Interoceptive and exteroceptive information are both essential for the construction and update of self-awareness. Whereas several studies have shown how interoceptive accuracy or cardiac feedback influences body-awareness, no studies have looked at the reverse effect, namely how exteroceptively-driven changes in body-ownership and self-identification can influence individuals' ability to detect...
This article links contemporary psychoanalytic theories of the dream, especially Bion's, with the work of the American video artist Bill Viola, who is deeply influenced by altered states of consciousness and produces images of dreamlike quality. We discuss the oneiric and infantile roots of creativity and artistic inspiration, finally taking Viola's monumental artwork The Passing (1991) as...
Dissociation involves disruptions of usually integrated functions of consciousness, perception, memory, identity, and affect (e.g., depersonalization, derealization, numbing, amnesia, and analgesia). While the precise neurobiological underpinnings of dissociation remain elusive, neuroimaging studies in disorders, characterized by high dissociation (e.g., depersonalization/derealization disorder...
The construct of the "self" is conceived as being fundamental in promoting survival. As such, extensive studies have documented preferential processing of self-relevant stimuli. For example, attributes that relate to the self are better encoded and retrieved, and are more readily consciously perceived. The preferential processing of self-relevant information, however, appears to be especially...
A novel theoretical model is presented maintaining that consciousness evolved on the basis of time distinctions. Various models of time pertain to the existence of future, present and past. It is proposed that the future represents potentialities, the present the actualization of certain potentialities, and the past a record of actualized potentialities. Actualization of potentialities derives...
Purpose: Breathing can be controlled either unconsciously or consciously. In Asian countries, various conscious breathing-control techniques have been practiced for many years to promote health and wellbeing. However, the exact mechanism underlying these techniques has not yet been established. The purpose of this study is to explore the physiological mechanism explaining how conscious...
The experience of having a body is the key aspect for self-consciousness and it has been recognized that such a coherent bodily self relies on ongoing multisensory integration of bodily sensory inputs. A coherent bodily self is mostly taken for granted, despite being highly influenceable. To induce comparable bodily illusions in healthy participants, experimental paradigms have been developed...
The ability to detect our own errors is an essential component of action monitoring. Using a masking paradigm in normal adults, we recently discovered that some error-detection processes can proceed without awareness, while other markers of performance monitoring such as the Error-Related Negativity (ERN) are tightly linked to conscious perception. Interestingly, research on cognitive deficit...
Homonymous hemianopia (HH) is the most common cortical visual impairment leading to blindness in the contralateral hemifield. It is associated with many inconveniences and daily restrictions such as exploration and visual orientation difficulties. However, patients with HH can preserve the remarkable ability to unconsciously perceive visual stimuli presented in their blindfield, a phenomenon...
My PhD thesis consisted of two different scientific parts, each supervised by one of my advisors, Prof. Dr. med. Matthias Liechti and Prof. Dr. sc. nat. Katharina Rentsch. One part was to develop liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) methods to measure d-lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and its main metabolites in plasma, serum, and urine samples. We established the...