The essay argues that focused breathing practices reveal and affect patterns in thinking through a reciprocal feedback loop the author terms 'biocognitive feedback.' This feedback is possible because of a structural intimacy and co-dependency between breath and consciousness, a relationship conceptualized by William James and reappraised by contemporary Buddhist-inspired cognitive sciences. Critically integrating psychological, cognitive, phenomenological, and narratological frameworks, the author investigates this co-dependent intimacy as represented, explored, and complicated in the narrative work of Samuel Beckett.
Because historical records do not describe how medieval English mystics used breathing during their contemplative exercises, this essay turns to modern breathing practices advocated by brass instrument teachers Arnold Jacobs and Michel Ricquier and by proponents of Holotropic Breathwork, which itself draws on pranayama. The evidence from these modern sources, when applied to the short-word contemplative exercises encouraged by fourteenth-century mystics, offers groundbreaking insight into the transformative role of breath in medieval contemplation.