Anthropology and Humanism
December 1, 2026
Tanzeen R. Doha
Abstract: This meditation shows the difficulty of reading a dream in the aftermath of a riot. The text moves through fragmentary images at various points of rupture to illuminate traditions of sorrow, grief, and angst in Islam. The postscript encourages writing from the unseen to suspend the narrative arc of secular history itself.
Roberto Bani
In nature, forms and forces are distinguished. MIND is the cerebral software of forms and faculties that elaborate them. Its complex functional and evolutionary organization has required various ways of investigation: 1. Difference between Homo sapiens and the other mammals; 2. Enchanted Staircase as a model of progressive levels from low animals to humans; 3. Different Forms of Thought between...
Niccolo Leo Caldararo
preprint
In the 1960s and 1970s LSD began to be used as a potential therapeutic agent by a number of researchers. The author participated in a number of studies of perception, including sensory deprivation and psychotropic drugs, some of recent manufacture or discovery and some of primitive or traditional societies. This paper summarizes the experiences and research of the author from that time and a...
Darren M. Lipnicki
preprint
Numerous theories of dreaming consider embodied self-representation and participation in dream events as key features. However, past studies suggest that the dream self is absent or an uninvolved observer in more than 10% of adult rapid eye movement dreams. The current study first presents new criteria for observer dreams that are informed and illustrated by reports from adult dream series....
Jennifer Windt, Naotsugu Tsuchiya, Thomas Andrillon
preprint
We spend a third of our lives asleep, and sleep teems with vivid dreams. While most people rarely remember their dreams, laboratory studies using timed awakenings show that healthy adults experience multiple dreams per night. Dreams have been hypothesised to play a key role in the development of consciousness and cognition1,2. Dreams are believed to contribute to sleep-related memory...
Jeronimo Herrera
preprint
Consciousness eludes unified scientific explanation, entwining subjective experience with observable brain processes. Neural thermodynamics (NT) introduces a quantitative framework to bridge this divide, modeling consciousness through neural temperature (Tneural), energy (ΔE), and entropy (ΔS). Grounded in statistical mechanics and the Free Energy Principle, NT merges neuroscience and physics...
Uwe Hobohm
While numerous mystical encounters have been described in the literature, these experiences were hardly considered in the cognitive sciences appropriately. In general mystical accounts were either interpreted as impermanent subjective feelings outside the grasp or even interest of scientific investigation. Or mystical experiences are discussed within and mixed with religious belief systems...
Teresa Campillo-Ferrer, Adriana Alcaraz, S.Gabriela Torres-Platas
preprint
The scientific study of lucid sleep (to retain critical self-awareness during ongoing sleep) has traditionally been focused on lucid dreaming and induction techniques primarily targeting REM sleep. Recently, there has been increasing interest in other forms of lucid sleep, such as certain episodes of sleep paralysis, out-of-body experiences reported during sleep, and episodes of...
Ramin Bidari
preprint
This paper explores the profound relationship between energetic consciousness and the brain, arguing that consciousness is an independent force beyond time and space that utilizes the brain as a tool for experiencing reality. Unlike traditional neuroscientific perspectives that consider the brain as the source of consciousness, this study suggests that consciousness actively alters the brain’s...
Rodrick Wallace
We demonstrate that all enterprises of embodied cognition, ranging from the ‘simply’ cognitive to the conscious, and from the individual to the mechanical, institutional, and composite, are susceptible to induced patterns of hallucination, panic, and exhaustion on challenging landscapes of fog, friction, and deadly adversarial intent. We further argue, in consonance with C.S. Gray, that dreams...