Abstract Classical psychedelics such N,N -dimethyltryptamine (DMT), psilocybin, and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) modulate consciousness via serotonergic receptor agonism, and are increasingly investigated for their psychotherapeutic potential. When combined with the monoamine oxidase A (MAO-A) inhibitor harmine—mimicking the pharmacological profile of ayahuasca—oral DMT induces a...
Introduction Meditation can elicit intense experiences that change the sense of self, alter worldview, and evoke strong negative and positive emotions, impacting daily life. Intense meditation-related experiences (IMREs) are often sparked by a profound moment, can change in appraised emotional valence and conceptual meaning over time, and are shaped by an interplay of embodied and conceptual...
This paper considers the practice of immeasurable joy (muditā) as presented in the so-called Yogalehrbuch, a seventh century Sanskrit “yoga manual” from Qïzïl, on the northern rim of the Tarim Basin. It demonstrates that the author of the text, whose purpose is to describe the journey of a yogin on the path to the awakening of a Bodhisattva, relied on some version of the *Vibhāṣā, the...
The quest to comprehend the nature of reality and the essence of selfhood has long animated metaphysical inquiry across civilizations. The current discourse presents the concept of Wahdat-al-Khayāl (Unity of Thought) as the foundational ontology. By critically engaging with classical metaphysical frameworks of Wahdat-al-Wujūd (Unity of Being) and Wahdat-al-Shuhūd (Unity of Witnessing), this...
Studies of nociception resulted in a theory in which the quality of pain - the suffering - arises when action potentials (APs) from the thalamus that encode information about an injury induce a long-term potentiation (LTP) at synapses on pyramidal neurons in a pain center (PC) within the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). The LTP sensitizes transmission across the synapses via the activation of...
This case study examines the phenomenon of dimensional-slips, i. e., anomalous distortions or perceptions of spacetime that may involve transcendental content or themes. Our investigation specifically centers on “Nell,” a known ‘haunted’ woman who documented four experiences of perceived physical transports to other realms. Using a mixed-methods approach, we employed AI-assisted content...
Plant cognition has progressed from anecdote to rigor, yet the field still lacks a quantitative test for when distributed plant activity crosses into unified—perhaps conscious—processing. I introduce Pattern–Temporal Synergy (PTS), a substrate-agnostic metric rooted in Dynergeia, a relation-first ontology that defines consciousness as reflexive coherence among five universal...
Devlin Brown takes on the weighty task of determining the existentially relevant consequences of physicalism. He delivers on this project over three parts that consider in turn: whether physicalism is compatible with various metaphysical consolations obtaining; whether the case for existential optimism defeats the case for existential pessimism; and whether there’s a version of physicalism we...
How does one investigate the observer using the tools of observation? This question cuts to the heart of an enduring epistemological challenge: the phenomena we most urgently need to comprehend—consciousness, subjective experience, the texture of reality itself—persistently evade direct empirical scrutiny. Traditional positivist methodologies assume that valid knowledge must be observable,...
Spiritual emergency is a phenomenon wherein individuals undergoing psychological crises may experience altered states of consciousness with transpersonal themes resembling symptoms of psychopathology. Rather than mere pathology, these altered states can catalyze a psychospiritual evolution for the individual in a generative direction, including flashes of wisdom that can benefit the collective....