The Mystical Experience and Its Neural Correlates
📄 Original study📌 Appears in:
Plain English Summary
What if near-death experiences, psychedelic trips, and deep meditation are all windows into the same thing? This paper argues they are -- all three produce strikingly similar feelings of unity, sacredness, and profound knowing. Brain imaging shows that during meditation and psilocybin sessions, the Default Mode Network (the brain's 'me, myself, and I' system) goes quiet. During cardiac arrest, the brain flatlines entirely. The bold proposal: maybe the brain doesn't generate consciousness but filters it. Dial down the filter, and wider consciousness floods in. This directly challenges the idea that NDEs are just hallucinations from a dying brain.
Actual Paper Abstract
Despite their different etiologies, three types of spiritually transformative experiences (STEs)—near-death experiences, psilocybin experiences, and meditative experiences of cosmic consciousness—appear to have attributes that are common to a broad range of mystical experiences, including an experience of expanded awareness. In addition, all three appear to be associated with profound and lasting transformations in the lives of experiencers. Finally, these three experiences appear to share some common neural correlates. In this article, we discuss similarities in case studies of these STEs, in data from controlled clinical research studies on their transformative effects, as well as from neurophysiological data correlated with the occurrence of the STEs themselves. In all three STEs, research shows a reduction in neural activity in the major centers of the brain, including the Default Mode Network, the foundation of egoic stories involving the narrative related to oneself and the world in which one lives. It is proposed that during these STEs, reduced neural activity in areas of the brain that normally act as a filter or reducing valve mechanism opens the capacity to expanded awareness, which is associated with lasting transformation in the lives of experiencers.
Research Notes
Theoretical synthesis linking NDEs, meditation, and psychedelics through the filter hypothesis — the idea that the brain constrains rather than generates consciousness. Published in JNDS, directly relevant to the consciousness-survival debate (Controversy #7). The filter theory connects to van Lommel's nonlocal consciousness model and the broader question of whether NDEs are hallucinations or veridical experiences.
Narrative review comparing three types of spiritually transformative experiences — near-death experiences, psilocybin experiences, and meditative experiences of cosmic consciousness — across phenomenology, transformative aftereffects, and neural correlates. Case studies show all three share Stace's core mystical attributes (unity, sacredness, noetic quality). Neuroimaging reveals significant Default Mode Network deactivation during meditation and psilocybin ingestion, with flatlined EEG during cardiac arrest NDEs. Proposes a filter/reducing valve theory: when DMN activity is reduced or eliminated, expanded consciousness becomes accessible.
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Cites
Companion
- Non-local Consciousness: A Concept Based on Scientific Research on Near-Death Experiences During Cardiac Arrest — van Lommel, Pim (2013)
- What if consciousness is not an emergent property of the brain? Observational and empirical challenges to materialistic models — Wahbeh, Helané (2022)
- Epistemological Implications of Near-Death Experiences and Other Non-Ordinary Mental Expressions: Moving Beyond the Concept of Altered State of Consciousness — Facco, Enrico (2015)
- Neuro-Functional Modeling of Near-Death Experiences in Contexts of Altered States of Consciousness — Romand, Raymond (2023)
- DMT Models the Near-Death Experience — Timmermann, Christopher (2018)
- Exploring the Correlates and Nature of Subjective Anomalous Interactions with Objects (Psychometry): A Mixed Methods Survey — Simmonds-Moore, Christine A (2024)
- The measurement of regional cerebral blood flow during glossolalia: A preliminary SPECT study — Newberg, Andrew B (2006)
- Neural correlates of the psychedelic state as determined by fMRI studies with psilocybin — Carhart-Harris, Robin L (2012)
- Classic Hallucinogens and Mystical Experiences: Phenomenology and Neural Correlates — Barrett, Frederick S (2018)
- Intensive Insight Meditation: A Phenomenological Study — Kornfield, Jack (1979)
More in Nde
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📋 Cite this paper
Woollacott, Marjorie, Shumway-Cook, Anne (2020). The Mystical Experience and Its Neural Correlates. Journal of Near-Death Studies. https://doi.org/10.17514/JNDS-2020-38-1-p3-25
@article{woollacott_2020_mystical_neural_correlates,
title = {The Mystical Experience and Its Neural Correlates},
author = {Woollacott, Marjorie and Shumway-Cook, Anne},
year = {2020},
journal = {Journal of Near-Death Studies},
doi = {10.17514/JNDS-2020-38-1-p3-25},
}