Self unbound: ego dissolution in psychedelic experience
This opinion paper (2017) argues that ego-dissolution experiences induced by psychedelic substances offer insight into the nature of the self. The authors argue that self-awareness results from hierarchical predictive models tied to an unchanging entity and, ultimately, that the self is merely a useful fiction.
Authors
- Christopher Letheby
Published
Abstract
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.
Research Summary of 'Self unbound: ego dissolution in psychedelic experience'
Introduction
Letheby and Gerrans frame 'ego dissolution' under psychedelics as a phenomenon that illuminates the nature of self-awareness. They define the 'self' as the inferred entity or substance to which properties are bound and argue that the mind constructs a hierarchical, predictive self‑model that serves to bind interoceptive, affective, perceptual and cognitive features into a coherent, unitary experience. The paper situates this claim against prior work on feature binding, self‑binding and predictive processing, and treats psychedelic ego dissolution as a case in which those integrative processes break down, revealing the representational character of the self-model. The study sets out to develop an account that combines recent theorising about the integrative self and the phenomenon of self‑binding with predictive processing principles. Its twin aims are explanatory and conceptual: to explain how a predictive, multi‑level self‑model can produce the Cartesian intuition of a single enduring substance, and to use evidence from psychedelics (phenomenology and neuroscience) to show that this self‑model is a heuristically useful representation rather than an actually instantiated substance. The authors indicate that they will review empirical findings concerning binding, neural correlates (especially DMN and SLN activity), and psychedelic phenomenology, and then argue that ego dissolution is best characterised as a form of cognitive unbinding.
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Study Details
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- APA Citation
Letheby, C., & Gerrans, P. (2017). Self unbound: ego dissolution in psychedelic experience. Neuroscience of Consciousness, 2017(1). https://doi.org/10.1093/nc/nix016
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