278 papers in the library · 33 citations · publishing 2018-2026
PsyArXiv June 11, 2026 preprint
A chief aim of the neuroscience of consciousness is to derive how states of conscious experience (i.e., qualia) are related to supporting brain states (e.g., patterns of neural activation within patterns of neural connectivity). This aim goes beyond identifying neuronal correlates of consciousness (NCC) on the one side, and beyond structural descriptions of conscious experience (e.g., qualia...
PsyArXiv June 10, 2026 Theo Tobel, Aidan Cone, Emily Choquette et al. preprint
Floatation-REST (Reduced Environmental Stimulation Therapy) systematically alters sensory and bodily input by combining neutral buoyancy, thermal and proprioceptive neutrality, attenuation of exteroceptive stimulation, and enhancement of cardiorespiratory signaling to the brain. Here we examined whether this non-pharmacological sensory perturbation induces altered states of consciousness and...
PsyArXiv June 4, 2026 Johannes Alfons Karl preprint
Background: Mindfulness research has drawn extensively on the construct's long textual record for conceptual definitions but rarely treated that record as a source of empirical evidence. As a result, contemporary work captures cross-sectional variation across present-day populations without addressing the longer historical trajectories that produced it, leaving open questions about how cultural...
PsyArXiv May 29, 2026 Zefan Zheng, Robert Chis-Ciure, Peter Thestrup Waade et al. 1 citation preprint
Consciousness science is fragmented, and empirical investigations are confined within each theory of consciousness’ (TOC) framework. Proliferating ToCs accumulate anomalies without progress, operating orthogonally. The principle of recurrency – functional and architectural – offers a unifying, mechanistic scaffold for consciousness to arise. We show that all theories tacitly invoke feedback...
PsyArXiv May 28, 2026 Oliver Andersson Hugemark, Terje Sparby, Andrea Grabovac et al. preprint
While meditation has been increasingly associated with challenging and adverse experiences, especially in more advanced and high-density practices, little is known about how advanced practitioners experience, make sense of, and integrate non-ordinary experiences that may disrupt their sense of self, reality, embodiment, and meaning. Building on recent advances in the scientific study of...
PsyArXiv May 27, 2026 Asiya Gul, Sebastian Ehmann, Catherine Prueitt et al. preprint
Abstract Understanding how the sense of self can be attenuated or reconfigured without loss of consciousness remains a central challenge in contemporary consciousness science. We propose a multidimensional framework of graded self-attenuation, in which the self is conceptualized as a dynamic configuration of distributed neural processes. Within this framework, contemplative practice attenuates...
PsyArXiv May 27, 2026 Andrew Robert Gallimore, Niffe Hermansson, Donald D Hoffman preprint
Encounters with apparently autonomous and intelligent non-human entities are a striking and recurrent feature of high-dose N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) experi-ences. Such encounters are typically interpreted as complex hallucinations derived from internally generated brain activity, although many features of the DMT state remain a challenge to explain within the standard neuroscientific...
PsyArXiv May 27, 2026 Shawn Prest preprint
Understanding affective valence is essential to the fostering of well-being since positive and negative experiences shape our quality of life. One promising approach is to use computational frameworks of perception and action, which seek to formalise the mechanisms underlying valenced experience. Within one such framework, active inference, valence is canonically treated as a consequence of...
PsyArXiv May 26, 2026 Jes Golden, Terje Sparby, Matthew D. Sacchet preprint
How should we understand the radical changes in bodily awareness that occur during advanced meditation? Existing approaches subsume these changes under frameworks of self-dissolution or operationalize them through interoceptive measures that assume ongoing bodily sensation. This paper argues for bracketing the self when studying bodily awareness in advanced concentrative absorption meditation...
PsyArXiv May 24, 2026 Naja Bralic, Elena Bragagnolo, Mikael Palner preprint
Background and objective: Anxiety disorders are among the most prevalent psychiatric disorders worldwide and affect all age groups. Current pharmacological treatments, such as selective serotonergic reuptake inhibitors (SSRI’s) and benzodiazepines, have limitations in terms of adverse effects and efficacy, which highlights the need for alternative therapies. Serotonergic psychedelics have...
PsyArXiv May 24, 2026 Lars Sandved-Smith, Chris Fields, Thomas Doctor et al. preprint
Any system that persists must minimise surprisal, thereby gathering evidence for its own generative model, a process known as self-evidencing. However, one dimension of self-evidencing is provably impossible: evidencing the boundary that would constitute the agent as an entity separate from their environment. Recent results in quantum information theory demonstrate that no finite system can...
PsyArXiv May 20, 2026 Naotsugu Tsuchiya, Ryota Kanai preprint
A central obstacle to a science of qualia is not only that qualia are subjective, but that we lacka principled way to individuate them. Before asking which neural mechanisms generate qualia,we must ask what counts as one quale rather than a compound of several experientialelements. Here we propose that qualia, in the narrow sense, should be defined asindecomposable units of phenomenal...
PsyArXiv May 18, 2026 preprint
Mindfulness research faces two recurring methodological problems: near-universal reliance on weak control conditions that cannot isolate specific mechanisms from expectancy effects, and systematic exclusion of low-socioeconomic status (SES) populations through design assumptions that presuppose high literacy, quiet private spaces, and contemplative familiarity. We present the Standardized...
PsyArXiv May 14, 2026 Jacob Cohen, Peter Parbo, Per Trads Ørskov et al. preprint
Background: Social anxiety disorder is a chronic and disabling condition with limited response to standard therapies. Low-dose psilocybin may enhance the effectiveness of exposure-based treatments by modulating neural circuits associated with fear and avoidance. Virtual reality exposure therapy offers a controlled and individualized platform for intervention. Objective: This phase 2b,...
PsyArXiv May 4, 2026 Gokul Raj preprint
Background: Spiritual and psychotic experiences share overlapping phenomenology, often making clinical differentiation challenging. The growing use of advanced meditation and psychedelics has further blurred this boundary. Methods: A retrospective case series was conducted at the Department of Integrative Medicine,of a tertiary care mental health facility in India. Four individuals presenting...
PsyArXiv April 30, 2026 Haily Merritt, Dimitris Bolis preprint
Recent years have witnessed an “interactive turn” in the cognitive sciences, increasingly foregrounding real-time social interaction and organism–environment dynamics. Yet, even the interactive turn often stops short of its own implications, leaving an individual-first explanatory order largely intact. Taking these implications seriously points toward an explanatory reversal: human...
PsyArXiv April 24, 2026 Pedro E Maldonado, Rubén Moreno Bote preprint
Consciousness is primarily understood as a personal, subjective experience that can co-occur with various other subjective states, such as visual perception, emotions, memories, and awareness of actions. Many of these experiences are linked to the activation of well-defined neuronal processes, with their anatomical substrates often clearly identified. In this paper, we propose that...
PsyArXiv April 20, 2026 Andrew M. Haun, Elena Monai, Wei Hau Lew et al. preprint
We aim to investigate the spatial experience of patients with chronic scotomas caused by lesion to early visual cortex, including primary visual cortex (V1) and adjacent extrastriate visual areas. These experiments are conducted as part of an adversarial collaboration testing contrasting theories of consciousness: Integrated Information Theory (IIT) and two Predictive Processing accounts,...
PsyArXiv April 18, 2026 Megan A. K. Peters preprint
Debates about artificial consciousness are often framed in terms of verdicts: whether a given system is or is not conscious, and which criteria or theories can deliver such judgments. This paper argues that this framing obscures a more fundamental epistemic challenge.Consciousness science has largely been developed within a narrow population – humans – under background assumptions that support...
PsyArXiv April 11, 2026 Robert Prentner preprint
This paper develops a phenomenology-first approach to artificial consciousness by reframing consciousness as the subjective experience enacted through an agent’s interface with the world. We shift the methodological focus to first-person structures, modeled mathematically by categories derived from Q-networks to capture actions and phenomenological invariants. In this framework, Q-networks are...
PsyArXiv April 10, 2026 George Fejer, Till Holzapfel, Anestis Lalidis Mateo et al. preprint
Breath-based interactions in virtual reality typically map breathing onto discrete visual objects or downstream physiological proxies. Viscereality takes a different approach, mapping lung volume onto a surrounding space composed of particles arranged in an orb enclosing the participant through interoceptive-exteroceptive sensory substitution, such that inhalation expands the environment...
PsyArXiv April 9, 2026 Henrik Röhr, Nursena Armagan, Luca Saini et al. preprint
A central challenge in neuroscience is to establish meaningful links between subjective experience and brain activity. Neurofeedback of meditation states has been proposed as a way to address this challenge by creating a real-time loop between neural signals and first-person experience. Here, the introspective and self-regulation capacities of experienced meditators are harnessed to dynamically...
PsyArXiv April 2, 2026 Aadhya Singh preprint
For ages, scientists have viewed consciousness as some sort of magic trick that suddenly appears when brains achieve a certain level of complexity. What if, however, consciousness has existed all along, even at the smallest levels? Here, I am suggesting a different take: what if consciousness started down at the very subatomic level, and indeed, it was present at the earliest moment? Initially,...
PsyArXiv March 28, 2026 David W. Lawrence, Ari Brouwer, Nicholas Fabiano et al. preprint
Despite being induced by a transient pharmacological exposure, psychedelic experiences can catalyze enduring psychological transformation, presenting a central challenge for understanding the mechanism of action of psychedelic medicines. To address this challenge, the Allostatic Reset Model (ARM) of psychedelic action is proposed, which conceptualizes psychedelic therapeutic effects as a...
PsyArXiv March 26, 2026 Broc A. Pagni, Stephen Ross, Sarah E. Mennenga et al. preprint
Background: Psilocybin-assisted therapy (PAT) has shown promise for alcohol use disorder (AUD) in randomized controlled trials (RCTs). However, the effects of open-label administration following blinded treatment are unclear. Here, we present safety and efficacy data from an open-label extension of a Phase II RCT (NCT02061293) examining PAT for AUD. Methods: Adults with AUD (N = 59) received a...