This is the a priori protocol for a scoping review (JBI methodology; PRISMA-ScR reporting) mapping evidence on (1) the measurement of psychedelic-occasioned mystical/spiritual experience and its association with clinical outcomes, and (2) classic serotonergic psychedelics for body dysmorphic disorder and obsessive-compulsive-spectrum conditions, interpreted through the osteopathic...
Open MindJuly 19, 2026Eirini Karakasidou, Athina Komninou, Markella Kotzia
preprint
Study type: Randomized, controlled, parallel-group trial (retrospective registration; data collection already complete). Rationale/Background: University students training in psychology face elevated academic and emotional demands that place them at risk for stress, anxiety, and depression. This study examined whether a brief self-compassion and mindfulness training program could improve...
This project archives Paper 1 of the Contemplative Neuroscience Research Programme. The manuscript develops a theoretical and testable framework for examining prolonged contemplative isolation as a convergent multivariable intervention capable of altering neural noise, brain dynamics, and functional dominance—and, as a bounded speculative extension, sensitivity to ordinarily masked biological...
Panpsychism promises to escape the puzzle of consciousness emerging from wholly experience-less matter by admitting experience at reality's most fundamental layer, but it inherits an unfinished difficulty of its own: the combination problem, how the aggregation of micro-experiences yields a single, unified macro-experience. Building on an ontological framework formulated elsewhere, this paper...
PTSD is a prevalent and debilitating condition, for which many individuals do not seek or complete treatment. As new PTSD treatments are being evaluated, such as psychedelic-assisted therapies, it’s important to understand the preferences of individuals for whom these treatments are being developed. To date, no research has directly compared preferences for psychedelic-assisted therapies...
In acute trials of intravenous and intranasal ketamine/esketamine, the rapid anti-suicidal effect appears to be at least partly independent of the overall antidepressant response. That question has, to our knowledge, never been examined in a real-world esketamine cohort followed for six months, nor in a sample enriched for comorbid borderline personality disorder (BPD), a population excluded...
Using serum samples collected from the PsiDeR trial—a randomised, double‑blind, placebo‑controlled study of a single 25 mg dose of psilocybin for treatment‑resistant depression (protocol: BMJ Open 2021;11:e056091)—we will investigate whether inflammatory marker trajectories and baseline inflammatory status are associated with antidepressant response at week 3 (endpoint). The inflammatory...
Open MindJuly 9, 2026Emma Wiethoff, Barbara Breitenstein, Nina Hartter et al.
preprint
This preregistration specifies hypotheses and an analysis plan for a randomized controlled trial comparing Conscious Connected Breathing (CCB) with Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) in adults with a history of childhood adversity. The primary outcome is change in self-compassion from pre- to post-intervention. Secondary analyses examine whether altered states of consciousness during CCB...
We aim to explore and qualitatively compare individuals’ experiences of mental imagery during waking and dreaming consciousness in order to understand how these states are similar and different in phenomenological structure, focusing on the sensory modalities that are different or common between states. Additionally, we seek to better understand how absent or low waking visual imagery might...
Disturbances of self-experience have long been regarded as a core feature of schizophrenia. Classical psychopathological accounts described disruptions in the sense of self, agency, and bodily ownership as central to the disorder (Bleuler, 1911), while contemporary phenomenological approaches conceptualise schizophrenia as involving disturbances of the “minimal self” or pre-reflective sense of...
Data from the Open Psychedelic Evaluation Nexus (OPEN), which runs an ongoing single-arm prospective longitudinal cohort study of safety and outcomes for individuals receiving state-regulated psilocybin services.
This project investigates how the context of a live concert — including prior expectations, personality, and acute psychoactive substance use — shapes intense emotional and altered-state responses to music, specifically feelings of awe and wonder, mystical-type experiences, and aesthetic chills. The study is part of an ongoing programme of research at the Leiden University PRSM Lab into peak...
In 2022, Special Collections at the University of Maryland,Baltimore County received the extraordinary gift of one of theworld’s largest archival and book collections devoted toparapsychology and psychic phenomena from theParapsychology Foundation. Named for the foundation’s cofounder, the famed trance medium Eileen J. Garrett(1892-1970), the collection of books, periodicals,photographs, and...
This scoping review investigates the conceptual production and governance of psychedelic integration across a broad spectrum of institutional and cultural logics. While the term is increasingly central to psychedelic practice, it remains conceptually ambiguous, with definitions and practices varying significantly across clinical trials, therapeutic frameworks, and naturalistic settings. The...
Substance use disorders (SUDs) represent a persistent global public health burden for which existing pharmacological and behavioral interventions show limited long-term efficacy across various patient populations (Sinha, 2011). Psilocybin-assisted therapy (PAT) has reemerged as a promising therapeutic treatment approach and has had renewed clinical interest with a growing amount of research...
Open MindJune 25, 2026Moritz-Maximilian Harbig, Heidi Mauersberger
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This preregistered online experiment (n ≈ 200) investigates whether a brief Loving-Kindness Meditation (LKM), compared to an active breath-focus control condition, increases affective empathy and reduces hostile attribution bias (HAB) toward persons depicted in ambiguous norm-violating social situations. Stimulus materials consist of 12 vignettes paired with standardized Anger-Sadness morph...
Background. Measures of self-transcendence and ego-dissolution typically operationalize transcendence as an attenuation or loosening of ordinary self-boundaries, and less often distinguish passive self-loss from integrated forms of identity expansion that may preserve or strengthen agency. Objective. We introduce and evaluate the Meta Self Scale (MSS), a 16-item measure of integrated...
The academic study of Western esotericism has developed a sophisticated set of research approaches over the past three decades: historical-philological, discursive, sociological, anthropological, depth-psychological, and cognitive-scientific. Each approach illuminates important dimensions of esoteric traditions. What remains underdeveloped is a seventh approach: the...
Open MindJune 14, 2026Lee Gerald Bloomquist, Claude 4.6 (Free Version) (ai)
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According to Plato, Socrates as a young man met with Parmenides. In his poem (not the Platonic dialog) Parmenides urged knowing both the way of truth and the way of mortal opinion, that seems to overlap with Ithe Delphic "Know Thyself" which Xenophon associated with Socrates. But there are more parallels in Eastern philosophy. In this paper I link interpretations-- Western pre-Socratic...
Les troubles liés à l’usage de substances (TUS) touchent environ 2 % de la population mondiale et sont associés à une morbidité importante ainsi qu’à un risque de rechute élevé. Les envies impérieuses (le craving), définies comme une envie intense de consommer une substance, constituent une caractéristique centrale et transdiagnostique des TUS et représentent un prédicteur clé de rechute. Les...
This project investigates the safety profile of high ventilation breathwork (HVB). HVB has been shown to reliably induce altered states of consciousness (ASCs) comparable to psychedelics and has demonstrated multiple positive effects on mental health in clinical and non-clinical populations. Although HVB is regarded as generally safe when considering contraindications, intense somatic,...
Mathematical theories of consciousness — Integrated Information Theory (IIT), Global Workspace Theory (GWT), Attention Schema Theory (AST), Higher-Order Thought (HOT), Predictive Processing Theory (PPT), Quantum Information Theory (QIT), and the Free Energy Principle (FEP) — are commonly framed as substrate-independent: identical mathematics applied to any sufficiently structured dynamical...
Background. Music performance anxiety and musculoskeletal disorders can lead to devastating outcomes for musicians, such as career abandonment and substance use. This thesis uses functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to investigate the neurobiological mechanisms through which mindfulness-based and somatic interventions may improve musicians’ health and well-being. Studies 1 and 2...
This preregistered study examines the preliminary validation of the Meta Self Scale (MSS), a 16-item self-report measure assessing four dimensions of identity transformation: Ego-Self Dissolution, Expanded Identity, Unity, and Agency. The study examines the theoretical proposal that ego attenuation may co-occur with expanded identity, felt unity, and preserved agency within an integrated...
Peyote cactus (Lophophora williamsii var. Jourdaniana) along with many other cacti can synthesize the hallucinogen, mescaline. They have recently garnered public attention after they re-emerged as a potential source as the new generation of mental health medications. Particularly since restrictions for psychoactive-based medication in research was relaxed in Canada. Despite the attention in...