From flow to mystical experiences: Connecting entropy and fluency along the unifying framework of cognitive continuum
Hüseyin Beyköylü, John Vervaeke, Daniel Meling
Philosophical Psychology December 16, 2025 DOI: 10.1080/09515089.2025.2601717 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Mystical experience |
| Key points | Proposes that self-transcendent experiences reflect an enhancement of relevance realization across increasingly global levels of cognitive organization, with destabilization and complexification as central processes. |
Abstract
ABSTRACT Self-transcendent experiences (STEs) represent profound shifts in cognition and consciousness, possessing significant transformative potential. With growing scientific interest in these phenomena, we propose the cognitive continuum as a unifying framework. Grounded in enactive cognitive science and complex dynamic systems perspectives, this approach takes the embodied person, embedded within their world, as the appropriate unit of analysis. The continuum illustrates how STEs, such as flow states and mystical experiences, reflect an enhancement of relevance realization, the organism’s active engagement with its environment to adaptively frame its world, across increasingly global levels of cognitive organization. We identify destabilization and complexification as central processes in this enhancement and propose entropy as their metric. We introduce the Entropy-Fluency hypothesis, which posits that increased entropy signals destabilization followed by increased fluency, thereby conceptually bridging first-person subjective experiences with third-person scientific observations of STEs. The cognitive continuum reveals STEs as dynamic, person-specific, and context-dependent phenomena emerging from person-world coupling, requiring idiographic and transdisciplinary methodological approaches. This framework provides conceptual tools for understanding these profound experiences, contributing to a comprehensive science of human flourishing.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on mystical experience, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Religious and Mystical Experiences as Artifacts of Temporal Lobe Function: A General Hypothesis | 1983 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The Psychedelic Mystical Experience in the Human Encounter with Death | 1969 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Vectorial Cerebral Hemisphericity as Differential Sources for the Sensed Presence, Mystical Experiences and Religious Conversions | 1993 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The epistemic innocence of psychedelic states. | 2016 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mystical Experience and Religious Doctrine | 1982 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
Citations in the library
Cites 76
- Self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence (S-ART): a framework for understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 2012
- The entropic brain: a theory of conscious states informed by neuroimaging research with psychedelic drugs Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 2014
- REBUS and the Anarchic Brain: Toward a Unified Model of the Brain Action of Psychedelics Pharmacological Reviews June 20, 2019
- Psilocybin occasioned mystical-type experiences: immediate and persisting dose-related effects. Psychopharmacology December 1, 2011
- Mystical-type experiences occasioned by psilocybin mediate the attribution of personal meaning and spiritual significance 14 months later Journal of Psychopharmacology May 30, 2008
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