Despite increasing interest in the effects of mental training practices such as meditation, there is much ambiguity regarding whether and to what extent the various types of mental practice have differential effects on psychological change. To address this gap, we compare the effects of four common meditation practices on measures of state change in affect, mind-wandering, meta-cognition, and...
This study examined in real time the role of sleep and daydreaming as potentiating states for subsequent dissociation in depersonalization/derealization disorder (DDD). Research and theory suggests that dissociation may be exacerbated and maintained by a labile sleep-wake cycle in which "dream-like" mentation intrudes into waking life and fuels dissociative symptoms. We explore and extend this...
This article addresses the modifications of the term mindfulness in sinicized meditation practices derived from Indian Buddhism. It attempts to shed some light on these modifications from two different aspects: first the classical Daoist meditation practices were analysed, and this showed why and in what way did the Daoist terminology function as a bridge in the initial phase of translating...
When subjects become unconscious, there is a characteristic change in the way the cerebral cortex responds to perturbations, as can be assessed using transcranial magnetic stimulation and electroencephalography (TMS-EEG). For instance, compared to wakefulness, during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep TMS elicits a larger positive-negative wave, fewer phase-locked oscillations, and an overall...
There is a growing literature on what contemporary cultural theorists have broadly termed the "postsecular": the abandonment of clear-cut boundaries between the secular and nonsecular in the industrialized West and an embrace of a complex understanding of what is real that neither accepts nor rejects the supernatural. These new cultural currents may affect not only philosophers and theologians,...
Consciousness is the most familiar and most direct experience humans have, but it is also the major mystery pondered by psychiatrists, biologists and philosophers. There is no doubt that consciousness sits in the brain. To initiate the scientific approach to the subject, it has been necessary to overcome traditional philosophical obstacles and methodological problems. The main difficulty lies...
Schizophrenia patients exhibit dysfunctional gamma oscillations in response to simple auditory stimuli or more complex cognitive tasks, a phenomenon explained by reduced NMDA transmission within inhibitory/excitatory cortical networks. Indeed, a simple steady-state auditory click stimulation paradigm at gamma frequency (~40 Hz) has been reproducibly shown to reduce entrainment as measured by...
Le Santo Daime, culte brésilien amazonien, s’est implanté dans la Belle Province depuis une vingtaine d’années. Issue d’un syncrétisme qui mêle traditions indigènes, afro-brésiliennes, catholiques, ésotériques et spirites européennes, cette religion est intrinsèquement liée à la culture brésilienne et plus particulièrement à l’Amazonie dans son usage de l’ayahuasca, une substance hallucinogène....
Introduction: Consciousness is the result of a series of neurobiological processes in the brain and is, in turn, a feature of the level of its complexity. In fact, being conscious and being aware place us before what Chalmers called the 'soft problem' and the 'hard problem' of consciousness. The first refers to aspects such as wakefulness, attention or knowledge, while the second is concerned...
This article chronicles “peripheral consciousness” and therapy developed by Japanese psychiatrist Shōma Morita, MD (1874-1938). As a contemporary of Freud, Morita challenged psychoanalysts who sanctioned an unconscious or unconsciousness (collective or otherwise) that resides inside the mind. From a human justice perspective, Morita’s formulation of consciousness releases clients from being...