This preregistered study examines the preliminary validation of the Meta Self Scale (MSS), a 16-item self-report measure assessing four dimensions of identity transformation: Ego-Self Dissolution, Expanded Identity, Unity, and Agency. The study examines the theoretical proposal that ego attenuation may co-occur with expanded identity, felt unity, and preserved agency within an integrated...
Emerging research in contemplative science and psychedelic neuroscience suggests that deeply entrenched patterns of selfhood and cognition—often associated with mental disorders like depression—can be profoundly altered through both meditative practice and pharmacological intervention. This paper presents a neuroconstructivist framework for understanding how deep meditation and dissociative...
Rates of mental illness in young people are increasing, whereas the development of novel mental health treatments has not significantly progressed. Psychedelic-assisted therapy, using substances such as psilocybin and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), has shown potential in the treatment of mental illnesses in the adult population, including depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress...
Traditional definitions of liberation (such as moksha, nirvana, and kaivalya) across Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain philosophical traditions have remained empirically underspecified and conceptually divergent for over 2,500 years. This study proposes an operational definition of liberation asperpetual self-transcendence through infinite domain expansion, characterized by the inability to fix one's...
BACKGROUND Depersonalization and derealization (DP/DR) are dissociative symptoms involving a sense of unreality and detachment from one's self or surroundings. While strongly associated with psychiatric conditions, their relationship to physical health and epistemic trust-shaping how individuals integrate information and particularly fragile in dissociative states-remains underexplored. METHODS...
Abstract This article argues for the significance of modernist fiction to the history of depersonalization, a psychiatric concept that describes the feeling of estrangement or detachment from one's own thoughts, feelings, sensations, body, or actions. It also suggests that reading modernism with a focus on depersonalized experience helps to distinguish “high” from “late” modernism, and to...
Brain Research BulletinMay 1, 2026Ladina Philomena Gubser, Anna Stefania Trippel, Niklaus Zoelch et al.
Ketamine has been shown to modulate glutamate signaling in animals and may therefore have the potential to restore glutamate imbalances in the brain. Impaired glutamate homeostasis has been implicated in mental health disorders such as substance use disorders (SUDs). Thus, we investigated ketamine's potential to increase glutamate levels in the nucleus accumbens (NAc), a key region for the...
OBJECTIVE: 'Ego dissolution' refers to a temporary state characterized by diminished self-referential processing, which leads to a breakdown of personal boundaries and an enhanced sense of unity with the environment. Both psychedelics, such as ayahuasca, and contemplative practices, like meditation, have been proposed as mechanisms for modulating the ego. While ayahuasca induces transient...