A Typology of Altered States According to the

Aviva Berkovich-Ohana and Marc Wittmann

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Copyright (c) Imprint Academic 2016 For personal use only -- not for reproduction

A Typology of Altered States According to the Consciousness State Space (CSS) Model A Special Reference to Subjective Time Abstract: One of the biggest challenges for researchers investigating altered states of consciousness (ASCs) has been the need for a systematic framework to accurately describe the phenomenological characteristics of ASCs, as well as placing them in relation to regular states of consciousness. Here, we target these two challenges by employing a new and systematic model of consciousness, the consciousness state space (CSS), and presenting a typology of ASCs within the CSS model. Specifically, the CSS model describes two different levels of self, narrative and minimal, as concentric spheres along three dimensions — subjective time, awareness, and emotion — and creates a phenomenological state-space encompassing all possible states, with its proposed neural space. We describe several ASCs Correspondence: Aviva Berkovich-Ohana, Faculty of Education, The Edmond J. Safra Brain Research Center for the Study of Learning Disabilities, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel. Email: [email protected] 1 2

Faculty of Education, The Safra Brain Research Center for the Study of Learning Disabilities, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel. Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health, Freiburg, Germany.

Journal of Consciousness Studies, 24, No. 3–4, 2017, pp. 37–61

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A. BERKOVICH-OHANA & M. WITTMANN

focusing on dreaming, hallucinogenic effects of drugs, and meditation, in order to demonstrate and draw several conclusions. Here we focus on two related alterations during ASCs pertaining to perception of time and the bodily self: (i) ASCs share a common ‘collapse’ of the time dimension towards a transitory state of ‘timelessness’; (ii) during extreme ASCs, body sensations are ‘cut-off’ or at least distorted.


Keywords: altered states of consciousness; sense of self; time perception; emotion; awareness; default network.

1. Placing Altered States of Consciousness within One Neurophenomenological Continuum — the CSS Model Despite their relatively low profile in the psychological literature, altered states of consciousness (ASCs) have been considered an integral part of human life since the earliest recorded times (Winkelman, 1997). The traditional approach has defined an ASC as a change in an individual’s pattern of mental functioning which is recognized as being qualitatively different to normal waking consciousness (Tart, 1972). ASCs involve illusions and an altered sense of meaning. Examples of ASCs include dreaming, meditation, hypnosis, trance, dissociative states, hallucinations, and states induced by psychoactive substances. Although there is disagreement over the best theoretical model of ASCs, most researchers (e.g. Hobson, 2007; Pekala, 1991; Tart, 1972; Vaitl et al., 2005; Vollenweider and Geyer, 2001) adopt a strategy of cataloguing changes in mental functions that are associated with ASCs (e.g. memory, sense of identity, emotions, attention, perception, inner speech, arousal, and volition). One of the biggest challenges for researchers investigating ASCs has been the need for a systematic framework to accurately describe the phenomenological characteristics of ASCs, as well as placing them in relation to regular states of consciousness. Here, we target these two challenges using a recently proposed model of consciousness, the consciousness state space (CSS), recently conceptualized by BerkovichOhana and Glicksohn (2014). The CSS model has several advantageous and novel aspects in comparison to other models of consciousness (for a more detailed account comparing to other models see Berkovich-Ohana and Glicksohn, 2014): 1. It is the first systematic model, encompassing all possible consciousness states, regular and altered, within one space.

CONSCIOUSNESS STATE SPACE MODEL

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2. It is a neurophenomenological model — suggesting both phenomenological space and a corresponding neural space. 3. The model is three-dimensional, hence it enables dynamic system behaviour. 4. It ties together different and previously unrelated phenomenological literature, emphasizing the importance of time, emotion, and awareness in various types of self-experience. 5. It suggests a resolution to the previously entangled phenomena of (sub-, un-)consciousness, attention, and awareness. 6. Finally, it enables the proposing of testable predictions. As the CSS model has been described in details elsewhere (ibid.), it is only briefly outlined here. The CSS builds on Damasio’s (1999) conceptualization of three levels of self, stemming from vast research on the neural basis of affect, divided into feelings and emotions: (1) The proto-self — a pre-conscious biological precedent, which deals with the state of the internal milieu, viscera, vestibular system, and musculoskeletal frame. This is a first-order representation of current body states. (2) The core self — a conscious and knowing self, based in the transient, continuously generated feeling state which arises from the interaction with the proto-self. The core self is endowed with coreconsciousness, a simple form of consciousness, its scope being the here and now, as well as embodied emotions. (3) The autobiographical self — continuous and conceptual representation of the self along the subjective time-line. It is endowed with extended-consciousness, which involves memory of past, imagination of future, thought and language, as well as conceptualized feelings. Importantly, the last two levels of self, core and autobiographical, are in alignment with James’s (1890) theory of the duplex self, containing the I and the Me, respectively. The CSS rearranges and expands Damasio’s linear architecture of consciousness and selfhood which builds on the dimension of emotion/feelings, into a spherical organization with three dimensions (Figure 1A). Specifically, the CSS suggests that three orthogonal dimensions — subjective time, awareness, and emotion — create a phenomenological state-space encompassing all possible phenomenal states (Figure 1B). This enables the description of the different levels of self as concentric spheres which, in turn, enables the representation of consciousness as a dynamic system in space, with changing trajectories describing the dynamic phenomenology of each state over time. There are two concentric spheres falling into two large

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categories of consciousness, each with its respective sense of self, the minimal and narrative (accepting the names suggested by Gallagher, 2000), paralleling Damasio’s core-self and autobiographic self, respectively (Figure 1C). Thus, the ‘minimal self’ is short of temporal extension, hence dwells in the ‘now’, and is endowed with a sense of agency, ownership, and non-conceptual, perceptual first-person content. It is closely related to the proto-self (described as the inner circle, closest to the body in terms of psychological distance). The ‘narrative self’ involves personal identity and continuity across time, as well as social cognition, conceptual thought and mental time-travelling (Gallagher, 2000).

Figure 1. A. The concentric organization of the CSS. The central point denotes the proto-self, which is the door for internal (bodily) and external stimuli to enter into the mind. Around it is the core-consciousness and minimal-self sphere in white, surrounded by the extended-consciousness and the narrative-self sphere in grey. This circular organization depicts the psychological distance from the body; B. The three dimensions of the space; C. Placing the spherical organization (A) on the 3D space (B) to create the consciousness state space (CSS) model.



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The three dimensions of the CSS can be described briefly as follows (for a thorough description, see Berkovich-Ohana and Glicksohn, 2014). (1) The time dimension spans the range from subjective past to present and future, with the immediate ‘now’ being at its centre (Figure 2A). The two ends (past and future) refer to the longer subjective timescale, and involve the re-presentation of experience in the past and in the future. Unlike immediate perception, this is psychologically further away from the body: when one’s conscious awareness re-lives the past or imagines the future, one’s conscious awareness is decoupled from the body (which experiences the ‘now’). While the past and future are within the realm of the narrative self, the ‘now’, the immediate perception of the present moment, resides within the minimal-self sphere. Specifically, we adopt a model for consciousness of time outlined by Gallagher and Zahavi (2008), which assumes a Husserlian view: the immediate sensation, or the ‘primal impression’, is combined with retention (being aware of the ‘just-passed’ slice of the experience) and protention (being aware of the ‘just-about-to-be’). A perception cannot merely be a perception of what is now, but must include a retention of the just-passed and a protention of what is about to occur. Importantly, retention and protention are not memory, or imagination, which re-present long-term autobiographic experience and imagination. Rather, they are actual experience. Unlike long-term memory and expectation, retention and protention are involuntary and automatic processes. Yet, while some argue that these automatic processes can be accounted for by working memory (Gallagher and Zahavi, 2008; Vogeley and Kupke, 2007), the CSS model differentiates between working memory and the experience of a shorter ‘now’ of sensory temporal integration in the time range of two to three seconds (Wittmann, 2011; 2016). In this article we will focus on the two related alterations during ASCs pertaining to perception of time and the bodily self within the CSS model. (2) The awareness dimension spans the range from low (phenomenal) to high (access) awareness (Figure 2B). This builds on two conceptualizations. The first is of Block’s (2007) categorization of awareness to two aspects: (i) access awareness, which corresponds to states that can be reported on, by virtue of high-level cognitive functions such as memory and attention, and (ii) phenomenal awareness, related to private first-person experience, and occurs without — or with very little — attention, being unreportable. Next, within the minimal-self sphere, there is first-order awareness, also called pre-reflective


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awareness (Gallagher and Zahavi, 2008). This is an implicit and direct awareness of experience, prior to any reflection on the experience. In this state, according to Morin (2006), one will directly be attentive and process external input from the environment, without conceptual elaboration of the mental events that are taking place. Hence, the organism will be totally immersed in experience. States along the access awareness within the narrative-self sphere involve on the upper spectrum of awareness second-order awareness, also called reflective awareness (Gallagher and Zahavi, 2008). This is an explicit, conceptual, and objectifying awareness, which is accompanied by focal attention to internally generated input (Chun, Golomb and TurkBrowne, 2011). In this state, one attends directly to the cognitive experience itself. In its extreme form, it becomes meta-awareness, being aware that one is aware (Morin, 2006). On the lower spectrum of awareness pre-reflective snippets of memory fed by the narrative self, often loaded with emotions, involuntarily appear in associative chains (Gelernter, 2016). (3) The emotion dimension spans the range from pleasant to unpleasant and manifests two qualitatively different phenomenological qualities of the emotional experience, classically named arousal and valence (Lambie and Marcel, 2002), within the minimal-self and narrative-self spheres, respectively (Figure 2C). We adopt Barrett’s (2006) view of dual types of emotions: ‘core-affect’, which includes bodily fluctuations — and are experienced within the minimal-self sphere. The second is ‘conceptualization’, a process by which stored representations of prior experiences (i.e. memories, knowledge) are used to make meaning out of sensations/core emotions in the moment. This is ‘valence’, manifested within the outer narrative-self sphere, increasing towards the pleasant and unpleasant ends of the continuum. Within the internal sphere, arousal also increases, from low to high arousal, the optimal level being at the central point. The CSS model also attributes a neural space to the phenomenological space described above, as there is accumulating knowledge in cognitive neuroscience suggesting circumscribed brain regions involved in the dual types of sense of self (Christoff et al., 2011; Legrand and Ruby, 2009). The neural networks (N) supporting the narrative self (Nns) and the minimal self (Nms) can be related to a dual organization of the cortex into two, often antagonistic, global systems (Fox et al., 2005). The Nns is suggested to be the internally-oriented (‘intrinsic’) default mode network (DMN), a task-inhibited resting-



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Figure 2. An illustrated account of each of the three dimensions in the CSS model: A. Time; B. Awareness; C. Affect. Inner circle denotes the minimal self, and outer circle the narrative self. Note — while each dimension is graphically depicted as a continuum, there exists a qualitative difference between its two aspects residing in the inner or outer spheres.

state network related to self-reference and mind-wandering (Greicius et al., 2003; Raichle et al., 2001). The DMN comprises the medial PFC, posterior cingulate cortex, inferior parietal lobule, medial temporal lobe including the hippocampus, and lateral temporal cortex (Buckner, Andrews-Hanna and Schacter, 2008). The Nms is suggested to rely on the sensory-motor attentional network. It includes the dorsal attention network, comprising the frontal eye fields, ventral premotor cortex, the supplementary motor area, superior parietal lobule, intraparietal sulcus, and motion-sensitive middle temporal area (Corbetta, Patel and Shulman, 2008). Between the Nns and Nms is interposed an intermediating network (Ni), the frontoparietal network, which can be broken down into the ‘executive control network’ (dorsolateral PFC and anterior inferior parietal lobule) and the ‘salience system’ (anterior insula and ACC), with the latter also being specifically attributed the role of switching between the intrinsic and extrinsic systems (Menon and Uddin, 2010; Seeley et al., 2007). The Ni


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cooperates with the typically antagonistic systems, the Nns and the Nms, rendering one of them dominant in each state, possibly integrating information from, and adjudicating between, these two potentially competing brain systems (Smallwood et al., 2012; Spreng et al., 2010). As there is a qualitative difference between the narrative self and minimal self experience, rather than a continuum, the CSS suggests that each of the two phenomenological spheres function as a separate dynamic system, with its own trajectory over time. The two trajectories are simultaneously present, one within the inner sphere of core-consciousness/minimal self, and the other in the surrounding sphere of the extended-consciousness/narrative self. Considering the unity of consciousness (Searle, 1997), habitually one can only have access awareness to one trajectory at a time. The CSS suggests that the sense of self is affected by the dynamics of the two trajectories, and the trajectory currently available to access awareness (Figure 3A). The two trajectories are usually antagonistic, as are the networks supporting them, and access awareness switches between them — rendering the attended trajectory the ‘dominant’ trajectory for each state. This gives rise to the habitual experience of transitioning between a sense of narrative self (mind-wandering, engaged in theory of mind, etc.), and engagement with the environment (momentary external attention engaging situations) which necessitates a momentary transition towards the minimal self experience. For example, being absorbed in a movie, to the point of forgetting oneself (Goldberg, Harel and Malach, 2006), is a state where the minimal-self trajectory is dominant, when suddenly one becomes aware of oneself watching the movie, hence the narrative-self trajectory becomes dominant. In the neural space, this is manifested by the habitual collaboration of the Ni with either Nms or Nns (as can be seen in Figure 3B), so either the DMN induces internal trains of thoughts, or the extrinsic system produces external attention (Smallwood et al., 2012). Yet, the CSS predicts that alterations in typical CSS dynamics of the two trajectories will give rise to an altered, non-habitual, sense of self. In these conditions, when the regular sense of minimal self and narrative self are modified, an ASC occurs. The corresponding testable hypothesis is that ASCs must involve a reduction in the habitual antagonistic behaviour of the Nms and Nns.



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Figure 3. A. The two phenomenological trajectories in the CSS with their dynamic behaviour. Red — the core-consciousness/minimal-self trajectory; Orange — the extended-consciousness/narrative-self trajectory. A full line denotes access awareness, while a dashed line denotes phenomenal awareness (above and below the threshold of accessibility). The figure shows a quarter of the CSS, depicting the future/unpleasant space. The light blue area around the centre denotes the core-consciousness/ minimal-self 3D space. The three time points demonstrate the typical antagonistic behaviour of the two trajectories; B. A schematic diagram of the neural space behaviour over the same three time points. Nms — the neural space of the core-consciousness/minimal-self sphere; Nns — the neural space of the extended-consciousness/narrative-self sphere; Ni — the interposed neural space.

Here, we focus on a selection of a few prominent ASCs, with the aim of studying their phenomenological placing within the CSS model and drawing more general conclusions. Aligning with this special issue on time, as well as due to length limitations, we focus solely on the time dimension of the CSS, emphasizing its relation to the sense of bodily self. Importantly, the bodily self and subjective time are conceptually closely related in models of neuroscience (Craig, 2015; Wittmann, 2013). Subjective time thereafter emerges through the bodily self across time as an enduring and embodied entity; that is, intertwined affective and interoceptive processing states create the experience of duration. Similarly, phenomenological analysis in the Husserlian

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tradition has carved out how the temporal structure of experience enables self-reflective consciousness. I become only aware of myself through memory of what happened to me and expectations of what might happen to me (Kiverstein, 2009). Only through this temporal structure of consciousness can the realization of a self emerge, where the self also is seen as an embodied entity.


2. A Typology of ASCs within the CSS Model For each ASC described below: dreaming, hallucinogenic effects of drugs, and meditation, we first outline the conceptualization and, if several distinct states are involved, we differentiate between them. Then, we describe the ASC in regard to the sense of embodied-self as well as the sense of time involved, revealing the position of the ASC on the time dimension within the CSS.

2.1. Dreaming and lucid dreaming 2.1.1. Description The normal dream, as Dietrich (2003, p. 238) described, is ‘void of prefrontal-dependent cognition. Self-reflection is absent… time is distorted with past, present, and future freely exchanged… and volitional control is greatly diminished’; for a comprehensive discussion of empirical findings, see Windt (2015). We are typically not aware that we are dreaming. Only when we awake, we sometimes remember what we experienced. In contrast, in a lucid dream one becomes aware that one is dreaming, and can control some of the events or contents of that dream (LaBerge, 1990). In fully lucid dreams, where the dreamer not only knows that she is dreaming but also is able to engage in deliberate dream control, sense of agency is much stronger and is related to a stable first-person perspective and the ability to form a conscious cognitive model of one’s current relation to the dream world (Noreika et al., 2010).

2.1.2. Sense of self and body The psychological difference between ordinary and lucid dreaming is the existence of sense of self. According to Blackmore (1988, p. 386) ‘in lucid dreams there is typically heavy dependence on a model of self’. Similarly, Snyder and Gackenbach (1988, p. 252) note that ‘selfawareness of dreaming during the dream process is the defining characteristic of lucid dreaming’. In normal dreaming, in contrast, the



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sense of mental and bodily self are radically diminished, if not absent (Windt, 2015). Yet, dreams are typically and very emotionally about oneself, in a sense that the dreaming self perceives, feels, and acts from a perspective of someone who perceives, feels, and acts. Dream phenomenology points to the fact that one is present in the dream and not merely looking at visual patterns (Windt, 2010). Thus, dream experiences occur around a minimal self that is the centre of all dream activity (Horton, Moulin and Conway, 2009). In contrast, fully lucid dreamers can typically remember facts about their waking lives and also report being able to remember their lucid dreams more easily than their non-lucid ones. The lucid dreamer experiences the dream as unreal; behavioural and emotional reactions are appropriate to the dream state and the dreamer is able to engage in deliberate dream control. All of these factors support the view that fully lucid dreams in some cases approach the type of self-consciousness characteristic of standard wakefulness (Noreika et al., 2010). This places the narrative-self trajectory as a candidate for dominancy in extreme cases of fully lucid dreams.

2.1.3. Time While fully lucid dreamers can typically remember facts about their waking lives during dreaming (Noreika et al., 2010), subjective time can be tremendously distorted in many ways when we dream. A dreamer might paradoxically experience being at the same time in two separate lifetimes or famously, as in Marcel Proust’s narrator of ‘In Search for Lost Time’, having lived through centuries within just one second. Awakened by the alarm clock one might fall asleep again and experience a dream full of drama and emotion; when waking up again one might have the fear that one has tremendously overslept. This impression stems from the amount of remembered events in the dream; however, the alarm clock indicates that one has slept for a few minutes only. In one pioneering study (Moiseeva, 1975), a strong overestimation of dream duration was registered after emotional dreams and nightmares as well as after ‘complex dreams peculiar for their numerous aspects, dissociated events, simultaneity of incompatible events’. Subjective time was tested in a case study of lucid dreaming and shown to be similar to waking state in the same participant, which in both states showed an overestimation of duration (LaBerge, 1992). However, proficient lucid dreamers take more time to perform a motor task such as doing gymnastics or walking as compared to doing these


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tasks in wakefulness (Erlacher et al., 2013). The authors of this study interpreted these findings as that longer durations in lucid dreams would be related to the lack of bodily feedback or to slower processing during REM sleep. Taken together, dreaming shows a distortion of time perception, possibly related to the lack of bodily feedback. In terms of the CSS model, these states can largely be placed on the centre of the time dimension, where the ‘now’ is experienced, as dreaming experience is habitually momentary, albeit passage of time can be preserved (i.e. there is a natural temporal order of elements in the dream narrative). An outlier is the case of fully lucid dreams which can include the past–future ends of the time continuum.

2.2. Hallucingenic effects of drugs 2.2.1. Description Serotoninergic hallucinogens such as LSD, psilocybin, and lately in western societies also Ayahuasca are typically used for recreational and spiritual purposes. Hallucinogenic experiences are part of religious rituals for indigenous cultures but are also part of philosophical and psychological discourse in western culture. After intake of hallucinogens people report profound alterations of emotions and thoughts which can have life-changing implications (Griffiths and Grob, 2010).

2.2.2. Sense of self and body In academic research within the psychiatric context hallucinogens are administered to carefully selected subjects and psychometric scales assessing the experience are filled out by them after the effects of the hallucinogens have faded considerably (Dittrich, 1998). Depending on the dose, the answers show how many individuals feel that ‘everything seemed to unify’, ‘that the environment and I were a unity’. Moreover, not only the self but also time perspectives merge such as indicated by high item loadings of ‘I experienced the past, present, and future as oneness’ (Studerus, Gamma and Vollenweider, 2010). That is, after ingestion of psychoactive substances positive selfdissolution, together with the dissolution of temporal structure (in the item ‘feeling of eternity’), can occur, an association that is indicative of how strongly the awareness of self and time are related (Wittmann, 2015).


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As for the relationship to the body — hallucinogens exert profound effects on sensory-motor processing leading to marked alterations in human and animal behaviour (Neelkantan et al., 2013; Vollenweider et al., 1997). Thus, in the CSS, there is a disturbance in the information transition from the body to the minimal-self sphere. Yet, the minimal-self trajectory is dominant during this state, as one is usually oblivious of narrative identity during these states.


2.2.3. Time Distortions of time are prominent experiences which individuals report after ingestion of hallucinogenic drugs. The literary tradition of Thomas De Quincy (opium), Aldous Huxley (mescaline), and Walter Benjamin (hashish) are witnesses of massive overestimations of duration during hallucinogenic drug intake. Similar to dream reports, these overestimations stem from the richness, speed, and bizarreness of the experience (Wittmann, 2015). These reports are complemented by systematic research with hallucinogenic drugs such as psilocybin, showing that subjective time is distorted in time perception tasks with duration in the seconds range (Wackermann et al., 2008; Wittmann et al., 2007). Psychoactive substances cannot only distort subjective time but in the extreme case can provoke a breakdown of the sense of time such as leading to the feeling of ‘timelessness’ (Shanon, 2001), or the feeling that the past, present, and future merge (see above). Related to Figure 2A, we thus place the sense of time on the exact centre of the continuum, at the point of ‘timelessness’.

2.3. Meditation states 2.3.1. Description Meditation can be largely conceptualized as self-regulating practices that focus on training attention (Cahn and Polich, 2006). Although there are many techniques, meditation is grossly divided into two forms which broadly categorize the meditation styles, as initially proposed by Goleman (1988), and lately elaborated by Lutz et al. (2008): A. Focused Attention (FA) — learned control over the focus of one’s attention by using a stable object, such as a mantra, an image, the breath, or through a body scan, with the goal of quieting the mind; and B. Open Monitoring (OM) — awareness without focus on an object, thereby remaining open and attentive to whatever is experienced. While most meditation techniques lie somewhere along a continuum of FA–OM (Andersen, 2000; Walsh and Shapiro, 2006; but for


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a different view see Travis and Shear, 2010), this distinction might still be helpful as the emphasis varies significantly between the different forms, and these two forms can inhabit different spaces within the CSS. Here we focus on two forms of extensively studied meditations, mindfulness meditation (MM) and transcendental meditation (TM). MM stems from the Buddhist Theravada tradition, practised traditionally as Vipassanā meditation and conceptualized in western and secular contexts as ‘the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment’ (Kabat-Zinn, 2003, p. 145). TM is a modern western form brought to the West by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and is a classic Hindu mantra based on the teaching of Sankaracharya’s eighth-century Advait school of Vedantic thought (Goleman, 1988). While the TM is effortless, the instructions are to constantly bring back the wandering mind to the mantra, hence developing one-pointedness, the final goal being constant witnessing consciousness, as described by Mahesh Yogi (1966).

2.3.2. Sense of self and body Meditation is expected to alter self-referential processing, when considering that the major aim of practice is the realization, by direct experience, of the lack of any essential ‘self’ (Dreyfus and Thompson, 2007). Indeed, an alteration in the sense of self has been supported by ample phenomenological studies in highly experienced meditators, as a state and trait effect (Austin, 2000; Dambrun and Ricard, 2011; Leary, Adams and Tate, 2006). Through meditation practice experienced meditators come to understand that states of self-consciousness are in constant change and therefore not a stable entity. The varieties of profound changes in the sense of self vary from a loss of the experience of a self in peak experience in meditative states to more selfesteem and higher acceptance of oneself as changes in personality (Hölzel et al., 2011). We thus suggest that meditation as a state is related to a dominant minimal-self trajectory. As to the relationship to the body, here again one has to distinguish between trait and state effects. As a trait, there is stronger embodied cognition, i.e. greater physical body and sensory awareness (Baruss, 2003; Bornemann et al., 2015; Brown, 1977). This is supported by physiological studies showing MM practice to increase bodily awareness (Farb et al., 2007; Kerr et al., 2013). On the other hand, during deep meditative states, the body can ‘disappear’, and no bodily input


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is experienced (Ataria, Dor-Ziderman and Berkovich-Ohana, 2015; Austin, 1998; d’Aquili and Newberg, 1999).


2.3.3. Time The propensity of focused awareness on an object as trained in meditation relates to a more mindful experience in the present moment and a subjective slowing of time (Kabat-Zinn, 2005; Wittmann, 2016). It was previously suggested that meditative practices induce a change in subjective temporal experience towards emphasizing the ‘now’, or being less aware of the passage of time (Brown, Forte and Dysart, 1984). In principle, this can be measured as longer time production, indicative of a slower rate of functioning of the internal timer, demonstrating that internal time seems to be moving slower (Glicksohn, 2001). In agreement with that, longer subjective time units were indeed shown in MM practitioners compared to control participants, albeit this effect was not replicated for TM practitioners (BerkovichOhana, Glicksohn and Goldstein, 2011). In further studies, meditationnaïve as well as meditation-experienced individuals showed a relative time expansion for stimuli in the milliseconds-to-seconds range directly after a mindfulness meditation session (Droit-Volet, Fanget and Dambrun, 2015; Kramer, Weger and Sharma, 2013). Recent cross-sectional studies comparing experienced meditators with meditation-naïve controls in the ability to judge duration showed how subjective time in everyday experience (‘trait mindfulness’) is slowed in mindfulness meditators (Wittmann et al., 2015) and the accuracy in time perception is increased in TM practitioners (Schötz et al., 2015). Being mindful in everyday life is the equivalent of being conscious of one’s body states and feelings, of oneself at a particular moment in time. Because the feeling of time is created through the embodied self, being exceptionally mindful slows down the passage of time (Wittmann and Schmidt, 2014). Yet, a point reached in meditation states is the experience of ‘timelessness’ as often reported by highly experienced meditators (Alexander, Rainforth and Gelderloos, 1991; Ataria, Dor-Ziderman and Berkovich-Ohana, 2015; Austin, 1998; Berkovich-Ohana et al., 2013; Hebert and Lehmann, 1977), when a loss of the sense of time goes hand in hand with a loss of a sense of self (Wittmann, 2015). For experienced meditators, a meditation induction with a focus on the present moment leads to the transient disappearance of the narrative self with its past and future component. Moreover, feelings of the bodily self and of time reportedly change in the process through an

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increased relaxation and a faster flow of time (Thönes and Wittmann, 2016). Peak experiences during meditation then occur as culminating in ‘selflessness’, ‘spacelessness’, and ‘timelessness’ (BerkovichOhana et al., 2013; Wittmann, 2015). That is, the feeling of a bodily self and time have disappeared. So, during meditation-induced ASCs feelings of the self and of time are intensely modulated, in the extreme leading to the feeling that time stands still and the self becomes one with the world. Related to Figure 2A, the sense of time can be strongly altered to the point of a feeling of timelessness, thus placing the trajectory on the exact centre of the continuum.

3. Discussion In the above sections we reviewed a selection of ASCs, including dreaming, hallucinogenic effects of drugs, and meditation. Each of these states was placed on the time dimension within the CSS model. Several conclusions can be drawn through the above considerations. In the following, we discuss each of these points more thoroughly. 1. ASCs share a common ‘collapse’ of the time dimension towards a transitory state of ‘timelessness’, towards the centre of the CSS, within the dominant minimal-self trajectory. 2. In the extreme case of ‘timelessness’, body sensations are ‘cutoff’ or at least distorted. 3. ASCs are transitory and thus differentiated from persistent states in psychopathologies. However, many similar phenomena can be detected in ASCs and psychopathological conditions.

3.1. ASCs as transitory phases within the CSS’s time dimension One characteristic of ASCs is a profound alteration in time perception, evident from the phenomenology and experimental reports of ASCs (Glicksohn, 2001; Wittmann, 2015). Already in normal waking consciousness subjective states such as boredom, mind-wandering, or absorption (in music, sports, or game-playing) are common phenomena where subjective time is modulated. The awareness of oneself is jointly modulated with the awareness of time. In waiting situations, where one becomes self-aware subjective time stretches, in states of absorption when one is not self-aware time passes quickly (Wittmann, 2015; 2016). Time consciousness and self-awareness are more strongly modulated in ASCs, under extreme conditions



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provoking a joint dissolution of the experiences of self and time (Block, 1979; Schäfer, Fachner and Smukalla, 2013). Where could ‘timelessness’ be placed on the subjective time dimension within the CSS model? While it is obvious that it is experientially different from ‘past’ or ‘future’, it is also not identical to the experience of ‘now’. At its extreme, it is an experienced stretching of the ‘now’ to encompass ‘aeons’ of experience in past and future, as in mystical states universally reported across spiritual traditions (Achtner, 2009). What one can see from these phenomenal accounts of a-temporal states is that they are semantically not identical. The variation most likely lies in the ineffable experience of ASCs. We nevertheless subsume them here as being highly connected. We suggest that extreme ASCs denote a singularity of the time dimension, where the minimal-self trajectory is placed directly on the centre of the time dimension, and one phenomenally experiences ‘timelessness’, in the extreme forms of ASCs, or mild alterations in temporal cognition in less extreme cases (Ott, 2013). In dynamic systems theory, such singularities (discontinuities) are associated with state-space transitions, which occur when a certain system parameter reaches a ‘critical’ value. At the critical transition, the system presents qualitatively novel properties which warrant new descriptors. Well-known examples include the state transition from water to ice, or the magnetization of ferromagnets; for a detailed account and application to neural systems, see Werner (2009).

3.2. ASCs as extreme distortions of body sensations According to the body and emotion perception theory of subjective time, subjective duration is expanded through an increased awareness of bodily states (Craig, 2015; Wittmann, 2016). Thereafter, subjective time is based on bodily feelings. When body sensations are severely distorted one experiences a virtual ‘cut-off’, a distortion in the CSS, and in extreme states this leads to a ‘collapse’ to the centre of the CSS. Indeed, in most of the ASCs we reviewed above, body input is either ‘cut-off’ or severely distorted. Interestingly, the loss of body sensations in ASCs can be induced through a temporary heightened awareness of bodily signals such as in meditation instructions focusing on the breathing or body parts. The body-focused instruction is a means to ‘zoom in’ on the present moment at the expense of past and future ruminations. Through this strong focus on the bodily present the feelings of body sensations


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disappear. Similarly, sex is initially related to stronger body awareness but at the same time to lesser time awareness; however, then ‘la petite mort’ again can be characterized as a state of selflessness and timelessness (Costa et al., 2016). As another example: during ‘ecstatic’ epileptic seizures provoked by hyperactivation of the anterior insular cortex (Landtblom et al., 2011; Picard and Craig, 2009), individual patients report of extremely heightened self-awareness, leading to feelings of euphoria and ‘orgasmic ecstasy’ (‘the pleasure goes crescendo until it reaches a peak’ — Picard and Craig, 2009, p. 541). In the moments just before unconsciousness one person felt they were ‘in a radiant sphere without any notion of time or space’. Here again, a transitorily increased sense of bodily self, experienced together with blissful emotions, in the end leads to the loss of subjective time. A single case study of the psychiatric patient Alexandrine probably is the most striking example of a person who at the same time had lost her sense of bodily urges and lost her sense of duration (d’Allonnes, 1905). That is, Alexandrine had no feeling of hunger, satiety, or thirst and felt no pressure to go to the toilet, or fatigue. Tests showed that she was indeed insensitive to ice water and needle pricks. Most strikingly, Alexandrine had also lost her sense of duration in the time range of seconds to minutes. Further tests conducted on her revealed that she was impaired in perceiving different metronome speeds. This case of a patient — nowadays one might diagnose Alexandrine as suffering from a depersonalization syndrome — is remarkable in that she has a pathological condition in which at the same time the senses of the body and of subjective time were all massively impaired.

3.3. Comparing ASCs to pathological conditions Peak experiences in ASCs are a transitory mode, meaning that after being induced into a state, such as in music-induced trance or through meditation (psychologically) or drug induced (pharmacologically), following some time interval one gets back into a normal waking state (Vollenweider and Geyer, 2001). In contrast, in pathological states such as in schizophrenia or depression, individuals report of similar state characteristics of time standing still and a distorted self and body image (Hartocollis, 1983). Many psychiatric and neurologic illnesses lead to fundamental distortions of subjective time as witnessed by personal reports such as in ecstatic epileptic seizures (‘Time seems endless’; Epstein and Ervin, 1956) or acute psychosis (‘Time slowed down, much more experience could be crowded into a brief time



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span’; Bowers, 1968). Regarding the variety of phenomenological reports of patients with schizophrenia, one can conclude that for some of those patients time does not pass and that lived presence feels expanded, i.e. the future cannot be reached (Fuchs, 2013; Martin et al., 2014; Minkowski et al., 1933; Schilder, 1936). Recent experimental studies show enlarged temporal windows of the functional present as well as impairments in time continuity (Lalanne et al., 2012; Martin et al., 2013). Referring to our juxtaposition of bodily self and subjective time, recent conceptualizations actually suggest that schizophrenia is in essence a disturbance of the embodied self (de Haan and Fuchs, 2010; Seth, 2013), which according to our idea would in turn lead to disturbances in the experience of time.

Acknowledgments This research was supported by two grants from the Bial Foundation, one awarded to Aviva Berkovich-Ohana, Joseph Glicksohn, and Tal Dotan Ben-Soussan (228/14), and one to Marc Wittmann, Stefan Schmidt, and Karin Meissner (366/14).

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