The nature of consciousness is considered one of science's most perplexing and persistent mysteries. We all know the subjective experience of consciousness, but where does it arise? What is its purpose? What are its full capacities? The assumption within today's neuroscience is that all aspects of consciousness arise solely from interactions among neurons in the brain. However, the origin and...
Traditionally, empathy has been studied from two main perspectives: the theory-theory approach and the simulation theory approach. These theories claim that social emotions are fundamentally constituted by mind states in the brain. In contrast, classical phenomenology and recent research based on the enactive theories consider empathy as the basic process of contacting others' emotional...
Positive Psychology has turned its attention to the study of emotions in a scientific and rigorous way. Particularly, to how emotions influence people's health, performance, or their overall life satisfaction. Within this trend, Flow theory has established a theoretical framework that helps to promote the Flow experience. Flow state, or optimal experience, is a mental state of high...
This aim of this paper is two-fold: it critically analyses and rejects accounts blending active inference as theory of mind and enactivism; and it advances an enactivist-dynamic understanding of social cognition that is compatible with active inference. While some social cognition theories seemingly take an enactive perspective on social cognition, they explain it as the attribution of mental...
A symptom cluster is very common among oncological patients: cancer-related fatigue (CRF), emotional distress, sleep difficulties, pain, and cognitive difficulties. Clinical applications of interventions based on non-ordinary states of consciousness, mostly hypnosis and meditation, are starting to be investigated in oncology settings. They revealed encouraging results in terms of improvements...
Maslow's Human Motivation extended Theory, in its late version, proposed transcendence as one of the highest levels, inclusive or holistic in the Human consciousness. Through Meaning Theory, Victor Frankl and Paul Wong suggested that self-transcendence is a fundamental expression of our spiritual nature and a distinctive concept. However, it is not clear whether at present, with an extensive...
The concept of cyberdelics emerged in the 1980s and 1990s as an umbrella term denoting the nexus connecting cybernetic (digital) technologies and psychedelic (mind manifesting) drugs. Cyberdelic technologies, in particular the then newly emerging field of virtual reality, were touted by psychedelic cultural icons including Timothy Leary and Terence McKenna as auguring a new era of digital...
Within a variety of contemplative traditions, non-dual-oriented practices were developed to evoke an experiential shift into a mode of experiencing in which the cognitive structures of self-other and subject-object subside. These practices serve to de-reify the enactment of an observing witness which is usually experienced as separate from the objects of awareness. While several contemplative...
According to many first-person accounts, consciousness comprises a subject-object structure involving a mental action or attitude starting from the "subjective pole" upon an object of experience. In recent years, many paradigms have been developed to manipulate and empirically investigate the object of consciousness. However, well-controlled investigation of subjective aspects of consciousness...
This research explores the intervention effect of the mindfulness acceptance insight commitment (MAIC) training program on the mindfulness level, flow state, and mental health of college swimmers. A sample of 47 college swimmers from a regular university was recruited and randomly divided into two groups before the intervention. Independent variables between groups are psychological training...
Finding a scientific, third-person explanation of subjective experience or phenomenal content is commonly called the "hard problem" of consciousness. There has recently been a surge in neuropsychological research on meditation in general and long-term meditators in particular. These experimental subjects are allegedly capable of generating a stable state of consciousness over a prolonged period...
People who self-identify as predominantly spiritual constitute a considerable and well-established part of the religious landscape in North America and Europe. Thus, further research is needed to document predictors, correlates, and outcomes associated with self-identifying primarily as a spiritual person. In the following set of studies, we contribute to some of these areas using data from...
This study investigated personal perceptions (involvements) and comprehensions (interpretations) of self-ascribed paranormal abilities. Twelve participants with supposed supernatural powers took part in semi-structured interviews exploring the origin, phenomenology, and nature of their powers. Interview transcripts were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis (RTA), a qualitative method that...
Near-death experiences (NDEs) including out-of-body experiences (OBEs) have been fascinating phenomena of perception both for affected persons and for communities in science and medicine. Modern progress in the recording of changing brain functions during the time between clinical death and brain death opened the perspective to address and understand the generation of NDEs in brain states of...
Research on mediated social touch (MST) has, either implicitly or explicitly, built on theoretical assumptions regarding social interactions that align with "theory theory" or "simulation theory" of social cognition. However, these approaches struggle to explain MST interactions that occur outside of a laboratory setting. I briefly discuss these approaches and will argue in favor of an...
Much of our everyday, embodied action comes in the form of smooth coping. Smooth coping is skillful action that has become habituated and ingrained, generally placing less stress on cognitive load than considered and deliberative thought and action. When performed with skill and expertise, walking, driving, skiing, musical performances, and short-order cooking are all examples of the...
During the 2020 COVID-19 epidemic a variety of social activities migrated online, including religious ceremonies and rituals. One such instance is the case of Santo Daime, a Brazilian rainforest religion that utilizes the hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca in its rituals. During the pandemic, multiple Santo Daime rituals involving the consumption of ayahuasca took place online, mediated through Zoom...
Frontiers in Psychology2022Jonathan Led Larsen, Katrine Schepelern Johansen, Mimi Yung Mehlsen7 citations
The recommended treatment for dual diagnosis - the co-occurrence of substance use and another mental disorder - requires seamless integration of the involved disciplines and services. However, no integrative framework exists for communicating about dual diagnosis cases across disciplinary or sectoral boundaries. We examine if Enactive Psychiatry may bridge this theoretical gap. We evaluate the...
Individuals with mind-wandering experience their attention decoupling from their main task at hand while others with flow experience fully engage in their task with the optimum experience. There seems to be a negative relationship between mind-wandering and flow. However, it remains unclear to what extent mind-wandering exerts an impact on flow. And it is also elusive whether physical activity...
I present an empirically based argument for the plausibility of misrepresentation as posited by some higher-order theories of consciousness. The argument relies on the assumption that conscious states are generated by processes in the brain. The underlying idea is that if the brain generates conscious states then misrepresentation may occur. The reason for this is that brain states can be...
The aim of this study was to compare meditators and non-meditators in terms of their tendency to have peak experiences and their dream lucidity, while examining the associations between these outcomes and some related variables such as non-dual awareness, mindfulness facets and absorption. In this cross-sectional study, 237 participants from general Spanish population completed an online survey...
Two very fundamental aspects of phenomenal experiences underline the fact that they seem to have "something it's like." One aspect is the fact that experiences have a locus: they Can seem "external" (perceptual), "internal" (interoceptive, bodily or emotional) or "mental." A second fundamental aspect is the imposingness of experiences. They can seem "present" to us in different ways, sometimes...
Affordance, a radical concept James Gibson introduced in the 1970s, remains controversial today. Defined as environmental properties taken with reference to an animal's anatomy and action capabilities, affordances are opportunities for action the environment offers. By perceiving affordances, organisms hold meaningful relationships with their surroundings. Affordance is not just a theoretical...
In the present work, we aim to make a contribution to the origins of the notion of "minimum self" in Husserl's phenomenology. Starting from the difference between the philosophy of the subject and the philosophy of the self, the aim of this research is to show that the Cartesian association between both philosophies would not exactly correspond to the conception of the self, as we find it in...
This paper offers theoretical explanations for why "guided touch" or manual touch with verbal communication can be an effective way of treating the body (e.g., chronic pain) and the mind (e.g., emotional disorders). The active inference theory suggests that chronic pain and emotional disorders can be attributed to distorted and exaggerated patterns of interoceptive and proprioceptive inference....