ArticleFrontiers in human neuroscience2021
Neural Correlates of the Shamanic State of Consciousness.
Article in Frontiers in human neuroscience, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers.
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24 citing papers in PubMed, 45 citations in OpenAlex.
- The 3D-ASCr scale: A revalidation of the core dimensions of the Altered States of Consciousness Rating Scale 5D(11)-ASC for psychedelic research.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2026Trial
- Rhythmicity and Trait Absorption Are Linked to Nonordinary States of Consciousness.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2026Article
- Neural tracking at theta predicts drumming-induced altered states of consciousness.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Brain activity and the production of written text during mediumistic trance: A controlled EEG study.PloS one · 2026Article
- Illuminating consciousness.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Review
- From "mind-matter" duality to "body-situation" mechanism -the phenomenology of the body on how shaman soul retrieval heals the sick.Philosophy, ethics, and humanities in medicine : PEHM · 2025Article
- Micro-variations in timing and loudness affect music-evoked mental imagery.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- The neurobiology of altered states of consciousness induced by drumming and other rhythmic sound patterns.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2025Review
- Electrophysiological Correlates of Lucid Dreaming: Sensor and Source Level Signatures.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Article
- The Psychedelic Renaissance: A Catholic Perspective.The Linacre quarterly · 2025Article
- Single-case report: dynamic changes in cardiac function during shamanic journeying and Qigong meditation.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Shamanism as a Clinical Intervention: A Scoping Review.Journal of restorative medicine · 2025Article
- Scoping review on shamanistic trances practices.BMC complementary medicine and therapies · 2024Article
- Phenomenology of auto-induced cognitive trance using text mining: a prospective and exploratory group study.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2024Article
- Phenomenological characteristics of auto-induced cognitive trance and MahorikatanNeuroscience of consciousness · 2024Article
- Autonomic nervous system modulation during self-induced non-ordinary states of consciousness.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Hypnotic suggestions cognitively penetrate tactile perception through top-down modulation of semantic contents.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- A scoping review for building a criticality-based conceptual framework of altered states of consciousness.Frontiers in systems neuroscience · 2023Article
- The Altered States Database: Psychometric data from a systematic literature review.Scientific data · 2022Article
- Hypnosis, Meditation, and Self-Induced Cognitive Trance to Improve Post-treatment Oncological Patients' Quality of Life: Study Protocol.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Psychedelics have been recognized as model interventions for studying altered states of consciousness. However, few empirical studies of the shamanic state of consciousness, which is anecdotally similar to the psychedelic state, exist. We investigated the neural correlates of shamanic trance using high-density electroencephalography (EEG) in 24 shamanic practitioners and 24 healthy controls during rest, shamanic drumming, and classical music listening, followed by an assessment of altered states of consciousness. EEG data were used to assess changes in absolute power, connectivity, signal diversity, and criticality, which were correlated with assessment measures. We also compared assessment scores to those of individuals in a previous study under the influence of psychedelics. Shamanic practitioners were significantly different from controls in several domains of altered states of consciousness, with scores comparable to or exceeding that of healthy volunteers under the influence of psychedelics. Practitioners also displayed increased gamma power during drumming that positively correlated with elementary visual alterations. Furthermore, shamanic practitioners had decreased low alpha and increased low beta connectivity during drumming and classical music and decreased neural signal diversity in the gamma band during drumming that inversely correlated with insightfulness. Finally, criticality in practitioners was increased during drumming in the low and high beta and gamma bands, with increases in the low beta band correlating with complex imagery and elementary visual alterations. These findings suggest that psychedelic drug-induced and non-pharmacologic alterations in consciousness have overlapping phenomenal traits but are distinct states of consciousness, as reflected by the unique brain-related changes during shamanic trance compared to previous literature investigating the psychedelic state.
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