“Dark Nights of the Soul”: Phenomenology and Neurocognition of Spiritual Suffering in Mysticism and Psychosis
Review of General Psychology September 1, 2007 DOI: 10.1037/1089-2680.11.3.209 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Mysticism Philosophy of mind |
| Citations | 47 |
| Key points | Proposes that the 'dark night of the soul' represents a semantic satiation leading to a relative deletion of experienced presence after its enhancement, paralleling anhedonia in schizotypy. |
Abstract
Phenomenological, clinical, and neurocognitive levels of analysis are combined to understand the cognitive bases of spirituality and spiritual suffering. In particular, the “dark night of the soul” in classical mysticism, with its painful “metapathological” loss of felt meaning is compared with the anhedonias central to the negative symptoms of schizophrenia and schizotypicality. Paul Schilder's early understanding of instabilities in the body image, as our core sense of self, offers a key to both the disorganized hallucinatory syndromes of psychosis and to the relative enhancements of body image/ecological self in spirituality. Expanded versus deleted felt presence/embodiment, as outwardly indexed in measures of physical balance and spatial abilities, becomes the general dimension underlying integrative versus disintegrative transformations of consciousness. “Dark night” suffering can be seen as a semantic satiation leading to a relative deletion of experienced presence in the context of its previous enhancement, a focalized version of the more general anhedonic despair shared by clinical schizotypy and aspects of a larger secularized culture.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on mysticism, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| The mystical mind: probing the biology of religious experience | 2000 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Religious and Mystical Experiences as Artifacts of Temporal Lobe Function: A General Hypothesis | 1983 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The Problem of Pure Consciousness: Mysticism and Philosophy | 1993 | Edited collection of essays | |
| Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century | 2020 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mysticism and schizophrenia: A phenomenological exploration of the structure of consciousness in the schizophrenia spectrum disorders. | 2016 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
Citations in the library
Cited by 24
- Alterations in the sense of time, space and body in the Mindfulness-trained brain: A neurophenomenologically-guided MEG study Frontiers in Psychology May 22, 2014
- Pivotal mental states Journal of Psychopharmacology April 1, 2021
- Self-specific processing in the meditating brain: a MEG neurophenomenology study. Neuroscience of Consciousness 2016
- Traumatic and Mystical Experiences Journal of Humanistic Psychology December 18, 2014
- Pattern Theory of Selflessness: How Meditation May Transform the Self-Pattern Mindfulness August 1, 2024
and 19 more in the library
Cites 17
- Out‐of‐body experience and autoscopy of neurological origin Brain January 15, 2004
- Psychobiology of Altered States of Consciousness. Psychological Bulletin 2005
- Self, Solipsism, and Schizophrenic Delusions Philosophy, psychiatry & psychology June 1, 2001
- The central role of the parietal lobes in consciousness. Consciousness and Cognition September 1, 2001
- A Test of the Psychedelic Model of Altered States of Consciousness Archives of General Psychiatry July 1, 1976
and 12 more in the library