In recent years, psychiatry has witnessed a renaissance in the investigation of psychedelic compounds, a broad class of psychoactive substances that induce altered states of consciousness, often characterized by changes in perception, mood, and cognition, which were largely shelved following regulatory crackdowns in the 1970s. The renewed interest is driven by a mounting crisis in mental health...
This chapter concerns the temporal phenomenology of transcendental meditation experiences. Meditators describe the phenomenology of such experiences as continuous but timeless. I shall suggest and evaluate five different interpretations of this perplexing characterization. Exploring non-ordinary mental states such as those realized by transcendental meditation techniques promises novel insights...
Abstract Psychedelics have garnered great attention in recent years as treatments for major depressive disorder (MDD) and treatment‐resistant depression because of their ability to alter consciousness and afflicted cognitive processes with lasting effects. We aimed to characterise how psychedelics are currently being investigated to treat substance use disorders (SUDs). Additionally, we aimed...
ABSTRACT Ketamine and esketamine are regularly prescribed in the United States as pharmaceutical interventions for treatment‐resistant depression. Although ketamine's mode of action is distinct from classic psychedelics, patients frequently report similar alterations in consciousness, including experiences described as spiritual or religious. This article provides an overview of the Ketamine...
Can active inference model consciousness? We offer three conditions implying that it can. The first condition is the simulation of a world model, which determines what can be known or acted upon; namely an epistemic field. The second is inferential competition to enter the world model. Only the inferences that coherently reduce long-term uncertainty win, evincing a selection for consciousness...
The resurgence of interest in psychedelic compounds as potential treatments for psychiatric disorders represents a paradigm shift in mental health care. Psychedelics exert their effects through serotonergic modulation, particularly via 5-HT2A receptor activation, inducing profound alterations in consciousness and catalyzing neuroplasticity. While their neurobiological effects are...
Psychedelics, particularly psilocin, are increasingly being studied for their mind-altering effects and potential therapeutic applications in psychiatry. Visual hallucinations, especially the illusion of motion in static images, are a hallmark of their action. Despite growing interest, the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood, as their systematic evaluation in both humans and animals...
I completed my first PhD in 2005 after stretching out the candidature as long as was possible, to ten years. I was passionate about Husserl’s pure phenomenology, and I was creating a methodology based on that, along with a generous sprinkling of Jung’s psychoanalysis. It would all be served in the context of Jean Gebser’s, philosophy of consciousness. I argue it was a logical and theoretically...
bioRxiv Preprint ServerAugust 29, 2025Gal R. Chen, Rachel Finkelstein, Ariel Goldstein et al.
preprint
Abundant evidence shows that when listening to speech or reading text, we continuously make predictions about upcoming words. Does this process stop when our mind wanders away and subjective experience becomes decoupled from the content of the speech? Conversely, is word prediction sufficient for conscious experience, or can these processes dissociate? Participants (N = 25) listened to...
This paper explores the potential for interdisciplinary collaboration between science and the humanities, with a focus on recent advancements in psychedelic-assisted therapy. It provides an overview of key concepts in this emerging field and identifies research gaps that offer opportunities for interdisciplinary integration. Adopting a non-reductionist naturalist framework, the paper views...