Asymmetry in frontal electrical activity has been reported to be associated with positive mood. One form of mindfulness meditation, integrative body-mind training (IBMT) improves positive mood and neuroplasticity. The purpose of this study is to determine whether short-term IBMT improves mood and induces frontal asymmetry. This study showed that 5-days (30-min per day) IBMT significantly...
Here we present a theory of human trauma and chronic stress, based on the practice of Somatic Experiencing(®) (SE), a form of trauma therapy that emphasizes guiding the client's attention to interoceptive, kinesthetic, and proprioceptive experience. SE™ claims that this style of inner attention, in addition to the use of kinesthetic and interoceptive imagery, can lead to the resolution of...
A primary goal of cognitive behavior therapy for psychosis (CBTp) is to reduce distress and disability, not to change the positive symptoms of psychosis, such as hearing voices. Despite demonstrated associations between beliefs about voices and distress, the effects of CBTp on reducing voice distress are disappointing. Research has begun to explore the role that the psychological construct of...
The default mode network (DMN) is a group of anatomically separate regions in the brain found to have synchronized patterns of activation in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Mentation associated with the DMN includes processes such as mind wandering, autobiographical memory, self-reflective thought, envisioning the future, and considering the perspective of others. Abnormalities in...
In the last decade, a number of neuroimaging studies have investigated the neurophysiological effects associated with contemplative practices. Meditation-related changes in resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) have been previously reported, particularly in the default mode network, frontoparietal attentional circuits, saliency-related regions, and primary sensory cortices. We collected...
Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH: 'hearing voices') are found in both schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In this paper we first demonstrate that AVH in these two diagnoses share a qualitatively similar phenomenology. We then show that the presence of AVH in schizophrenia is often associated with earlier exposure to traumatic/emotionally overwhelming events, as it is by...
We present a theory of the creativity of dreams as well as psychopathology of religious delusions with respect to production of fundamental forms of religious cognition-specifically supernatural agent (SA) cognitions. We suggest that dream cognitions are particularly efficient at producing highly memorable and impactful experiences with SAs because dreams involve three processes that are...
Recent theory suggests that positive psychological processes integral to health may be energized through the self-reinforcing dynamics of an upward spiral to counter emotion dysregulation. The present study examined positive emotion-cognition interactions among individuals in partial remission from depression who had been randomly assigned to treatment with mindfulness-based cognitive therapy...
The Global Workspace Theory and Information Integration Theory are two of the most currently accepted consciousness models; however, these models do not address many aspects of conscious experience. We compare these models to our previously proposed consciousness model in which the thalamus fills-in processed sensory information from corticothalamic feedback loops within a proposed 3D default...
A topic of common interest to psychologists and philosophers is the spontaneous flow of thoughts when the individual is awake but not involved in cognitive demands. This argument, classically referred to as the "stream of consciousness" of James, is now known in the psychological literature as "Mind-Wandering." Although of great interest, this construct has been scarcely investigated so far....
On average, the human hippocampus shows structural differences between meditators and non-meditators as well as between men and women. However, there is a lack of research exploring possible sex effects on hippocampal anatomy in the framework of meditation. Thus, we obtained high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging data from 30 long-term meditation practitioners (15 men/15 women) and 30...
Reinforcement learning models have demonstrated that phasic activity of dopamine neurons during reward expectation encodes information about the predictability of reward and cues that predict reward. Self-control strategies such as those practiced in mindfulness-based approaches is claimed to reduce negative and positive reactions to stimuli suggesting the hypothesis that such training may...
Perceptual phenomena such as spatio-temporal illusions and masking are typically explained by psychological (cognitive) processing theories or large-scale neural theories involving inter-areal connectivity and neural circuits comprising of hundreds or more interconnected single cells. Subcellular mechanisms are hardly used for such purpose. Here, a mechanistic theoretical view is presented on...
We examined the question whether the role of EEG oscillations in predicting presence/absence of dream recall (DR) is explained by "state-" or "trait-like" factors. Six healthy subjects were awakened from REM sleep in a within-subjects design with multiple naps, until a recall and a non-recall condition were obtained. Naps were scheduled in the early afternoon and were separated by 1 week....
The transition from a relaxed to a drowsy state of mind is often accompanied by hypnagogic experiences: most commonly, perceptual imagery, but also linguistic intrusions, i.e., the sudden emergence of unpredictable anomalies in the stream of inner speech. This study has sought to describe the contents of such intrusions, to verify their association with the progression of sleep onset, and to...
Dreaming represents a peculiar form of cognitive activity during sleep. On the basis of the well-known relationship between sleep and memory, there has been a growing interest in the predictive role of human brain activity during sleep on dream recall. Neuroimaging studies indicate that rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is characterized by limbic activation and prefrontal cortex deactivation. This...
There have been reports and claims in the psychotherapeutic literature that the consideration of recent dreams can result in personal realizations and insight. There is theoretical support for these claims from work on rapid eye movement (REM) sleep having a function of the consolidation of emotional memories and the creative formation of connections between new and older memories. To...
The conscious field includes not only representations about external stimuli (e.g., percepts), but also conscious contents associated with internal states, such as action-related intentions (e.g., urges). Although understudied, the latter may provide unique insights into the nature of consciousness. To illuminate these phenomena, in a new experimental paradigm [Reflexive Imagery Task (RIT)],...
Recent studies have shown that meditation inhibits or relieves pain perception. To clarify the underlying mechanisms for this phenomenon, neuroimaging methods, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging, and neurophysiological methods, such as magnetoencephalography and electroencephalography, have been used. However, it has been difficult to interpret the results, because there is some...
This review examines cross-cultural differences in interoception and the role of culturally bound epistemologies, historical traditions, and contemplative practices to assess four aspects of culture and interoception: (1) the extent to which members from Western and non-Western cultural groups exhibit differential levels of interoceptive accuracy and somatic awareness; (2) the mechanistic...
Contrasting conditions with and without awareness has been the preferred method for investigating the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) for decades, yet recently it has been suggested that further insights can be made by moving beyond this method, specifically by meticulously controlling that potential precursors and consequences of the NCC are not mistaken for an NCC. Here, we briefly...
In cognitive neuroscience, prerequisites of consciousness are of high interest. Within recent years it has become more commonly understood that ongoing brain activity, mainly measured with electrophysiology, can predict whether an upcoming stimulus is consciously perceived. One approach to investigate the relationship between ongoing brain activity and conscious perception is to conduct...
Mindfulness practice of present moment awareness promises many benefits, but has eluded rigorous behavioral measurement. To date, research has relied on self-reported mindfulness or heterogeneous mindfulness trainings to infer skillful mindfulness practice and its effects. In four independent studies with over 400 total participants, we present the first construct validation of a behavioral...
This article explores the notion that the brain is genetically endowed with an innate virtual reality generator that - through experience-dependent plasticity - becomes a generative or predictive model of the world. This model, which is most clearly revealed in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep dreaming, may provide the theater for conscious experience. Functional neuroimaging evidence for brain...
This article introduces the notion of shared intentional engagement and argues that the current debate around intersubjective interaction can profit from taking that notion into account. Shared intentional engagement holds between people when they relate together to the same meaningful entities. For instance, when people talk about something, they share intentional engagement as long as they...