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A neurophenomenological approach to non-ordinary states of consciousness: hypnosis, meditation, and psychedelics. Trends Cogn Sci 2023; 27:139-159. [PMID: 36566091 DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2022.11.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/10/2021] [Revised: 11/01/2022] [Accepted: 11/08/2022] [Indexed: 12/24/2022]
Abstract
No contemporary unifying framework has been provided for the study of non-ordinary states of consciousness (NSCs) despite increased interest in hypnosis, meditation, and psychedelics. NSCs induce shifts in experiential contents (what appears to the experiencer) and/or structure (how it appears). This can allow the investigation of the plastic and dynamic nature of experience from a multiscale perspective that includes mind, brain, body, and context. We propose a neurophenomenological (NP) approach to the study of NSCs which highlights their role as catalysts of transformation in clinical practice by refining our understanding of the relationships between experiential (subjective) and neural dynamics. We outline the ethical implications of the NP approach for standard conceptions of health and pathology as well as the crucial role of experience-based know-how in NSC-related research and application.
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Walsh E, Oakley DA. Editing reality in the brain. Neurosci Conscious 2022; 2022:niac009. [PMID: 35903411 PMCID: PMC9319104 DOI: 10.1093/nc/niac009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/02/2022] [Revised: 05/30/2022] [Accepted: 06/17/2022] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Recent information technologies such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) allow the creation of simulated sensory worlds with which we can interact. Using programming language, digital details can be overlaid onto displays of our environment, confounding what is real and what has been artificially engineered. Natural language, particularly the use of direct verbal suggestion (DVS) in everyday and hypnotic contexts, can also manipulate the meaning and significance of objects and events in ourselves and others. In this review, we focus on how socially rewarding language can construct and influence reality. Language is symbolic, automatic and flexible and can be used to augment bodily sensations e.g. feelings of heaviness in a limb or suggest a colour that is not there. We introduce the term 'suggested reality' (SR) to refer to the important role that language, specifically DVS, plays in constructing, maintaining and manipulating our shared reality. We also propose the term edited reality to encompass the wider influence of information technology and linguistic techniques that results in altered subjective experience and review its use in clinical settings, while acknowledging its limitations. We develop a cognitive model indicating how the brain's central executive structures use our personal and linguistic-based narrative in subjective awareness, arguing for a central role for language in DVS. A better understanding of the characteristics of VR, AR and SR and their applications in everyday life, research and clinical settings can help us to better understand our own reality and how it can be edited.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eamonn Walsh
- Department of Basic and Clinical Neuroscience,
Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College
London, London, UK
| | - David A Oakley
- Division of Psychology and Language Sciences,
University College London, London, UK
- School of Psychology, Cardiff
University, Cardiff, UK
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Oakley DA, Walsh E, Mehta MA, Halligan PW, Deeley Q. Direct verbal suggestibility: Measurement and significance. Conscious Cogn 2021; 89:103036. [DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2020.103036] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/11/2019] [Revised: 08/19/2020] [Accepted: 10/09/2020] [Indexed: 10/22/2022]
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Connors MH, Halligan PW. Delusions and theories of belief. Conscious Cogn 2020; 81:102935. [DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2020.102935] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/30/2019] [Revised: 03/28/2020] [Accepted: 04/08/2020] [Indexed: 02/01/2023]
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Belief, delusion, hypnosis, and the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex: A transcranial magnetic stimulation study. Cortex 2018; 101:234-248. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2018.01.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 29] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/28/2017] [Revised: 10/23/2017] [Accepted: 01/03/2018] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
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Oakley DA, Halligan PW. Chasing the Rainbow: The Non-conscious Nature of Being. Front Psychol 2017; 8:1924. [PMID: 29184516 PMCID: PMC5694471 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01924] [Citation(s) in RCA: 35] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/19/2017] [Accepted: 10/17/2017] [Indexed: 01/31/2023] Open
Abstract
Despite the compelling subjective experience of executive self-control, we argue that “consciousness” contains no top-down control processes and that “consciousness” involves no executive, causal, or controlling relationship with any of the familiar psychological processes conventionally attributed to it. In our view, psychological processing and psychological products are not under the control of consciousness. In particular, we argue that all “contents of consciousness” are generated by and within non-conscious brain systems in the form of a continuous self-referential personal narrative that is not directed or influenced in any way by the “experience of consciousness.” This continuously updated personal narrative arises from selective “internal broadcasting” of outputs from non-conscious executive systems that have access to all forms of cognitive processing, sensory information, and motor control. The personal narrative provides information for storage in autobiographical memory and is underpinned by constructs of self and agency, also created in non-conscious systems. The experience of consciousness is a passive accompaniment to the non-conscious processes of internal broadcasting and the creation of the personal narrative. In this sense, personal awareness is analogous to the rainbow which accompanies physical processes in the atmosphere but exerts no influence over them. Though it is an end-product created by non-conscious executive systems, the personal narrative serves the powerful evolutionary function of enabling individuals to communicate (externally broadcast) the contents of internal broadcasting. This in turn allows recipients to generate potentially adaptive strategies, such as predicting the behavior of others and underlies the development of social and cultural structures, that promote species survival. Consequently, it is the capacity to communicate to others the contents of the personal narrative that confers an evolutionary advantage—not the experience of consciousness (personal awareness) itself.
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Affiliation(s)
- David A Oakley
- Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, London, United Kingdom.,School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
| | - Peter W Halligan
- School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
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Connors MH. Hypnosis and belief: A review of hypnotic delusions. Conscious Cogn 2015; 36:27-43. [DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2015.05.015] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/20/2015] [Revised: 05/03/2015] [Accepted: 05/17/2015] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
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Landry M, Appourchaux K, Raz A. Elucidating unconscious processing with instrumental hypnosis. Front Psychol 2014; 5:785. [PMID: 25120504 PMCID: PMC4112913 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00785] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/08/2014] [Accepted: 07/03/2014] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Most researchers leverage bottom-up suppression to unlock the underlying mechanisms of unconscious processing. However, a top-down approach - for example via hypnotic suggestion - paves the road to experimental innovation and complementary data that afford new scientific insights concerning attention and the unconscious. Drawing from a reliable taxonomy that differentiates subliminal and preconscious processing, we outline how an experimental trajectory that champions top-down suppression techniques, such as those practiced in hypnosis, is uniquely poised to further contextualize and refine our scientific understanding of unconscious processing. Examining subliminal and preconscious methods, we demonstrate how instrumental hypnosis provides a reliable adjunct that supplements contemporary approaches. Specifically, we provide an integrative synthesis of the advantages and shortcomings that accompany a top-down approach to probe the unconscious mind. Our account provides a larger framework for complementing the results from core studies involving prevailing subliminal and preconscious techniques.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mathieu Landry
- Integrated Program in Neuroscience, McGill University Montreal, QC, Canada
| | | | - Amir Raz
- Department of Psychiatry, McGill University Montreal, QC, Canada ; Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, Jewish General Hospital Montreal, QC, Canada
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Connors MH, Barnier AJ, Coltheart M, Langdon R, Cox RE, Rivolta D, Halligan PW. Using hypnosis to disrupt face processing: mirrored-self misidentification delusion and different visual media. Front Hum Neurosci 2014; 8:361. [PMID: 24994973 PMCID: PMC4061730 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2014.00361] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/09/2013] [Accepted: 05/11/2014] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Mirrored-self misidentification delusion is the belief that one's reflection in the mirror is not oneself. This experiment used hypnotic suggestion to impair normal face processing in healthy participants and recreate key aspects of the delusion in the laboratory. From a pool of 439 participants, 22 high hypnotisable participants ("highs") and 20 low hypnotisable participants were selected on the basis of their extreme scores on two separately administered measures of hypnotisability. These participants received a hypnotic induction and a suggestion for either impaired (i) self-face recognition or (ii) impaired recognition of all faces. Participants were tested on their ability to recognize themselves in a mirror and other visual media - including a photograph, live video, and handheld mirror - and their ability to recognize other people, including the experimenter and famous faces. Both suggestions produced impaired self-face recognition and recreated key aspects of the delusion in highs. However, only the suggestion for impaired other-face recognition disrupted recognition of other faces, albeit in a minority of highs. The findings confirm that hypnotic suggestion can disrupt face processing and recreate features of mirrored-self misidentification. The variability seen in participants' responses also corresponds to the heterogeneity seen in clinical patients. An important direction for future research will be to examine sources of this variability within both clinical patients and the hypnotic model.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michael H Connors
- ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders Sydney, NSW, Australia ; Department of Cognitive Science, Macquarie University Sydney, NSW, Australia ; Dementia Collaborative Research Centre, School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales Sydney, NSW, Australia
| | - Amanda J Barnier
- ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders Sydney, NSW, Australia ; Department of Cognitive Science, Macquarie University Sydney, NSW, Australia
| | - Max Coltheart
- ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders Sydney, NSW, Australia ; Department of Cognitive Science, Macquarie University Sydney, NSW, Australia
| | - Robyn Langdon
- ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders Sydney, NSW, Australia ; Department of Cognitive Science, Macquarie University Sydney, NSW, Australia
| | - Rochelle E Cox
- ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders Sydney, NSW, Australia ; Department of Cognitive Science, Macquarie University Sydney, NSW, Australia
| | - Davide Rivolta
- School of Psychology, University of East London London, UK ; Department of Neurophysiology, Max Planck Institute for Brain Research Frankfurt am Main, Germany ; Ernst Strüngmann Institute for Neuroscience in Cooperation with Max Planck Society Frankfurt am Main, Germany
| | - Peter W Halligan
- ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders Sydney, NSW, Australia ; School of Psychology, Cardiff University Cardiff, UK
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