ArticleBrain sciences2021
Self-Boundary Dissolution in Meditation: A Phenomenological Investigation.
Article in Brain sciences, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 37 papers.
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Who cites it
37 citing papers in PubMed.
- Intact neurophysiological markers of death denial in long-term ayahuasca users.Psychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Non-duality in brain and experience of advanced meditators-key role for intrinsic neural timescales.Communications biology · 2026Article
- The micro-phenomenology of Floatation-REST.BMC complementary medicine and therapies · 2026Article
- Modeling non-dual awarenessNeuroscience of consciousness · 2026Article
- Learning to attenuate myself: a predictive processing account of body-scan meditation and the dissolution of bodily boundaries.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2026Article
- Decoding the Self: Single-Trial Prediction of Self-Boundary Meditation States From Magnetoencephalography Recordings.Human brain mapping · 2026Article
- Towards an active inference account of deep meditative deconstruction.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2026Article
- From the attenuation of self-boundaries to inner peace: how nonordinary states of consciousness modulates self-experience and subjective well-being.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2026Review
- Micro-phenomenology of immersion and perceived presences under DMT.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2026Article
- Who am I? Self-inquiry as a neurophenomenological approach to consciousness.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Synergistic effects of Buddhist five precepts and death contemplation on inner strengths and mental health in elderly Thai meditators.BMC psychology · 2025Article
- Nondual Awareness, Body Boundary Perception, and Creative Attitudes in Japanese University Students Through a Brief Paired Martial Arts Exercise: A Randomized Controlled Trial.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Embracing change: impermanence acceptance mediates differences in death processing between long-term ayahuasca users and non-users.Psychopharmacology · 2025Article
- Deconstructive meditations and psychotherapy: Transforming the perception of the self.World journal of psychiatry · 2025Review
- The Psychedelic Renaissance: A Catholic Perspective.The Linacre quarterly · 2025Article
- Meditation and complexity: a review and synthesis of evidence.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2025Review
- The ConNECT approach: toward a comprehensive understanding of meaningful interpersonal moments in psychotherapy and beyond.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2025Article
- Training the embodied self in its impermanence: meditators evidence neurophysiological markers of death acceptance.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2025Article
- Bridging consciousness and AI: ChatGPT-assisted phenomenological analysis.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- From disconnection to compassion: a phenomenological exploration of embodied empathy in a face-to-face interaction.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
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Abstract
A fundamental aspect of the sense of self is its pre-reflective dimension specifying the self as a bounded and embodied knower and agent. Being a constant and tacit feature structuring consciousness, it eludes robust empirical exploration. Recently, deep meditative states involving global dissolution of the sense of self have been suggested as a promising path for advancing such an investigation. To that end, we conducted a comprehensive phenomenological inquiry into meditative self-boundary alteration. The induced states were systematically characterized by changes in six experiential features including the sense of location, agency, first-person perspective, attention, body sensations, and affective valence, as well as their interaction with meditative technique and overall degree of dissolution. Quantitative analyses of the relationships between these phenomenological categories highlighted a unitary dimension of boundary dissolution. Notably, passive meditative gestures of "letting go", which reduce attentional engagement and sense of agency, emerged as driving the depth of dissolution. These findings are aligned with an enactive approach to the pre-reflective sense of self, linking its generation to sensorimotor activity and attention-demanding processes. Moreover, they set the stage for future phenomenologically informed analyses of neurophysiological data and highlight the utility of combining phenomenology and intense contemplative training for a scientific characterization of processes giving rise to the basic sense of being a bounded self.
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