Frontiers in Psychology
November 12, 2018
Ursula Voss, Armando D’Agostino, Luca Kolibius et al.
28 citations
Dreams and psychosis share overlapping features in symptoms and brain activity, offering a testable model for conditions like schizophrenia and delirium. This review examines two key concepts: insight and dissociation. Insight in dreams is central to lucid dreaming, where dreamers become aware they are dreaming and often try to control the narrative, alongside dissociative experiences similar to depersonalization and derealization. These concepts also apply to psychotic illness. While insight may be harmless in lucid dreaming and even beneficial in psychosis, dissociation remains poorly understood. Comparing these phenomena helps clarify their psychological and neurophysiological roles.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2023
Mansee Thakur, Yogesh Patil, Sanjana T Philip et al.
27 citations
A 3-month randomized trial with 100 healthy adults aged 18-24 found that practicing Heartfulness meditation significantly reduced cortisol levels and anxiety, while increasing well-being and mindfulness as measured by standard questionnaires. Perceived stress decreased but not significantly. Telomere length correlated negatively with cortisol and positively with well-being, suggesting meditation may slow cellular aging. The authors conclude Heartfulness meditation can improve mental health and affect telomere length, though larger studies are needed to confirm.
Frontiers in Psychology
July 15, 2022
Alexandre Augusto de Deus Pontual, Alexandre Augusto de Deus Pontual, Luís Fernando Tófoli et al.
27 citations
Setting characteristics—social context, comfort, infrastructure, and decoration—moderate the intensity of challenging experiences during ayahuasca ceremonies, explaining 41% of the variance in challenging experience ratings across three traditions (União do Vegetal, Santo Daime, and neo-shamanic groups). Mystical experiences were less strongly associated with setting, with leadership and comfort explaining only 14% of the variance. Social context was rated highest among União do Vegetal members. In neo-shamanic groups, infrastructure, comfort, and decoration correlated more consistently with mystical experiences than in the other traditions. Maximizing setting quality reduces the likelihood of challenging experiences and modestly supports mystical experiences.
Frontiers in Psychology
March 4, 2022
Agnieszka D. Sekula, Luke A. Downey, Prashanth Puspanathan
27 citations
Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy (PP) shows promise for treating PTSD, anxiety, addiction, and depression, relying heavily on participant mindset and therapeutic environment. Virtual reality (VR) may enhance PP by aiding relaxation, reducing anxiety, promoting mindfulness, inducing altered states of consciousness, and evoking mystical experiences. However, VR's role remains speculative due to a lack of empirical evidence on combined use. Potential disadvantages include sensory overstimulation, cyber-sickness, and triggering traumatic memories. A balanced, evidence-based approach is needed for design and implementation across treatment phases.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2021
Nir Lahav, Zachariah A Neemeh
27 citations
The explanatory gap between functional and phenomenal consciousness—the 'hard problem'—remains unresolved. Dualists posit phenomenal consciousness as a primitive, private, non-reductive element; illusionists claim it is a cognitive illusion. Both views are flawed because they treat consciousness as an absolute, observer-independent property. A relativistic theory of consciousness is proposed: a system has or lacks phenomenal consciousness only relative to an observer. In the cognitive system's own frame of reference, consciousness is observable (first-person perspective); in another frame, it is not (third-person perspective). Neither perspective is privileged. Drawing on relativity physics, a mathematical formalization is developed that bridges the explanatory gap and dissolves the hard problem. Philosophers can contribute by collaborating with neuroscientists to explore the neural basis of phenomenal structures.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2021
Lisa Musculus, Markus R Tünte, Markus Raab et al.
27 citations
Interoception, the sense of the internal state of the body, is a crucial but often overlooked component of the minimal self—the basic sense of being a subject. This perspective extends the embodiment account of interoceptive inference to explain how the minimal self develops in humans. It reviews major theories linking interoception to the minimal self and argues for a bidirectional relationship between motor and interoceptive states that jointly shape this development. The authors present empirical findings on interoception during development and offer testable theoretical predictions, aiming to provide a comprehensive view of the mechanisms underlying the minimal self.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2017
Tuomas K Pernu
27 citations
The mental and physical realms appear distinct, with the mental dependent on yet different from the physical. This review identifies five marks of the mental—intentionality, consciousness, free will, teleology, and normativity—that are commonly associated with mental phenomena and each conflict with a physical view of reality in unique ways. Rather than defining mentality, these features highlight that there is no single mind-body problem but a set of interconnected problems. Each problem is analyzed, and their differences, similarities, and connections are identified, offering a foundation for future theoretical work in psychology and philosophy of mind, which has often suffered from unclarities and conflations.
Frontiers in Psychology
May 23, 2022
Tomas Frymann, Sophie Whitney, David B. Yaden et al.
26 citations
Two new psychometric scales, the Integration Engagement Scale (IES) and the Experienced Integration Scale (EIS), were developed to measure different aspects of psychedelic integration—the period after acute drug effects. The IES captures positive behavioral engagement with integration, while the EIS captures internal feelings of being integrated. Scale items were refined with input from experts and clinicians using the Iterative Process Model. Content validity, internal structure, and reliability were assessed through expert surveys, cognitive interviewing, convergent validity analysis, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. The data indicate the scales are valid and reliable measures of behavioral and experiential forms of psychedelic integration.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2021
Felicity Maria Simpson, Gemma Perry, William Forde Thompson
26 citations
A 10-minute online chanting session reduced stress and increased positive affect compared to an online control task, whether done individually or in a group. Participants in group chanting felt more connected to their chanting group than those in the control group, but general feelings of connectedness to all people did not differ across conditions. The findings suggest that online chanting may serve as a useful psychosocial intervention, even when practiced remotely.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2018
Michal Polák, Tomáš Marvan
26 citations
A non-causal account of the relationship between consciousness and its neural correlates is preferable to a causal one, which implicitly involves an undesirable dualism of matter and mind. The identity theory, which holds that states of phenomenal consciousness are identical with their neural correlates, is favored. The paper argues that research into neural correlates of consciousness and the identity theory can enrich each other, but the identity theory requires a suitably defined concept of type, which has been neglected. A tentative hierarchical classification of phenomenal and neurophysiological types is proposed. The identity theory is compared with other mind-body conceptions, and scientists are urged to engage more with metaphysical issues.
Frontiers in Psychology
May 23, 2017
Kinga Wołoszyn, Mateusz Hohol
26 citations
A long-standing view in cognitive science holds that higher thinking uses abstract, amodal mental representations and brain regions separate from sensorimotor areas. Over recent decades, many researchers have instead argued that cognition is fundamentally grounded in sensorimotor activity and bodily constraints, a position called embodied cognition (EC). However, Goldinger et al. (2016) challenged EC's applicability, asserting that some of its assumptions are unacceptable and others offer nothing new, particularly for experimental psychology. This paper agrees with some criticisms—such as that radical embodiment rejecting mental representation is a dead end—but argues that the authors' methodological perspective on EC is inadequate.
Frontiers in Psychology
June 10, 2022
Adriana Alcaraz-Sánchez, Ema Demšar, Teresa Campillo-Ferrer et al.
25 citations
A state called witnessing-sleep or luminosity sleep, described in classic Indian philosophical traditions, involves awareness without an ordinary object—just awareness itself. In a two-stage research project, 18 participants underwent phenomenological interviews using the micro-phenomenological interview method. Across 12 reported experiences, a common phase labeled "nothingness phase" emerged, characterized by a minimal sense of self (a bodiless self felt to be "somewhere"), non-modal sensations, relatively pleasant emotions, absence of visual experience, wide and unfocused attention, and awareness of the state as it unfolded. This suggests that objectless awareness during sleep can be empirically investigated and may inform consciousness research.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2022
David Martínez-pernía, Ignacio Cea, Alejandro Troncoso et al.
25 citations
Empathy for pain involves direct bodily perception and sensation, not just mental states. In an experimental phenomenological study, 28 adults watched videos of extreme-sport accidents and then underwent phenomenological interviews. Four main themes emerged: bodily resonance (kinesthetic and affective sensations coordinated with the athlete's actions), attentional focus (either on one's own discomfort or the athlete's pain), kinesthetic motivation (avoidance or helping impulses), and temporal fluctuations in experience. Two experiential structures were identified: a self-centered empathic experience focused on personal discomfort and self-protection, and an other-centered empathic experience focused on the athlete's suffering with prosocial motivation. The findings support an enactive, embodied view of empathy and extend enactive theory to non-interactive social contexts.
Frontiers in Psychology
July 8, 2020
Toby J. Woods, Jennifer Windt, Olivia Carter
25 citations
Expert texts on Shamatha, Transcendental, and Stillness Meditation describe silence/quietness as a key feature of contentless experiences—states where thoughts, perceptions, and mental images are absent. Using evidence synthesis, 135 expert texts were systematically selected and analyzed. Silence/quietness is closely linked to stillness, absence of concepts, mental activity/noise, thoughts, and disturbance. It may also reflect absence of non-auditory perceptions, mental images, and negative feelings, fitting a conception of complete calm. The texts do not clearly distinguish silence/quietness from other features like stillness. Connections between silence/quietness and other features vary in closeness, revealing fine distinctions and ambiguities that raise new research questions.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2020
Robin Bekrater-Bodmann, Ruben T Azevedo, Vivien Ainley et al.
25 citations
The perception of being located inside one's own body (bodily self-location) can be altered by manipulating external sensory information, such as viewing the body from a third-person perspective and receiving synchronous touches. This study tested whether interoception—the processing of internal bodily signals—affects this malleability. Participants experienced stronger out-of-body sensations when viewing their body from a third-person perspective with synchronous visuotactile stimulation. Higher meta-cognitive interoceptive awareness (how well one monitors internal signals) was specifically linked to less malleability of bodily self-location. The results suggest that stable self-location depends on an interaction between external sensory input and higher-order interoceptive abilities, with implications for understanding disorders involving disturbed body perception.
Frontiers in Psychology
May 28, 2024
Oliver Robinson, Jules Evans, David Luke et al.
24 citations
After a psychedelic experience, some people face difficulties that last at least a day. An international survey of 608 such individuals found they used a variety of coping strategies. The most common individual strategies were meditation and prayer, followed by self-educational activities like reading and journaling. Social coping most often involved seeking support from friends or family, then from a therapist or coach. Helpful features of social support included feeling heard and accepted, a non-judgmental attitude, and sharing similar experiences. These findings can inform therapeutic interventions and educational resources for those experiencing extended post-psychedelic difficulties.
Frontiers in Psychology
April 23, 2021
Arnfinn Aamodt, André Sevenius Nilsen, Benjamin Thürer et al.
24 citations
Signal diversity in EEG recordings, measured by Lempel-Ziv complexity and other metrics, decreases with deeper non-REM sleep stages, consistent with theories linking consciousness to complex cortical dynamics. However, signal diversity did not significantly differ between dreaming and non-dreaming periods within the same sleep stage. A positive correlation was found between Lempel-Ziv complexity over the posterior cortex and the thought-perceptual quality of dream contents, suggesting that specific aspects of dream experience may relate to local cortical signal diversity.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2020
Daniel Erlacher, Tadas Stumbrys
24 citations
A combination of the wake-up-back-to-bed (WBTB) sleep protocol and the mnemonic technique MILD can effectively induce lucid dreams in people who are not selected for lucid dreaming ability. In a sleep laboratory experiment, participants were awakened after 6 hours, kept awake for 30 or 60 minutes to practice MILD or a control task, then returned to bed. Across three MILD conditions, 36% to 54% reported lucid dreams, and 14% to 27% produced PSG-verified eye signals. In contrast, only 9% reported lucid dreams after reading, and none occurred after playing a video game. The findings suggest that WBTB plus MILD is an effective induction method for laboratory research.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2025
Paul Alan Arkin Alvarado-García, Marilú Roxana Soto-Vásquez, Francisco Mercedes Infantes Gomez et al.
23 citations
A 12-session mindfulness meditation program significantly reduced stress, anxiety, and depression and improved sleep quality, social support, and life satisfaction among university students. In a quasi-experimental study with 128 participants divided into an experimental and a waiting-list control group, all measured variables showed statistically significant improvements after the intervention. Effect sizes ranged from small for depression (η² = 0.091) to large for social support (η² = 0.704). The program appears effective for enhancing psychological well-being in educational settings.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2024
Jungjoo Lee, Junhyoung Kim, Marcia G Ory
23 citations
A 10-week pilot clinical trial of Immersive Virtual Reality Meditation (IVRM) added to usual care for 26 adults with depression and anxiety found that improvements in emotional regulation, measured by Coherence Achievement Score from electrocardiogram, were associated with reductions in both depressive and anxiety symptoms. The single-arm study delivered the intervention three times weekly at a community hospital behavioral health unit. Results suggest that IVRM may enhance emotional regulatory function and help alleviate depression and anxiety, supporting the potential of technology-based complementary approaches.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2023
Alan Jurgens
23 citations
Disability may be better understood through an ecological functional model that focuses on how individual functionality intersects with contributions to group and collective functioning, offering an alternative to both social-relational and medical models. Enactivist relational models of disability, while challenging the orthodox medical model, remain problematically committed to an individualist methodology, facing both theoretical and practical issues in intervention strategies. For a genuinely relational approach, enactivists should adopt a neurodiversity paradigm and the ecological functional model proposed by Robert Chapman.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2022
Laura Moral-Bofill, Andrés López de la Llave, Mᵃ Carmen Pérez-llantada et al.
23 citations
An electronic intervention program designed to develop psychological self-regulation skills helped performing musicians in Spain improve their flow state and sense of control while reducing musical performance anxiety and self-consciousness. The program used a quasi-experimental design with a control group, involving 62 musicians from various music colleges. After the intervention, the experimental group showed significant improvements in flow state and sense of control, and decreases in music performance anxiety and self-consciousness, while the control group did not. The changes demonstrated an inverse relationship between flow and anxiety, with worry and lack of control likely playing key roles in performance situations. Results are under discussion.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2020
Kenneth Drinkwater, Andrew Denovan, Neil Dagnall
23 citations
Among people who have experienced lucid dreaming, those who also report nightmares and sleep paralysis tend to score higher on measures of paranormal experience and belief, but the correlations are weak. A tendency toward reality-testing deficits—especially auditory and visual hallucinations—shows the strongest links with these sleep-related dissociative experiences. Paranormal experience alone does not predict lucid dreaming, nightmares, or sleep paralysis once hallucination-proneness is accounted for, but it becomes a significant predictor when hallucinations are controlled. The findings suggest that internally generated cognitive processes, such as hallucinatory tendencies, play a key role in conscious control during lucid dreaming and related dissociative sleep states.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2023
Amirhossein Hashemi, Ali Akbar Oroojan, Maryam Rassouli et al.
22 citations
A systematic review of near-death experiences (NDEs) across religious and cultural backgrounds analyzed 54 studies from 1980 to 2022, covering 465 individuals. The experiences fell into four main categories: emotional, cognitive, spiritual/religious, and supernatural, with 19 subcategories. The most common were supernatural experiences, particularly out-of-body experiences. The core patterns reported—such as leaving the body, passing through a tunnel, and heightened senses—were similar across individuals, though explanations and interpretations varied by culture and religion. The review suggests that understanding these common elements can help clinicians provide meaningful responses to patients who report NDEs.
Frontiers in Psychology
November 17, 2022
Catharina Messell, Lisa Summer, Lars Ole Bonde et al.
22 citations
A new music program, the Copenhagen Music Program, has been developed to accompany the 4–6 hour sessions of medium/high dose psilocybin therapy. The program uses the Guided Imagery and Music framework to choose and sequence music, and the Taxonomy of Therapeutic Music to rate each piece's psychological intensity. Detailed procedural steps and examples are provided to guide others in creating music programs for psychedelic interventions, with the aim that informed music selection can support therapeutic dynamics during the drug's acute effects.