Contemporary discourse on Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) increasingly raises questions about machine consciousness, self-awareness, and the possibility of a soul. Although AI systems now exhibit learning, adaptation, and self-modeling, the philosophical status of these capacities remains contested. This paper examines whether AGI can possess a soul by drawing on the distinction between...
BackgroundPsychedelic retreats are increasingly used to promote wellbeing outside clinical settings, yet the psychological processes associated with sustained improvements in wellbeing remain poorly understood. From a public mental health perspective, identifying mechanisms that support positive mental health beyond symptom reduction is of growing importance.MethodsThis naturalistic...
Medical anthropology has played a major role in destigmatizing shamanic illness. It has liberated shamanic illness from psychiatric labels such as hysteria, superstition, and mental disorder, and has relocated it within cultural, social, and historical contexts. However, shamanic illness in contemporary China now faces new challenges of stigmatization. This paper adopts phenomenological...
Typical content themes in dreams still defy clear explanation. While a series of studies administering typical dream theme questionnaires mainly to college students point to a surprising consistency in the prevalence of such themes over gender, age, culture, and time, it is still unclear how generalizable such findings are to the larger population. We used a validated online questionnaire, the...
In this article I examine how Elsa Heporauta (1883–1960) produced, interpreted and circulated esoteric knowledge in early-twentieth-century Finland, situating her work within a vibrant esoteric milieu. Drawing on archival notebooks, manuscripts and lectures, I analyse her epistemic practices through lived esotericism and meaning-making theory. Although Heporauta was a visible cultural figure,...
Contemporary psychology treats the construction, maintenance, and enhancement of a coherent self-concept as the implicit telos of therapeutic intervention, an assumption so thoroughly embedded in clinical training, diagnostic frameworks, and outcome measurement that it functions less as a theoretical commitment than as a perceptual habit. This article argues that compulsive identity maintenance...
Despite documented benefits of mindfulness related to stress reduction and health promotion, participation among Black women is relatively low. To understand factors influencing the acceptability and potential uptake of mindfulness-based interventions among Black women, formative research is essential to determine whether promoting mindfulness for Black women could foster engagement in healthy...
Why does consciousness feel like something, and why is experience unified rather than fragmented? We propose that these properties arise from an entangled trefoil of emotion, interference-based inference and hierarchical orchestration, shaped by the thermodynamic constraint that living systems must remain far from equilibrium using limited energy. Emotion compresses actions into valenced...
This systematic review evaluates the relationship between classical psychedelic drugs (D-Lysergic acid N,N-diethylamide, psilocybin, ayahuasca/N-N-dimethyl-tryptamine, and mescaline) and the emergence of psychotic symptoms, aiming to synthesize evidence from contemporary studies (1984-2025) regarding the risk factors, prevalence, and clinical characteristics of psychosis related to psychedelic...
Abstract: Psychedelic tourism is frequently described by participants as “life-changing.” Existing explanations emphasize mystical-type experiences, identity shift, and changes in metaphysical belief, and each identifies an important mediator. What remains missing is a process framework that distinguishes the temporal functions of the contextual factors bundled within set-and-setting accounts....
Frontiers in PsychologyOctober 27, 2026Nasiru Mohammed Abdullahi, Rashid Menhas, Patience Osose Nasir et al.
Background: Clinical research on psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) has expanded substantially in recent years, particularly for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depressive disorders. Contemporary studies have generally evaluated psychedelic administration within controlled therapeutic settings that include psychological support, preparation, and integration. However, variability in...
This study investigates the neurolinguistic mechanisms responsible for language processing during dreaming. Historical and modern studies, including fMRI and PET scans, are analyzed to examine the activity of Broca's and Wernicke's areas, as well as the temporal lobe. The results indicate that language functions in dreams are closely associated with memory consolidation and emotional...
Autophagy is a fundamental cellular process critical for maintaining homeostasis and has emerging relevance in stress adaptation and affective disorders. This thesis investigated how autophagy flux is modulated by acute stress, chronic stress-associated depression, pharmacological interventions, and psychedelic compounds across human, mouse, organotypic and cellular models. In humans, acute...
Charles Bonnet syndrome (CBS) represents a profound and paradoxical neurological condition, a crossroads between ophthalmology, neurology, and the philosophy of mind, in which vivid, complex, and often spectacular visual hallucinations occur in neurologically and psychiatrically healthy individuals, in response to significant vision loss. This narrative-style scientific chapter aims to explore...
Introduction Australia's aged care sector faces mounting pressures driven by an ageing population, increasing care complexity, and persistent workforce shortages. Burnout among residential aged care staff is a critical issue influencing retention, care quality, and staff wellbeing. Despite evidence supporting mindfulness-based interventions in healthcare, their uptake in Residential Aged Care...
Introduction: Rumination is considered one of the underlying mechanisms of depression. Several factors, including sleep quality, mindfulness, and spiritual health, may influence rumination. This research sought to determine the extent to which sleep quality, spiritual health, and mindfulness serve as predictors of rumination. Methods: A descriptive correlational approach was adopted, and the...
Mindfulness and communication have powerful implications for sexual health. Sexual communication and sexual mindfulness - the ability to be aware and non-judgmental during sexual activity - are two constructs often associated with sexual satisfaction. To further explore these relationships, a model of mindful sexual communication was advanced. More specifically, a moderated mediation model was...
Medical students face much perceived stress with regard to their academics, which can be very overwhelming. This perceived stress can harm their mental health, cognitive function and learning ability. Mindfulness-Based Meditation Stress Reduction (MBSR) teaches individuals to observe situations and thoughts in a nonjudgmental, nonreactive and accepting manner. With growing evidence of...
Consciousness, which underpins human perception, cognition, and behavioural responses, has long been a major focus of neuroscience and medicine. Alterations in consciousness occur not only during reversible processes such as sleep and anaesthesia, but also in pathological conditions, including disorders of consciousness (DOC) and brain injury. With recent advances in the synchronized...
Charles Bonnet syndrome (CBS) constitutes a neuropsychic phenomenon of extraordinary complexity, situated at the crossroads of sensory deprivation, cortical hyperactivity, and the dynamism of the unconscious. This chapter aims to explore CBS through a multidisciplinary and narrative lens, moving beyond mere symptomatological description to delve into its profound implications for understanding...
This paper reconstructs the treatment of self-consciousness in the so-called Heidelberg School on the basis of a single problem, that of the circularity of the reflective model, which presupposes the self-knowledge it was meant to explain. It traces this problem from Fichte's original insight, as recovered by Dieter Henrich in 1966, to Manfred Frank's divergence, which proves to be less a...
Introduction Originating in Indian contemplative and musical traditions, yoga has transformed into a globalized set of psychophysiological and psychospiritual practices. Its worldwide spread has generated diverse formats and frameworks within which it is understood, including classical texts, modern practice manuals, medical research developing yoga-based interventions, and the academic field...
End-of-life dreams and visions (ELDVs) are meaningful subjective experiences commonly reported by dying patients. While prior research has shown their emotional and existential value, evidence from non-Western settings remains scarce. This study explored the lived experiences and meanings of ELDVs among Iranian patients with advanced cancer. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA),...