomena are well documented, immersion under psychedelics remains conceptually underdefined and phenomenologically underexplored. Here we apply micro-phenomenology to characterize immersion under DMT as a structured...
Sci Rep
November 6, 2025
Anna O. Ermakova, Fiona Dunbar, Mathieu Seynaeve et al.
3 citations
5-Methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine (5-MeO-DMT) is a naturally occurring psychedelic tryptamine. Plants containing 5-MeO-DMT have been used throughout history, and in recent years both synthetic and toad-derived 5-MeO-DMT use is being increasingly reported in naturalistic settings as well as clinical research. However, its subjective effects are not well characterised, and no qualitative research...
PsyArXiv
December 29, 2024
James W. Sanders, Raphaël Millière, Zachary G. Daily et al.
4 citations
preprint
DMT reliably induces profound experiences of immersion in other worlds and encounters with seemingly autonomous presences, yet the lived qualities and unfolding of these experiences remain poorly understood. Using micro-phenomenological interviews with twenty-three healthy participants who received DMT during fMRI scanning, this study explores how these experiences arise and develop in...
Australasian Journal of Philosophy
December 11, 2024
Raphaël Millière
ABSTRACT The claim that consciousness constitutively involves self-consciousness has a long philosophical history, and has received renewed support in recent years. My aim in this paper is to argue that this surprisingly enduring idea is misleading at best, and insufficiently supported at worst. I start by offering an elucidatory account of consciousness, and outlining a number of foundational...
Philosophical Perspectives on Psychedelic Psychiatry
September 13, 2024
Raphaël Millière
Abstract This chapter examines the debate on the phenomenology of body ownership—the putative experience of one’s body as one’s own. Proponents argue that this phenomenology exists and that it explains reports from pathological conditions and bodily illusions, but these reports face interpretative challenges. In this chapter, drug-induced experiences wherein subjects report ‘disownership’ of...
June 4, 2023
Timo Torsten Schmidt, Cyril Costines, Enzo Tagliazucchi et al.
2 citations
preprint
The Altered Xperience Project (AXP) is an ongoing research project that takes the form of an open citizen science initiative. Its main goal is to systematically collect and consolidate data on the subjective experiences induced by various consciousness-manipulating techniques (CMTs). These include both psychoactive substances as well as non-pharmacological manoeuvres that induce altered states...
Philosophy and the Mind Sciences
March 24, 2020
Raphaël Millière
47 citations
Many authors argue that conscious experience involves a sense of self or self-consciousness. According to the strongest version of this claim, there can be no selfless states of consciousness, namely states of consciousness that lack self-consciousness altogether. Disagreements about this claim are likely to remain merely verbal as long as the target notion of self-consciousness is not...
Neuroscience of Consciousness
2020
Martin Fortier-Davy, Raphaël Millière
Abstract Bayne and Carter argue that the mode of consciousness induced by psychedelic drugs does not fit squarely within the traditional account of modes as levels of consciousness, and favors instead a multi-dimensional account according to which modes of consciousness differ along several dimensions—none of which warrants a linear ordering of modes. We discuss the assumption that psychedelic...
Sci Rep
November 19, 2019
Christopher Timmermann, Leor Roseman, Michael Schartner et al.
325 citations
Studying transitions in and out of the altered state of consciousness caused by intravenous (IV) N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT - a fast-acting tryptamine psychedelic) offers a safe and powerful means of advancing knowledge on the neurobiology of conscious states. Here we sought to investigate the effects of IV DMT on the power spectrum and signal diversity of human brain activity (6 female, 7...
Frontiers in Psychology
September 4, 2018
Raphaël Millière, Robin Carhart-Harris, Leor Roseman et al.
402 citations
In recent years, the scientific study of meditation and psychedelic drugs has seen remarkable developments. The increased focus on meditation in cognitive neuroscience has led to a cross-cultural classification of standard meditation styles validated by functional and structural neuroanatomical data. Meanwhile, the renaissance of psychedelic research has shed light on the neurophysiology of...
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
May 23, 2017
Raphaël Millière
216 citations
There is converging evidence that high doses of hallucinogenic drugs can produce significant alterations of self-experience, described as the dissolution of the sense of self and the loss of boundaries between self and world. This article discusses the relevance of this phenomenon, known as "drug-induced ego dissolution (DIED)", for cognitive neuroscience, psychology and philosophy of mind....