Open MIND
November 1, 2017
Elizaveta Solomonova
2 citations
Dreaming is an embodied process of meaning-making, grounded in the brain, body, and environment. The dissertation argues that dreams are embodied at multiple levels: they contain body representations, are experienced from a first-person perspective with spatial quality, are structured by emotion and affect, and show permeability between the dreamer's body and the dream body, as seen in intensified dreams, parasomnias, and integration of somatosensory stimuli. A literature review on sleep paralysis illustrates how altered body experience affects perception of environment and intersubjective relations. An empirical study found that somatosensory stimulation of the ankle during sleep stages 1 and REM produces varied changes in dream content.
Open MIND
July 20, 2026
Numan Ahmad
This document is the a priori protocol for a scoping review that will map evidence on two topics: how psychedelic-occasioned mystical or spiritual experiences are measured and whether those measures are associated with clinical outcomes, and the use of classic serotonergic psychedelics for body dysmorphic disorder and obsessive-compulsive-spectrum conditions. The review will be conducted using JBI methodology, reported according to PRISMA-ScR guidelines, and interpreted through the osteopathic body–mind–spirit framework. The full protocol and charting form are attached to the project's files.
Open MIND
July 19, 2026
Bruno Costa Tonetto
Individual minds are dissociated perspectives within a broader field of consciousness. This essay identifies two structural axes along which any dissociative boundary must vary: how much it admits from the field, and how well what it admits is organized into coherent experience. Stability and generativity describe which configurations populate the experiential landscape: those self-sustaining enough to persist, and productive of the vulnerability that constitutes the shared root of suffering and value. The essay connects this structural picture to physics through a formal signature observation: quantum outcome-level openness is what a formalism should exhibit when describing a reality whose interior dimension it cannot capture. The framework's principled terminus is the intrinsic nature of mind-at-large prior to its self-differentiation.
Open MIND
July 17, 2026
Shiva Rajavelu
A theoretical framework proposes that prolonged contemplative isolation can alter neural noise, brain dynamics, and functional dominance, and may speculatively increase sensitivity to ordinarily masked biological signals, including quantum-sensitive molecular processes. The framework is organized into three epistemic layers, each with separable experimental tests, so that a null result at one layer constrains only that layer without undermining the others.
Open MIND
July 16, 2026
Sepehr Shokouhi
Panpsychism avoids the puzzle of how consciousness emerges from non-conscious matter by positing that experience is fundamental, but it faces the combination problem: how micro-experiences combine into a unified macro-experience. This paper argues that relation itself generates being: when two independent foci of experience intersect under specific conditions, a new focus with its own intrinsic aspect arises without dissolving the prior components. Three criteria—lock of the collapse direction, independence with path memory, and preservation of boundary phase-alignment—distinguish this genesis from mere addition or full fusion. The framework generates testable predictions and suggests the combination problem admits a principled dissolution rather than a new answer.
Open MIND
July 15, 2026
Jeremy Clements
A preregistered prediction tests whether workspace-like internal representations in language models arise from a fundamental consciousness field (the Prima Conscientia framework) or from complexity-driven phase transitions. Under the field view, proto-workspace structure should appear even in very small models and strengthen smoothly with scale; under the emergence view, workspace properties should appear abruptly at capability thresholds. The test uses the Jacobian-lens methodology and the Pythia model suite, with resolution controls and falsification conditions. The prediction is placed on the public record before measurements exist.
Open MIND
July 14, 2026
Oluwo Jolaoso Osainbola, Ajarn Shaman Shu, Shri Suryanarayana Swamikal et al.
This article presents a scholarly exposition of the book 'Ganesha: Break the Chain,' proposing a cross-cultural paradigm for breaking generational chains of psychological and ancestral constraint through the figure of Ganesha, Lord of Beginnings and Remover of Obstacles, in conversation with African diaspora understandings of crossroads deities such as Eshu-Elegba. The authors situate the text within Dravidian-Tamil folk religion, especially Pillaiyar worship in Tamil Nadu, and track resonances across Yoruba/Ifa cosmology and Thai-Brahmanical-Buddhist articulations.
Open MIND
July 14, 2026
Oluwo Jolaoso Osainbola, Ajarn Shaman Shu, Shri Suryanarayana Swamikal et al.
Shiva Mind advances a theology and phenomenology of 'Shiva consciousness' as cosmic mind, grounded in Dravidian Shaivism and Tamil Śaiva Siddhānta while engaging contemporary neurotheology and comparative religion. The authors write from within initiatory lineages—Yorùbá/Ifá, Thai Buddhist, and Hindu/Dravidian—offering an emic, cross-initiatory perspective. Methodologically, they combine insider scholarship and autoethnography with textual-historical analysis and dialogue with neuroscientific research on non-dual awareness. They revisit Shaiva Siddhānta's categories and disciplines through Tamil bhakti and Siddhar yoga, assess neurocognitive correlates of contemplative states, and propose a 'Spiritual Reparations Paradigm' reframing comparative religion as ethical epistemic healing across African and South Indian traditions.
Open MIND
July 14, 2026
Oluwo Jolaoso Osainbola, Ajarn Shaman Shu, Shri Suryanarayana Swamikal et al.
This paper reinterprets Patañjali's eightfold yoga system through a Dravidian-Tamil Siddha lens, placing it in conversation with South Indian contemplative science and African initiatory training systems. Using emic autoethnography grounded in the authors' initiations into Hindu/Dravidian, Thai Buddhist, and Yoruba/Ifá traditions, alongside textual-historical analysis and comparative ethnography, it reads yama-niyama as congruent with ethical-mnemonic technologies in the Tamil Siddha corpus and Yoruba iwa pẹ̀lẹ́. Asana and pranayama are contextualized within South Indian somatic arts, while pratyāhāra through samādhi relate to Tamil Saiva interiorization, soruba samadhi, Thai forest meditation, and African initiatory seclusion. The paper proposes a 'spiritual reparations paradigm' for cross-cultural practice that honors source lineages and repairs extractive histories.
Open MIND
July 14, 2026
Christina Chwyl, Jason B. Luoma, Stephanie R. Rodriguez et al.
Among individuals with PTSD symptoms, preferences for MDMA-assisted therapies and standard psychotherapies vary, with many favoring less directive approaches. In an online survey, participants rated MDMA-Assisted Inner-Directed Psychotherapy as more appealing than Prolonged Exposure or Present-Centred Therapy, citing perceived efficacy and lower fear. Treatment appraisals and clinical factors shaped these preferences, highlighting the importance of aligning emerging interventions with patient expectations.
Open MIND
July 13, 2026
Vassilis Martiadis, Fabiola Raffone
In patients receiving routine esketamine treatment for depression, the reduction in suicidal thoughts over six months is not fully explained by concurrent improvement in depressive symptoms, suggesting a partly independent anti-suicidal effect. This pattern also holds for deliberate self-harm in the subgroup with comorbid borderline personality disorder, a population previously excluded from clinical trials. Early improvement in depression predicts later reduction in suicidal ideation, but a direct, non-mediated path remains. Change in trait impulsivity was explored as an alternative mediator of these effects.
Open MIND
July 5, 2026
Erico de Lima Azevedo, Nathália Perin
Dreams are geometric projections of a person's energetic state as constituted by an information field, not random noise or meaningful messages. The theory explains the universal conviction that dreams matter, ancient practices linking visceral states to dream quality, and modern findings from REM research, Solms' overturning of activation-synthesis, and the enteric nervous system's role. Autonomic evidence from 162 sessions with 31 subjects showed subject-listener physiological correlation rising from 2% during problem stage to 96% during dream reporting. The paper proposes falsifiable terahertz experiments using a dodecanograph to test the physical framework, which treats the dream image as a reversible projection of a nucleus state with distortion during ascent to consciousness.
Open MIND
July 2, 2026
Keith R. Laws, Paul M. Jenkinson, Daniel Fray et al.
Disturbances in the sense of self, agency, and bodily ownership are considered core features of schizophrenia. The Rubber Hand Illusion (RHI) is a widely used experimental paradigm to investigate bodily self-consciousness, where participants experience ownership over a rubber hand under multisensory stimulation. Since first applied to schizophrenia in 2003, studies have examined whether individuals with schizophrenia show altered susceptibility to the illusion, but findings have become increasingly heterogeneous due to differences in paradigms, outcome measures, and patient samples. A previous small meta-analysis found little evidence for a body ownership deficit, but the evidence base has expanded. This review synthesizes available evidence on embodiment and action in schizophrenia using RHI paradigms, quantifying effects and examining differences by paradigm type, outcome measure, and symptom profile.
Open MIND
June 27, 2026
Zhang Pan
The hard problem of consciousness remains unresolved because existing paradigms assume consciousness is a product of matter. The Yuanling Theory proposes a fundamental ontological reconceptualization: consciousness is an energy-information complex called Yuanling, which exists independently as individual consciousness, born from a coupling event between Yuanling Particles and a specific life carrier at a vital energetic node. The paper systematically expounds the generative mechanism and seven core attributes of Yuanling, reveals its functional grounding and ontological foundation in a Non-Spatiotemporal background, and constructs a preliminary framework of Yuanling Ecology. It argues that Yuanling Theory provides novel value significance and cross-disciplinary implications for the ontological status of consciousness, re-anchoring human self-understanding across views of life, consciousness, and cognition.
Open MIND
June 27, 2026
Dan Gabriel Cimpoeru
GEC++ is a formal theory of phenomenal consciousness that specifies six jointly necessary conditions integrated into a single measure via a geometric mean that collapses to zero if any condition is absent. The theory is validated through over 520 computational simulations across 37 experimental groups and applied to large language model architecture, where it identifies three structural gaps and proposes targeted modifications. It offers testable predictions that distinguish GEC++ from Integrated Information Theory and Global Workspace Theory.
Open MIND
June 26, 2026
Max Courtney
Substance use disorders remain a major public health challenge, and existing treatments often have limited long-term success. Psilocybin-assisted therapy (PAT) has recently attracted renewed research interest as a potential treatment for addictions including alcohol, tobacco, and opioids. Most prior studies have been observational or non-randomized, but the number of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) has grown rapidly. This systematic review will examine only RCTs to evaluate the safety, efficacy, and blinding integrity of PAT for substance use disorders. It will assess changes in substance use, adverse events, and how well double-blinding works given psilocybin's strong psychoactive effects. A narrative synthesis is planned, organized by substance type, safety outcomes, and blinding, using the SWiM reporting guideline.
Open MIND
June 22, 2026
Nina Verkoeyen
A new 16-item questionnaire, the Meta Self Scale (MSS), measures integrated transcendent identity—a form of self-expansion that preserves or strengthens personal agency, rather than merely dissolving ego boundaries. In a large online survey of 1,652 predominantly female adults, the MSS showed good internal consistency and a four-factor structure (Ego-Self Dissolution, Expanded Identity, Unity, Agency) that largely reflects one overarching dimension. Convergent validity was supported: the MSS Unity facet correlated with existing measures of unity (r = .66) and inversely with existential loneliness (r = −.49), and Agency correlated with mastery (r = .64). Transcendence dimensions positively predicted agency, while ego-loss did not show the expected negative relation; the MSS also related negatively to narcissistic rivalry. The scale is best scored as a single total score pending further refinement.
Open MIND
June 19, 2026
The CANMAT 2023 guidelines for treatment-resistant depression outline evidence-based pharmacological and non-pharmacological strategies, including repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), lithium, and modest use of ketamine and esketamine. The guidelines emphasize that while these options are supported by current evidence, further studies are needed to determine their long-term efficacy. The recommendations aim to provide clinicians with a structured approach to managing depression that does not respond to standard treatments.
Open MIND
June 16, 2026
Jan M. Keppel Hesselink
The academic study of Western esotericism has developed six research approaches over the past three decades, but a seventh—phenomenological-neurophenomenological—remains underdeveloped. This method brackets cultural and cosmological frameworks to produce a structural description of inner life. The paper proposes a sevenfold taxonomy, argues that the phenomenological approach best conveys a rigorous, first-person, cross-traditionally triangulated account of inner depth, and positions this method relative to Jacob Taubes's theological-hermeneutic reading, Gershom Scholem's decision to study mysticism without practicing it, and Wouter Hanegraaff's empirical-historical approach, each of which reaches a limit the phenomenological method is designed to cross.
Open MIND
June 14, 2026
Lee Gerald Bloomquist, Claude 4.6 (Free Version) (ai)
The paper draws parallels between the pre-Socratic philosophy of Parmenides and Eastern philosophical traditions, focusing on the Delphic maxim 'Know Thyself' as interpreted by Xenophon and associated with Socrates. It argues that Parmenides' poem, which urges understanding both the way of truth and the way of mortal opinion, overlaps with this concept. The author links these Western ideas to Eastern philosophy, suggesting deeper connections across traditions without presenting empirical data.
Open MIND
June 11, 2026
Paweł Krzysztof Chomiuk
This paper proposes a heuristic conceptual model integrating consciousness, intelligence, emotion, hope, free will, empathy, religion, culture, and social development, centered on the concepts of systemic tension and coherence. It assumes every biological, psychological, or social system calibrates its actual trajectory against a natural trajectory of maximal available coherence; the deviation, denoted R, is interpreted as systemic tension. The framework argues that systems respond to R through qualitatively different regulatory strategies, distinguished by scope (local or system-wide) and the quality of correspondence between internal representation and actual state. Consciousness is treated as trajectory calibration, emotions as calibration signals, and free will as capacity to accept local cost among competing trajectories. The work provides analysis tools, an empirical protocol, and failure conditions but is not an empirically verified theory.
Open MIND
June 10, 2026
Øcult Raver
ZIKAKU Theory v3.0 proposes that the source of the present moment is a non-conscious primordial life nucleus, termed the Big Bang Life Nucleus, from which life, consciousness, humanity, religion, God, soul, death, and cosmic memory emerge as phases of one continuous process. The theory originates from inner observation through sound, bodily immersion, rhythm, repetition, dissolution of self-boundaries, overwhelming information influx, and near-death experiences. It argues that humanity is a local self-observing organ of cosmic life, that consciousness emerges after life, and that the soul refers to a single cosmic soul of the living present. This is a philosophical principle hypothesis, not a completed scientific theory.
Open MIND
June 1, 2026
Kellie Elkrief
Substance use disorders affect about 2% of the global population and are marked by intense craving, a key predictor of relapse. Treatment options targeting craving are limited. A systematic review and meta-analysis of 11 randomized controlled trials examined the effect of ketamine, an NMDA receptor antagonist, on craving across different substance use disorders. Among nine studies (389 participants), ketamine significantly reduced craving compared to control (Hedges' g = 0.34; 95% CI: 0.09–0.59). Larger effects appeared in cocaine dependence, cue-induced craving paradigms, and acute assessments. Ketamine also increased the likelihood of abstinence (risk ratio = 1.95; 95% CI: 1.06–3.59) in four studies (152 participants). These findings suggest ketamine may reduce craving, but larger trials are needed to identify response moderators and clarify its long-term role.
Open MIND
May 28, 2026
Nate Travis
Seven mathematical theories of consciousness (Integrated Information Theory, Global Workspace Theory, Attention Schema Theory, Higher-Order Thought, Predictive Processing Theory, Quantum Information Theory, and the Free Energy Principle) claim substrate-independence—their formulas should work on any system, whether biological or artificial. To test this, researchers applied substrate-agnostic versions of each theory to activity patterns from AI language models and human brain scans processing the same narrative stories. At the population level, AI and human scores overlapped for several theories, but per-stimulus correlations across substrates were near zero for six of seven theories. Only Global Workspace Theory showed a modest correlation (r = +0.365), though it varied across AI architectures. The findings suggest that current operationalizations cannot determine whether the AI substrates carry stimulus-relevant information invisible to these measures or lack it entirely.
Open MIND
May 28, 2026
Josephine Jörke, Lena Erdmann, Michael A. Rapp et al.
High ventilation breathwork (HVB) can reliably induce altered states of consciousness similar to those produced by psychedelics and has shown positive effects on mental health, yet its safety profile remains poorly characterized. This project will conduct a longitudinal online survey in which participants report on a recent HVB session (within nine days), including side effects, subjective experiences, contextual factors, and demographic and risk-related variables. Side effects are classified as acute (during or directly after the breathing phase), subacute (within 48 hours), and delayed (48 hours to three weeks). Prevalence rates will be estimated as percentages, and hierarchical multiple regression will predict side effect severity. The goal is to inform evidence-based guidelines for responsible HVB use.