Aesthetic chills—pleasurable, cold sensations—are linked to self-transcendence, a state of ego-dissolution and connectedness that promotes well-being and prosociality. In a diverse sample of 2937 participants in Southern California exposed to chills-eliciting stimuli, both the likelihood and intensity of chills were positively associated with measures of self-transcendence, even after accounting for demographics, traits, and prior mood. Analyses of variance, mutual information, and correlation structure confirmed reliable interrelations across various audiovisual stimuli. The findings suggest aesthetic chills may indicate sufficiently intense feelings of self-transcendence, though generalizability to non-WEIRD populations and causal direction require further study.
Floatation-REST, a therapy involving floating in a tank with reduced sensory input, induces altered states of consciousness in people with anxiety and depression. In a randomized trial, 75 adults who floated reported increased awareness of their heartbeat and breathing, along with feelings of oceanic boundlessness, disembodiment, and unity—a pattern called 'aquahenosis.' These effects were strongest in those who chose longer, flexible sessions. The experiential profile overlapped with those reported for psychedelics like psilocybin and ketamine, particularly in boundary dissolution. The findings suggest Floatation-REST is a non-pharmacological method for inducing specific altered states, with oceanic boundlessness mediating improvements in positive affect.
The text argues that culture and science need a holistic characterization of mind and body, noting phenomena like open-label placebo effects on chronic pain and the role of gut microbiomes in mood. It claims that vestiges of Cartesian thinking treat systems from the brainstem downward as mere implementation layers for computational processes, rather than as complementary loci of information processing. This perspective frames belief-driven phenomena such as placebo, ritual, and psychosomatic disorders as mysterious obstacles rather than potential sources of insight.