Mediums are individuals who claim to communicate with deceased persons or non-material beings. Rigorous studies have reported that mediums can provide accurate anomalous information (i.e. information not obtained through the conventional senses or inferential reasoning). This paper reviews the evidence about these claims and explores the main conventional explanatory hypotheses: fraud, sitter's...
The mind-brain problem, which explores the relationship between the mind and brain and the nature of consciousness, remains a scientific challenge. It is not a purely theoretical issue; it profoundly shapes our understanding of human nature. This paper reviews evidence on mind-brain problem views impacting ethical, clinical, and academic domains. Evidence shows that dualism is prevalent, even...
Dying patients can experience vivid dreams, visions or unexpected lucid episodes despite declining clinical and mental status. This review examines patient end-of-life experiences (ELEs) and their implications to the mind-brain relationship (MBR). A Scoping Review (ScR) was conducted, searching major academic databases for qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods studies. Data were...
Yoga is usually defined and researched as a mind-body practice used for stress reduction, fitness and general health and wellbeing. While there are widely accepted definitions found in traditional texts and contemporary literature, as a millennial tradition yoga has evolved throughout time, places and people. Less is known about how regular yoga practitioners perceive, experience, and define...
The article highlights the stable characteristics of the world of dreams/visions, which is revealed to Hoffmann's visionaries in borderline, «twilight» states (half-asleep, intoxication, creative ecstasy, fever). Hoffmann sees in it not a closed, escapist «other-reality» but one of the two constitutive modes of perception, which has a common denotation and a common source with the «everyday»...
The Doctrine of Concordance is the implicit assumption that cognitive processes, behavior, and phenomenological experience are highly correlated (Tulving, 1989). Tulving challenged this assumption, pointing to domains in which conscious experience did not accompany a particular measured cognitive process and to situations in which consciousness did not correlate with the observable behavior....
Nursing students are at risk for traumatic stress, but current treatments have limited benefits. Regenerating Images in Memory (RIM) is a verbal psychotherapeutic approach to help people safely re-experience troubling memories, then integrate them into meaningful life narratives. RIM's developers propose a mechanism of action based on nonconscious processes like emotional processing and body...
Depression, a global health concern with significant implications for suicide rates, remains challenging to treat effectively with conventional pharmacological options. The existing pharmaceutical interventions for these illnesses need daily dosing, are accompanied by various adverse effects, and may exhibit limited efficacy in certain cases. However, hope emerges from an unlikely...
How is it that psychedelics so profoundly impact brain and mind? According to the model of "Relaxed Beliefs Under Psychedelics" (REBUS), 5-HT2a agonism is thought to help relax prior expectations, thus making room for new perspectives and patterns. Here, we introduce an alternative (but largely compatible) perspective, proposing that REBUS effects may primarily correspond to a particular (but...
This paper explores René Descartes’ idea of the self, focusing on its philosophical, metaphysical, and epistemological aspects. I examine how Descartes establishes the certainty of the self as a thinking substance, apart from the body, and capable of self-awareness by using the method of radical doubt and the cogito. The study highlights the conflict between the self’s undeniable existence and...