This article explores Cerebrum, a hybrid of a nightclub and a gallery, which for a brief moment in the late 1960s, used the combined force of media, performance and architecture to transform a Manhattan storefront into a series of virtual realities. Described as a ‘Psychedelic Playpen’, Cerebrum became—as its name suggests—an environmental model on the contemporary discourse on altered states...
We review evidence challenging the hypothesis that memories are processed or consolidated in sleep. We argue that the brain is in an unconscious state in sleep, akin to general anesthesia (GA), and hence is incapable of meaningful cognitive processing-the sole purview of waking consciousness. At minimum, the encoding of memories in sleep would require that waking events are faithfully...
Adopting the perspective of another person is an important aspect of social cognition and has been shown to depend on multisensory signals from one's own body. Recent work suggests that interoceptive signals not only contribute to own-body perception and self-consciousness, but also to empathy. Here we investigated if social cognition - in particular adopting the perspective of another person -...
While psychedelic agents are known to have powerful, but largely unexplained, effects on contents of consciousness, there is an increasing interest in the potential clinical usefulness of such drugs for therapy, and legalization is discussed in some countries. Thus, it is relevant to study the effects of psychedelic compounds not only on experience, but also on behavioral performance.Seven...
Chanting is a form of rhythmic, repetitive vocalization practiced in a wide range of cultures. It is used in spiritual practice to strengthen community, heal illness, and overcome psychological and emotional difficulties. In many traditions, chanting is used to induce mystical states, an altered state of consciousness characterised by a profound sense of peace. Despite the global prevalence of...
I will argue that, in an interdisciplinary study of consciousness, epistemic structural realism (ESR) can offer a feasible philosophical background for the study of consciousness and its associated neurophysiological phenomena in neuroscience and cognitive science while also taking into account the mathematical structures involved in this type of research. Applying the ESR principles also to...
bioRxiv Preprint ServerJanuary 4, 2021Rebecca G. Rogerson, Rebecca Barnstaple, Joseph F.x. Desouza
preprint
Trance processes are a form of altered states of consciousness (ASC) widely reported across cultures. Entering these states is often linked to auditory stimuli such as singing, chanting, or rhythmic drumming. While scientific research into this phenomenon is relatively nascent, there is emerging interest in investigating the neural correlates of altered states of consciousness such as trance....
Relevance of the article. Without the use of the self-report method, it is impossible to study a number of psychological phenomena (for example, hallucinosis, the study of which allows us to understand the mechanisms of formation of perceptual, dream, mnestic, imaginative images). At the same time, the possibilities and limitations of two variants of the self-report method — an interview about...
Disturbed functional connectivity is assumed to cause neurocognitive deficits in patients suffering from schizophrenia. A Glutamate N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) dysfunction has been suggested as a possible mechanism underlying altered connectivity in schizophrenia, especially in the gamma- and theta-frequency range. The present study aimed to investigate the effects of the...
We have a much better understanding of the dynamics and ontology of physics than we do of consciousness. I consider ways in which intrinsically mental aspects of fundamental ontology might induce modifications of the known laws of physics, or whether they could be relevant to accounting for consciousness if no such modifications exist. I suggest that our current knowledge of physics should make...