Self unbound: ego dissolution in psychedelic experience

Abstract

Users of psychedelic drugs often report that their sense of being a self or 'I' distinct from the rest of the world has diminished or altogether dissolved. Neuroscientific study of such 'ego dissolution' experiences offers a window onto the nature of self-awareness. We argue that ego dissolution is best explained by an account that explains self-awareness as resulting from the integrated functioning of hierarchical predictive models which posit the existence of a stable and unchanging entity to which representations are bound. Combining recent work on the 'integrative self' and the phenomenon of self-binding with predictive processing principles yields an explanation of ego dissolution according to which self-representation is a useful Cartesian fiction: an ultimately false representation of a simple and enduring substance to which attributes are bound which serves to integrate and unify cognitive processing across levels and domains. The self-model is not a mere narrative posit, as some have suggested; it has a more robust and ubiquitous cognitive function than that. But this does not mean, as others have claimed, that the self-model has the right attributes to qualify as a self. It performs some of the right kinds of functions, but it is not the right kind of entity. Ego dissolution experiences reveal that the self-model plays an important binding function in cognitive processing, but the self does not exist.

In the evidence

This study is part of the evidence base for a synthesis in the library. Here is how each one recorded it.

• State of the evidence: Ego dissolution ?Unclear

  Argues that ego dissolution is explained by predictive processing, in which the self-model is a useful fiction that performs an integrative cognitive function but the self does not exist.

  Synthesized November 1, 2026

Comparable studies

Other theoretical and historical papers on ego dissolution, most cited first.