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Self unbound: ego dissolution in psychedelic experience
Users of psychedelic drugs often report that their sense of being a self or ‘I’ distinct from the rest of the world has diminished or altogether dissolved. Neuroscientific study of such ‘ego dissolution’ experiences offers a window onto the nature of self-awareness. We argue that ego dissolution is...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Oxford University Press
2017
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6007152/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30042848 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/nc/nix016 |
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author | Letheby, Chris Gerrans, Philip |
author_facet | Letheby, Chris Gerrans, Philip |
author_sort | Letheby, Chris |
collection | PubMed |
description | Users of psychedelic drugs often report that their sense of being a self or ‘I’ distinct from the rest of the world has diminished or altogether dissolved. Neuroscientific study of such ‘ego dissolution’ experiences offers a window onto the nature of self-awareness. We argue that ego dissolution is best explained by an account that explains self-awareness as resulting from the integrated functioning of hierarchical predictive models which posit the existence of a stable and unchanging entity to which representations are bound. Combining recent work on the ‘integrative self' and the phenomenon of self-binding with predictive processing principles yields an explanation of ego dissolution according to which self-representation is a useful Cartesian fiction: an ultimately false representation of a simple and enduring substance to which attributes are bound which serves to integrate and unify cognitive processing across levels and domains. The self-model is not a mere narrative posit, as some have suggested; it has a more robust and ubiquitous cognitive function than that. But this does not mean, as others have claimed, that the self-model has the right attributes to qualify as a self. It performs some of the right kinds of functions, but it is not the right kind of entity. Ego dissolution experiences reveal that the self-model plays an important binding function in cognitive processing, but the self does not exist. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6007152 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2017 |
publisher | Oxford University Press |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-60071522018-07-24 Self unbound: ego dissolution in psychedelic experience Letheby, Chris Gerrans, Philip Neurosci Conscious Opinion Paper Users of psychedelic drugs often report that their sense of being a self or ‘I’ distinct from the rest of the world has diminished or altogether dissolved. Neuroscientific study of such ‘ego dissolution’ experiences offers a window onto the nature of self-awareness. We argue that ego dissolution is best explained by an account that explains self-awareness as resulting from the integrated functioning of hierarchical predictive models which posit the existence of a stable and unchanging entity to which representations are bound. Combining recent work on the ‘integrative self' and the phenomenon of self-binding with predictive processing principles yields an explanation of ego dissolution according to which self-representation is a useful Cartesian fiction: an ultimately false representation of a simple and enduring substance to which attributes are bound which serves to integrate and unify cognitive processing across levels and domains. The self-model is not a mere narrative posit, as some have suggested; it has a more robust and ubiquitous cognitive function than that. But this does not mean, as others have claimed, that the self-model has the right attributes to qualify as a self. It performs some of the right kinds of functions, but it is not the right kind of entity. Ego dissolution experiences reveal that the self-model plays an important binding function in cognitive processing, but the self does not exist. Oxford University Press 2017-06-30 /pmc/articles/PMC6007152/ /pubmed/30042848 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/nc/nix016 Text en © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oup.com |
spellingShingle | Opinion Paper Letheby, Chris Gerrans, Philip Self unbound: ego dissolution in psychedelic experience |
title | Self unbound: ego dissolution in psychedelic experience |
title_full | Self unbound: ego dissolution in psychedelic experience |
title_fullStr | Self unbound: ego dissolution in psychedelic experience |
title_full_unstemmed | Self unbound: ego dissolution in psychedelic experience |
title_short | Self unbound: ego dissolution in psychedelic experience |
title_sort | self unbound: ego dissolution in psychedelic experience |
topic | Opinion Paper |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6007152/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30042848 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/nc/nix016 |
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